Same.

At least they should, because in some the zombies are the setting and the fact they exist build up a dimension 2d characters..

I think the presence of the zombies also represent the further deterioration that awaits people in this world

@@LuisSierra42 It can if that's what the creator chooses it to mean. Zombies are a great blank slate to explore themes, like with Romero and mindless consumerism.

This doesn't really apply here since most safe locations are stationary ones. The QZs are safe. Bill had a safe village. Characters are usually in most danger when they get out of their safe zones. Zombies in TLOU don't force people to move, they force people to stay.

You nailed it. They don't really improve as people like it seems on the surface, they grow into their dark side more.

Ellie's life meaning is a lie as well, though. Marlene only saw the value in Ellie once she served a purpose as far as we can tell. That's not how things work. There is no chosen one, and that's not how you live a life or die by becoming some sort of martyr. I have the broad strokes of part two's story, but as I understand it, Ellie has yet to actually find a meaningful purpose to go on. Joel saw value in who Ellie was as a person. Because things like that take work. Joel may have lied about things, but it's still with the best intentions that a relatively broken man can do.

@@sunphoenix1231 Yup. Joel did nothing wrong. The fireflies robbed Ellie of a choice - To give her consent for them to take her life. They made it clear waking her up to ask was not an option. Joel did the only correct thing in that situation, which was save Ellie. They robbed her of a choice. It's impossible to give her back that choice with the decisions made by the Fireflies. So then the question is, do you make a 14 year old girl shoulder that weight or do you lie to her so that she can start again?

@Clocked I don't think there's really any right way to the situation. There's no path without some pain because it's one of those things that isn't going to be okay. Like a lot of trauma learning to live with things that happened is largely all you can do. Being honest or trying to spare someone's feelings aren't always going to be the right answer for one or the other.

“At the cost of ellie’s life’s meaning” oof That hurt.

When HBO runs out of budget for real zombies lol

You were wrong it turns out we were the zombie all along

Zombies are not the threat. The uninfected are.

Well yeah, literally, most of them end up bitten lol

Rip Tess

Also in the Last of Us the infected are given reasons why they sometime do survive for long periods unlike other zombie shows where the zombies are decaying, and it makes no sense how they can even walk about with all the lost bodily tissue and whatnot. In TLoU the infected overtime are made stronger by the fungus.

In the video games they make it very clear that if you lock an infected person in a room with no resources for 15+ years there's like a 50/50 chance that they'll turn into the most powerful enemy in that first game; a "bloater" a massive eight foot tall overpowered monster who throws acid boils and can rip your face off your skull with its bare hands. So like... no. I'm not sure where you got this from, especially since we see a bloater in the show, and it's similarly implied to have been locked away for most of that time.

Yeah, but shame they didn't address it more in the show. If non gamer watch the series, they seriously doesn't know what is a clicker & a bloater.. how runner turn to that form. It's...just there for cameo. I understand it's a story driven show, but having a show about world collapsing from a deadly viruses but never really show how dangerous the viruses are really is dumb decisions.

One winter 🥶 in Canada alone would kill many many infected form the cold alone, you got any idea how many times it gets below zero here? Many infected would get frost bite at. And lots of community’s are isolated with rivers mountains & valleys that would be advantageous to survival here. Not to mention the other nations with freezing cold winters like Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Ireland 🇮🇪 Finland, Sweden 🇸🇪, Norway 🇳🇴 and Russia I imagine many community’s would be ok.

@@futurestoryteller >in the video game >video game >game So … we’re talking about the TV _show_ … The comment is comparing TV shows to _other_ TV shows with an infection that ends the world in some shape or manner. If we were talking about the genre of games, then yeah, your comment would apply, but we’re not. Not even the TV show took the game’s lore literal (ie: no spores), so what happens in the game with the infected and how long they can last is meaningless as the show has already crafted its own lore and narratives with it. You were condescending as hell in your comment, so you could at least pay attention to what everyone is talking about first before trying to make others feel dumb for their opinions.

I don't think so. A lot of these comments are so pessimistic. Bills' story was really optimistic by comparison by finding meaning in the relationships that you form. Not everything is going to work out for the best, but those are the things that matter. I think despite everything, it isn't necessity, but the relationships that gave meaning to Joel. At this point, Ellie is all he has, and someone treating her like an object isn't going to make things better. The relationship is what matters.

@@sunphoenix1231 That's a great point! I was speaking in terms of the structure of the story around that theme of deterioration, but the characters (and anyone in the real world) wouldn't be waxing about the outward significance of their relationship. They'd just be there for each other.

Exactly.

In a platonic way this reminds me of Homura and Madoka's story since in the end she has to keep Madoka trapped in this illusion for her to be happy

The most desperately missed element from the game in the series was the lighting in my opinion. The lighting of the game was superb. I could see every grain of dust or pollen or spore floating and reflecting light. The game had so many golden hour moments. The seasons never really had a firm foothold in the series. I felt the summer rain in the game, I just felt cold in the series. The afternoon light that would stream through windows was missing in the series. The lighting in the game was perhaps the greatest production strength of the game, and it's presentation was as beautiful as a Rembrandt. The series was just boring - lighting wise. And the lack of infected made the decision for Joel to save Ellie at the end - an easy one. Nothing too controversial about saving a girl's life when the dr. was too young to be out of med school when the pandemic started, and there's so few infected that one could start a town like Tommy's. And the infected keep the population of raiders and slavers down. So yeah, it's a no-brainer NOT to find a vaccine - and to let the human race go one the way it is.

I remember what Marlene said to Joel, as he was taking her from the Fireflies. And she was right; he couldn't protect her, and she didn't get her happy ending after all. One can't talk about the story in its wholeness without also including the sequel, regardless of how one feels about it.

See, the thing that bothers me about that first point though: Her life ISN'T meaningless if she doesn't die for others' benefit! She's a severely traumatized and survivor's guilt ridden child who's been convinced by someone who can only see her as a walking potential cure that her existence is pointless if she can't be the cure. And that's WRONG. She does not deserve to feel that way. Joel's saving her also saved himself in the process, without a doubt, but she wouldn't *be* his world, and the person who gave him light again, if he didn't inherently know how much she matters as her own person and not just the mutated fungus in her brain. It's not *just* deeply human and sympathetic that he saved her; it's morally right, and as much an act of selfless love as it was to preserve himself. However, what does make the ending so conflicting and heartbreaking - what is unambiguously selfish on Joel's part - is his lying to her about it. THAT is why everything in this video still applies and resonates; it was in THAT moment that his desperate need for the connection he had built with her won out over her right to know the truth so that she *could* , someday once she's had the chance to work through her trauma and find the value in her life on its own terms, make the choice for herself about if she still wants to gift it to the world. But instead of allowing her to have the emotions she would need to have in the meantime to get there, even if that meant her being furious with him for a while, he held on too tight and in doing so broke her trust in a way that might not ever be able to be rebuilt.

Exactly, that's why I don't feel like ppl should act like this ending is triumphant- it's obvious that Ellie is almost a shell of herself while Joel has this new energy bc Ellie's lost her sense of purpose and meaning while Joel gained his again. And it's unfair to Ellie bc she has no way to get closure or even move on bc she doesn't know what she could've done to create a cure, specifically bc Joel lied and she can tell. She established a relationship with him built on trust, but now that he's broken that trust, she feels trapped and has nowhere to turn.

@@stephaniel2850 I'm not saying that her death will give her life meaning. Just saying that that's what Ellie thinks. And I do think it sucks that she feels that way. Cuz there's so much value in her life. In her just being a normal kid. While I first played through the game, I didn't want her to die cuz I felt like she's just a child who hasn't even had a shit at normal life yet.

The one point I disagree with is that this is a happy ending for both Joel and Ellie. The great tragedy of this story, for me, is that Joel and Ellie's happy endings are mutually exclusive. Either Ellie fulfills her life's purpose and justifies all of the pain that led up to that moment, but Joel loses another daughter, the thing that gives his life meaning, or Joel fulfills his life's purpose and protects his daughter who gave him a second chance at human connection but Ellie loses any chance at the cure, the thing that gives her life meaning. Only one of them gets a happy ending. I think a lesser story would flip Joel's character at the last moment so that he does the "right thing" and prioritizes Ellie's happy ending over his own. But Last of Us isn't a lesser story. It understands that there is no world where Joel would make that choice, because everything we have seen from him shows him to be a man consumed by the fear of loss. That man would NEVER choose anything that would realize his greatest fears, even at the expense of everyone else in the world.

Not only that, they never asked Ellie. There was no consent. There was no grace period for Joel to see Ellie. There was nothing the FFs give to even have a moment. There were so up in their heads about a cure, that they disregarded the fact that Ellie is a child and Joel went through hell and back with her.

@@smolmei3394 plus, they didn’t even run any tests and such.. so operating without anything like that is definitely a big risk and they might kill her and not even find a cure

I agree. Killing Ellie is a moral obscenity and cannot be accepted. Joel does the right thing.

@@TheGJgaming07 WOULD, no might about it. They would have had to DISSECT her brain to get what they were looking for.

the dude was insane and I don't even consider him to be a doctor since its unethical to kill your specimen just to find a cure plus killing ellie is the worst decision ever made I'm seriously questioning if that guy really graduated med school considering he always bring his diploma with him in the game

They're monsters that turn you into one of their kind if you get bitten. That's basically a zombie. Edit: Christ you guys are analretentive...

@@jordanloux3883 You can argue zombie-like features that share similarities maybe, like mindlessness, but because these are actually fungi, they are a hive mind and as seen are able to make decisions or give command / instructions to the the hive. There’s multiple levels of mutations with these creatures too. You can đây they’re both have a need to continuously feed, but they don’t. The fungi just looks for new host to spread the hive. They don’t need feed, as seen in episode 2 at the end. They’re just there speeding up the mutations of a human being completely controlled by the host (fungi) and assimilate. Assimilation is something zombies don’t do either, as they’re zombies are completely mindless. Etc.

​@@jordanloux3883 Werewolf and Vampires are actually zombies. Got it.

@@kodekorp2064 these are zombies. reacting to external stimuli does NOT equal intelligence. zombies are creatures which are generally "dead" that 1. Attack and eat Humans. 2. group up in swarms, which is their largest threat factor. 3. completely lacking in self preservation. 4. the ability to add any person killed or bitten to their numbers. TLOU zombies are basically fast zombies with a few extra quirks. A zombie getting killed and then the fungus attracting other zombies to its location using stimuli. it is on some level a hive mind, but you could apply that same definition to normal zombies as well, as they all act the same, ect. A hive mind (at least one where the minds are connected and its intelligent) would strategize based on what one individual saw, and would also have WAY superior of an advantage when it comes to information gathering and transfer, as a hive mind (at least some interpretations of one) is basically one individual in many bodies. and so on and so on. @Pintolerance Werewolves and vampires have self preservation, as well as some of the points I sad above.

Their zombies

yeah agree they survive the infected long enough to start communities but the real threat is the people with theyre own selfish agenda just like how Joel becomes that person at the end for his own selfish gain

I agree. I think it was the pandemic that made me realize that people will use the crisis situation for their own gain. When people where mass buying facemasks and disinfecting gels, so they could sell them for 10 times the regular price because it was sold out everywhere. In The Last of Us the people are far more scarier and far more deadly than zombies. Zombies are just the setting, not the story itself.

Yeah, but shame they didn't address it more in the show. If non gamer watch the series, they seriously doesn't know what is a clicker & a bloater.. how runner turn to that form. It's...just there for cameo. I understand it's a story driven show, but having a show about world collapsing from a deadly viruses but never really show how dangerous the viruses are really is dumb decisions.

That is a ridiculous conclusion. You can say that for any cut scene in any game. The infected weren't obstacles unless someone needed to get killed off. It was a plot contrivance. There was no balance regardless and they didn't acknowledge in the show whatsoever. Those are issues ppl have to worry about regardless. They 100% wouldn't have treated the world for this if they weren't scared of being piled with the heaps of zombie shows/movies over the last 20 years

The gameplay is most definitely part of the story, not just the cutscenes, because that is the medium you are working with. The problem is in the translation to a different medium (TV). Yes, you don't want the show to be entirely about them hiding from or killing infected, that would be boring after a while and take away from the scariness that we should feel towards them, it goes with the medium. At first I praised the show for doing this after ep5. But then they went totally opposite. They needed to occasionally remind us WHY all this drama was going on with showing/encountering the infected. Otherwise, they rest of the story becomes a heavy handed drama without context to nest it in.

What’s arcane

@@GuinessOriginal Arcane is a Netflix show that is loosely based on league of legends but has incredible characters and plot

​@@ethantopdog10 it's so good and I've been waiting too.

@@ethantopdog10 what’s league of legends?

​@@GuinessOriginal it's an online game with characters and their backstories, would recommend you to not play it though.

Marlene took any choice away, Joel never had a chance to let Ellie choose for herself.

something will ignite in her heart

She'll find her own Ellie. And she'll have much the same journy as Joel. But in the end, she will choose the other option. The one Joel didn't choose. It'll be a bit different. And i think it will end with a more possitive outcome. But Ellie got to pass on the choice she wanted. But she'll see the value in what Joel did. Because what he did is why she could be there to give someone else a choice. Someone who would not have a choice if she wasn't there.

It doesn't matter, because they ruined her in part too. They turned her into an irredeemable monster who has a inexplicable change of heart far too late in the story. All to present a sophomoric theme of "who really IS good or bad in this world?". According to nihilist Druckman, nobody is. I agree good people are driven to make bad choices, that was done well in the first game. The second presents a world where nobody would bother fighting to stay alive, because there is nothing (morally) worth fighting for, just a bunch of completely self serving and psychopathic characters that constantly defy their own logic.

You do realise the show had the best storyline for a video game adaptation and they actually made it worse for the show

@@jordyhitty you just earned your name with this reply :D

Agreed.

@@theindigotree Yep schnee makes amazing content!

Been thinking the same thing 😂

I think it's worse than that. This show removed the spores being a problem, that coupled with the lack of zombie interaction makes the world feel much safer than the game's version and I think it makes the desperation for a cure in the show feel false.

glad to hear it! :D

Yeah. The show adaptation really takes away from the ‘desperation’ sense of the choice. When this happened in game, there was so much discussion online about if Joel did the right thing, because in the game we get to truly see the destruction of the zombies and why people have become who they are. It made many second guess Joel’s decision (after the initial hoorays of saving Ellie wore off of course).

@@Emma.S. yup there was no infected Threat in this show, in the Game you actually saw why the world Fell because the treat of infected was prominent but in the Show it’s like people are bad just Because they felt like it One day so why should Elle die to save a world that has a Low probability of Changing so I’d say in the show Joel made the right Choice while in the Game it’s still up for Debate.

fair enough 😂

I just looked it up. A collective group of ghosts is called a Fraid. 🙄🥴😂

@@MavenCree Now they just need to team up with an army of crows and then it's a fraud with a side of murder.

@@MavenCree I love the fact that I can't just tell if this is real or not

+ its been 20 years

I see one weakness in your analysis btw. David might've needed to become a cannibal, but he did seem to consciously embrace his pedophilia and his threats of violence. He had agency there, and he chose to be evil. All the rest makes sense though!

Just to add to the first point as well, it's really mostly just meaningless action to have ellie and joel constantly fighting the infected. Even if you haven't played the game it's pretty obvius joel won't get bitten and ellie is imune so her getting bitten doesn't really matter. The constant fighting of infected in the game simply doesn't translate to the medium of television from a story telling perspective.

​@No that's basically what the showrunner said. There wouldn't be much of a story if Joel and Ellie had to fight infected 90 percent of the time.

@@girlsgokawaii Absolutely agree. It felt a little off when I first watched it because I felt something was missing. But after a while it started to make sense. Although as a game designer I wouldn't call it meaningless. Not in the game at least. Because it makes the player struggle and gradually we as a player relate to the struggle of the characters. But as you said, that doesn't translate in the show medium.

@@user-zw6gv3cu9u I meant it would be mostly meaningless in the show not in the games. In hindsight I should've made that clearer haha I also haven't played the game before I watched the show so I didn't really have anything to compare it to.

Powerful👍

Bro is anything but mindless lmao