The Last of Us 2 - SPOILERS!!!

mutley18

Why are they called 'Rattlers'? I never heard that name mentioned in game, I must have missed it. Although to be honest the last quarter dragged for me so I was probably just blazing through. The same goes for the Rat King, where did that name originate?

J. Marston

They were just fodder for the final stretch, zero effort went into them.

It was like "Here, kill these guys. They do slavery and crucifixions and make quips when they capture people."

https://ew.com/tv/hbo-the-last-of-us-tv-series-director/

Johan Renck confirmed as director for Pilot

Grumpypants

mutley18 wrote: »

Why are they called 'Rattlers'? I never heard that name mentioned in game, I must have missed it. Although to be honest the last quarter dragged for me so I was probably just blazing through. The same goes for the Rat King, where did that name originate?

It was a new area so no one had come across them previously. While they felt tacked on, that section was one of the more fun bits as you could make more use of the environment. Like unchaining the clickers and then watching as the unsuspecting rattlers came along making loads of noise and got eaten.

J. Marston

I think they wanted to encourage the player to rampage through that part to emphasise Ellie's bloodlust.

Ammo felt more plentiful despite playing on hard and they were just evil goons.

KerranJast

mutley18 wrote: »

Why are they called 'Rattlers'? I never heard that name mentioned in game, I must have missed it. Although to be honest the last quarter dragged for me so I was probably just blazing through. The same goes for the Rat King, where did that name originate?

There's a gang tag on the wall early on in Santa Barbara featuring rattlesnakes.

The Rat King is a real phenomenon supposedly. Don't wiki it if you've a phobia of rodents.

Was mentioned as a old tale in Game of Thrones too afair

J. Marston

If outrage and more importantly money wasn't a factor I think the right way to have done it would be to have given Abby her own standalone game that ran parallel, more or less, to TLOU. Let people get fully invested in her. Have her Dad show some flaws instead of being this super guy who is a great Dad, helps animals and wants to save the world. He is far too saccharine for the world of TLOU.

Then have the TLOU3 be the revenge stories. But this is just fantasy booking.

But one can argue he's not a super guy. He was willing to kill a 14 year old girl.
It depends on how you interpret it. Each to there own.

The Raging Bile Duct

J. Marston wrote: »

If outrage and more importantly money wasn't a factor I think the right way to have done it would be to have given Abby her own standalone game that ran parallel, more or less, to TLOU. Let people get fully invested in her. Have her Dad show some flaws instead of being this super guy who is a great Dad, helps animals and wants to save the world. He is far too saccharine for the world of TLOU.

Then have the TLOU3 be the revenge stories. But this is just fantasy booking.

You're only seeing her dad through her memories of him. You're not really going to get to see any of his flaws in that context.

Zero-Cool

Yeah, I think Jerry was a bit too quick to the whole "Open her up, no other way" to be deemed a saint. It sounded like Fireflies got Ellie and Joel, message sent to Jerry to come quick and then Marlene and Jerry arguing over what was needed. This all seemed to happen within the same day but surely there were more extensive tests that could have been done. I dunno, but people are getting hung up on the Zebra scene as a forceful way to make you like Jerry and Abby. ND had to do something to show their human side which worked fine for me but anyone with a wall up to anything anti Ellie and Joel is gonna see it as a sneaky trick by ND.

gimli2112

It didn't matter what the scene was, whatever instrument ND used to try and get you to sympathise with her was not going to be accepted by many. The Zebras are the unfortunates caught in the crossfire.
I've never associated the doctor with a human, he was just the thing trying to kill Ellie. 2 didn't change my mind, the neanderthal that I am.

Zero-Cool

The thing about it is, if I were to play 1 again, as soon as I stepped into that surgery theater, I'd be roaring "f*ck you Jerrrryyyyyy" as I mowed everyone down.

Retr0gamer

Zero-Cool wrote: »

Yeah, I think Jerry was a bit too quick to the whole "Open her up, no other way" to be deemed a saint. It sounded like Fireflies got Ellie and Joel, message sent to Jerry to come quick and then Marlene and Jerry arguing over what was needed. This all seemed to happen within the same day but surely there were more extensive tests that could have been done. I dunno, but people are getting hung up on the Zebra scene as a forceful way to make you like Jerry and Abby. ND had to do something to show their human side which worked fine for me but anyone with a wall up to anything anti Ellie and Joel is gonna see it as a sneaky trick by ND.

Science was never Last of Us's strong point. As a scientist so much annoys me about the world from 'blind' clickers that use sonar.... meaning they aren't blind to why you would ever need brain tissue to create a vaccine considering the brain is kept completely separate from the immune system.

But then don't let science get in the way of a good yarn. After all I'm some one that cringes when I see Sigorney Weaver's supposed scientist in Avatar ruin a perfectly good autopipette.

Zero-Cool

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Science was never Last of Us's strong point. As a scientist so much annoys me about the world from 'blind' clickers that use sonar.... meaning they aren't blind to why you would ever need brain tissue to create a vaccine considering the brain is kept completely separate from the immune system.

But then don't let science get in the way of a good yarn. After all I'm some one that cringes when I see Sigorney Weaver's supposed scientist in Avatar ruin a perfectly good autopipette.

I was actually gonna type in my last post that I wished ND would have shown more in Jerry's thought process on such a quick decision but I'm fairly certain ND don't have a clue so there's no point even thinking about it

gimli2112

Enjoying videogames in blissful ignorance is one advantage of not being as smart as a scientist. The Matrix must have been a tough watch. "These are not the laws of physics!"

Leroy42

Zero-Cool wrote: »

I was actually gonna type in my last post that I wished ND would have shown more in Jerry's thought process on such a quick decision but I'm fairly certain ND don't have a clue so there's no point even thinking about it

I thought they showed enough. Clearly he felt (putting the actual real science aside for a moment) that this was the right thing to do. It was 20 years since the outbreak, the fireflies themselves were being wiped out and things were looking pretty grim.

It is unfair to judge his decision based on normal practice (ie extensive testing, trials etc). One can assume that 20 years before, and it was mentioned in TLOU, that a vaccine was looked for but never found. Billions of people died from the outbreak and the result.

SO here they are faced with a miracle. I girl that appears to be completely immune, the first and only instance that has ever happened. Ability to fully test are no longer available, they are working off generators and the most basic of medical supplies.

It is not too much of a stretch that since they thought that Ellie had died, or otherwise been lost, whilst treking across America with Joel (Marlene muses that she wasn't as badly injured as she first thought and that she could have done it herself - which implies she thought Ellie had disappeared) that given this second chance they were not going to take any chances.

Jerry knoew it was, at best questionable, but given their panic and desperate and I see why they choose the route they did.

To Jerry, Ellie was a sacrifice worth making, to stop the seemingly endless plague that was never going to stop.

The plague had wiped out every military, government, laid waste to billions and left the remaining parts of the world destroyed and deathtraps.

Retr0gamer

gimli2112 wrote: »

Enjoying videogames in blissful ignorance is one advantage of not being as smart as a scientist. The Matrix must have been a tough watch. "These are not the laws of physics!"

Matrix was grand as the actual matrix wasn't set in the real world. Morpheus said there were rules but rules were made to be broken and that was all I needed to suspend my disbelief and sit back and watch the mayhem.

Retr0gamer

Desperate times call for desperate measures. (Backed up by scientific process and peer review of course)

This is where the moral dilemma comes into play for me. Do you sacrifice the life of one 14 year old girl for a shot at saving humanity or do we really have the right to take persons life away. They never asked her if she was willing to go through with it and even if she said yes could a 14 year old even make that decision knowingly with their full life ahead of them.

It's why for me Joel's decision was Sophie's Choice. Let her die or save her. Both are ****ty choices. Neither right or wrong. What makes Joel a bad person is he made his choice for selfish reasons and killed people that didn't need to be killed to see it through.

So for me it's morally grey and not the gimli2112 black and white world :pac:

Mango Joe

Scared to read any of this thread as not finished this amazing game yet.

But just wanted to drop in here that the song playing in the Aquarium when Abbey seeks out Owen that time is Mark Lanegan - The Winding Sheet.

Love that song and the way it was used so atmospherically in the game & it is of course a Seattle tie-in with Mark Lanegan's band Screaming Trees having been the first Seattle grunge band.

Just thought people might be curious about the song & have trouble tracing it back or whatever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Winding_Sheet

Jordan 199

Niko and Roman Bellic would be excellent lead characters for The Last of Us 3. More to follow...

al87987

I never gave the Zebra moment or any of the dogs I killed a second thought, surprised so may people do when you're mowing down people in the hundreds.

Ellie is a mass murderer the same as everyone else, in TLOU world you grow up quickly or not at all, it's not the same as a 14 year old in the real world.

Main thing for me though would be that Joel took away hope of a cure from the world with his decision just so he could have another few months/years with her. Hell, Ellie could have died in 6 months and they could return with her body to start looking for a cure but by killing the doctor he removes any hope for humanity going forward.

Retr0gamer

al87987 wrote: »

Hell, Ellie could have died in 6 months and they could return with her body to start looking for a cure but by killing the doctor he removes any hope for humanity going forward.

[sciencenerdmode]Her dead body would be useless for creating a vaccine.[/sciencenerdmode]

KerranJast

Zero-Cool wrote: »

I dunno, but people are getting hung up on the Zebra scene as a forceful way to make you like Jerry and Abby. ND had to do something to show their human side which worked fine for me but anyone with a wall up to anything anti Ellie and Joel is gonna see it as a sneaky trick by ND.

Exactly. Think back to the first game.

If they jumped straight into the game with say an intro reel showing news footage or something, you'd think Joel was an awful scumbag for most of the game.

The brilliance of the intro is it shows pre-outbreak there was a decent guy there somewhere and the tragedy of outbreak day and the subsequent (20?) years has destroyed his soul.

Ellie is the spark that brings him back to his humanity.

Abbey goes through a very similar progression in TLOU2 with Lev as her Ellie.

gimli2112

I was watching a tribute to Joel on Youtube today, I'm still on the road to recovery, and saw the scene where he tortures the two cannibals after waking up to find Ellie gone. That was the scene that probably affected me most, more so than Sarah. It was my first realisation what a bad ass Joel was. There were some indications prior to this (body count notwithstanding) but that was the first time I understood how far he'd go.

That was pretty late in the game. Up to that point I was looking at him as the typical hollywood hero, Drake like character.

Grumpypants

I think you might need a Joel support group

gimli2112

I haven't felt like this since Aeris in 97. I generally don't get caught up in a videogame story. TLOU wrecked me.

Zero-Cool

Neil pointed something out in the official podcast about the first game. In the first 10 minutes of the game when they are driving away from their house, they pass a family in need and Joel is urged to help them and he doesn't think twice about ignoring them. You could see it as him prioritising his daughters safety (as i always saw it) but Neil said they wanted to plant the idea very early on that Joel isn't a saint out to help everyone and that was before Sarah dies. Found it interesting.

gimli2112

Don't pick up hitchikers during a zombie apocalypse. Survival 101 Zero.
Yeah but I see what ND was trying to do.

Zero-Cool

gimli2112 wrote: »

Don't pick up hitchikers during a zombie apocalypse. Survival 101 Zero.
Yeah but I see what ND was trying to do.

OMG Joel was the bad guy all along!!

Joel is still the man and i would have done exactly what he did. Like he says.... "If i had a 2nd chance at that moment....I would do it all over again".

Zero-Cool

gimli2112 wrote: »

Don't pick up hitchikers during a zombie apocalypse. Survival 101 Zero.
Yeah but I see what ND was trying to do.

OMG Joel was the bad guy all along!!

Joel is still the man and i would have done exactly what he did. Like he says.... "If i had a 2nd chance at that moment....I would do it all over again".