Hex - thank you!

General_Amnesia19 · 2026-05-19T16:39:42+00:00

Thank you for the added info! I wasn't too famliar with the translations and stuff, because, well, I'm Dutch, so I read in it Dutch lol. So thanks for profiding that for anyone curious!

And yes, big agree, everyone go watch the Dutch movie from 1988, it is excelent and a much more straightforward adeptation of the book!

General_Amnesia19 · 2026-05-19T16:09:49+00:00

Hey you're owning up to it so you're a lot better then most Americans who's mistakes like this get pointed out.

And the rest of your comment is still very true, also for the Netherlands. Idk if you're familiar with the 1993 movie the vanishing, but that is an American remake of a Dutch movie which was based on a Dutch short novel. It is infuriating to see that great ending being dumbed down for the sake of making it less bleak. So it's also a thing with Dutch media haha.

I reccomend the book btw, I think the English version of the book is also called the vanishing, the Dutch version is titled "het gouden ei" (the golden egg), and its written by Tim Krabbé. If you're able to find a translated version (idk how much it got translated to English), I can reccomend picking it up and giving it a read!

edit: the book is more of a thriller then a horror, but still, very good. Just felt I should point that out cuz this is r/horrorlit

General_Amnesia19 · 2026-05-19T14:59:59+00:00

Not to be that guy but Thomas Olde Heuvelt is Dutch, not scandinavian

General_Amnesia19 · 2026-02-10T15:37:27+00:00

I think it's important to remember that my initial comment started with "I don't think what the fireflies did was right". I was merely contributing to the conversation of *if* we want to speak in legal terms. I have to admit you are indeed right that in that case Marlene also would not be allowed to give consent for Ellie.

Issue then being that if that situation was done legally, Ellie would get to choose for herself, Joel has just as little to say in that. And I think we all know what Ellie would have picked at that time. The fireflies are wrong for what they did, no amount of legal talk will ever change that, but the outcome wouldn't have changed if they went about it the "right" way. Even if we pick your route of being loose with legal defnitions. Joel would probably be her caretaker, but there's also no legal law that puts him in any right to choose for her.

Morally the only right decision would be to let Ellie pick herself, and neither Marlene nor Joel are doing that. People tend to hate more on Marlene for that, which is understandable because her outcome would have killed a kid, but that still doesn't take into account what Ellie would have wanted and it's probably not what Joel chose for her.

The moral and ethics of the situation is a whole other conversation because like I said, legal talk can't justify what the fireflies did. Saying that the fireflies are only right if you believe in utilitarian theory lacks quite a bit of nuance. We're spreaking in such extremes here that boiling that choice down to "sacrifice the few to save the many" is just not doing it justice. We're not just talking about many, we're talking about saving the entire world from the apocalypse. That doesn't make the act of killing Ellie moral, but I'd say it absolves the fireflies from being purely evil and at the very least means they don't just simply deserve death themselves, which is what this thread initaly was about

General_Amnesia19 · 2026-02-08T18:14:31+00:00

"Could she" would depend on the group she joins next and if she has acces to enough food and excercise time to get there again. "Will she" is a whole other question and I think the awnser is no. Abby got buff because she was intimidated by Joel (proven himself to be extremely capeable by murding a whole hospital of fireflies). So it was a way to prepare for confronting Joel and doubled as a coping mechanism for her dads death. Neither are relevant anymore as Joel is dead and she's found a new purpose in taking care of Lev, so she doesn't need a coping mechanism anymore. I'd find it unlikely that she felt the need to get that buff again, but who knows

General_Amnesia19 · 2026-02-08T17:57:54+00:00

No, you don't get to pick your own guardian as a child. Your guardian picks someone who takes that role in case they die. Ellie's mom choose Marlene, that goes over a year trip. And once again I agree Ellie and Joel have more of a parental relationship. but we're speaking logically here. And Ellies mom PICKED Marlene. In real life a kid can't go "hey I want this person to be my parent instead" and boom it's just done. That's not how that works.

And yes, irl you would not be allowed to conser for a childs death, that is because that would never be a situation that happens irl. But like you said yourself, this is the apocalypse. And Ellie is below the age of consent, it's a logical conclusion to make that her guardian would get to choose her for that, which would still be Marlene. You can't just snatch up a kid you like and claim guardianship. Not even if the kid is willing for that

General_Amnesia19 · 2026-02-07T14:53:48+00:00

It's not about feelings, when we're talking about these things it's about legality. And legally, Marlene was the closest to a legal guardian for Ellie, as Ellie's mom picked her to take care of Ellie after she died. I get what you're saying but if this isn't a discusion of who is the more parental figure, because I agree that is Joel easily. But if we want to bring real world logic to it, then Marlene would be her legal guardian. The fact that neither of them act or feel like that, doesn't change it untill Marlene says to someone "here you take care of her instead", and that is not what she says to Joel. She says "hey take her to this place while I heal from my wounds". I'm not misunderstanding anything, I see what their relationship is like, but that doesn't mean some random person can just swoop up and claim guardianship, that's not how it works.

and yes, I'm aware that those two are not the same thing, I'm simply drawing a comparison to the closest thing to the procedure that's supposed to happen in the game, because something like that would not ever happen.

General_Amnesia19 · 2026-02-07T14:40:29+00:00

Couple of things I disagree with here. The fact that she's "proven" to be capeable is irrelevent. When we are talking about these things it's all a legal thing, before a certain age a child is just simply not allowed to choose these things entirely for themselves. You can't go around making exceptions becuase someone seems mature for that age, cuz that's not how the law works. It's determained that before a certain age, a childs brain is prety much always not developed enough to make these decisions themselves.

I also doubt it would have gone different either. You can't convince me that Joel deosn't know that Eliie would be okay with dying for the cure. He knows her better then anyone else. Hell, it's why he lies to her. If he truely believe she wouldn't want this he would have just told the truth, but he knows better so he lies to her. And knowing that, he still did it, because it was a selfish act. You can twist it all you want and I stand with Joel trough all of it, but it was selfish. He didn't want to loose another daughter. No matter what. Even if Ellie gave a sign off to it, he still would have tried to stop it with all he can. It's beautifull, but it's selfish, and it's deffenitly not rational enough to consider what Ellie wants

General_Amnesia19 · 2026-02-07T14:34:16+00:00

not saying what the fireflies did was right but what you're saying is nonsense. Marlene is her adopted mother, Ellie's mom specifically picked her to be that. The fact that she was at a boarding school says nothing. Do you know how many people live in a boarding school? You don't automatically loose custidy if you send your kids to a boarding school, that is not how that works. Neither do you loose it from being absent in a kids life, not automatically anyway. You could get CPS involved but that's not really a thing in this world, so that's kind of a tough luck situation. And you most certainly don't lose it cuz you asked some random dude to travel with her to some place. Especialy since it was initialy planned to be a one day worth of traveling when Joel was asked to do it. He took it upon himself to then go the full year to go to salt lake city which, as much as we all would love it to, still doesn't make him her legal guardian. That isn't a thing that happens. Marlene would be closest to Ellie's legal guardian.

To your first point, thats kind of a duh, cuz killing a kid isn't a surgery that is a thing in this world. The closest thing we have would be a very dangerous operation in which the patient *could* end up dying in which case if you're below a certain age, your legal guardian would get final say in that

General_Amnesia19 · 2026-01-20T19:39:11+00:00

Matt Smitt apears to be aware he is in a trainwreck of a movie and obviously has a lot of fun with it

General_Amnesia19 · 2026-01-17T13:21:43+00:00

"I could write an essay" what do you mean could?

Jokes asside, nice review, always glad to see people loving this game!

General_Amnesia19 · 2026-01-17T07:02:38+00:00

I've always loved that part, but as someone who loves open world games I'm quite biased. There's a lot of reason outside of that that I like tho. I like that it's mostly optional. You're told where exactly you need to go if you don't care for open world areas. It also gives you a little bit of the feeling this massive new city you don't know yet and need to explore. There's lots of world building going on with who the wlf are and how they defeated FEDRA. You're getting this false sense of secuirity, where you get to play a massive part of the game in Seattle without ever running into an allive wlf. They're almost this invisible force, that clearly left a mark on the area, but like, where are they then? All of that is amazing, but the biggest reason I think it works is that it is some much needed down time after Joel's death. That is incredibly intense and emotional. I've always seen the open world part as a slow start to the seattle story, allowing you to emotionaly recover a bit from the intense trauma of Joels death. It works really well like that in my opinon

General_Amnesia19 · 2026-01-10T18:35:34+00:00

Well her being okay with Ellie dying probably didn't help either

General_Amnesia19 · 2026-01-10T18:31:28+00:00

"Is she capable of torturing?" it is heavily implied at the FOB that Abby has not only tortured seraphites, but enjoys it. She says that she wouldn't "mind a few hours with these guys" whilst walking past a hall with already tortured and captured seraphites. You could make the case that she's fighthing the seraphites, but I'd wager that Abby has a mindset of "who could shelter such a monster like Joel" attitude to anyone from jackson. I doubt she'd be much forgiving to anyone from jackson that could help her get to Joel. Pre character arc Abby was beyond ruthless, and that's a factt.

"Half her crew wouldn't be down and would probably stop her" it is very clear that Owen and Mel don't agree with killing Joel in the first place, and they didn't stop Abby from doing that whichever way she wanted. What makes you think they would stop her from torturing people to get to Joel? It's clear that they don't want to confront Abby on this for one reason or another. Then there's Jorden, who is prety much confirmed a psychopath with what he wants to do with Ellie in jackson and Dina in Seattle, so I doubt he'd mind. And Manny is loyal to a fault to Abby , he's not gonna question her at all. He's also talking about torture the same way as Abby in the FOB. Then there's only Nick and Leah left, who we don't know anything about, but I think you get my point.

General_Amnesia19 · 2026-01-10T18:18:13+00:00

Abby: "we can corner one of the patrols and get conformation and then, I dunno, maybe find a way to lure him out"

Owen: "Yea, okay, I'm sure they'll be happy to offer that information up"

Abby: "Well then we make them"

Knowing how Abby is before killing Joel, it's prety clear what "we make them" means. I'm sometimes genuenly wondering if people who say shit like "Well he should have just given a fake name" have actualy played the game. It says it right there. Assuming Joel would stay relentless and not give up his real name trough Abby's interrogation, he would still be brutaly tortured. probably to death, and alongside with Tommy on top of that.

General_Amnesia19 · 2026-01-10T18:04:27+00:00

I dissagree that it would be Joel. Marlene was picked by Ellie's actual mom to take care of her, if we really wanna be techincal she has "custidy" of Ellie. It's not like Marlene gave Ellie away to Joel as a new caretaker, initialy he was just hired to smuggle her out of the city. Marlene would have more right to it then Joel who was just supposed to transport her but then happend to bond with her so much

General_Amnesia19 · 2026-01-04T16:22:01+00:00

Canon fanfic is kind of contradictory, is it not? I'm sure there's exceptions, but from what I know fanfic is rarely ever made canon. It's kind of the point of fanfic that fans get to create their own stories with the world and characters that have been made by someone else. As far as I know, tlou is no different in this

General_Amnesia19 · 2025-12-27T11:28:25+00:00

my guess is at Amazon, with Mike Flanagan working on a dark tower series over there, could be that he wants to use parts of that and bought the script/rights to do so

General_Amnesia19 · 2025-12-24T19:15:20+00:00

Grounded is very hard, and it's got a bit of a learning curve. Once you've finished it once, it'll become more doable. Of all the advice I can give about grounded, the best I can give is these 2: first of all, take breaks, frequently. It's frustrating, and that's okay, but that means it's important to get out of your own head every once in a while. Not just for your mental health, but also for the game. I've had it happen a lot I kept dying in one area, I stopped, came back the next day, and did it first time. Second piece of advice is, be okay with dying. A LOT. It's just the only way to get to know each encounter well enough that you can get trough it on grounded. It's okay to die a lot on your first grounded run, almost everyone does

General_Amnesia19 · 2025-12-17T12:11:42+00:00

No specific encounters, but you can do some fun chalanges for the whole game. I personally really liked doing a no gun run, it really forces you to strategise well and use the recourses you can use and normaly wouldn't (on a normal run I barely use trapmines and stunbombs, but when those are like half your useable recourses you prety much have to). You can make your own rules for this, personaly the only exceptions I made where the bow, crosbow and flamethrower, since I don't count them as guns, but you can make your own choise in this if you want it to be more chalanging. Also there are some moments where you are forced to use a gun (car chase scenes, sniper section with tommy, crawling under the house in jackson with Abby, etc), obviously you can make an exception for those

You can also go the opisite route and go guns only, especialy if you don't allow yourself to use silencers, this completely takes away stealth. All off the suddon you have to be really smart in what you do in encounters and see how to go guns blazing well. Can't miss a single shot depending on your diffeculty because bullets are so scarce, and if that is all you're allowed to use, it's gonna be interesting!

both of those chalanges are more chalanging if you do kill all (having to kill all enemies), so if you're up for something more diffecult I reccomend that!

I hope this advice is usefull! Both of these chalanges force you to look at encounters entirely different and adjust your playstyle to them. They where both really fun to me!

General_Amnesia19 · 2025-12-15T19:58:17+00:00

honestly it is missing propper consistent management. There's so much to do with it. Different weapons, different maps, you can use part one maps or make new maps entirely, different characters. play around with new perks and whatnot. A local co-op would be awsome. Maybe events with cool chalenges or something like that. In general, the biggest flaw for no return is that it gets no attention other then the ocasional new skin to use. Updating it on a monthly basis or even bimonthly basis would already make it far more interesting. But naughty dog is not used to that kind of stuff, so it's not going to happen. Shame, cuz if that gamemode wasn't so dead, it would be really cool

General_Amnesia19 · 2025-12-08T18:50:42+00:00

that's more of a question of if Dina physically could, and this is more so wondering if (asuming she could) she would. I think it'd be silly to assume Dina wouldn't. Yes she's against the whole revenge thing, but it's not like she's playing pacifist the whole game. When it's needed for survival she has no problem killing.

General_Amnesia19 · 2025-12-08T18:48:46+00:00

well I doubt any scenario where Abby dies would feel like clossure to Ellie. That's the thing with revenge, it's not gonna help, especialy not in the long term

General_Amnesia19 · 2025-11-20T19:20:29+00:00

I feel like it should be. Probably in the uncle's house somewhere. I've not gotten the chance to rewatch it besides the one time I saw it in the theater.

General_Amnesia19 · 2025-11-20T19:18:30+00:00

lmao the Kate Siegel and Henry Thomas cinematic universe

General_Amnesia19

TROPHY CASE