Like 5 minutes after this scene, one of the people in this shot abandons the other to go do murder for no reason, destroying their relationship entirely, as indicated by the visual language of the scene https://twitter.com/gabs820/status/1391414443628634118

"please don't do murder, we are a family"

"I gotta though. Because the game hasn't shown all the flashbacks, you think it's because i have unfinished business about my psychotic father figure, but it will all be remdered pointless by two more flashbacks"

"If you go im leaving"

gamers will literally watch two characters emoting hard and ignore the context and actions of their behaviors to stan them it's wild

this ripoff of the walking dead is one of the most critically acclaimed games of all time for the vapid argument that "revenge is bad"

it reminds me of how people were like "promising young woman is SO GOOD" and the creator was like "no story, before my movie, has ever suggested that revenge... might be bad."

people will post fanart of joel and ellie being like ":) nice dad" and ignore that he literally doomed humanity because he's a selfish monster because their brain can't look beyond "these people hugged each other but with expensive graphics"

and if, as a critic, you don't say "this is as good as schindler's list" then one of the largest corporations on earth will send people to you to go "maybe you wanna rethink that HMM :)"

of course gamers, without provocation, will play a rockstar game and suggest no one has ever made a western story with the breadth and depth of that inconsistent, incoherent mess of a red dead redemption because they refuse to watch... literally any westerns

gamer desperation to be respected without engaging in any kind of media literacy results in people getting mad at anyone for suggesting games... might have a bit of work ahead of them.

every game has to be this huge monumental work of genius that no other media could touch

here's the definitive work on vengeance in art, sorry, I don't make the rules. It's Pluto:

baffled people think I'm mad and not just shouting an exasperated "why are gamers like this" while listening to frank sinatra's 'my way' and sipping a bepis

"you didn't get the game" look, you liking the game because you have no media literacy does not make you an expert

There are people who like it and are literate, I got no beef with that. I'm only bothered by the people who are going "lol if you didn't like it you must not understand it, it's about PTSD"

I have PTSD, you can see how that might make me discard your insights as illiteracy

"doc I am reading this thread all at once without the context of it happening as a series of responses to hours of tweets people are making in your direction and your tone becomes weirdly hostile" well yeah it's a short thread that was even shorter before people were assholes

like there is a three hour gap between some of these tweets, wonder why?

but the thread itself was inspired by the suggestion that this is a happy couple. This made me chuckle, so I made a tweet ruefully pointing out that immediately after this sequence, one of the characters leaves to do murders, ending the supposedly happy relationship.

and that led to "isn't it interesting how gamers, on the whole, will take isolated moments and focus on them and ignore the rest of the narrative to imagine a version of the character that doesn't exist?" because that's so... weird, right?

and the response to that was a bunch of people going "yeah makes sense" or "I disagree with you for reasonable reasons," which is totally fair

but then you got people who clearly did not understand the game going "you are DUMB and DON'T GET it let me PUT YOU DOWN"

and to do this--to argue this isn't a game about why revenge is wrong when the creators literally stated that--requires attacking a _person_ and not any meaningful engagement _with the work_

which is ironic, because as is clear--and then restated in these more recent tweets--

"I have to misunderstand this work to idolize these characters" is the problem

"these characters should not be idolized, based on the game itself" is the commentary

"you don't get it, I can keep idolizing them" is rooted in wilful ignorance. and that's the whole problem!!

commenting on the problem resulted in more people outing themselves as having the problem. develop media literacy, please.

a character does revenge because the character is bad and not worth idolizing, stop misreading the work lol.

and no, random guy, the game doesn't need to have ellie state "revenge is wrong," it accomplishes that with the brutal fight at the end of the game where ellie's performance makes it clear _without_ stating it that she's finally figured out revenge... bad...

the whole reason that ellie is _alone with the guitar at the end and hilariously can't play because she's missing a finger due to the revenge she tried to do_ is stating that to you! the game doesn't need to _state_ this!!!!

in conclusion, this is what I think of the people who say this is the best gaming has to offer and people who don't like it "just didn't get it"

congrats on loving boss baby, im going to go watch veggie tales now

Also it's really really funny to me that Ellie murdered a pregnant woman and her child and we're wishing her a happy mother's day