History VideoGame / TheLastOfUsPartII

* AnAesop:
** Sometimes the best thing to do in a bad situation is [[spoiler:to [[KnowWhenToFoldEm just walk away]]; the cycle of revenge can only end with you. Letting go does not mean you should forgive your enemy, it means you should save yourself from further pain and loss. The road of revenge will rip away everyone close to you until it will be all you have--a life of hollow, empty violence]].
*** [[spoiler:Abby]] realizes that [[spoiler:killing Joel didn't bring her the catharsis she craved. As the guilt starts to consume her, her views are challenged when she is saved by a pair of ex-Seraphites. This inspires Abby, at Lev's insistence, to choose mercy and let Ellie and Dina leave Seattle with their lives.]]
*** Ellie, on the other hand, [[spoiler:can't let it go, even months later, after she and Dina have settled into a normal life with the baby. She goes to California to chase Abby down, even when Dina tells her she's not going to wait around on her and may not be there when she gets back]]. It's not until [[spoiler:she and Abby have their final fight that she realizes that she cannot go through with killing Abby. In the end, it is possible that she lost everything in the pursuit of revenge, but she has regained her self-esteem]].
** A further aesop is that love can motivate in many ways: [[ThePowerOfLove positively]] and [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge negatively.]] Just about every character and faction in the story acts in the defense of someone or something they love. Ellie goes after the WLF [[spoiler: to avenge Joel, having earned years of SurvivorsGuilt from learning what he did to save her life from the Fireflies]], while Abby [[spoiler: tries to save Yara and Lev because she comes to care for them]]. The WLF act in defense of their way of life (symbolized by their massive compound) while the Seraphites do the exact same, and [[spoiler: even the Rattlers are just trying to eke out a minor existence in California]]. However, in almost every case, this love is twisted and is used to justify further atrocities. In the end, [[spoiler: LoveRedeems for Abby and she pulls a HeelFaceTurn towards Lev, while Ellie learns to own up to her guilt and stop trying to use Abby as an outlet for it. While Ellie does not forgive Abby, she does end her attempts at revenge after losing her pinky and ring finger after fighting Abby for the final time; this symbolizes how much Ellie has lost in her dogged pursuit of vengeance, since those two fingers are required to play the guitar properly--something Joel taught her to do, and her last real link to him.]]
** [[FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse There are no excuses for murder and brutality]]--it's understandable [[RevengeIsNotJustice why revenge can be so tempting and seductive but it's not a valid form of justice under any pretence]]. While Abby's friends understand [[spoiler:why she wanted Joel dead]], they draw the line when she tries to use what happened to her as an excuse for her sadism and general unpleasantness. When she and Owen have an argument, he calls her out about it, saying that [[spoiler:he lost his family too and he never once thought about acting as she does]]. He does still love her to an extent, but he's moved on to Mel because of it. It's not until Abby meets Lev, who keeps his chin up despite the Seraphites treating him like utter shit, that she comes to realize she's been using [[spoiler:her dad's death]] as an excuse for her own atrocities.
** Being the lesser of two evils is never a good justification for who you are and is, in fact, a very poor argument to make for why you do certain things.
*** [[spoiler: Throughout the game, Abby's main argument why she's so angry and hate-filled is that Joel Miller killed her father. She uses this argument to justify her own atrocities and behaviour because as long as Joel exists (alive or dead), he'll always be worse than her for killing her father. So when Ellie kills all of Abby's friends and confronts her, Abby calls her out on wasting Abby's mercy in sparing her and refuses to accept that she ruined one family to avenge her own.]]
*** [[spoiler: In the same vein, Owen convinced everyone to spare Ellie and Tommy because he refuses to be worse than Joel by killing two innocent people. However, Owen's clemency triggers the deaths of everyone but Abby because Ellie didn't know the context of Joel's murder and believed they killed him for no reason.]]

* AnAesop:
** Sometimes the best thing to do in a bad situation is [[spoiler:to [[KnowWhenToFoldEm just walk away]]; the cycle of revenge can only end with you. Letting go does not mean you should forgive your enemy, it means you should save yourself from further pain and loss. The road of revenge will rip away everyone close to you until it will be all you have--a life of hollow, empty violence]].
*** [[spoiler:Abby]] realizes that [[spoiler:killing Joel didn't bring her the catharsis she craved. As the guilt starts to consume her, her views are challenged when she is saved by a pair of ex-Seraphites. This inspires Abby, at Lev's insistence, to choose mercy and let Ellie and Dina leave Seattle with their lives.]]
*** Ellie, on the other hand, [[spoiler:can't let it go, even months later, after she and Dina have settled into a normal life with the baby. She goes to California to chase Abby down, even when Dina tells her she's not going to wait around on her and may not be there when she gets back]]. It's not until [[spoiler:she and Abby have their final fight that she realizes that she cannot go through with killing Abby. In the end, it is possible that she lost everything in the pursuit of revenge, but she has regained her self-esteem]].
** A further aesop is that love can motivate in many ways: [[ThePowerOfLove positively]] and [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge negatively.]] Just about every character and faction in the story acts in the defense of someone or something they love. Ellie goes after the WLF [[spoiler: to avenge Joel, having earned years of SurvivorsGuilt from learning what he did to save her life from the Fireflies]], while Abby [[spoiler: tries to save Yara and Lev because she comes to care for them]]. The WLF act in defense of their way of life (symbolized by their massive compound) while the Seraphites do the exact same, and [[spoiler: even the Rattlers are just trying to eke out a minor existence in California]]. However, in almost every case, this love is twisted and is used to justify further atrocities. In the end, [[spoiler: LoveRedeems for Abby and she pulls a HeelFaceTurn towards Lev, while Ellie learns to own up to her guilt and stop trying to use Abby as an outlet for it. While Ellie does not forgive Abby, she does end her attempts at revenge after losing her pinky and ring finger after fighting Abby for the final time; this symbolizes how much Ellie has lost in her dogged pursuit of vengeance, since those two fingers are required to play the guitar properly--something Joel taught her to do, and her last real link to him.]]
** [[FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse There are no excuses for murder and brutality]]--it's understandable [[RevengeIsNotJustice why revenge can be so tempting and seductive but it's not a valid form of justice under any pretence]]. While Abby's friends understand [[spoiler:why she wanted Joel dead]], they draw the line when she tries to use what happened to her as an excuse for her sadism and general unpleasantness. When she and Owen have an argument, he calls her out about it, saying that [[spoiler:he lost his family too and he never once thought about acting as she does]]. He does still love her to an extent, but he's moved on to Mel because of it. It's not until Abby meets Lev, who keeps his chin up despite the Seraphites treating him like utter shit, that she comes to realize she's been using [[spoiler:her dad's death]] as an excuse for her own atrocities.
** Being the lesser of two evils is never a good justification for who you are and is, in fact, a very poor argument to make for why you do certain things.
*** [[spoiler: Throughout the game, Abby's main argument why she's so angry and hate-filled is that Joel Miller killed her father. She uses this argument to justify her own atrocities and behaviour because as long as Joel exists (alive or dead), he'll always be worse than her for killing her father. So when Ellie kills all of Abby's friends and confronts her, Abby calls her out on wasting Abby's mercy in sparing her and refuses to accept that she ruined one family to avenge her own.]]
*** [[spoiler: In the same vein, Owen convinced everyone to spare Ellie and Tommy because he refuses to be worse than Joel by killing two innocent people. However, Owen's clemency triggers the deaths of everyone but Abby because Ellie didn't know the context of Joel's murder and believed they killed him for no reason.]]

** At least three Seraphite [[GiantMook Brutes]] armed with [[DropTheHammer massive sledgehammers]] must be killed to proceed. [[spoiler:Ellie has her full arsenal at her disposal, while Abby only has [[FisticuffsBoss her fists]].]]

* DropTheHammer: Hammers, of both the carpenter's and sledge types, are a weapon of choice of sorts among the Seraphites, as they're sneaky fighters and technological Luddites. Ellie can use them as melee weapons, and one was used in the fight between Yara, Lev, Abby, and the Seraphites in one of the trailers.

* BrokenAesop: The game has the messages that violence isn't always the answer and revenge sometimes just becomes a cycle of violence and further revenge and can even destroy everyone you love, with an attempt to call players out on their treating death as nothing by making the death animations very brutal and giving every character a name. There are three problems with this, however:
** One: The game often gives you no choice but to kill [[BlamedForBeingRailroaded and will continue to call you out on it]], even if [[PacifistRun you avoid violence as much as the game will allow]]. Furthermore, although some wounded enemies [[VillainsWantMercy will beg and plead for mercy]], if you do decide to spare them then as soon as you turn your back and try to walk away, [[ISurrenderSuckers they'll get up and attack you anyway]].
** Two: Much of your killing/violence is in self-defense against those who have actively done worse things than you (like the Wolves, who kill anyone who happens upon them, danger or not).
** Three: Inconsistency of character reactions to killing and death. This one depends on the character.
*** Ellie avoids it. Each successive chapter, which if the game is played according to the typical gamer's behavior, has her violently killing swathes of Wolves and Seraphites, mostly in self-defense, and at times killing one of [[spoiler: Joel's murderers]]. This brings her nothing but agony. She's in a downward spiral psychologically and emotionally, being torn apart by what she's doing, as a real and truly decent, and traumatized, person would be in a world where ThereAreNoTherapists. It culminates in her killing [[spoiler: Owen and Mel when they try to fight against her, forcing her to kill them both...and she realizes to her horror that Mel was pregnant]], an act that she believes she can't come back from, and right after decides that revenge may not be worth it. Although she later continues her revenge, she initially rebuffs Tommy's encouragement to do so [[ToxicFriendInfluence until he guilt-trips her]]. The narrative treats her as being wrong for this: [[spoiler: She ends up losing basically everything that matters to her by the story's conclusion, and this is treated as being a result of her lust for revenge, which she doesn't really have.]]
*** Abby doesn't avoid it. Her character's ascent from HateSink begins when [[spoiler: she becomes playable, and it's clear through her dreams that killing Joel brought her nothing.]] The guilt from this subtly eats at her, encouraging her to try and find redemption by helping Yara and Lev escape the Seraphites. This is fine, but the problem starts when she's in active combat against Seraphites, wiping out swathes of them in the same way Ellie killed numerous Wolves. [[spoiler: Eventually, the Wolves, which she was part of for four years, betray her, forcing her to kill them.]] At no point does Abby express any [[AMillionIsAStatistic emotional turmoil or trauma over the deaths of these people]]. She's entirely unaffected by the massive amount of killing she does, flying in the face of the anti-violence aesop of the game. It gets worse when [[spoiler: she discovers Mel and Owen's bodies, and tracks Ellie down to her hideout, where she kills Jesse, beats everyone up, and gets ready to gleefully kill the pregnant Dina. The only reason she doesn't is ''not'' out of morality or guilt, but because of Lev's abject horror seeing that she was about to knowingly murder a pregnant woman.]] The narrative treats her as being right for this: [[spoiler: Abby is allowed to have these outbursts with little consequence, to the point of even getting inadvertently rescued from the Rattlers by Ellie in the end.]]
** Four: Despite the game’s message about how your enemies are people too and that every life is precious, almost every faction is borderline cartoonishly evil so you don’t feel bad about gunning down their [[{{Mook}} mooks]] en masse and there are several characters, up to and including [[spoiler: some of Abby’s friends, the people the game condemns Ellie for hunting down,]] whose violent and painful deaths are meant to be cathartic.