Did your stance on Joel (Last of Us) ever change?

this wasn't character assassination - Joel trusts complete strangers in the first game, but the only difference is they don't end up turning on him.

^ Tommy was the one who had already told Abby their names while they were fighting and saving her from the zombies before they went to the cabin with the others.

it was a means to get her to trust them, by letting her know something about them, and it wouldn't have made sense for Joel to suddenly switch up their names when interacting with the others.

if people are mad about stuff like that, that you can't just lie about who you are when someone else already told them who you are, then idk what to tell them.

The fireflies are naive for thinking they can save the entire world off the blood of a little girl. It wont be enough of it to go around. Joel made the right choice.

Nope, he did everything right in the first game.
Then they made him a moron in the second game (very briefly, lol).

I've always thought this argument was silly. Joel didn't care how viable the Fireflies' plan was. Their capabilities on producing and distributing a cure should not be used to justify his actions.

Dude, be mindful of the spoilers.

People still have ground to be pissed about the way it played out as it still comes across as contrived, and rushed with the narrative.

sorry about that; I just feel like people know at this point, so it doesn't really matter, but I guess it couldn't hurt to so from now on.

nah, the game supports the placing of the characters really well, if the player is paying attention.

we know Abby and crew are going after Tommy to use him to find Joel, and on his own, Owen finds out where Jackson is and shows it to Abby. she plans to track down a stray patrol for info, buy after Owen tells her how the others are feeling, she goes off alone.

on Ellie's side, we find out from Jesse that Joel and Tommy left early to track down a horde of zombies that were straying too close to Jackson.

on Abby's side again, as she gets close to Jackson, she finds the only group of tracks that should be out there so early - Joel's and Tommy's, so she follows them, and that puts her in the middle of the zombie horde, the one Joel and Tommy were tracking, and the rest is history.

I think some people wanted the "Jackson spy" thing because they wanted Joel to have some kinda action-packed ending, or one where he sacrificed himself to save Ellie, but the one we got is more realistic.

Nah, he fucked up and that action hero bullshit luck can't last forever.

The story wanted a theme of utilizing perspective to contextualize the motive after the fact, but the story always bothers me for failing to establish abby's motive to ellie properly giving the story an air of misunderstanding which looms, and came to a point during the ellie boss battle, and i believe causing people to rage in hindsight. Years later i respect what they did as they were asking so much of whoever played the game, and it could very well be seen as an accomplishment that players would let abby die there. lol

I don't think anyone expected him to never die.
They just had to make him excessively stupid to make it happen, and that was the problem.

sorry about that; I just feel like people know at this point, so it doesn't really matter, but I guess it couldn't hurt to so from now on.

nah, the game supports the placing of the characters really well, if the player is paying attention.

we know Abby and crew are going after Tommy to use him to find Joel, and on his own, Owen finds out where Jackson is and shows it to Abby. she plans to track down a stray patrol for info, buy after Owen tells her how the others are feeling, she goes off alone.

on Ellie's side, we find out from Jesse that Joel and Tommy left early to track down a horde of zombies that were straying too close to Jackson.

on Abby's side again, as she gets close to Jackson, she finds the only group of tracks that should be out there so early - Joel's and Tommy's, so she follows them, and that puts her in the middle of the zombie horde, the one Joel and Tommy were tracking, and the rest is history.

I think some people wanted the "Jackson spy" thing because they wanted Joel to have some kinda action-packed ending, or one where he sacrificed himself to save Ellie, but the one we got is more realistic.

when i played LoU 1 and 2, i didn't go into them with that black and white mindset. as in "this guy is good" or "this guy is bad"...

just saw it as a bunch of people trying to survive doing what they think is best in their minds, specially for Joel. that's really the best way i can describe it.

Joel did nothing wrong.

I think the more action packed ending wouldn't even work. Because the entire driving force of Ellie's side of the story is that Joel (the closest thing Ellie has to family) has done this huge betrayal to her, and he dies just as the reach the point where they might be able to work past it. Joel can't die in some action movie ending where he dies to protect Ellie. Him dying because part of that huge betrayal is coming back to bite him means that Ellie can't move on.

This, and Abby isn't any more special then the children of the other 100's of people that Joel killed.
TLoU2's story was so fucking bad lol

Agreed. A lot of people seem to forget the guilt side of Ellie's character. Survivors guilt is basically her defining characteristic. It's why she both hates what Joel robbed from her but also hates to see him pay the ultimate consequence for it.

One thing I really appreciated in TLOU2 that isn't brought up much is that the flashback of Joel and Ellie overall reconciling isn't shown until right at the end when Ellie is ready to move on. It's a clever way to show how she overall feels. She is so angry and bitter she never really gives herself time to reflect that one of her final memories with Joel was overall a happy one. Even though she was so upset with him and treated him like crap for years he still loved her and wouldn't change a thing. He overall understood more than anyone.

I'm super curious how the TV audience will find all of it. Overall it won't have the 'video game protagonist' baggage so I think it'll go down fine even if basically everything plays out the same. Will be one hell of an episode when that moment is finally reached.

I think the biggest issue with TLOU2 was how the story was paced and I think it'll be a lot easier to manage in a TV show too. I don't think they quite figured out how to roll out the opposing perspectives within a video game and perhaps ruined some things by trying to create the twist and keeping it a secret.

In retrospect I wonder how things would have ended up if Abby was the marketed character and Ellie was the secret.

yea, he should have hung out with the zombies in the freezing cold and/or immediately started gunning at a group of strangers he just met...

Joel didnt deserve what happened because of what he did at the end of tlou 1. He deserved to die because of all the fucked up shit he did in his lifetime. He got what he deserved

I've always thought this argument was silly. Joel didn't care how viable the Fireflies' plan was. Their capabilities on producing and distributing a cure should not be used to justify his actions.