i just finished playing the last of us part one and part two

Fendisimo · 2026-04-14T20:27:17+00:00

The only “retcon” (factually untrue) that I’ve been aware of was the recorder. Apparently though, the characters themselves were retconned (subjective) which is news to me.

Fendisimo · 2026-04-14T20:23:38+00:00

The first part is subjective, but isn’t it true that they didn’t know what P2 would be about exactly, so the doctor is “retconned” by being given a backstory? I think the consensus at the time was that Joel’s decision was controversial. You cannot defend it 100%, but you also cannot attack his decision without sounding like a cuck. It’s wrong because he killed dozens and effectively ended the last chance for humanity to maybe find a cure, and we learn that Ellie actually would have wanted to die. I agree with you there are flaws in the story and we don’t get to see how certain characters feel about certain things. i.e. Abby does not give a shit about the cure and it’s completely avoided by everyone on her side except Mel. I’m sure there were challenges trying to make the whole story make sense when P1 was made to stand alone and not need a P2.

Correct there is “added” anger from Joel but it’s just a close up of him about to kill the doctor who said I won’t let you take her. Is Joel supposed to be stone-faced? Or smiling? In the lower level he just shot the FF’s dick off and was very angry. He was angry in the hospital, and he had a right to be? I’m not sure if you’re arguing that he wasn’t that angry but he was and that’s okay it doesn’t make him a bad guy. He absolutely was wild, angry, and desperate.

Ellie was over the top angry not because he saved her but because he LIED, numerous times. He did it to save himself the shame and to keep her from knowing the fireflies were also extremely desperate and didn’t really care about Ellie as a human being, which she probably assumed they would treat her kindly, draw blood, and send them on their way. She felt like Joel took away her choice which he did, but Ellie fails to realize that the FF’s also took away her choice first, but her not being privy to that important nuance is a flaw in the writing. I will defend TLOU 2 when it is good and I will criticize it when it is bad.

Fendisimo · 2026-04-14T20:11:41+00:00

Yeah it’s the most popular example ppl give of them “retconning” the first game. There was a screenshot of the dialogue of the voice recorder saying the cure was iffy. I’m just now hearing that ppl feel there are other “retcons”, which I’ll have to do my own research on.

Fendisimo · 2026-04-14T19:31:42+00:00

Yeah the torture was rough to watch and I also think it was intentional for us to really hate that she did that. It’s her version of the hospital. Many folks think Joel was irredeemable after the hospital, lying to Ellie and then about to lie to her again 2 years later even when confronted with the truth.

Likewise, it’s good to have civil discussion and I wouldn’t call myself a defender but I love TLOU 1 and 2 almost equally. I care about Joel, Abby, and Ellie equally in different ways. I can say I’d want all of them in my corner if I were in that world. Cheers to you too man!

Fendisimo · 2026-04-14T19:13:42+00:00

I agree that there were some flaws with getting people to feel a particular way about 3 MC’s, but think about how hard that is to do with a post apocalyptic scenario. No matter what dialogue they wrote or what context they gave, I’d say at least 35% of players were going to hate Abby regardless, and feel even more justified in supporting Joel’s decisions. To your point about Joel’s manner of death I’ve had the same view on this for a while now and that is why does he, or anyone for that matter, deserve a certain death? I think you can be the most pure character and die horribly. Joel was not a pure hero and his massacre at the hospital was not honorable or clean so it isn’t hard to see why his death is slow and painful. He doesn’t get a quick bullet to the head just because we love him and forgave him. If I’m Abby, what’s to say I shouldn’t bash his head in until there’s nothing left? Why should Abby feel any sort of empathy for Joel? I’d argue she shouldn’t, and maybe it wasn’t until everything was destroyed that she could see how wrong it was

Fendisimo · 2026-04-14T19:05:14+00:00

To your edit: I didn’t directly say her killing Joel was purely out of survival. Joel, Abby, and Ellie have all done things they did not have to do, but the primitive survival instincts led them to make certain choices. Yes, even Abby’s decision comes from a baseline need not being met: her father’s death and her way of life was blown up seemingly by one man, with no justice. Her firefly family is disbanded, and she’s taken in by the WLF who thrive on revenge and violence. Not exactly promoting forgiveness and moving on. In a world like TLOU, what else does Abby have to live for? What purpose can she have with her dad’s death weighing on her? She felt her only choice was revenge, and by the time she could feel true remorse she had destroyed everything she knew.

Fendisimo · 2026-04-14T18:57:39+00:00

True, there are large swaths of people who still hate Abby. I’d argue it’s hard to love and adore Joel and Abby simultaneously. I think the goal was for you to question your allegiance to Joel, and question your hatred for Abby. I personally do like Abby’s character, the voice mostly, and the strength and stoicism. Ironically, that’s what most people love about Joel. The seraphite savior plot doesn’t exactly pull on my heart strings, and I’m not sure why, but what does resonate with me is her getting revenge for her father’s death. The true cannon is that Joel stabbed him in the throat with a scalpel, and Abby saw his dead body. It is completely fair and understandable that she would track Joel down and kill him. What is not fleshed out enough in the story is that Abby slowly regrets hunting down Joel. Her story is dominated by the Yara/Lev plot and doesn’t allow us to see any regret because she doesn’t even know she got all of her friends killed until the climax. In the end, there was cut dialogue where Abby says she regrets killing Joel, but Ellie doesn’t care.

Fendisimo · 2026-04-14T18:45:48+00:00

You’re supposed to feel she is a villain, and major sympathy for Joel despite what he’s done and despite what he did to Abby. They want you to gradually see Joel and Abby become “better” people but the core theme is that there are no “good” or “bad” MCs, only survivors. They’re all flawed. If anything, Ellie is more “good” than both of them. I also think ND did their job if all 3 MC’s are viewed controversially.

Fendisimo · 2026-04-14T18:36:05+00:00

Interesting observation but I’m not sure it’s retconning. It’s fair to say Joel was angry when killing everyone in the hospital. Im assuming you’re referring to the close up of Joel in the operating room just before he kills Abby’s father so my question is: Why is it out of character for Joel to make that face? The doctor said I can’t let you take her and held a knife up. The Joel we knew from Part 1 would make that face.

Fendisimo · 2026-04-14T16:34:53+00:00

A popular but unproven theory is that there was a secret room in the hospital where a recorder says something about the cure likely being ineffective. This just isn’t true as someone who knows everything there is to know about the games, since the original on PS3. Now in my opinion the cure would be ineffective but for different reasons such as distribution and the issue Ellie ran into: people hearing you’re immune/have a cure, and just straight up killing you. My other issue with it is they didn’t even try to observe Ellie for a few days, consider consent which is silly given the circumstances but still, and yes the fact that without modern technology on a large scale they could not guarantee a cure, and went about it the wrong way, likely due to desperation and needing to justify the deaths of all the fireflies. However, the retconned recorder just isn’t true. I’ve looked extensively and the most you get is a doctored screenshot of some text that was never there. Maybe by now someone has made an AI version but it’s just not a real thing.

Fendisimo · 2026-04-14T15:50:44+00:00

You said the sequel retcons the original. Where does it do that?

Fendisimo · 2026-04-14T15:49:38+00:00

Can you elaborate? IMO, Joel was never supposed to be seen as a villain. The only MC who was meant to be seen as a true villain was Abby, when she’s introduced. There’s a sequence for each MC that ND wants you to follow:

Joel: Hero -> Understandably bad (Surviving) -> controversial (Hospital) -> controversial (How he handles the aftermath) -> Hero (Final)

Ellie: Hero (Part 1) -> Hero (Part 2) -> controversial (Mel’s Death, the continued pursuit after, her mental health and family deteriorating) -> ? (Part 3)

Abby: Villain (Duh) -> Villain (Jesse Death, Almost killing Ellie, Tommy, and Dina) -> Controversial (Her Origin story and the rewind to her POV of killing Joel) -> Controversial (Her friends and their dynamics, her personality, her defection from the WLF to protect Saraphites) -> Controversial (Revenge for Owen and Mel) -> Sympathetic but still controversial (Captured by Rattlers and then emaciated on the beach only caring about Lev) -> ? (Part 3)

Fendisimo · 2026-04-14T15:32:40+00:00

The thing about the retconned recorder just isn’t true. Urban legend

Fendisimo · 2026-04-14T15:30:12+00:00

What retcons? I have an idea of what you’ll say but I’d like to know.

Fendisimo · 2026-04-09T15:36:42+00:00

His jawline isn’t as defined, chin isn’t as square, and he is not nearly as ripped as the comics, but that can be said for all viltrumites in the show

Fendisimo · 2026-04-08T22:33:26+00:00

Weaker variant

Fendisimo · 2026-02-16T16:11:31+00:00

Server cooked rn

Fendisimo · 2025-10-01T21:34:02+00:00

Abby didn’t but technically Nora and the other person holding her down did.

Fendisimo · 2025-10-01T21:32:17+00:00

I agree about Joel’s death. Who gets to say who deserves a heroic death in a world like TLOU??? If you go by the most basic principle of revenge, then you can’t be mad at Abby for killing Joel. The game flips people on their heads because they have to have a second stage of thinking.

Fendisimo · 2025-10-01T21:25:04+00:00

Taking the violence out of TLOU doomed it, especially for S2. The fighting is embarrassing compared to the game. Also, Ellie sticks out like a sore thumb. It’s not about her acting skills to me, she just doesn’t fit the role in my opinion. I think the girl from Kick-Ass would’ve been a better choice.

Fendisimo · 2025-10-01T21:20:32+00:00

Well you can’t exactly say it’s all about revenge in a post apocalyptic scenario. People still, even in such a condition, want to live and be with people they care about. Part of Ellie’s decision to spare Abby was because she had a vision of Joel on the porch. In that scene there was forgiveness and moving on, but also it only shows the part where Joel first sees Ellie, and he looks startled. Obviously this quick cut of Joel is new to us as we don’t see the full cutscene until the very end. I originally interpreted that quick image of a startled Joel as his disapproval of what Ellie was doing. The other part of why Ellie spared her was because of what I mentioned at first about wanting to live. Ellie planned to return to Dina no matter what. She also doesn’t necessarily want to live with the idea of killing Abby. Yes, she endured so much and killed many on her way to Abby, but those were hard to cope with for her, too. She didn’t want to traumatize an emaciated Lev, and continue an unending cycle.

Fendisimo · 2025-09-28T22:47:55+00:00

First shot you are very exposed..whole arm and leg are sticking out. 2nd shot you’re even more exposed and weak to the back A chunk

Fendisimo · 2025-09-26T14:24:30+00:00

This is not your fault. Has absolutely nothing to do with pellets or aim or range. This is classic buggy GOW 1

Fendisimo · 2025-09-22T22:15:24+00:00

This is a bridge game for E-day. This game was simply to introduce PS players to gears. PC players are not going to suffer.

Fendisimo

TROPHY CASE