One doesn't disprove the other, demonstrating that your understanding of argument is as remedial as your knowledge of writing. If you articulated your thoughts better perhaps I might understand them, but frankly I doubt it because you seem to have little to offer but a needlessly pissy attitude.
Which I've just returned to you. With interest because you've annoyed me. Congrats.
So we're annoying each other. Good for that, I wasn't the one who called out the first as a terrible writer when writing characters was never part of the debate, but sure let's go.
Your arguments are predicated upon actions that the characters as written wouldn't make. Your characterization has no depth and you just juggle the supporting cast to contrive events and get to the conclusion you want. Ergo you are a bad. lazy, writer.
It wasn't an insult as I tried to spell out to you. it was illustrating the need for characters to have the illusion of a plausible inner-life and thus convincing agency in the story.
And in no way does what I am discussing remove characters having an illusion of inner-life and agency. It's obvious in the original game that these characters do. It is obvious in TLoU2 that they do as well. Ellie does, Joel does. Considering who is right in the endgame of part 1 has NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT.
What actions have I stated that characters as written would not make? You're again arguing points that were never made and acting as if they were.
The argument has always been, and continues to be, HAD the characters made better choices, then there WOULD be a moral dillema. As the fireflies in particular made consistent choices in their desperation and delusion of grandeur, parts of their character that is shown not only in recordings, but in their actions and implied inner-lives that you have such a fascination with. And there is no reason even with an inner-life that everything had to happen as quickly as it did. That port of the ending was contrived on nearly every level. It was always weird back then, and it still is today. But back then, the lie was the moral dilemma, and as the situation led to it, it got a pass.
When the context of the second game requires the ending of the first to make the new characters relatable especially in regards to their actions in the first act, it all comes tumbling down like a deck of cards.
If its so obvious why not factor that into your argument smart-guy? What's the underlying sentiment if not that morality is based on perspective, and that being the case in a game like TLOU2 where we play as multiple characters and thus multiple perspectives there is no singular right and wrong to be found.
And that being the case, why do you persist in trying to shoe-horm everything into a singular truth, which seems entirely based on your emotion.
You keep saying it is based on emotion, as if you are the bastion of rationality. You ain't Spock, and hell the joke was he wasn't the bastion of rationality either.
Moral relativity has its limits. Morality is not entirely based upon perspective, if it was then we could never have a moral code that functioned in any society. Multiple people can come to a situation and view it differently but there are rubicons that are not to be crossed. Because if you base morality on perspective any atrocity can be rationalized away. Every single one. There are absolutes, and there are times when it is completely justified on a moral level to take arms against others. And the ability to defend yourself and those that you love from immediate harm is the first of these.
How can you write that and not recognize how weirdly prejudiced a perspective that is. At worst the Fireflies come across as ineffective, but compared to how the rest of humanity is shown, why would you single them out as villains?
I mean I don't recall them summarily executing people like we see FEDRA goons doing in the QZ, I certainly don't recall them setting ambushes for "tourists" and hunting them for sport. I don't recall them indulging in cannibalism...
They are at least trying to do more than survive, they offer hope. What is the whole notion of trying to get an immune girl cross country to where medical personnel can examine her and maybe synthesize a vaccine if not hopeful and positive?
Actually compared to the rest of humanity the Fireflies are just as bad, if not canonically worse. The interesting thing about the fireflies is that for all of their talk of restoring science and the government they continuously cause more harm than good. Their actions caused Philadephia to fall into chaos and then turn into a hunter stronghold. They THOUGHT they were doing the right thing, but their actions caused far more pain in the long run than leaving the place a QZ. We hear talk of them killing civilians, they are willing to execute Joel if he doesn't agree with their plans and they stiole all of his gear and were going to let him out into a zombie infested city.
Intentionality has its limits. How many revolutionary groups have caused massive human suffering in order to achieve their goals, goals than can be viewed as altruistic from their own perspective? It is easy to rationalize an evil act thinking it is for the greater good. But it reminds me of a quote.
“Evil is Evil. Lesser, greater, middling… Makes no difference. The degree is arbitary. The definition’s blurred. If I’m to choose between one evil and another… I’d rather not choose at all.”
And sometimes that isn't possible. However, due to the ways the Fireflies handled the situation, Joel's actions were not in any way an act of evil. But on of heroism, the results of which were not to the liking of many of the fireflies, but they were justified.
What facts? This is fiction, its all hypothetical. You simply cannot say that creating a vaccine at the cost of Ellie's life would categorically have been a failure. That's just your interpretation, and should you be wrong... well Joel now is responsible for innumerable future deaths.
The facts of the story, And stop with the sophistry. I at no point said the vaccine categorically would have been a failure, again you argue points that were not made.
If you want to argue ethics let me remind you of Pascal's wager; Because in that proposition the logical choice is predicated upon the avoidance of infinite loss as a potential penalty for choosing wrongly.
Basically from an ethical and logical standpoint, Joel's choice was wrong, It only makes sense in purely emotional dimension.
And as that emotion is purely his, and disregarding of everyone else's feelings on a matter that has major ramifications for them, its selfish and wrong.
Eh, Pascal's wager is an interesting take here. Not particularly relevant because for it to actually work you have to buy in to the infinite loss scenario. And we have strong evidence against such a loss.
Infinite loss is not on the cards. Society has crumbled yes, but it continues to move on. As humans live with the infected they continue to find ways to mitigate the fungus. Look at places like Jackson as examples of what can be done.
And you speak of the choice Joel makes as an emotional one. And the emotion is only his. It is not and your limited view only allows it to be seen that way. In fact it works as an ethical choice.
He is acting in the defense of himself and others. No matter how you wish to couch the actions of the fireflies in the best possible light, their actions incited the situation, their actions escalated it do deadly force, and their actions eventually led to their deaths in a wholly justifiable way.
Right, so Marlene not asking Ellie for consent is morally less than Joel not asking for her consent to be rescued? Which one of those things results in a bigger bodycount? Its not a hard question to answer, even disregarding the genocidal numbers that would be the case were the creation of the vaccine proven to be successful.
What shades it darker is that Joel knows damn well which way Ellie would choose. That's why he deceives her as to what happened in hospital.
This is not really defensible, regardless of it being understandable on a human level. You know, like taking revenge on someone who wronged you or somebody you love.
Ok, one more time. Yes Marlene not asking for consent to sacrifice someone is morally worse than rescuing that same person from being murdered. That you can argue against that idea is actually quite terrifying if taken to its logical extreme. And again, you continue to say that you know DAMN WELL which way Ellie would choose but still do not have the basic understanding that has been brought up again and again.
Until Ellie is asked, no one, including Ellie at a later date can know what she would have said at that point.
I am now going to repeat it several times in order to make this clear as you have ignored it every single time:
Until Ellie is asked, no one, including Ellie at a later date can
know what she would have said at that point.
Until Ellie is asked, no one, including Ellie at a later date can
know what she would have said at that point.
Until Ellie is asked, no one, including Ellie at a later date can
know what she would have said at that point.
Until Ellie is asked, no one, including Ellie at a later date can
know what she would have said at that point.
Until Ellie is asked, no one, including Ellie at a later date can
know what she would have said at that point.
Everyone in the damn game does morally abhorrent stuff. Everyone's morality is flawed. That you are placing such emphasis on the Fireflies' culpability whilst casually disregard Joel's many and worse transgressions just demonstrates your lack of objectivity.
And here's the thing: Your lack of objectivity isn't a problem in regards to the first game. We primarily play as Joel so getting his perspective and being able to empathize with his choices is helpful.
Your moral myopia allows you to forgive Joel for all his misdeeds and deliver a somewhat happy ending. For him at least, Ellie's feelings and response are kept deliberately opaque.
The key problem seems to me that you (and a lot of other people it seems) are trying to impose the perspective of the first game upon the second, disregarding the obvious fact that not only is the sequel not about Joel specifically, its actually intent on living up to the plural "us" in the title.
But the perspective of the first game informs the second. If it did now, why have a sequel? We understand why Abby and the Salt Lake crew want revenge. It is understandable, and it is human. It is also unjustified. It is wrong. I know why it happened, I can see how they think it is what HAS to happen. But it is still the equivalent of a drug lord's son coming after a Federal agent for revenge.
You accuse of moral myopia. There are limits to where moral subjectivity can take you. Again, it is not myopic to understand the motivations of all involved, see the human reasons that things happened, and have a moral understanding that in the case of the ending of the first game, the Fireflies were wrong.
Its a very different tale with different goals and sentiments, although it meticulously picks up where the first game left off in terms of character arcs and loose plot threads, I think some people are disorientated by its different character viewpoints and consequential shifts in moral relativism.
This inflexibility, the inability to appreciate the importance of perspective in judging the moral character of any given action, is the defining flaw in your argument.
You continuously stress how you feel as being important when to me its of less relevance than the feelings of the characters within the story. I'm not judging based on the games value in terms of moral instructiveness, I'm judging it based on what I perceive to be consistent and convincing character motivations and reactions.
Hence my admonition to you about writing ability was not intended as a personal slight (again, I reiterate that I tried to clarify this in my post) but to illustrate how there are basic, good-practice tenets to be obeyed when writing fiction. These things are as fundamental as grammar, and basically mean that characters need to true to themselves, not any overarching moral imperative.
In a nutshell: Whether the good guys or the bad guys win in the end is not how I judge a piece of fiction, it can say stuff I really don't want to hear so long as its true to itself.
Can you say the same? And in that light explain your statements thus far. Because in my view, I assumed nothing. I just judged your arguments as written and responded appropriately.
If I was trolling I wouldn't write so much, I'd just tell you to go piss up a rope.
Think about it.
So it's just sophistry. Good to know. Looking forward to your response.
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