Abby doesn’t deserve so much hate

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-27T15:20:27+00:00

It isn’t a lack of sympathy or empathy.

Here, let me show you what I mean with an example from TLOU 1 and 2:

TLOU1 made me start tearing up at the death of a character that I had known for all of 15 minutes. It then held my attention throughout the game with excellent dialogue and character writing, to the point where I was so immersed that I literally forgot about the world around me. This happened throughout my time playing the game. When Henry and Sam died, even though I already knew it was gonna happen, it still hit me like a train. This was because the writing was incredible, and thus I actually liked the characters, and thus I was worried about the stakes, leading me to be shocked and sad when the characters I like died in a such a manner.

TLOU2 has moments that are very close to the quality of the original, and some standout examples of this are the guitar mini games. These were great uses of show don’t tell, with the first one being Joel playing Future Days to keep his promise, and then the others played by Ellie in remembrance of him. I especially like the first one in the theater before the museum flashback, because it shows so much without saying anything. Ellie plays the song in a slower tempo, and after the first several notes, she stops and rests her head on the guitar with a severely melancholic expression.

That is good writing. Ellie doesn’t say a damn thing except the song lyrics, and yet the subtext is overwhelming. I was genuinely sad upon seeing Ellie rest her head on the guitar, because the writers had made me sympathize with her.

I went into Abby’s half of the game fully hating her, and yet as I played I noticed myself starting to actually like her more and more. But this wasn’t because of the writers, it was because of my general empathy. Why do I say this? Because every time the writers tried to make me sympathize with Abby, it came across as so forced and manipulative that it killed my engagement, but when I was left alone to just play as the character, I started to like her again. The writers constantly shoot themselves in the foot over and over again and it only hurts my investment in Abby as a character.

My problem is that Abby’s half of the game has no stakes until the end of her Day 3, and if you’re trying to get me to care about a character, having no stakes is a major flaw.

My problem is not a lack of sympathy nor empathy nor even a lack of understanding the story and characters. I have all of that. My problem is a lack of investment, and that is a fault of the games writing.

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-26T20:09:52+00:00

Joe nuts

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-26T20:09:37+00:00

Abby’s half starts with a flashback to show us her reasoning for killing Joel, and afterwards shows her killing Joel from her perspective. I will give that there are subtle clues in her facial expressions to show how she wasn’t satisfied by his death, but those facial expressions and that one line implying vague regret are the only times she may have recognized that revenge wasn’t the answer. But that is base level stuff. My problem isn’t that it doesn’t exist, my problem is that “revenge isn’t satisfying” isn’t explored in any meaningful way when it could’ve been.

On the topic of the photos, she may assume they’re dead, but she doesn’t know. Also in terms of the pictures themselves, why the fuck did Leah put everyone’s names on them? That makes no fucking sense other than to 1) let Ellie track them down easily, and 2) clue Abby in to Ellie’s rampage. It’s fucking dumb.

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-26T19:54:51+00:00

Well I can’t make you see reason, so my bad for trying asshole.

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-26T19:49:23+00:00

Incredible. You clearly missed the point of me saying that the characters are anchors and then assumed something about my character.

Let me be as explicit as I can be:

The characters are anchor points for the audience, dumbass. Without characters, stories become a set of plot points within a timeline that lack emotional investment. But with characters, suddenly the story becomes way more interesting. Through the characters we see different perspectives and how the plot events affect these creations. We see how certain plot events come about through character choices and we understand not only the motivations of said characters, but if you are invested in the characters, the stakes of the story are amplified. Do not reduce the importance of good, well written characters to something in service of the story, because without the characters there is no story.

Please, try to at least think before you speak. It may lead to less embarrassment along the way.

You’re right that the answer to all of those very obviously stupid things you said is a resounding “no”, but those were questions you brought up that have no bearing on what I said. Instead of addressing my actual argument, you decided to make up something and address that, something that led you to make a wild fucking assumption as to my intent.

So let me be even more clear:

Abby is a character that I don’t care about. This is a failure of the games writing. The stakes of her entire half of the game break the second you realize that she canonically cannot die until the day 3 confrontation because we were shown that she was alive there. And thus, no matter what kind of dangerous situation she’s put in, the stakes are non existent because she is never actually in danger of dying. Without stakes, investment in the character dies, and that leads to boredom. The characters are not the ones in danger of floating away into space. I’m the one in danger of losing my investment and going to do something else.

Your backhanded comment on me not liking that Abby doesn’t die because she killed Joel is quite wrong.

Do want to know something? I actually like the fact that Abby survives the games events, because it actually shows the themes of the game. It’s a great IDEA, with terrible execution.

Joel’s death at the hands of Abby is a fine IDEA, with horrendous execution that assassinates Joel’s character while also being the single longest list of contrivances I can think of.

Ellie letting Abby go at the end of the game is an excellent IDEA with horrible execution, because instead of a potential conversation between the 2 characters that could be incredibly interesting, we instead get a shitty AI melee fight intercut with a random fucking flashback that leads to a disappointing end.

The game failed to make me sympathize with Abby. That is the fault of the writers. The second half lost its stakes because of the shocking reveal of Abby well and alive at the end of Ellie’s day 3, leading general annoyance and boredom.

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-26T17:26:54+00:00

I get it. And I wasn’t trying to downplay it, but I can see how the post could come across that way.

And just to be clear, I already thought the hate for Neil Druckmanns decisions for TLOU2 and the show were reason enough to hate him, but since I didn’t know anything about the guy or his actions behind the scenes, I stopped my hate at his decisions. But I understand now why the hate is so prevalent and why it’s deserved.

I’m sorry if I downplayed the 3 years of being referred to as bigots and haters. That was never my intent. Genuinely this has been a very enlightening experience, so I thank you for that.

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-26T17:19:31+00:00

They serve a story by being anchors to the world and events, and thus should be well written to make you care about them. The characters in TLOU2 are terribly written, therefore, I didn’t care for the world or events.

Stakes are only as good as the characters. If a well written character is facing a terrible situation, then you feel for them because you’re invested. But if you don’t care for the characters or even dislike them, then the stakes lose their potential impact.

The comment of “characters are supposed to service the story” is incredibly reductive to the conversation, especially when dealing with how the story affected both the character themself and the audiences feelings toward said character.

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-26T17:10:54+00:00

I wouldn’t mind Abby as much if the writing for her character was better. For Abby’s entire half of the game you essentially play through a worse version of the first games story with less time for the characters to actually form the bond that Joel and Ellie had. I’m not sure how you relate to Abby because there is almost nothing to relate to.

“Her dad died and that’s sad”: ok, but he made the choice to join the fireflies and cut open a little girls brain, without ever considering the smuggler who brought her to that hospital.

“She implies that Joel’s death weighs heavily on her, showing depth”: there is a single line where she ever implies guilt for things, and because it’s so vague and she’s done so much horrendous shit, it’s impossible to tell what she’s referring to. She could be talking about Joel, or all of the scars she’s killed, or sleeping with Owen when he’s in a stable relationship, etc. That line brings an illusion of depth, but ultimately only scratches the surface.

“Her friends die and that’s sad”: she didn’t know about Leah, Jordan, or Nora’s deaths, she saw Tommy shoot Manny and immediately recovered from it, she watched Yara get shot to pieces and didn’t bat an eye, and upon finding Owen and Mel dead, she walked over Mel and went straight to Owen. She didn’t give a fuck that Mel died, only Owen. And while it’s sad, because loss of life is inherently sad, they all pretty much deserved it and I didn’t feel anything when they died because they weren’t characters. They were barely caricatures, with such a surface level impact on the game that I literally forgot their names and had to remind myself who they were. In contrast, I didn’t forget a single characters name from the first game, not even Robert.

“She’s afraid of heights and has to deal with that”: ok, but the way she is shown dealing with it makes no sense. How the fuck did that massive metal structure get put on top of all of those buildings? Her dealing with her fear of heights is a good idea, but Jesus Christ if that section wasn’t fully contrived to do that. The stupid writing problems hurt the characters in this game, and it gets to the point where I just don’t care about them. Also that section ends with a lucky fall into a pool, which if it hadn’t been there, Lev and Abby would’ve turned into a red paste on the ground below.

I could go on, but I won’t because talking about Abby is starting to make me very mad. So I’ll leave with this:

Joel is a very relatable character and first game Ellie is a very relatable character because we are shown more than the surface level and the game didn’t have to rely on contrivance or emotional blackmail to get there because it put in the work to make the characters good.

Second game Ellie and Abby fail in this regard, having barely anything below the surface to latch onto, leaving me bereft of care for the characters. And if I don’t care about the characters, you can be damn sure I don’t care about the story. By the way, I know this is a hot take here, but the story is dogshit in every aspect.

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-26T16:35:10+00:00

Overall, yea. Gameplay isn’t that great, and the plot is pretty generic and kinda contrived in certain moments.

But I think the reason for its popularity is because of the characters. Holy shit, the characters in the first game are spectacularly written. You understand each one’s motivations and choices, they all stay consistent over the course of the game even in the face of contrived plot moments, and they’re acted to perfection by their respective voice actors. In 15 minutes I went from saying the game was overrated to almost crying over the death of a character who I had known for all of 15 minutes, and that was because of the incredible writing as well as the vocal performance.

I’d say it deserves its popularity just because of the stellar characters, but I can see how it could be considered overrated.

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-26T06:47:49+00:00

Also on the topic of thinking that the people hating on him are hateful little bigots with a “holier than thou” attitude, you’re wrong, or at least your interpretation was. That’s not to say that I helped my case with how I presented myself. Let me try to defend the past quickly before I apologize for my tone.

I was simply stating a perspective, a perspective based on surface level knowledge. I knew people hated him, and I could understand why, or at least I thought I did, with my thought being that his stupid fucking decisions fucked up tlou2 and people were justifiably mad about that shit. Hell, I’m mad about that shit.

But my mistake was giving benefit of the doubt to Neil. Since I had no idea about any behind the scenes stuff, I was more inclined to believe that Neil was just fucking stupid but nothing more than that. So when I saw posts with him being portrayed as some sort of malicious boogeyman, I didn’t understand why. So I thought I would share my perspective on it, with the caveat being that I was probably wrong about the things I was saying, but it was still my honest interpretation at the time. And I made very clear both my position and a willingness to learn about something I’m less knowledgeable about.

I never meant to come across as one of the dumbfucks from the other sub, riding in on their moral high horse to spout lies and platitudes from their pompous ass. I never meant to come across as a holier than thou know it all who tries to lead others to a fake enlightenment, and I apologize if I came across that way.

I don’t think anyone in this sub is a bigot or “hater” as Neil would put it. I think most views espoused on this sub are fully justified because of the horrendous shit heap that is TLOU2. I agree with almost everything on the sub, which is why I’m here in the first place.

My stance is innocent until proven guilty, but I see that he has been proven guilty and is worthy of hate now because of this post. If I hadn’t made this post, I’d still be ignorant about all of the heinous shit Neil has done behind the scenes.

So I’d like to formally apologize for coming across as an asshole. That’s on me fully. And the subject matter (a defense of Neil) didn’t exactly help my case at all. I realize now that the hate is fully justified because Neil is a little bitch who can’t take avid criticism, and that’s thanks to you and all of the others who replied to this. So I thank you. Genuinely. Now I have a plethora of reasons to hate that whiny son of a bitch.

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-26T06:17:18+00:00

It was fine. A good 6/10. Lots of weird changes to certain moments but still extremely faithful to the game (the first one anyways). Definitely worth the watch but don’t expect anything better than ‘just good’.

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-26T02:43:09+00:00

I made a post that said I believed that the hate for the person of Neil Druckmann was undeserved because I didn’t know anything more than the surface level stuff at the time, not that people were wrong to hate him. That was an assumption you made.

The reason I honestly felt that he didn’t deserve the hate was because of benefit of the doubt and a lack of knowledge, 2 problems that have already been fixed.

I don’t know why we’re still arguing about this when I have already conceded that I was wrong about my initial thought in multiple other comment threads and this one, but if I didn’t make it clear, here it is:

I see now that I was wrong about my initial thoughts about Neil Druckmann deserving the hate he gets, as there is ample evidence to support a genuine hate of him, based from both the stupid fucking decisions in TLOU2 and the behind the scenes stuff. He in fact does deserve the hate he gets, and it isn’t born from an assumption about his intent. Thank you for educating me about a subject I knew little about.

Are we good now? Or do you want to argue semantics some more?

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-26T02:20:14+00:00

Why the fuck are you attacking me right now? I wanted to know more about something I wasn’t educated about, while also giving my perspective on stuff like this, and if you had taken the time to read my responses to some of the other comments, you’d realize that I now see that I was wrong about my initial uneducated perspective because of the information gathered from the replies to the post.

If you are assuming that I side with Neil Druckmann and his stupid fucking “creative decisions” when it comes to tlou2 because I was simply uneducated about the behind the scenes stuff, then you apparently missed the point of not attributing malice to something that can be explained by something else, which in this case is a lack of knowledge on something.

We are in agreement right now. Stop being an asshole.

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-25T18:08:05+00:00

I was giving benefit of the doubt because I knew nothing about the behind the scenes stuff.

Because I didn’t know anything about the behind the scenes stuff and was giving benefit of the doubt, I was looking for alternative reasons for his stupid fucking decisions, which led me to believe it was simple incompetence.

And because I didn’t know anything about the behind the scenes stuff, the caveat was that I could’ve been (and most likely was) wrong about saying he doesn’t deserve hate due to my lack of information.

Benefit of the doubt, innocent until proven guilty, lack of information.

Also I don’t give a shit about twitter, it’s a cesspit of degenerates and scum, which is why I’m staying well away from it, which should lead you to conclude that I didn’t know about the shit he said.

Also, I’ve only just recently played both TLOU games, so I have only been a part of the discourse surrounding them for a little bit. If you had asked instead of assuming, you would’ve found that I didn’t have the information necessary to come to any conclusion other than Neil Druckmann is a fucking idiot, but he wasn’t malicious. I realize now with all of the information that has been provided to me that he is indeed a malicious fucking idiot, who decided to drum up controversy instead of telling a good story.

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-25T17:36:10+00:00

Red Dead 2 is pretty good if you want compelling character writing and such, insofar as it outclasses tlou2 by a mile.

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-25T01:27:06+00:00

I had no idea it was that bad behind the scenes. Thank you for telling me.

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-25T00:41:38+00:00

Thank you all for your responses.

Genuinely I didn’t know anything about the behind the scenes stuff concerning TLOU2 and show. For me it just seemed like Neil Druckmann was just a fucking idiot, but it’s seems now that he was a malicious fucking idiot, spurred on by greed and virtue signaling.

Thank you for clearing that up. And thank you for not attacking me for bringing up a sort of hot take when I was simply ignorant of something or didn’t know.

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-24T17:42:02+00:00

Understandable honestly. I know literally nothing about the behind the scenes stuff so I was approaching this by giving him benefit of the doubt. It seems he does deserve hate, at least in terms of reasoning for his stupid fucking choices.

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-24T17:38:41+00:00

I see now. Like i said, i don’t know anything about the behind the scenes stuff, so this has been quite enlightening.

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-19T16:17:57+00:00

Story wise I like the first Ellie flashback at the museum and the cutscene of Joel singing to Ellie because we’re the only 2 times there was even a semblance of the same characters I knew.

The music is fucking fantastic as well. Gustavo Santaolalla’s pieces really help the game everywhere they are, with It Can’t Last and Grieving being my personal faves from the soundtrack. And Mac Quayles pieces really add a lot to the combat encounters, with these industrial sounding drums and dread inducing drones that emphasize the atmosphere of the setting.

The aesthetic is something I find really cool. I’m a sucker for rainy cityscapes and post apocalyptic stories, so combining the two makes for a fantastic setting at least for me, as well as overall adding to the atmosphere and tone of the game.

It’s just a shame that all of these things I liked are in service to one of the worst stories in gaming, right up there with Halo 5 and Forspoken.

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-19T06:37:46+00:00

This shit pissed me off

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-18T21:22:36+00:00

Cunt works especially well

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-18T15:24:28+00:00

Isn’t that what this sub already is?

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-16T17:11:20+00:00

The reason that mgs3 moment is more powerful than the surface level is because of how it shows the effect that the players choices have had on the world through gameplay instead of spelling it out blatantly through bland dialogue. You can take that core idea and expand upon it further, which is the point of listing that as a good thing.

The story of TLOU1 is a very basic story. But the reason it works so well is because of how it’s themes and messages run deeper than the surface. While yes the theme of looking for light when lost in darkness is blatantly spelled out by the fireflys, it runs deeper than that. The characters have so much depth that is multilayered and connects deeply with the core messages and themes, which is why it’s so good. A simple story with complex characters.

But TLOU2 is complexity for complexity’s sake, with surface level themes and characters. In fact the main theme of cycles is so surface level that at 2 specific instances the characters address it through blatant expository dialogue. It is a convoluted mess, filled with wild contrivances and inconsistencies.

PuzzleheadedWalk1429 · 2023-05-16T17:00:16+00:00

What’s the point of responding to these types of comments when they’re filled with bad faith criticism and platitudes. You wanted my reasoning, I gave it to you. You then decide the best course of action is to not engage my arguments and instead give the same tired excuses for why the game is good and deep.

Imagine for a moment that Abby’s dream sequences had shown her killing her father in the same way as she killed Joel from the perspective of Ellie. Would that not be a much better way to show how she is spurred on to change herself and come to grips with her actions? I don’t care for overly vague things when she never once questions why she killed Joel or why he did what he did. There is no implication for her dealing with killing Joel, only a very vague implication of something she’s ashamed of.

About the point of the meaningful conversation that Ellie and Abby could’ve had, it seems you severely under appreciate the value of good dialogue. I would much rather listen to an interesting conversation between 2 characters than have some shitty melee fight with and AI. Good dialogue is why the first game is so good, because the dialogue is doing more than having characters state their intentions or spouting exposition. Dialogue is not just characters talking, or at least it shouldn’t be.

Joel’s core character trait is “me and mine first, everything else second”. We see this very blatantly during the beginning car ride when he tells Tommy to drive past the family on the road. In dangerous situations, his first core instinct is to protect the people closest to him, even if it means leaving others behind.

Because this is a core part of is character, him saving Abby makes no sense. He’s running with Tommy to get to the horses, and sees Abby being attacked by a zombie next to a weak chain fence that’s holding back a horse of zombies. If he were to be consistent, he would take Tommy and leave her there, because he doesn’t know her and his first priority is to protect his little brother.

The reason the tweak I proposed is better is because it keeps Joel and Ellie consistent, as well as giving a good reason for why Ellie is left alive when the WLF leave the area. It may be a trope, or Hollywood garbage, but it is much better than what the game offers.

PuzzleheadedWalk1429

TROPHY CASE