Support NeoGAF

[Woggleman]

I was under the assumption that Abby was a trans caracter and the moment the game reveals Levs story I had the same feeling. Later found out that Abby was not trans at all but my opinion didnt really change btw. Loved the game and had no problems with the choices but the rainbow street art and waving lgbt flags for example were try hard imo

THere are actually streets in Seattle that look like that.

 

[Bladed Thesis]

You can't have capitalism without racism. -Malcom X

Best meme on this forum in a while.

You are a top level troll, I commend you.

 

[Fbh]

So you not only want the cast to be diverse but they also all have to be good guys, all have to survive and all need a ton of screen time and extensive backstories?

Also what black guy was the main bad guy? The game doesn't even have a main bad guy. I didn't like the story and found it mostly boring but one of the elements that I did at least appreciate is how one of the major themes of the game is that conflict usually isn't a black and white "good guys vs bad guys" affair

I Went to high school with Hispanics and they didn't switch to their language to curse when they were speaking English.

I'm not sure if Neil has ever hung out with a Hispanic person before.

If you went to highschool with them that would imply they have been in America since they were young (maybe even born there) which makes things different.
I live in a Spanish speaking country but my parents are immigrants. I was born here and my sister was 4 when my family moved here, neither of us have an accent nor do we switch languages when cursing.

But my parents who moved here in their 30 definitely do, and even after 30 years they still have an accent and will sometimes swap to their native language when cursing (only when they are genuinely upset or surprised though)

 

[SF Kosmo]

No it's definitely an agenda, I couldn't tell you the last time I interacted with a known homosexual person (4.5% of the population) or the last time I have seen a trans person in real life (0.6% of the population), and I'm in the Seattle area.

So, you're kind of contradicting yourself here. Have you interacted with 20 people? Then one of them was probably gay. Are there 20 name characters in The Last of Us Part 2? Then it's not really weird or distorted that one of them is gay.

And this game expects me to believe Ellie's homsexual relationship, and in conjunction with that her mortal enemy is a protector of a trans female just by happenstance? Right....

I don't see anything remotely improbable about Ellie meeting a bisexual woman in city of hundreds (thousands?). But Abby doesn't meet Lev by happenstance. It's literally the reason they met; because Lev was fleeing a cult. So if our subset is "people fleeing a religious group that is targetting them," gender and sexual minorities seem like a group that would be over-represented, no?

I'm not saying they haven't made deliberate choices to show diverse representation, but they haven't done it in a way that feels improbable, and I'm not sure what "agenda" you could think they'd be trying to accomplish other than making minorities feel more included when they play it. I'm not sure what broader "agenda" could be at work here.

I think some people get very locked into this idea that they're in a culture war, and bristle at anything that might be seen as "against their side," regardless of if they've actually thought that through.

 

[Krappadizzle]

Spoilers obviously.

So is this really what people mean when they say they want more diversity in games?

Meek and diminutive Asians who need to be protected by a buff white woman.

 

[FreedomOfSpeech]

This is what “minorities” are supposed to expect as representaion?

Here's a thought: Don't expect anything.

If you are unhappy with anything, why not make your own thing. Nobody owes you anything.

Race baiting is getting old.

 

[Hawke502]

The best latin american representation I've seen is in The King of Fighters XIV. From white latinos (Leona, Angel, Ramon) to brown (Griffon Mask/Tizoc) to black (Zarina, Nelson) to mixed (Bandeiras is a black descendant of Hattori Hanzo)

Thats cool, i am a white brazilian, my country has the highest amount of japanese living outside japan, we had a great arab influence. South America is diverse, we are not all brown people, although a lot of us are and even then they are misrepresented.

 

[Soleil rouge]

Let me remind you about the SJW's diversity hierarchy and oppressed people's totem pole:

1) White women/Lesbian white women
2) Trans women
3) Black women
4) LGBT
5) Straight black men



100) other POC
101) Asians

SJW's don't actually care about diversity. They mostly care about representing themselves, their colleagues, and getting into positions of power. They are every bit as ignorant on other cultures as they claim racist white men to be (hence the stereotypes and odd portrayal of Asians in this game).

 

[Hawke502]

Let me remind you about the SJW's diversity hierarchy and oppressed people's totem pole:

1) White women/Lesbian white women
2) Trans women
3) Black women
4) LGBT
5) Straight black men



100) other POC
101) Asians

SJW's don't actually care about diversity. They mostly care about representing themselves, their colleagues, and getting into positions of power. They are every bit as ignorant on other cultures as they claim racist white men to be (hence the stereotypes and odd portrayal of Asians in this game).

They fail to portray every culture, honestly, have you ever played shadow of the tomb raider? if yes, you know what i mean, its bad.

 

[Grinchy]

Isn't it also that one of the absolute worst groups in the game is a bunch of white ex-cops or something? If that's true, they really got on the right side of history with that one!

 

[alabtrosMyster]

At the dance with Ellie and Abby making out, someone doesn't like it. An old White guy is the one being discriminatory. Not a female. Not a minority. A White guy. As if prejudice only comes from stodgy old White dudes.

In their mind it does, if someone from a victimized group has a problem with something and lack civility it's all valid because they need to let it out (who would not be upset to be a victim after all?) ... So any kind of mis-behaviour can be excused by ethnic/cultural differences (including rape and murder).

 

[Soleil rouge]

They fail to portray every culture, honestly, have you ever played shadow of the tomb raider? if yes, you know what i mean, its bad.

It's in my backlog.

 

[WellSheet]

I was under the assumption that Abby was a trans caracter and the moment the game reveals Levs story I had the same feeling. Later found out that Abby was not trans at all but my opinion didnt really change btw. Loved the game and had no problems with the choices but the rainbow street art and waving lgbt flags for example were try hard imo

Right. I agree.

I think most of us could agree; make the game you wanna make. Simple as that. The Artist shouldn’t be held back by anything. They should make what they want....

that being said, with the world we live in, it feels hard to really discern between these elements when so much of this has become politicized and used to pander and not genuinely. It feels gross. It feels exploitative; whether to exploit minorities to prove some progressive bonafides or tocram some sense of subjective, but perceived objective, morality down our throats.

that’s what Hollywood has started doing in the last decade or so, at least earnestly. They sit in their ivory towers and preach. The games world is joining them...

 

[mr.dilya]

Good People Die.

Diversity or not. If you want fragile snowflake shit of the POCs coming out on top go watch Black Panther or something. These people exist and in reality they aren't immune to tragedy.

I am not demanding diversity in games, or for non white hero protagonists, I’m saying I don’t want to be patronized by bullshit representations of what some white developer thinks I want to see in a game just because I am a so-called “minority.”

You’re misreading the context of my post. I just want to play good games. But games that would be otherwise enjoyable take a huge hit narrative wise when developers do dumb shit like this to try and cater to an agenda.

 

[Danjin44]

I had my issues with TLOU2 story but it has nothing to do with this whole "agenda" and "SJW" BS that people going crazy outrage over. For one I'm not sure what this game tries to tell me, is it try to tell me revenge is bad? because it worked out for Abby, in fact too well since if Ellie didn't decide to go back take her revenge, Abby probably would have starved to death.

 

[mr.dilya]

TBF, it's not that white folks can't write great stories that happen to have diversity in them. That used to be the norm, in fact. Some of the best stories of all time were written by white people that also have a lot of natural diversity. Star Wars, the Alien franchise, Pulp Fiction, Robocop, Strange Days etc. The problem is that dumb far-leftist white liberal hacks who couldn't even cut it in the Hollywood writing room are writing stories with so-called "diversity" in them for video games.

As you point out, practically every single diverse character in the game is either a stereotype or nothing more than a prop, and most likely associated with the "bad side". I wouldn't have an issue with this if there was good balance in that type of representation. I.e while I'm glad the game actually has some diverse characters who ARE bad guys or make mistakes etc (which is saying a lot considering other supposedly diverse/progressive stories these days are too scared to do such a thing)., it shouldn't be too hard to also have them express some good genuine attributes/values/morals, as well (that don't come off as manipulative or cookie-cutter garden variety).

The problem with TLOU2's writing is that it just doesn't make you give a crap about the vast majority of the new characters, who happen to fall into being the diversity you're describing. Part of the reason is because of how they're introduced (in terms of what side they're on and what act that side commits very early in the game). The other reason is because so much of the damn story is told in flashbacks, it's flashback overload, and not in a good way. It kind of robs some of the ambition of characters in the story's present because of that.

Sometimes I get the feeling the writers who write these kind of stories use the cover of being progressive as a smokescreen to be as ironically "regressive" as possible. Seriously, if this game were published by, say, THQ Nordic and developed by some other developer (let's say CDPR), you know for a fact places like Era would be doing everything in their problem to shame the game for these kinds of representations. And we know they've played through the game, so why have none of them raised these particular concerns?

Because the vast majority of them don't actually care about being progressive. They just care to pretend they do so long as the parties responsible affiliate with their political ideology. Again, the game having diverse characters who fall into what you describe isn't really the issue. It's the fact that we know very little exists to the characters in a genuine way to bring some sense of balance to them. Since Druckmann is the kind of guy who wants to be so "progressive", it's kind of odd he let this type of thing slide, isn't it? Or is he just one of those guys who's very selectively progressive on only one or two things? Which is it, Neil?

You can actually see this in action with Abby and Ellie. And dogs. I think you might know what I'm talking about here, knowing how those two interact with some very specific canines and how the story basically manipulates things in that dynamic to try making Ellie more of a villain (while being out of character) and Abby a kindhearted protagonist (despite her introductory act being outright savage and borderline stereotypical depending on if you view her being trans (she's not actually trans in the story but a lot of people have assumed that of her character)). It's pure, cold disingenuous manipulation.



You're missing the point. I don't think the OP is saying they have an issue with these characters being portrayed as villains or dying. In that sense it's actually doing something a lot of supposedly progressive stories are afraid to do these days.

The issue is that it's oddly ironic this game would do that and rather noticeably so, knowing it's got someone at the helm who has on multiple occasions stated how inclusive, diverse and "progressive" they want to be. Yet you look at these characters and how they're generally portrayed plus how they're handled in the story, and it'd seem to fly in the face of what a guy like Neil would want out of a story he's heading, no?

The game's story overall is something of a giant hot mess and all of these new diverse characters come off the worst for it. That's excusing the story's setting of course. Why is it so hard for these writers to write flawed diverse characters without playing into the same type of supposedly "problematic" and regressive stereotypes they virtue-signal so hard against on places like Twitter and Era? Especially knowing that the story itself doesn't have the chops to add any clever, subtle commentary or satire on these things when it does it?

You'd think some of the hyper-progressive folks would've noticed this and called it out, but AFAIK the only thing they've picked a problem with is supposed deadnaming. So if they're so progressive, aren't they supposed to care for all sorts of "problematic" things? That's one of the core parts of the intersectionality they've built their belief structure off of, after all. Yet the only notable pushback they've had against the game on social media is deadnaming?

Makes you think .......

You should have made this thread man, you put it in words way better than I could. Thank you.

 

[Raven117]

I hear you. All im trying to say is, cant we just play games and not get offended because this person misrepresented this and that person misrepresented that? I honstly didnt get offended by the hispanic last of us character (Forgot his name) and im a latino thats off the boat from south america.

Totally. But the whole capitalism/racism comment was the bomb. (Maybe you were making a joke). Hard to tell on the internet.

 

[SF Kosmo]

someone asked for a BIGOT sandwich?

I don't know what's happening here but I just want to point out there is a regional dish in New Jersey called the "Fat Fellatio" sandwich.

 

[Umbral]

Too much concern for superficial “diversity” and self-imposed quotas. They should have just made a game. They started on the game when this bullshit was starting to peak, but it came out as this type of thinking is now getting pulled apart by people with functioning brains.

 

[brap]

.

 

[SF Kosmo]

Too much concern for superficial “diversity” and self-imposed quotas.

"Too much concern" kind of cuts both ways though. I think there's no winning anymore. People seem hopelessly distracted by counting characters of color, whether they want there to be more or less.

 

[IntentionalPun]

I was under the assumption that Abby was a trans caracter and the moment the game reveals Levs story I had the same feeling. Later found out that Abby was not trans at all but my opinion didnt really change btw. Loved the game and had no problems with the choices but the rainbow street art and waving lgbt flags for example were try hard imo

 

[GymWolf]

What's hilarious is the fact you can somehow deduce people's skin color and origins through avatars

well in his defense my wolf looks pretty caucasian.

 

[Roufianos]

Cuckmann probably wrote the story then created a checklist of minority characters to include, that's the way it seems anyway.

Game has a lot of "representation" without giving any of those characters a real message.

 

[notseqi]

To be honest, if we ignored twitter and personal politics I could probably accept that the characters in the game are just that: characters.
Playing MGS:V as my first MGS game is a bit of a weird one, but it's their world, not mine.
All this talk does not make me want to play TLOUs at all.

Serious Sam had revolvers with way too much ammo, Lara Croft had too big a tit and Wipeout 95 had way too good of a soundtrack to exist. It didn't matter.

This might sound dismissive but I feel as if this forum is reacting to something it wouldn't have to - should outside influences not apply too much pressure for them to handle.
It's certainly something to talk about, but man, is this going around in circles.

 

[RoadHazard]

The main villain is a black character? Who are we talking about? The Wolf leader? Wouldn't really call him the main villain of the game. The game doesn't really HAVE a main villain. That's the point, things aren't black and white. Different people do shitty things for different reasons, which can be justified from their point of view. If anyone is an actual villain I would say it's the Seraphites. They are depicted as pretty much just an insane, evil cult.

Anyway, game was great!

 

[SentientStone]

Diversity w/ Western characteristics.

The thing is that all narratives are subjective experiences, hence you cannot have truly equal representation or perspectives since the framing of the narrative will always be from a certain perspective with its own inherent biases. But it's okay, let's not go on a witch hunt about little things.

 

[SF Kosmo]

Cuckmann probably wrote the story then created a checklist of minority characters to include, that's the way it seems anyway.

Game has a lot of "representation" without giving any of those characters a real message.

I sorta liked that approach though. It gets tiring when minority characters are only included to show minority trauma and suffering.

TLOU2 doesn't wholly avoid that either. In this case Lev's story still falls into that trope and they maybe graze on it with Seth being a bigot to Ellie and Dina, but for the most part the diversity is treated as incidental.

Minority characters shouldn't just be a vehicle for straight white dudes to pontificate on the minority experience.

 

[Yoboman]

It definitely brings light to the historical repression of Asian males as mere sperm dispensers and Mexicans as having accents

 

[kingpotato]

Game was top notch, but could have used a greater diversity of infected types and weapons.

 

[Valonquar]

All the bloaters were POC

 

[joe_zazen]

They need to hire a team of diversity specialists and go on a 6 month intensive.

 

[DForce]

The OP post was cringe af. lol

 

[Danjin44]

I did at least appreciate is how one of the major themes of the game is that conflict usually isn't a black and white "good guys vs bad guys" affair

For me I feel original NieR did far better job with it than this game, and big reason is I didn't feel sorry for anybody in TLOU2 (other than Joel) meanwhile I felt sorry for everyone in Nier Gestalt, neither side was really to blame and it was just down right tragic.

Spoiler

 

[TMLT]

People will never be satisfied which is why bringing identity politics into games is an impossible situation. One side will attack the woke shit while the side that was being catered to will still find something to complain about. In the latters case its mostly because they're fucking batshit crazy and cancel culture is a mindless snowball of people getting a kick out of pretending to be outraged and making people cower and capitulate to their increasingly ridiculous demands.

Gotta say though, on the subject of TLOU2 itself, I didnt hate Abby anywhere near as much as I thought I would going in. Ellie on the other hand is an insufferable twat. She and Dina were the only two characters that I actively disliked, "minority" or otherwise.

 

[DeepEnigma]

You can't have capitalism without racism. -Malcom X

Typed on your racist smart device or computer.

 

[gow3isben]

Asian guy got cucked bad.

Dumped by gf who then promptly turned gay. Lost custody of his child. Unceremoniously shot in the head. I guess ND was trying to erase the progress Glenn made in WD.

Remind me, was he the guy whose eyeball popped out of his socket after he was clubbed to death?

ie cuckman's inspiration for Joel in Part 2

 

[TGO]

There's not that much diversity, I killed Kacey way too many times..

 

[Darth]

TLOU3 better just be here running through the eastern hemisphere, north and south, slaying everybody.

 

[DragoonWalker]

I miss when diversity meant different upbringing, walks of life, personality, philosophy, and world view.
Not mutually exclusive of course, but skin color and gender ain't the end all of "diversity". It's often superficial at best. Universal truths more important.

If the minority character is there to fill some quota but has the same boring ass SJW mary sue personality or is some throwaway minion, I'd much rather relate to some white character whose inner convictions and driving motivations in life align with my own. That is after all, way more important to a good story.

 

[Umbral]

"Too much concern" kind of cuts both ways though. I think there's no winning anymore. People seem hopelessly distracted by counting characters of color, whether they want there to be more or less.

Agreed, but the looney left walked us to this point.

We had lots of “diversity” before, but nobody was really counting because that’s fucked up. The leftists made it ok to do in the name of inclusivity and have done more damage as a result.

 

[vpance]

Remind me, was he the guy whose eyeball popped out of his socket after he was clubbed to death?

ie cuckman's inspiration for Joel in Part 2

Correct

 

[Phunkydiabetic]

So, you're kind of contradicting yourself here. Have you interacted with 20 people? Then one of them was probably gay. Are there 20 name characters in The Last of Us Part 2? Then it's not really weird or distorted that one of them is gay.


I don't see anything remotely improbable about Ellie meeting a bisexual woman in city of hundreds (thousands?). But Abby doesn't meet Lev by happenstance. It's literally the reason they met; because Lev was fleeing a cult. So if our subset is "people fleeing a religious group that is targetting them," gender and sexual minorities seem like a group that would be over-represented, no?

I'm not saying they haven't made deliberate choices to show diverse representation, but they haven't done it in a way that feels improbable, and I'm not sure what "agenda" you could think they'd be trying to accomplish other than making minorities feel more included when they play it. I'm not sure what broader "agenda" could be at work here.

I think some people get very locked into this idea that they're in a culture war, and bristle at anything that might be seen as "against their side," regardless of if they've actually thought that through.

It truly is unhinged behaviour to the max. So much effort and time invested and for what?

 

[anothertech]

"Henceforth, let it be known that only the elderly white man shall be bequeathed the title of villain, from the herenow to the forever and evers, so shall it be written, so shall it be done."

~Virtue Signalling Social Justice Warriors Everywhere

 

[mr.dilya]

You dudes reading my post and inferring that my gripe is that TLOU2 isn’t properly diverse are totally off base.

My point is that forced diversity in games leads to garbage like what I described.

 

[Danjin44]

My point is that forced diversity in games leads to garbage like what I described.

In my opinion thats not the real issue with TLOU2 story, in fact I was less bothered buy Ellie & Dina relationship and more with stupid love triangle between Abby, Owen and Mel.

 

[gow3isben]

Correct

So is that really a good example of a minority who had a successful story arc in media?

 

[DForce]

You dudes reading my post and inferring that my gripe is that TLOU2 isn’t properly diverse are totally off base.

My point is that forced diversity in games leads to garbage like what I described.

It was described badly and it made no sense. lol

It will still be the same story regardless of a character's race. Pointing out how they were meaningless because they die proves nothing.

I bought this up before but the Walking Dead comes to mind. Their push for diversity doesn't change the plot and it will be the same if the cast was full of white characters.

I don't know why people get so upset when a cast doesn't feature a diverse cast or it has too much diversity.

 

[vpance]

So is that really a good example of a minority who had a successful story arc in media?

I think so, for Asian males at least. He died horribly, but at least he got the girl.

 

[rabbity-thing]

Stereotypical Mexican guy with an accent calling people pendejos, because of course, that’s what Mexicans do. Of course he gets killed.

Totally happy with Manny's portrayal. Yes, he curses in Spanish. Surrounded by people cursing in English cause there's a whole lot of cursing in this game. I especially like how Abby and Manny trade banter with her using some Spanish because they are roommates and she is comfortable doing so with him. It's a small thing that says a lot about their relationship. Sure, Manny is a fairly simple character (as are most side characters in the game) but his characterization is handled very well. I think it's quite likely that your interpretation of his character says more about you than it does of TLOU2's "faux diversity."

Also, dude....

Spoiler

like, almost everyone dies. How is that even something to use against his portrayal?