Board 8 > The Last of Us 2 Spoiler Topic (SPOILERS IN THIS TOPIC)

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Basic summary:

Joel kills surgeon in TLoU1

Surgeon has MtF trans kid

Trans kills Joel near start

Ellie escapes and you play as her for half the game

Switch to playing as the trans for second half of game

Kill Ellie at the end

This is the most basic of the spoilers. That's without getting into a lot of the spoiler parts of the first half. This is just legitimately just so depressing and I can't understand why they would think anyone would want to play as the person who kills Joel and then kill Ellie at the end. This is also without getting into any of the more detailed stuff, but feel free to talk about that too. The more detailed elements are heavy-handed enough to just be a gigantic turn-off too.

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What is MtF?

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Male to Female

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I never played TLoU but after that last topic had to look at the spoilers, and yeah... I just can't get it.

"Hey let's make a sequel where we kill the protagonists you would've grown attached to in the first game. And also play as the killer."

I know 'subverting expectations' is all the rage nowadays, but geez. Feels like a slap in the face to your fanbase? I guess that's one way to kill a franchise.

It's the post apocalypse...how the hell is MtF or trans stuff in general even a thing during that time for a teen? Like what, did their surgeon dad hook them up wasting supposedly precious resources?

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I don't know what that is exactly but are you telling me after the world is almost destroyed the guy decide to change the gender of this kid? Yeah sure.

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I've read several things.

There are people claiming that Joel doesn't die in that scene in the video, but dies halfway through the game instead. I've seen lots of people saying Ellie makes it through the game too.

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Whether Ellie dies or just gets the shit beat out of her is up in the air

The rest seems confirmed, though.

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Before it becomes "the thing" in this topic when it should be about how this story just kind of sucks on paper, I beleive MtF is the wrong phrasing here because, I BELEIVE, it involves medical. I imagine this is just identifying as a woman.

Pirateking2000 posted...

It's the post apocalypse...how the hell is MtF or trans stuff in general even a thing during that time for a teen? Like what, did their surgeon dad hook them up wasting supposedly precious resources?

she can be trans without getting surgery.

anyway, Ive seen some conflicting information about a couple points here:

1.Im not 100% sure the character is trans, that may be something 4chan made up

2. Im not 100% sure she kills Ellie in the end. Both things I saw say this new girl fights Ellie at the end, but one version said she decides to let Ellie live after winning the fight.

either way the fundamental premise of playing half the game as a character who kills Joel and then having to fight Ellie is very unappealing
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Also I did not see the trans stuff in the first place in the leaks I found, and am just making assumptions based on Biscuit mentioning it here.

Oh god, a MtF character is gonna bring out some real dumabsses here isn't it? Hormone treatment isn't some crazy complex thing, fuck off with the 'ThIs iS sO uNrEaLiStIc?1!' Even if it's so post apocalyptic that that wouldn't be available you can still be trans without treatment.

Onto the actual topic: Read the leaks but haven't found video, it sounds like people are taking the leaked videos as confirmation of a 4chan leak a while back that really shouldn't be taken as confirmed.

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MoogleKupo141 posted...

she can be trans without getting surgery.

anyway, Ive seen some conflicting information about a couple points here:

1.Im not 100% sure the character is trans, that may be something 4chan made up

2. Im not 100% sure she kills Ellie in the end. Both things I saw say this new girl fights Ellie at the end, but one version said she decides to let Ellie live after winning the fight.

either way the fundamental premise of playing half the game as a character who kills Joel and then having to fight Ellie is very unappealing

I mean if its true it looks like they are still taking drugs for it at least which is still stupid as that would imply the Firefly guy was wasting precious resources for this shooting up their kid or the kid was raiding places for such drugs.

Also I saw the clip of what is supposedly the ending. If it is not just some mid game fight sequence that takes place shortly after the whole Joel thing anyway. Ellie is alive but is massively fucked up from a beating. Her gf is shot in the back of the shoulder or around that area with an arrow, also beaten up, and has her head slammed multiple times into the ground. Then they are just sort of left there.

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The MtF thing isn't true. Abby is just a female head on the body of a fucking linebacker

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allegedly theres also a clip out there of an epilogue with Ellie and her girlfriend definitely alive

I saw someone on Reddit make a good point that if this was the story Naughty Dog wanted to do, it probably would be less offputting if its structure was changed.

Pitch this as Abbys game instead of Ellies. have the first half be her hunting down someone who killed her dad, then the reveal in the middle is the person youve been hunting is Joel. Let the player develop a connection to Abby before she kills Joel.

The way its set up now, its going to be really hard to get players to care about a character when the first thing she does is murder someone we like.
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MoogleKupo141 posted...

allegedly theres also a clip out there of an epilogue with Ellie and her girlfriend definitely alive

I saw someone on Reddit make a good point that if this was the story Naughty Dog wanted to do, it probably would be less offputting if its structure was changed.

Pitch this as Abbys game instead of Ellies. have the first half be her hunting down someone who killed her dad, then the reveal in the middle is the person youve been hunting is Joel. Let the player develop a connection to Abby before she kills Joel.

The way its set up now, its going to be really hard to get players to care about a character when the first thing she does is murder someone we like.

From what I have heard, there's some religious cult or something that hunts down and kills people in Ellie's camp (not sure how true this is) and that the trans person, Abby, ends up joining with Ellie because that cult has been messing with her group.

So after they find Joel and stop the cult from killing him, Abby kills him and beats the hell out of Ellie and then Abby decides whether or not to kill Ellie but ends up letting her live, which ends up with Ellie hunting her down and killing her entire group, causing her to lose everything again because she wanted to kill Joel.

Apparently people are saying that Ellie may not be killed by Abby in the end though which I guess would still fit for the story, or it is just when she's supposedly letting Ellie go after killing Joel.

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oh yeah, I guess I did see something about that cult and then forgot about it because the other stole my attention. Its good that Abby is there and on Ellies side before the point Joel dies

I mean, I still dont like this, but at least its not handled as badly as I was thinking
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Well, it's still handled badly. But it's assuming that what will happen is they make us sympathetic with Abby and then SHOCK us by killing Joel, and then presumably reveal everything about her past (I've heard the trans thing is a twist too which literally everyone hates when that happens including people who are trans).

But... I don't think that they'll be able to convince anyone to feel bad enough for Abby to make us want to play as her, even if she were to still spare Ellie?

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The place I read a leak summary said it was about the difficulty in stopping the cycle of violence. On the surface I think that's a worthy topic to explore, but this seems like such a needlessly unappealing way to approach it.

Have Joel killed by someone with a legitimate beef, then follow Ellie as she grapples with whether she should even be seeking vengeance or not. There's no need for a new character (especially one whose motivation is that her dad wasn't allowed to cut open an unconscious girl).

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Not that it makes a difference, but is there confirmation that Abby is trans or is 4chan making a typical tasteless joke about her appearance?

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Mobilezoid posted...

The place I read a leak summary said it was about the difficulty in stopping the cycle of violence. On the surface I think that's a worthy topic to explore, but this seems like such a needlessly unappealing way to approach it.

Have Joel killed by someone with a legitimate beef, then follow Ellie as she grapples with whether she should even be seeking vengeance or not. There's no need for a new character (especially one whose motivation is that her dad wasn't allowed to cut open an unconscious girl).

Man, that's one heck of a way to frame what happened at the end of the first game.

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I watched the video. In the video I saw, Abby beats Ellie nearly to death, and then is attacked with a knife by Ellie's girlfriend, who is shot in the back with an arrow by a character I don't know. Abby then bashes Ellie's gf's head on the ground and then takes the knife and is about to slit her throat.

Ellie pleads with Abby, then tells her that her gf's pregnant. Abby initially says "Good." and is just about to slit her throat before the boy who shot the arrow says her name.

Abby then tells them basically "If I ever see you again, you're dead" before leaving them.

I don't know at what point this happens in the game but I have to say, the level of brutality shown in the video was straight out of Game of Thrones.

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so nobody knows if the trans part is true or not but abby's build is masculine as fuck. we're talking at least 6'2 and jacked. curious on who did the mocap on that one as it definitely comes off as a guy doing it.

technically it's incredibly impressive.
it's also a game meant as a fuck you to fans of the original so i'm not sure what the audience is here.

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I didn't play the first game but it almost sounds like they should have just created new characters instead of using Joel and Ellie again.

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oh no, the use of Joel and Ellie seems to be fully on purpose. they want that emotional gut punch.


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Saw this on reddit, but a better way that could've been done was to have all the marketing be of the new characters to begin with, then reveal that their enemy is Joel/Ellie halfway through the game.

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Shadow Dino posted...

Saw this on reddit, but a better way that could've been done was to have all the marketing be of the new characters to begin with, then reveal that their enemy is Joel/Ellie halfway through the game.

didn't care for the first one much, but I feel like this would've been so much better.

also why would you do this for any reason other than to say Eff you to the original fanbase?

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Shadow Dino posted...

Saw this on reddit, but a better way that could've been done was to have all the marketing be of the new characters to begin with, then reveal that their enemy is Joel/Ellie halfway through the game.

The answer to this is which one sells more copies.

We're talking about a game series where the initial box art marketing wanted was Joel holding a shotgun over his shoulder.

ExThaNemesis posted...

didn't care for the first one much, but I feel like this would've been so much better.

also why would you do this for any reason other than to say Eff you to the original fanbase?

I am willing to give them some benefit of the doubt here.

FFVIIR seems like a big FU to fans on paper, but a lot of people seemed to have turned on it in a positive way and see it as something truly respecting the original and subverting expectations in a potentially exciting way. Some disagree, but many don't.

This seems like it will be a much harder thing to sell on that front...but I can't just blanket say it's not going to work. I will play it and see for myself.

yeah, this is basically the Snake/Raiden switcheroo, only this time it's after Raiden kills Otacon and before you play as him to beat the shit out of Snake and don't only because a child soldier told you to.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

The answer to this is which one sells more copies.

We're talking about a game series where the initial box art marketing wanted was Joel holding a shotgun over his shoulder.

I doubt this is much of an issue because Naughty Dog has an enormous amount of power and autonomy at Sony, including in marketing. Remember the last part of the story you mention was Naughty Dog getting the box art they wanted, after all. Whatever the motivations I am 100% confident that this is the story they wanted to tell, and the way they wanted to sell it.

More generally - if you posted a short summary of the first games story, it wouldnt be very impressive. What made it impressive was the way it was presented. So without seeing the whole thing its impossible to make a judgment.


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The issue people are having is the whole killing/beating of characters you played as and grew attached to mixed with playing as the character who does both of those things.

There's not really a good way to present "and now play as the person who killed your guy from the first game."

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If the whole message is 'revenge is bad and will destroy you' forcing you to play as a character who took revenge on characters you're attached to could be interesting.

I'll wait and see how it all plays out in game.

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MoogleKupo141 posted...

The way its set up now, its going to be really hard to get players to care about a character when the first thing she does is murder someone we like.

eww people like JOEL???

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CaptainOfCrush posted...

eww people like JOEL???

the same people who think the ending is good
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the message indeed seems to be a 'revenge is bad' one.
for what it's worth, the beating doesn't seem to be the actual ending, so there's surely more to it than that. whether it's because we're seeing something long before it or we're seeing a scene that's before the epilogue, who knows.


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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

(I've heard the trans thing is a twist too which literally everyone hates when that happens including people who are trans).

Ugh, if they present this character being trans as some kind of SHOCKING TWIST then fuck that. There goes 10 years of progress
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Jakyl25 posted...

Ugh, if they present this character being trans as some kind of SHOCKING TWIST then fuck that. There goes 10 years of progress

Who's talking about progress?

It's a shitty twist and I have never heard of a person liking that sort of twist before, and I've just had a discussion with a couple of my trans friends who were talking about these spoilers and they said they feel making it a twist is more exploitative of their identity than legitimate representation.

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I feel like that's what Jakyl was saying.

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I felt he was coming across as facetious since it was kind of a hyperbolic statement.

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No dude, I 100% mean it
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Like 10 years ago we were still in the era of someone being trans being DECEPTIVE and shit

If its a twist in a story that someone is trans, 99.9% of the time its right up that alley

I can see now how my comment might have come across as flippantly sarcastic; I just figured most people knew where I stood on that stuff around here.
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Okay, I'm glad we're on the same page here then.

No, I agree with that. I don't have any doubt they're going to try to present it more as she's just a poor trans person being attacked by the religious cult, and that her background is supposed to be more sympathetic because Joel killed her father and such, but I don't think they'll stick the landing if they wait until she kills him to do it and then give us a big exposition that it wasn't really his SON but his DAUGHTER out for revenge.

But from what I've gathering, trans people would like it if they would have a positive representation for them for a change. I think the only time in media I've seen it portrayed positively is in that one horror summer camp show on the Lifeform channel.

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for what it's worth i'm also in the camp that hopes that, even if the mocap is a guy (the build and movement all are incredibly masculine), they just go with Abby being a girl the whole way through. trans wouldn't just be a cheap plug that makes nobody happy, it'd be a shitty thing for that industry too.

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Its no issue if shes openly trans and its just not a big deal. I just dont trust that they would do that.
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ha, just as i say that i finally get a search result that worked a bit. Colleen Fotsch is the source of Abby's appearance. don't know if she did the mocap too but they did use her body and physique.

she is massively juiced up to high hell.


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tagging a topic that is made of absolutely pure 100% gold

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I thought it was modable to post spoilers based on a leak, even if you mark them. Thats changed?

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I don't see why this is moddable considering I posted very clearly this topic will have spoilers in it. If anyone clicks on this topic who didn't want spoiled, it's entirely on them.

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imagine if she actually is trans and this is a AAA action game starring a lesbian and a transwoman

the discourse will be so bad

I kinda hope its true
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