Hello friends, and welcome to the Superhero Ethics Podcast. Today, I'm going
to be talking about the Last of Us Part two video game with Danielle Written
the Star Wars and Professor Matthew Capelle. If you're look curious to do why
we're doing this, it's because I know that the Part two of the show
is going to be coming out. I know that I do not trust the
Internet not to spoil me on the things that happen in the game, which
may or may not happen the show. But there's a good enough possibility that
I knew I wanted to play the game through, and I've done so,
and there's a lot to talk about, and so we're presenting this as if
you want to watch. If you want to either play part two and or
watch season two and not get spoiled, this is probably not for you.
I'd suggest hitting pause then come back. If you've played Part two, great,
If you haven't played Part two and aren't planning to, but you want
to know all about it to kind of get ready for season two, then
this is also for you. Or if you've just in you don't care anything
about this, but you're interested in ethical conundrums and what happens in a post
apocalyptic society. Because in a lot of ways the last US Part two,
the zombies are now just a plot device, and we're just telling a great
story about post apocalyptic revenge and vengeance and family and how it all works.
Then maybe this is the episode for you. We'll we'll find out more right
after this commercial break that we have no control over, but if it's for
any kind of global flower prot you know, like like flower, like making
bread, be careful. Welcome back everyone to Matthew, your host. As
I said all that at the end, Matthew was silently gesturing to himself and
pointing to himself in regard to the flower. I'll point out to Matthew that
this is radio, not visual, but that we will quite possibly be webcasting
pretty soon, in which case that will be awesome. But Matthew, with
all that, let me ask you introduce yourself and who you are and where
you're coming from and what your experience with this game has been. Sure,
you know, just start with the introduction and we'll get to the game.
Sure. I was, by the way, gesturing at my wife, who
stuck her head in the drawer, saying to say, I love you.
So, Oh, it makes a lot more sense now, it doesn't it.
Hi, I'm Matthew Cappelle. I teach at Pace University in Lower Manhattan,
New York. Teach American studies and anthropology and sometimes writing, and I
also edit a book series for a small press, academic press in the United
States on game studies. So at some point there will be a book on
this game. I haven't found a person who's going to do it for me,
and I might have to do it myself. But studies studies in gaming
exists, and you can just google it with my name and you will find
it. And it's about fifty books in it now, on everything from Paul
of Duty to dungeons the dragons. So it's awesome, and one day I
think there should be a Matthew Fox book quite possibly, quite possibly. I
am currently under an NDA about all things Wizard of the Coast given my time
there, but I do I love talking about the ethics of magic the gathering.
I won't say anything about the collection of cards that may or may not
have been sent out improperly, though I was surprised to learn that the Pinkerton's
do quite literally still exist as wizards of the Oh yeah again, I will
talk off air about that one, but yeah no, and I will say
relevant to this as well. A friend of mine is getting ready to start
a D and D campaign, so I was looking through the druid class because
the druids were fun in the recent D and D movie, even if they
didn't properly show what a t fling it looks like, and was reminded that
there are many different, you know, kind of ways to be a druid
in D and D, one of which is the Way of Spores, and
in this you are a druid who has control over fungi and spores and can
do things like at level six reanimate a corpse with fungus. So you know,
if you want to play the Last of Us downe the Dragons, the
rules are right there for you. Danielle tells about about yourself. Yeah,
I'm Danielle written in the Star Wars on TikTok danny s three nine four on
Twitter, and I'm also a PhD researcher at the very end about to be
about to finally officially have that doctor title, So I'll be doctor Danielle.
Very excited for that, and I love the Last of Us, So excited
to talk about it. Nice. Nice, I always love it gathering where
my master's degree in divinity and master's degree in Sociology of Religion is completely outclassed
by all of my guests. So enjoy your academic debt and congrats on all
of that. So awesome to have you both here. And I will start
by saying for those of you who are patrons. At the end of the
last time I had Danielle and Matthew on, which is when we talked about
Star Wars celebration over on the Star Wars Unrouse podcast, I did a little
bonus content where I talked about the Last of Us video game, which I
thought at that point I was about halfway through, and I thought, you
know what, let's just do a little bit here and then well, when
I finished the game another couple more weeks, we'll get you back. Well,
they both, as it's been the running theme, did a very good
job of not spoiling me that I was like, one more big battle scene
away from the end of the game, one more incredibly brutal battle scene away
from the end of the game, but nonetheless, so that's why we have
them back so quick. And I'm I'm really looking forward to this discussion because
I do feel like the last of us. I think it's easy to think
of it as just a zombie to show and game, and to some extent
it is. But to some extent we talked about this sum in our coverage
of season one, but I think even more in this one and here's we're
kind of want to start the discussion. This really felt to me like the
zombies were no longer a major part of the story. They were a way
to build tension, a way to every now and then give you the play
or a chance to press some buttons and kill some things and use some weapons.
But for the most part, the story is now not at all about
the zombies. It's about we're in this post apocalyptic society. There is no
sort of overall, you know, system of law and order injustice, and
you know, we can say if that's a good thing or not. Maybe
it's there's there's some definite advantages there, but the point is when people are
wronged, all they can really do is maybe try and go wrong the other
people. And it felt to me like this was it wasn't even any more
about like huge governmental systems and the Fireflies versus Federal or I think it's just
about individual stories of revenge and how we get caught in the cycles. Is
that Is that kind of how you took this took this game? Yeah,
I think that when the show first came out, or right before it came
out, I was, you know, seeing a lot of people talk about
how, you know, they were kind of tired of you know, zombie
stories, and like that was a fad ten years ago. We're over it
now, we don't really want to get back into that. And I was
trying to say that, you know, this isn't a zombie story. It's
it's a love story, a story about love in many different manifestations, including
the negative aspects of love, including the awful, horrible side effects of love
that we don't like to often you know, interrogate in ourselves. And it
uses the zombies as a backdrop, and it uses the infection as a you
know, you know, something to add a little bit of tension and an
instigator to some of these forms of love. But it's not about the zombies
in the same way that or in the way that The Walking Dead was like.
And I know that all zombie media is saying something deeper than just you
know, zombies and infections. I get that, but for the Last of
Us, for me at least, it feels like that is so much more
apparent in this story than in a story like The Walking Dead, at least
the show version of it, or you know, I Zombie or any of
those other shows or movies. And I think the second game really like kind
of tries to get that through as well. So unfortunately it's like Matthew's having
some audio trouble. He's gonna hopefully jump back in in just a few minutes,
but then ye just pick up what you're saying. Yeah, I think
that's such a good way of putting it in terms of how it feels like
they were doing something so different. And like, one thing I really noticed
is from the game to the show, just there weren't very many zombies in
season one, you know, and I it made me remember that in the
show. In a game, they're popping up all the time. I don't
think because it's supposed to be inherent to the story, but because just that's
the fun part of the games. You're using the weapons to you know,
kill all the zombies and stuff. And I do think Professor Doctor Matthew Capella
is rejoining us because we were just talking about this idea of how and I'm
curious your thoughts on this. You and I have talked before on air about
how there is really interesting imagery and iconography around vampires versus zombies, and like
how those represent different fears and stuff like that, and in the other iur
getting into the idea of how, particularly by part two, the zombies don't
seem to be a central theme anymore. They're now just kind of a plot
device to create this apocalyptic everyone's out for themselves in their little communities. There's
no overarching society or government or justice system. Where would you stand on those
kind of ideas? Oh? Yeah, you know, the zombies are the
spoonful of sugar to help the rest of the narrative go down, really and
they're just there to give you something to shoot at in a non ethically difficult
spot so that you can get to the important parts. Yeah, yeah,
I do think that there is an aspect there of how the brutality of the
fighting against the zombie is it is so high and kind think how best to
say this kind of a thought You've triggered that like, there's something about it
that it helps tell me that, like when you're when your own For me,
the idea of like brutally killing someone is an incredibly difficult idea to think
about, both just because you know killing is wrong, but also just because
it feels so like, I don't know if I could make my muscles do
those things, and I don't know this is what you're getting at, Matt,
but it feels like one of the things that the game kind of helps
to convey is that when for everybody, your daily existence is sometimes you have
to take a baseball bat to the head of what was a human being but
as now a zombie, that that kind of makes the brutality against other humans
unfortunately easier to handle, or I think you could reverse that. It allows
you to see brutality in a way that will make brutality against actual sentient beings
harder to handle. You mean there for the player, not the character.
Yeah, for the player, not the character. I think there's you know,
I spent a lot of time killing things on my PlayStation, as I
think we all do, but I tend to like pick games where the things
I have to shoot at are not other people, unless those people are wearing
Nazi uniforms. So I kill a lot of Nazis, I kill a lot
of robots, and I kill a lot of zombies. But I really don't
like any game that requires me to kill a lot of people. And I
think Last of Us has zombies in it just to welcome you to the notion
that there's a game here, so that people who might not want to think
too hard yet we'll get the message before they're done and go, well,
shit, now I have to think about stuff, right. I think that
one other purpose the zombie aspect also, or rather there's a lot of debates
about whether you can call them zombies or if it's just like the infected whatever,
but that the infection itself has for the story, which is what is
doing the most damage in this society after it collapses, the infection or the
people, and the infection is attacking the people, yes, but the people
are also attacking the people, and it's you know, you're kind of stuck
between a rock and a hard place in that instance, because you know,
there's there's no There are individual communities that we see in this post apocalyptic society
that have joined together and protect each other, but that's not all of humanity
that has done that, which is like, can you expect that? Should
you expect that? Or will there always be differences? And will there always
be splits between people that make them go after each other? And I think
that having that with a zombie infected background is a really good kind of like,
you know, there's this awful thing that's happening, and yet we're still
doing awful things to each other, and which is the case in most of
you know, human history that can be seen outside of a zombie apocalypse as
well. Definitely, let me give it just a quick plot summary for those
either who haven't played the game but are curious, or who play the game
some time ago and need to be reminded. We're not gonna get too much
into my new details of the plot, but this will hopefully give a kind
of a broad sketch and I'm not going to go linearly in the game just
kind of hit the main ideas. So we start with we're introduced to a
new group of characters who are making a journey, and there's a couple of
them. Abby is kind of our main point of view character who's this very
strong, very woman. There's some kind of a love triangle thing going on
with her and this guy oh In and this woman Mel, and we learned
that Mel is pregnant and they're kind of going on this journey, and we
eventually realized that the journey that they're going on is because is to go and
kill Joel, Joel being one of our hero characters, our main point of
view character from part one. As more of the story unfolds, we learned
that Abby is the is the daughter of the doctor, the doctor who was
going to operate on Ellie and hopefully cure the effectedness, and so this is
for her revenge, you know, and that on some level there's kind of
a clear tension of that, on some level, this is a thing they
should be doing because this could have saved the world, etcetera, etcetera.
But really it's about her father and her father's death and her getting revenge.
And what I think is a very important moment for that they don't take the
group that goes to kill Joel doesn't take Ellie with them, Like there's no
sense of this being about we're going to recapture Ellie so that we can try
again to say the world, It is just about dealing with Joel because of
the terrible things he did. Abby then find Ellie finds this out. Ellie
now needs to now go on her own revenge plot against Abbey, and we
also find out that Ellie isn't kind of a love triangle she is. She
begins this relationship with another woman named Dinah, and it's a wonderfully portrayed lesbian
relationship, our sapphic relationship, so happy that we get that, including a
very erotic scene between the two of them. We'll also get another erotic scene
with Abbe that is not expecting a video game. But again, you know,
my days of Mario Kart and Zelda are clearly I you know, I've
grown up as a video games. But so Ellie goes on her own her
quest for revenge, in part because Tommy already went as well and she's trying
to go and help Tommy and then Dina and the guy who Dina was with
is named Jesse, So Ellie is now dating Jesse's ex girlfriend. But the
song Jesse's Girl is never mentioned by any of the eighties music lovers in a
game, which I think is a horrible plot flaw. But that being said,
I'll put that aside, they go to Seattle. In Seattle, they
find that there's this whole backstory of the Western Liberation Front. A group called
the Wolves took over the city from Federa in as Danielle was kind of saying,
a story that plays out again and again and again in this world.
The group that was fighting tyranny winds up becoming tyrannical, so they're kind of
ruling in a very tyrannical way. Meanwhile, there's this other group of a
religious group that's referred to as the Scars by everyone else because they have scars
on their face as a religious ritual thing they do. Those two groups are
kind of a war. Ellie gets caught in the middle of that war,
and we get to see both Ellie and Abbey as they're making their way through
this city. Through everything that's happening. Abby winds up befriending a member of
that other group, a trans boy named Lev, which again is a beautiful
piece of representation the way it's done. Everybody's going on adventures and side quests,
and sometimes zombies pop up, but a lot of times it's humans who
pop up. A lot of brutality happens Eventually we get to a point where
Ellie and Abbey have both killed most of the people who are most important to
each other. Owen has been killed, Tommy has been killed, Jesse has
been killed. Dinah does survive, wouldn't get you in a second. Tommy
survives, just real quick. Tommy doesn't die. Oh you're right. No,
No, he's shot in a way that looks like he's gonna die,
but you're right. He does survive. And we get just this brutal battle
between Abby and Ellie and my partner Mary, who was the one actually playing
the game and I'm just watching. I'm not My hand eye coordination is just
awful, and she was she kept wanting to put the controller down. She's
like, I hate fighting this fight. And there'd be times where like one
of them would be knocked down and then the fight would go on. She's
like, why is it just done yet? Why? Because it was just
incredibly brutal. And so that fight ends finally with Abby getting the upper hand
but not killing Ellie and just saying Ellie, this is over. You need
to be done. Ellie goes back and spends like a year and a half
living this nice life with Dinah, Dina, who was again Jesse's girl,
but the song's never sung. I'm not bitter about that. I promise she
has a child. Jesse was the biological father, but clearly her and Ellie
are raising this child together and it's the most lesbian Cottage Corps situation you've ever
seen scene. It's utterly beautiful. It feels like an epilogue until Tommy turns
up with news about where Abbey is and we realized that Ellie needs to go
on yet another revenge plot and it's This was the point at which that I
was talking to the two of them in the Patreon We're both me and Mary
were like, we don't want to keep doing this. This is why is
Ellie doing this? But Ellie still has that need for the revenge. She
tracks Abbey to Santa Barbara, where we've been told the Fireflies now are so
again like everything for both of us. We were because we kept thinking,
Okay, the point is eventually that Abbey and Ellie are going to team up,
right, and that's when we'll get back to the Fireflies plot. We'll
get back to maybe Ellie will get to have her what she's always wanted,
which is to you know her life to mean something. Along the way,
she has found out all the terrible things that Joel did at the end of
Game one, season one of the show, and she's clearly at him.
She wishes that she had let him, that let it go forward, that
she had died and her life would have meeting. And there's all kinds of
stuff wrapped up and that, obviously, but a lot of it's about her
agency. And I think a big part of why she has this need for
revenge on for revenging Joel's death is that he died with her still very mad
at him, and obviously her feelings are very mixed up about that, and
it's a kind of like, well, I could sit and process my feelings,
or I could beat up the person who caused these feelings, and in
this world that we're always going to do option to be. She gets to
Santa Barbara, there's more adventures. Abby and Ellie have yet again another dragged
down knockout fight. This time Ellie gets the upper hand. This fight is
even more brutal. Abby is about to be killed and Ellie, eventually,
just again thinking about Joel, thinking about everything with him, decides to just
let Abbie live and walk away, and at which point Mary screamed at the
TV, don't you dare make me keep playing this game because we were so
mad that it was just going to be yet another Okay, but now someone
else is going to go on on avenge plot and then they're going to get
together and work together. But no, they just and you just get to
Ellie gets back to Jackson where everyone's living, finds that Dina Dina has left
her, and she finds Joel's guitar, plays it a little bit, thinks
about Joel, and walks off into the sunset, and that's the end of
the game. Yeah, did I miss any major plot stories? I would
say that. I mean, we can talk about this later because there's a
whole, in my opinion, significance behind it. But daring her last fight
with Abby, Ellie loses two fingers on the hand that she uses for the
chords on the guitar, and so when she's playing the song that Joel for
her at the beginning of the game, she can't play it fully because she
can't she's not used to being able to play without those two fingers. And
yeah, I'll admit we completely missed that. Yeah, I think we are
both so wracked up in brutality of it all. But yeah, that makes
sense, understandable. I've played this game too many times. That's fair well,
So let's start with I'm gonna add something too, which is it's important
to recognize that before that last fight happens, essentially Abbey is being crucified.
Yeah, yes, and she is. She's taken down from a post in
which she is essentially being crucified, and then the fight happens, and we
have to remember what all of the symbolism of the crucifixion is supposed to be
about. But it's mostly supposed to be about forgiveness, So that fight really
operates around notions of can vengeance keep going on? Yeah, yeah, we'll
definitely get to that, But let me just start with Abby, because in
many ways I think this is one of the most risky but powerful things the
story does. Is you know, we all fell in love with Joel in
game one, part one. We're all so angry at what he does at
the end of season one, but I think many people still love him,
love his character and Ardanielle, You've talked about him so much. Abby kills
him and doesn't kill him in battle. He is lying knocked down on the
ground and she beats his head in I think with a golf club. How
do we not hate Abby? What? Like? Because tell me about your
journey about playing Abby, a character who killed the character you loved so much.
Oh, it was hard. I remember when I first started playing.
So when he first meet Abby is, as you said, you don't know
who she is. You just know that she's the stranger traveling and they see
Jackson in the distance and they're looking for this person, and you don't know
who they're looking for, and you go off with Abby, and I'm like,
Okay, this is pretty cool. I appreciate that there's, you know,
a female character that you know surpasses, you know, typical stereo stereotypes
of what a female character in video games looks like. And so I appreciated
that. I was a little suspicious of her because I didn't know, like
what was going on. Maybe she's someone to team up with Ellie or something,
I don't know. And then you like slowly start to realize Joel helps
Joel and Tommy help her, which is the most heartbreaking part. It's so
hard still to play. Every time I play it is you're like, no,
Joel, Tommy, just leave her. I don't want Abby to die,
but maybe she can find a way out herself. Just go away,
don't tell her your name, And that, to me, was one of
the best ways they could have introduced her, because you don't know yet.
You have suspicions, but you have no idea what Joel's relevance to her life
is. And you still don't know. You you don't know until you get
to her part halfway through the game, and then you go back and you
are with her when she's fifteen years old and Joel and Ellie arrive at the
hospital and you slowly find out who her father is, and you literally have
to play out those scenes of Joel killing everyone, but from her perspective.
Yeah, And so I was when they made the switch between Ellie and Abbey
in Seattle. I was mad at first. I was. I wasn't mad,
but I was like, they're really going to make me play as this
person who killed Joel, who not only killed him, but, as he
said, brutally murdered him in front of Ellie. And I was absolutely not.
I'm I don't know how I feel about this. I haven't don't like
put the controller down. I went and told my boyfriend without any spoilers because
he hadn't gotten to that part yet. I said, I think I might
be mad. I think I might not like where the game is going.
He was like, really you, And I said, yes, but I'm
gonna I'm just gonna stop playing today and then I'll go back tomorrow and we'll
see how it goes. And slowly they did such a good job of telling
her story that slowly I began to understand, and I allowed myself think it's
so important to come to her story with an as open of a mind as
you can have, because you need to question yourself of if I'm excusing what
Ellie's doing right now, if I've excused every death she's done, she's dealt,
and the anger that she feels, how can I not excuse Abby's or
maybe not excuse it, but understand it. Abby felt the same horror and
anger and grief that Ellie felt. If I'm going to understand Ellie's, how
can I not understand Abby's? And then I said this on the patroon last
time we talked about this, but the moment that I fell in love with
Abby as a character, didn't just accept her, didn't just you know,
deal with her, but actually fell in love with her. Character is when
she tells Love, you're my people, after Love has lost his sister and
is you know, has already lost his community in the Seraphites because they've turned
their backs on him because he's trans has lost his family, and Abby has
lost everything at this point too. Abby says you're my people, and I
just like that still gives me chills, It still makes me cry. And
that was a moment where I's like, I love Abby. I'm never gonna
not stick up for her because she deserves the same understanding as Ellie does,
and so many people in the Last of Us and Them don't give her that
just because she killed Joel. And I feel like that line is so significant
and this is something we'll get into more, or maybe we can dive into
it now, because one thing I'm so struck buying the game is how every
community loves each other and watches out for each other, but is incredibly insular
and views everybody else as potential enemies. And that there are all these times
where Mary and I were almost joking about it by the end because I'd be
like, oh, yeah, I want to learn more about the world.
Oh the minute Allie gets close to them, they start shooting at her.
Oh I want to learn more about the serif fight. Oh wait, the
minute Abby gets close to them, they start shooting. Like all of these
groups have a shoot first, ask questions later mentality, which to me feels
very what I would thought it think of as hobbsy in. But the professor
has pointed out that my reading of Thomas Hobbs thirty five years years ago or
thirty years ago is perhaps not the best remember it, but but just this
idea of that it's it's looking I'm looking for the right word, But it's
just that this idea that everybody is in their own little community is and views
everyone else as a threat, which is, you know, unfortunately very much
a reflection of our own world, but just taken to even more of an
extreme. And so that actually for her to say that it's not just hey,
you you're a person, you're my family. I am from this one
community, you're from the other community, and I'm seeing you as my family.
That's the boundary breaking moment that no one else in this world seems to
be able to do. Yeah, the The thing about zombie narratives is they're
almost never about the zombies, right. The thing about zombie narratives is they're
almost always about how horrible humans can be to other humans. And you can
pick any zombie story going back the early nineteen seventies now and you kind of
get that unless it's like a zombie or something which is a little bit more
comedic. Here, this is the one moment, Danielle is so right,
This is the one moment where it undermines every other zombie narrative you've ever experienced.
I mean, it's not just like, here's the point of this game.
It's like, here's what this game is saying about every other zombie story
you have ever thought about. And that's what makes it really an emotionally wreck
of a moment right well, and matview, especially for you as someone who
studied games. You know, it's interesting because a lot of people who I
know who really love video games often either love or hate this game because one
thing they often talk about is that the great, the great part of video
games as a form of media is how much control it gives you the player.
Whereas this one, we'll talk We've talked a little bit about the reasons
for this, we'll talk about about them. But as we've all said,
like, there are these things that we the player don't want to do,
but you're not given an option. There's no other dialogue option, there's no
other choice. Where does this kind of fit for you in terms of other
video game narratives where there is so little choice on behalf of the player of
what happens next. The fact that there's so little choice is kind of the
point, right, I mean, both games. Both games function in a
way that if you're going to finish the game as the player, you eventually
are going to have no choice but to do something you really don't want to
do. The way the first game ends is you spend a lot of time
in a hospital going I don't want to be doing this. I don't want
to be doing this, I don't want to be doing this, and then
the game is over and then you lie, and then the game is over,
right, and the second game takes that and just keeps doing it.
At no point do you want to do the thing you're doing? I think,
and so I think the genius of this particular narrative is by forcing players
to play abbey it really drives home the point that these are games about not
having choice, which makes it powerful in a game narrative sense. Most open
world games, and I'm not a big fan of open world games because they
tend to be like, go find this plan, to go find that plan.
Most games give you lots of choice, and then programmers and publicity people
let game companies go. You have so much you can do, And the
purpose of these games is to show you that in real life sometimes you don't
have choice, and that might be a thing we need to think about.
So the first game is, you know, the overarching thing we always say
about the first game is it's about the positive inegment aspects of love. This
game is exclusively about revenge. Yeah, and revenge is almost never positive.
Yeah. I one thing I like about it because I do. We talked
as time also about you know, the Cassandra aspect of this and how the
player is Cassandra because we know what they shouldn't be doing, but we are
forced to watch it happen anyway and partake in it happening anyway. But one
thing I think is so interesting when it it forces you to do things you
don't want to do to characters you end up liking, but it gives you
the choice on how you maneuver through the through the what are they called the
NPC's how you maneuver through them in the hospitals, out in the you know,
the neighborhoods and everything. Because you don't have to kill everybody you come
across. There are some instances you can completely sneak through. Depending on your
skill level. Of course, a playing you can sneak through some of these
neighborhoods. I've seen playthroughs where in the neighborhood where there's the most people that
Ellie has to get through, there's people and dogs everywhere. I've seen playthroughs
of people completely sneaking their way through and they don't kill a single person,
a single animal. And I think that that's so interesting because there are only
a few, like you want to call them, like canon deaths, deaths
that have to happen for the narrative. It's up to you how you progress
through the rest of it. And I think that makes the choice there so
much more meaningful when we don't have the choice elsewhere, because then it's like
you're you're okay with killing all of these people, but you're not okay with
killing this person or trying to kill this person, and we're going to make
you do that. Why are you okay with one but not with the other?
And I think that that's a really interesting, like philosophical question that they
ask. That they don't expect every player to catch on too, I think,
but it is there if you want to wonder about it, Like it's
possible to not kill everybody, but sometimes you do. And sometimes it's not
just because it's easier having to kill the dogs. But my other partner was
visiting at one point while we were playing the game, and we just had
to stop because for her, like watching and killing the dog there a thing
we could do and understandably, yeah, because there's some of them are dogs
you really come to know like, and to me, there's such an there's
a couple of points there, but I want to start with this one.
There's such an interesting message here about our complicity in systems of violence and systems
of vengeance and all this kind of thing, because it's the you know,
I think there's an awful lot of truth, but an awful lot of moral
it's very awesome morally easy to say, oh, they're just claiming they were
following orders they should have disobeyed. That they're totally wrong, And I don't
get me wrong, I do I don't think I was just following orders is
ever an excuse. But I think one of the things that we can often
forget is how much you know in a horrible situation where it feels like your
choices have been far more limited and again, kind of as you were saying,
Danny, all, actually that's a perfect example. Sometimes they are very
limited, or sometimes just because of the world you've grown up in, it's
hard to see any other option except killing the people there. You know that
the idea you can do something it's hard for you to even to occur to
you. There's such a powerful lesson here about how easy it is yet to
just become complicit and either to think, oh, it's not my fault because
I had no choice, or I hate myself because I had to do this,
you know, I mean, there's just there's so many ways to go
with it. But it really it's what I like about the games. It's
not hitting you over the head with here's the lesson. It's here's this hard
question that these characters have to wrestle with and by the way, player now
you do too, which is why a lot of really intense young men hate
this game. Yea, yeah. I also because it doesn't just let you
go kill everybody, have fun pressing the buttons and kill everybody with immunity,
and it doesn't let you recreate a hero narrative, hero narrative in your head,
and man, we really love hero narratives, right, and this game
is very much like there aren't heroes and there aren't villains, and there's context
for everybody. And I don't know if say, sixteen year old me would
have found that acceptable. So I have a hard time judging people who really
hate this game unless they're being toxic online about it, because I can totally
see where they're coming from. Yeah, the beauty of games in general tends
to be that we allow people to be a hero finally, instead of just
read about them or watch them in a movie. And here you don't get
that. Yeah, I think it's I think it's interesting also to see the
different ways that I see men and women react to this game, because one
of the biggest complaints amongst the like women and film fan base for this about
part one is that Ellie I wouldn't say she's too dimensional in Part one by
any means, but she is. How much you learn about her is dependent
on how much you pay attention to her as a player, and because you
only you're only playing as her for a short time, and all of the
other interactions between her and jol are a lot of them are dependent on you
pressing that green triangle to instigate conversation between them, to instigate dialogue. And
one of the most refreshing aspects of the show was that it forced that dialogue,
not in a bad way. It's not like they forced it upon you,
but they made it a part of the story, and that you didn't
have an option to skip over it. You didn't have an option to ignore
her. To watch her story play through, you had to learn about her.
And Part two, which I want to state, was co written with
a woman. I can't remember what her name is, but Neil Druckman co
wrote this with a woman, and I think that that is very evident and
very responsible of him, because the two main characters are women. And I
like the fact that you know this game respected the fact that maybe sometimes a
female writer knows just a little bit more about how a female character would react
in these situations, or how they should be portrayed, how they should be
written. And Part two has so many more female fans, I think than
Part one, just because of how, you know, we're with Ellie most
of the time, we're with Abby most of the time, and there's such
a I don't know, a feminine quality to the way that they're disagreement,
the way that their vengeance against each other exists. It's not the same as
Joel going after some other guy. It's you know, it's it's not the
same if it was Joel versus David, for example. Um, it's something
different. It's there's more emotion to it. There's more of a subtlety to
it. And I appreciate that so much, and I know that. I
just I like that they took that turn for this game. And I know
that a lot of a lot of men onlines and to have issues with that,
But I just wanted to point out too that I wanted to stay back
when we were talking about Abby that UM, like, kudos to Laura Bailey
who is the voice actress for her, because a lot of Abby is her
voice and is just how much Laura Bailey puts into that emotion when Abby speaking,
Yeah, Hallie Gross by the way, I think I'm h A L
L E y. So I don't think it's Haley but with Halle, but
Halle Gross is the is the writer here. Mention the gender aspect that Danielle
brings up, I think is a really good one because it really does what
she's saying in that regard. In the first game. One of the things
that people say about the first game, and that Neil Druckman has said,
is he likes to watch people's reaction at the moment in which they realize they're
playing Ellie finally and they're like, oh my god, I'm playing Ellie.
But that whole chunk of the game and all of the second game, both
of them remind me very much of this old Margaret Atwood quote, which I've
always really liked. Margaret Atwood once said she's the woman who wrote The Handmaid's
Tale. Once said men are afraid that women will laugh at them, and
women are afraid that men will kill them. Yeah, And when when Ellie
is fighting David, it's it's that quote to me, And this whole second
game is very much that quote to me. So yeah, I think I
think it's a really good point to say that Truckman was very smart to bring
out a co writer who who was not another guy. Yeah right right,
Yeah, I am I going off of that. This isn't exactly related,
but it kind of is because a big part of what Part two asks the
players to consider is the fact that Ellie has had one very important figure in
her life, probably the one. She's had multiple important figures in her life,
but one that goes above the rest of them, and that's Joel.
And he is a violent man. He loves Ellie with everything he has,
but he is a violent man, and he has passed on that propensity for
violence to her through his love. And it's such a complicated thing when the
person who teaches you the most about about love and family also teaches you the
most about violence and vengeance. And I think you get the two mixed up
in your mind. You get them. How do you love someone without seeking
revenge for them? How do you love someone without getting so angry when they're
taking from you that you take out an entire city? How do you do
that? And I think that a large part in like Ellie's mind is her
trying to come to terms with that as well. Is that the way that
Joel showed his love for her before Jackson was through violence, and maybe a
part of her feels like she's not because she was already mad at him when
he died, that she's not showing him enough love if she's not showing enough
violence. And I think that that that has always been a question in my
mind of it, is that it's such a difficult thing when those two things
overlap. Yeah, I think I think there's there's so much truth there because,
first of all, like the game shows us two First of all,
the fact that Ellie's remembering primarily two things that Joel did, one of which,
as you said, is the violence and all of that, the others
his guitar playing. And I feel like that is there's a real important thing
of what she's doing. She's trying to balance those two ideas of love.
And I never really thought about it this way but until you what you just
said, But I think it's so true. I think there's a way in
which her going on this revenge quest is somewhat her forgiving Joel for what he
did, because it's her recognizing that Joel that as much as she hated what
he did. He did that out of his love for her. But as
we've said that, the whole point is that his love for her became incredibly
destructive, and now her love for him is becoming destructive. And I'm so
glad you pointed out the thing about the fingers, because, like I said,
I missed it, because now I'm turned up just thinking about it,
because what you get is her attempt to love in the way he tried to
love violently now means she can't love in the way he did peacefully in terms
of guitar playing, And like that alone is just such a beautiful message there.
Remember that in the first game, one of the key moments is when
Ellie says, everybody I've ever loved has either died or left me. Yeah,
so it's it's the perfect setup for anger. Yeah I am. I
also really love one thing I have come to accept. I think I played
this game about six or seven times, and I learned something different every time
I play it. I come to a different understanding every time I play it,
And my most recent play through, my understanding of it was that because
there's there's a there's a specific scene at the end when Ellie is about to
kill Abby. Abbey's about to drown under her hands. Um. She has
a brief memory of Joel and it's just like two seconds of him playing the
guitar on the porch. And we learned later that that memory is from after
the dance, when Joel, you know, stuck up for her and she
got mad at him. And they're about too They're about to have the beginning
of their amends that will never happen. And I've always wondered why that scene
at this moment, why that memory at this moment, because those memories are
very tied to the narrative there. They're where they are for a reason,
and um, but it's just this one's not a full flashback. It's just
two seconds of Joel playing the guitar, and what about it is significant to
that moment. And I've always thought that Ellie never had a parental figure in
her life until Joel. She didn't know what it was like to be a
child to somebody, shouldn't know what it was like to have a parent constantly
there and loving her unconditionally. And she can understand that that's what's happening,
or except that that's what's happening without truly understanding the depths of it. And
I think that it wasn't that win. Joel told her that he would take
her being angry at him all over again. If it meant saving her life,
he would do it. He would do it all over again, even
knowing the consequences. That in that moment, she began to understand that he
loved her unconditionally. And then it wasn't until she was about to kill Abby
that she realized he loved me so much to do those things, to give
me another life, to give me a second chance at life. And this
is what I've done with it. This is what I've done. Yeah,
I've nearly gotten myself killed. I've killed all these people. And I think
she starts to realize that Joel wouldn't want that for her, even if he
would do the exact same thing. And I think that that's a very powerful
message, and that that's her finally coming to an understanding of if I kill
this person, what will that do. It won't bring him back. It'll
just have been another waste of a life that he never wanted me to do.
And that, like that was my understanding this last time. I can't
wait to see what else I can do on my next play through, and
then also keeps me into another part of it, which is that because one
of the other things that happens, not in that flashback, but very tied
up to them, is Joel being very clear that he is happy for Ellie
with Dina, you know, and that I think that's also a part of
it, because I think one of the things that's happening, you know,
Dina doesn't specifically say if you go to Santa Barbara, I'm going to leave
you, but she makes it like when we get back in DNA, isn't
there anymore? No one is surprised. I think dNaM is very clear that,
like, I really don't want you doing this. I'm not okay with
you doing this. And so I think that's another part, Like is that
like that's you know, one part of what Joel wanted for her was to
have more family and her realizing that, and I think that's part of the
acceptance at the end, is that like, yeah, that like my,
my, my, going on one more of these revenge quests lost me that
and yeah, it just it all ties together so well to a certain extent.
I think a lot of the second game is built around the flashbacks,
that that if you were just to string together the flashbacks, you'd have a
pretty good story just with them. Yeah, and for me, the one
that Okay, so I'm a space nerd. Part of my PhD was on
NASA. But man, that science museum moment where she listens to the launch
of Apollo eleven is the most strikingly hopeful moment in both games, that there
was this moment where humanity could have done so much and now we wander the
world killing zombies in each other. I'm glad that's your science geek moment because
for me, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a marine
biologist because I wanted to be one of the people who worked with the whales
in the Dolphin And so I got that kind of feeling all the stuff in
the aquarium and just that sense of like, look where humanity used to be
in Look leave walls. Yeah, so I go oh, I was just
gonna say. I also really love in that moment. Two things. One
is that we can see how Joel is looking at Ellie, but she doesn't
see how he's looking at her because her eyes are closed, and he's told
her to close her eyes so she can imagine this, and that plays into
the whole her not truly understanding the depths of Joel's love for her until it's
too late, but then also the absolute power of and I had I've only
just now thought of this Ellie's obsession being space and this peaceful moment being in
this museum with Joel talking about space and expere listening to the tape and everything,
which space is above, and Abby's being in the aquarium, which is
about the ocean, which is, you know, the direct opposite of that,
and that parallel, Like I had never realized that until just now hearing
you say, like the parallel between you and doctor Matthew. But I just
absolutely love that. Now good something new every time I'm telling you, right,
I think that's so true, And honestly, I think that's one of
the most brilliant parts of this whole game, is the way that you know
most of the time. And Matthew, you were kind of saying this the
beginning in terms of like, if we want to be comfortable killing people,
we make them robots who make them zombies, or often we make them coded
as people of color, or you know, aliens who look like people of
color, see the Avengers and the Tutari and all the research about that,
and so having all these situations where not only are you having to vote,
not only like we have one character who sees the other as completely all they
see is the person who killed my father or the person who who killed my
father figure, or any of these things. I mean, they're both dealing
with the death of a father figure, but now we know. But we
the player have to play both of them and we have to see those connections.
The one that I know Mary kept focusing on my partner was how they're
both collectors. You know, Abbey is collecting coins and Ellie is collecting these
comic book cards and all sorts of stuff like that, and that alone it's
just you know, I if you listen to old Superhero Ethics episodes, one
of the things I absolutely love is is villains who aren't just mustache toilers,
but we get their backstory, you know, and that Batman has been very
good at this for a long time, and this, to me is doing
that to the point of you know, there's the old adage of everyone's a
hero in their own story. That's exactly what this is though, it's that
there is no easy way to see who's a hero of a villain. It's
just who whose point of view are you playing that's going to inform who you
think is the villain. Yeah. Absolutely, The collecting aspect is such a
humanizing part of them because Abby's is because that was her dad's obsession and she
carried that on after him. Because I don't think she collected them until that
scene that we see. You don't see like any extras in her bag at
the time, but I think that, you know, that just adds so
much to it, Like Ellie has her comic book thing, which has so
much more weight to it. I think in the aspect of the show.
Now if they do keep the comic book card thing in the show too.
But yeah, it's it's just another parallel between them that, as you said,
this game does so well, so I think it's possible that Danielle is
a genius. The ocean versus the space thing is an incredibly useful way of
thinking about this. I immediately went to Jung right, because oceans, for
Carl Jung are very much about the unconscious, and it's a metaphor for that,
and one of the most important followers of Young was Joseph Campbell, who
said the Space Program was very much about finally closing the circle between the spirit
world and the real world and finally understanding how the unconscious and the conscious go
together. And I'm just like amazed by the insight you just had, Danielle.
We're really talking about a much more complex representation of how people's emotional realities
work, both for their benefit and against their benefit and they and it's beautifully
done by contrasting space with the ocean. It's just beautifully done that way.
And I never I've played it probably five times, I never thought of that.
It is great. It's very singul Yeah, just now. That's why.
So I feel like it's so gratifying to talk about this with people because
you can think of things on your own as you're playing it, but then
you get other people's perspectives and it's just something clicks and you're like, oh
my god, yeah, this thing. And so I really I love this
well. And what I love about podcasts like this is being able to have
these conversations and hearing all these different things. And like I said, I
didn't even pick up on the thing with the fingers, and I certainly would
have connected the space and ocean in that same kind of a way playing on
the Campbell thing and knowing all of us love Star Wars. There are two
kinds of Star Wars points I wanted to bring up and get your thoughts on.
The first a little bit facetious, but the second one a little deeper.
First, just in prema what we're talking about a while ago, about
them the young people, primarily men, who often struggle with this game because
what they're looking for in a game is clear lines of you know, right
and wrong, good and bad. I tend to I have to imagine that
these end the can't believe made a mistake twice. The then diagram of uh,
you know, those fans and the fans who are really upset about the
last Jedi or end or has to have an awful lot of overlap in terms
of, you know, people not they want Luke just to be the hero.
They want Joel just to be the hero. You know, they don't
want the moral complexity and all that kind of thing. Um. But going
a little further on that, one thing I'm very struck by is, you
know, one of the central ideas of Star wars. Is this idea of
that if you hate that that love is great. But if you hate the
thing that endangers what you love, that that that's the path to the dark
side, you know. And that's everything from you know, Anakin's Fall to
when Rose saves Finn and you know about you know, we don't win by
fighting things we hate, but protecting the things we love overall. And it's
a story that's told again and again of when you hate the thing that threatens
you, you to humanize it, You stop seeing it as anything accepted the
enemy, and now you're willing to justify any terrible thing you do. I'm
all right. That's basically the story of this like that that that idea,
like not a spiritual dark side of that kind of a way of the force,
but just that that same idea of when the person you love is endangered
or is killed and all you feel is hate towards the ones who did it,
now you become just as brutal as the people who did the things.
Like it feels very much a this is the dark side that moved this was
talking about, Well, I think I think it comes from we view these
acts of vengeance and revenge as selfless. Sometimes we view them as for the
person and that therefore, but they're not. They're they're for us, there
to make us feel better about what has happened, to make us feel like
we did something or that we had control over an event that was uncontrollable.
And I think, especially for Ellie, that's true and Abby that they had
no control over what happened to their respective fathers, and so they want to
take back that control by taking away the control from the person who did that.
And that is a very selfish act. That is understandable because we all
do it in small ways, even in our daily lives. But when it's
on this magnitude where it leads to the deaths of so many people and to
the deterioration of your own self, then that's when it becomes an issue.
And I think that in Star Wars or any media or any franchise really that
tackles this question, is that that's what the problem is. And when Rose
says, you know, we should protect what we love instead of fighting what
we hate, Protecting what you love is the purest form of love, and
that is the selfish part or selfless part of love, where us hating is
the selfish part. It's it's very much the old Buddhist line, which is
something like, if you really want to anger the person who has harmed you,
forgive them, yeah right, which is I think very central to Star
Wars and is the journey both Abbey and Elie are on in this game.
Yeah, to go from I'm going to harm the person that harmed me too,
I will forgive the person that harmed me? Yeah right, yeah tick
not Han who is a Buddhist monk but has written a lot of about when
the overlaps between Christianity and Buddhism. That particular line is when he talks about
a lot quite because it's it's always a central theme in Christianity and in Buddhism
and in a lot of other faith perspectives, but those two especially. And
Yeah, you're right, And I love Danielle what you're saying about control,
because that's Anakin's thing as well. He's he wants to be in control of
everything. His mother is killed and he wasn't in control, so he lashes
out and kills all the Tuscans. Uh, pad Me is going to die
and he can't be in control of it, and so his option is Therefore
I'm willing to do anything, including you know, helping Zemperor and killing miss
Windu to protect to you know, And that's weird because there it is,
you think what he's That's almost more of what you were kind of saying at
the very beginning about how it can become corrosive. He is acting out of
a desire to protect the things he loves. But it's for him, it's
become that corrosive of I will do anything. Joel is acting to protect the
thing he loves. Oh, I didn't even thought about that way. That.
Yeah, what Rose Tico says is so true, but also itself can
become so corrupted. You guys, You guys are really smart. So are
you? Thank you? Thank you? So much of this is connections.
You're helping point us do so keep everyone credit. We're patting each other on
the back. So I have a I have a question that might help us
move forward slightly. But here's my question. M the first game very much
was a one season HBO show. I mean, there was no place to
cut the first game and make it two seasons. The second game is I
don't know, three seasons worth of stuff. I mean, it's a big
game. Where do you make the cuts? Where does the first season the
second season of HBO's Last of Us have to end with the narrative from the
second game? Did I know? I think I know where they will end.
It is the obvious place. But I'm curious what you both say.
I did a video about this on TikTok because I wanted to see other people's
opinions as well and work through my own. Because I absolutely love the way
that the game is set up. I don't know that it's conducive to television,
especially a TV show with an audience that is so even more attached to
Joel than the game players were, because they're petrophascal fans, And on one
hand, they're used to seeing him die, so maybe they might be prepared
for it. On the other hand, I have already seen like a lot
of people say that they're not going to keep watching once he dies, which
is such a stupid way to a pro show. But and it's very disrespectful
to his part in the story anyway, because his part in the story doesn't
end when he dies, even if we never saw him again in the flashbacks,
his spirit is there through Ellie. But anyway, and So I have
wondered if they're going to keep the same structure of the game because I love
it. I don't know. I don't know if if it's conducive to television,
and I wonder if they might start with the flashbacks instead and have the
season end where you find out who Abby is and what she's on a journey
for. And then that way you get pether Pascal for a whole season and
then part of the next season after that, so you get him a little
bit longer, you get to dive deeper into the emotional connection between him and
Ellie a little bit and take time to, you know, talk about what
has happened in the space between the end of season one and season in the
beginning of season two. So I don't know. I would love to see
them to keep the structure of the game because I love it, but I
don't know. There's something about like the game makes you keep going. You
have to keep going, but when you're watching a show, you don't have
to keep watching. You can stop whenever you want. And I worry that
that might play into the into their thinkings. It is such a great question,
and it's one where I think I hate that this is a thing because
I want artists to have just a purity of tell the story the way you
want to tell it. But the fact that HBO is does episodic television,
not binge television, and the social media environment, honestly, I think is
the biggest reason why they couldn't do it the way they do it, Because
I would love it if a whole bunch of viewers get to have like two
episodes of Abby and Owen and now going on this journey and being helped by
Tommy and Joel all to get to this shocking realization that they're there to kill
Joel. I think that would make for some of the best television ever.
I think you would have to live under a rock, come out of that
rock to watch one episode of HBO week, go back under rock, and
not exist in any other way in the world on the Internet in order to
not find out before that reveal that Abby is going to kill Joel. Yeah,
Like, I just don't know how they could do it. Yeah,
so yeah. I feel like if they were going to do three seasons,
the way I would think it would be broken up would be however you get
there. Season one ends with Joel's death, or season two ends with Joel's
death, quite possibly with a lot of flashbacks there. Season season three ends
with the second to the next coming the second Yeah, you know what I
mean. The second of these seasons would end with Abby letting Ellie go and
Ellie going back to Cottage Corps Paradise, with the last scene being Tommy showing
up and saying I found Abby and Ellie looking determined and Dina looking heartbroken.
And then season three would be the journey to Santa Barbara and all that would
happen, and it would give them time. I'm convinced there's the Last of
Us Part three coming. I am convinced Troy Baker has been has been leaving
some hints. I am convinced that there's Last Us Part three coming. Um.
They've not announced it yet, but I'm absolutely convinced they would be stupid
not to make a third one. Well, I mean, Neil Juckman has
said he only wants to make a third one if it makes sense for the
story and if it would be respectful to the story, and I do appreciate
that, but also there's got to be like some money, some money making
chimes in his head, because I hope you're right. But the icy ball
of fear that formed in my heart as you said that about any idea where
a story is being told in one medium but hasn't being finished told in another
medium Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones poisoned all that for me so much.
But but the good thing is is that Neil Jukman is intrinsically tied to
the show. So that's true that in a way that George rr Martin never
really wanted to be. And and so I think that that would also give
time for the story of Season of Part three to be integrated into a potential
season three, because I don't think that there's enough material in that last like
quarter of the Game of Part two to be a full season on its own,
but you could bring in, uh, you know, kind of ties
to a potential future Part three. And if if we got a season three
that would probably come out in like twenty twenty seven, that's potentially when a
Part three video game could come out or around the same time, So you
never know, you never know, Matt, what were your ideas about where
it could go, where it might end? Well, I don't I have
published some short fiction in my life but I am not a writer. I'm
not good at framing stories. I don't But I don't see how the first
season doesn't end with the death of Jewel. Yeah, even if the next
season has a lot of the Jewel flashbacks to keep Pedro Pascal around, right,
Yeah. I actually I was talking about this game with a husband of
a friend of mine, a guy from Sky actually, who said I never
played the second game because I know what happened and I'm not going to play
that. Yeah, right, And so I see where people are coming from
in that regard. But but I still think if you start fumbling the narrative
enough to keep Pedro Pascal around more, you're going to undermine the actual point
of the story. Yeah, And I don't think. I don't think Craig
Mason or Neil Druckman are going to let them underline undermine the point of the
story. And Neil Druckman and Dave Filoni might have to have a talk sometime
about Okay, when when does Pedro get to go play with one of them?
And when does Patre get to play with the other one? Because depending
on what the plan. I hate to say it, but whatever the plans
are for post Mandalorian TV shows and movies and stuff. You know, Pagre's
only one person. He's only got so many hours in the day, so
well, I would probably also happen. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised
if he prioritizes the last of us. I would if I was him that
I think. I mean, that's that's the next step of his career that
he's waited for for so long. But now I acause we can see his
face. Yeah, I absolutely believe that they're going to keep Joel's death.
I just think that if it was the structure, same structure of the game,
his death would happen in like episode one, episode two, and I
could see them wanting to stretch it out, include some of the flashbacks before
they have his death, and like keep it at season one. But Neil
Druckman has said that he doesn't care what people didn't like about the game.
He said, I'm staying true to it. I don't care, and like,
thank you, Neil, and Craig Mason's a huge fan, so I
know that he'll want to stay at as true to it as as possible.
Yeah, it'll be fascinating to see and I think a really interesting class in
terms of comedia adapting adaptation. I think like that can't wait. That was
my favorite part of season one. Let me ask one more big question and
then we're gonna wrap up, And one day I'm going to set myself a
challenge of the three of us trying to do an hour of conversation. I
don't think it's possible, but I'm going to try. But I'm so grateful
for both of your times. But because Mattie, you know this is a
topic you were pretily interested in, I thought, you know, I'm a
study student of religion and sociology of religion, so introducing a religion that has
formed in these times was fascinating to me. And again I was deeply frustrated
that we never really got to sit with the history and the theology of this
new religion, But again realizing that that's not what the point, because the
point of the story isn't about the societal changes and the wolves versus Federa and
like how should this world be governed? It's just about two people with revenge
fans, with two people playing out their own revenge needs against this larger backdrop.
But I'm curious from both of you but I'm after you. I'll start
with you. What did you think of the way they introduced that religion and
the where it went in terms of both storytelling but also just a sociological idea
of like, yeah, of course religions would start to come about in this
kind of post apocalyptic world. Well, if there's one thing that historically,
it turns out America is really good at, it's inventing religion. Our national
narrative is very much that. But I mean, go to the nineteenth century
and upstate New York and you can't throw a stone without hitting a new prophet.
Yea Church of Jesus Christ of Letter des Saints. So it's not surprising
at all, but it's But it's also I think the most important thing to
me of that new religion is how quickly it got on her mind. And
I think that's the main point, and that's why that's the main point for
its existence, is to show how easily the affair I'm going to use,
I'm going to use the old fashioned sexist way of saying this, but how
easily the affairs of men can be corrupted. Because here is a new religion
that in which the founder is a woman, and which therefore gender had to
have been a thing in which one of the main non playable characters of the
story is a statement about gender. Who is rejected by this religious community,
right, you're talking about love that lab boy, Yeah, rejected specifically because
he he shaves his hair, which is something that women aren't supposed to do
in our community. Yes, so, I think very much. The fact
that the religion seems to have its reformation almost immediately is kind of the point.
And that point is a bigger point, which is, no matter how
humans try to organize the world, they're not good at it. Yeah,
And when it's trying to organize the spiritual world, we're even worse at it.
And you, Matthew, as a student of religion, know that much
better than I do. But the last two thousand years of the history of
the Christian religion is point after point after point of people arguing no, that's
not right. And I'm often doing so with swords and then with guns.
Yes, And I'd be very interested to heal more Neo drucman that I say
his name, Yes, Yeah, I would be curious to hear more of
his thoughts on religion because I don't think it's coincidental that the man who wrote
The Seraphians the Scars, and as he said, take this core of a
religious idea that seems healthy, but turn it very violent and very oppressive very
quickly. That's the same person who in Part one and season one wrote all
of these characters, who, yes, are doing things that are hard for
our main characters, but all have a core of If I was in their
shoes, I might do the same thing they were doing. Except for one
David, who's a religious leader. I think there's a really interesting parallel there,
and a really interesting statement being made about how as much as there's a
like, if you understand everything from every person's side, they're the hero.
When religion gets in, it's a lot harder to have that like, well,
they're just from a different point of view, because the religion often becomes
our way or else for everyone. It's important I think, oh sorry,
I think it's it's important to recognize that Druckman is an Israeli chew. Yeah,
so he brings both the Israeli part and the Jewish part to his discussion
of religion, and I think that's really important. And I will say I
did really appreciate that Dinah is Jewish herself, and her Judaism is a part
of her character in some very important ways that were mentioned that I really right.
If you look online at the toxic backlash to the game, it's it's
it's weird how people are almost more upset about her jewishness than her lesbians right
or bisexuality. But they're definitely upset about both. But you can tell what
kind of person they are by which one is more upsetting. Yeah, I
had to go to a synagogue. Bisexual fascinating, and I'm glad you also
mentioned I do like that the show has Dina leaves a man for a woman,
and yet it is never it never does any character ever say that's what
it's about. Ellie never makes a joke about I'm glad you're finally playing for
the right team. She says, you know, oh god, I can't
believe I ever thought I was attracted to men's. There are two people who
she's attracted to in the story. Her relationship with one of them ends,
her relationship with another begins, and the fact that they are different genders has
nothing to do with why that happened, And that there's never a moment of
thinking that her now being attracted to Ellie means that she wasn't attracted and Ellie,
though I think is very clearly gay, I think she hasn't expressed any
attraction to men at all. And I love that we can have both of
those characters. So this is a completely tangent what you're saying. But I
just need to go off on that quick thing about Dina being awesome bisexual representation.
But it's also sorry, I'm shutting out, so it's okay. I
was just gonna say about the Seraphites and learning more about them. I think
this is one thing that Neil and the rest of the creative team at Naughty
Dog, who produced the lat of Us games, do with this game is
that they they intrigue you by wanting to learn the story and piecing it together
by the letters and you know, the flyers that you find, the little
carvings and everything, but they leave just enough out that they can tell the
story elsewhere if they want to. And that's such a good marketing employ is
such a good but also just like a good narrative ploy as well, because
it leaves things open for future exploration. And I think that that is one
thing it has in common with Star Wars, because Star Wars does that as
well, and I think they're finding that incredibly useful when it comes to adapting
it to a TV show, because then you have a lot of different narratives
you can explore. You have things that can fluff up a season a little
bit more than just the you know, the Ellie just traveling through Seattle is
not going to make a really great TV show on its own, but you
can break it up with looking at the Seraphites. You can break it up
with looking at the Wolves by maybe starting a little bit earlier and looking at
how the conflicts between the two started. And I could very easily see them
starting some episode in season two by looking at the fall of Seattle and Wolves
versus certify Its to set that narrative up. And they can do that because
Neil and his team and the team around him created that open space. And
I think that's such good world building on his part, and there's so much
that goes into it. He's talked before about with things from part one in
going into season one that he has written all of this, like he knows
the story behind it, and there's so little that he gets to put in
the game, but when it comes to the show, he can just give
that to Craig, and Craig's like, great, I can write this in
Yeah. In the same way during our episode and Star Wars celebration, I
said, like, I want the West Wing show about the Senate on Cortissant.
I want the full history of Fedrah, like, give me the politics
of it all. But the more important thing I was gonna say about that
is that, Danielle, you mentioned a while ago how you could play through
the first part of the game and not learn anything about Ellie because you don't
notice her reactions and you don't click, you don't press the button when the
green triangle appears above her head, and all that kind of stuff. I
think this game does that even more. Where you could go like, so
much of the story of this game is through all the letters that we find,
and there are characters who I feel like I know pretty well, but
we never see them on screen. We just read their letters and it's beautiful
storytelling. But it also sort of goes to his main point because you could
approach this game as I just want to press buttons and use cool weapons to
kill people and never learn their story and what a message is that about hate
and about violence and about how the idea of I just want to kill things
and never learn their backstory. Like that's the problem with every military in the
world, especially ours. Ye. What I love about about Niel and Craig
is that they've kind of talked about this on their podcast for the show um
mostly when when they were talking about the end of season one, and they're
like, you can you can what if this situation all you want? You
can say, Oh, well, what if the the you know, the
I can't even think of the word the inoculation doesn't work, Like what if
the cure doesn't work? You know, it can't work because of this,
this and this, How are they going to get mass? And how are
they going to spread it in a mass you know manner? They can't do
that. So Joel was justified in doing and doing all of this stuff.
And they said, like they actually said, if you do that, you're
missing the point of the story, Like like, don't don't do that make
yourself uncomfortable. Take away those what ifs, take away those explanations of you
know, of trying to defend Joel's actions, and just look at the action
for what it is in that moment, and that's the point of the story.
And I think, in a kind of a reverse way, is that's
the point of the whole game. Is if you just play straight through and
don't do any of this stuff, you can, but you're missing the point
of the story and you're not engaging fully in the way that the creators want
you to. What did you to engage with You're not getting the full story.
And so I always think it's interesting when when you talked to usually like
the toxic fans of it about it, and they're like, Oh, you
don't have to do that. I don't have to read all this stuff.
I don't have to like learn all this stuff, and like, congratulations,
you are not getting the story that you think you're getting, Like you're you're
not actually getting the full story. You're not understanding it, you're not engaging
with it the way that you don't have to. But why wouldn't you want
to? Why would you spend that much money on the game, Why would
you spend so much time playing it if you're not going to engage with it
fully, which people are allowed to do. But I don't understand it.
I'm very much looking forward, not that I want to encourage toxic social media,
but I'm looking forward to when we will invariably get the why is this
character on screen? Blah blah blah blah blah, and then so much makes
a TikTok response where they just put the letter of like, here's that character,
they are the game you just missed them. Yeah, well, I
think that's about a good place in our patron section. We're gonna talk about
some other video games with it very quickly. But is there any of the
last points either you wanted to make about this game. I think Matthew said
this earlier, and I agree it is which one doctor. Matthew said this
earlier that I truly believe this is one of the best video game narratives ever,
and for me, it's probably my favorite story period, and I just
I think it can become that for people if you give it the chance,
if you if you if you allow yourself to be uncomfortable, like Neil and
Craig have said, you're supposed to feel uncomfortable. You're supposed to question yourself.
You're supposed to open your mind up to more possibilities and more in depth
discussions with yourself and interrogate yourself. And to me, that is the is
the most beautiful part of the story is that it forces you to do that,
which is the most beautiful part of just about any story. Yeah,
that's why humans make stories. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's to me,
the whole ethos of this podcast is taking these stories that don't have the
right answers, you know, that are about these hard questions first of all,
just to fully understand and appreciate it. If you don't appreciate just what
that means. When Dannielle says this is her favorite story, please go to
her TikTok and just search for the words Rogue one because that's the level of
other love for a story that's not her favorite. So that's how high that
bar is set. Because your love of Rogue One is phenomenal and has taught
me a lot about that that story, including the novelization, which apparently everybody
should reach. But yeah, like, and this kind of goes what you're
saying before with the philosophy part of the people questioning the situation. This is
going to sound like a terrible thing, but I'm I'm a little bit of
a defender of trolley problems like, yes, when they become intellectual exercises for
people who aren't affected by it, it becomes really problematic. But I think
the idea of setting up a situation of when you're faced with a terrible choice,
how would you choose? And what does that say about you? Is
an interesting moral philosophical question. And when people just want to say, oh,
but let's play with the question and not make you make the choice,
you're missing the point. And all of humanity being saved versus saving the person
who's become my daughter is quite literally a trolley problem, and that's what Joel
has to do. And yeah, so I just I really appreciate that you
brought that up and all there. Uh non doctor Matthew, uh uh a
point? How do you what's the actual batter way to refer to you,
professor doctor Matthew? Matt MWK Well, I definitely don't like matt but um
okay, but okay, So I have a I have an old friend who's
a from from one of the families in Italian New Yorker who's known as uh,
you know, people called him Nikki um and he used to call me
Maddie the head. So how about Maddie the Head. That that that's kind
that's kind of my that's kind of my organized crime name. Okay, but
I thought I was gonna take all that out, but now I'm keeping it.
But if you can call me anything you want. And I'm very proud
of the damn doctorate, so I'm not gonna really complain about it. Yeah,
okay, would you prefer doctor professor? Doctor doctor? Okay? All
right, well so doctor Maddy the Head, do you have any other last
things you want to say before we wrap up? I think that we got
a lot of in the first HBO season. We got a lot of flashbacks
that aren't in the game, which tips their hand that we're going to have
a lot of flashbacks going forward. Yeah, and I think I'm very much
looking forward to finding out more about the narrative than my five playthroughs of the
game have given me. Yeah. I think that's episode three of season one
alone tells me that some of those like stories we saw play out in the
letters will probably meet those characters on screen and get their whole stories. Yes,
yeah, any ways, they'll be really powerful and that's exciting. Well,
thank you both so much for being a part of that, I said
in our patron section, I'm going to ask them about some other video games
they love. But for those who aren't going to hear that, just quickly,
where can people find you? I'm on TikTok at, written in the
Star Wars and on Twitter at Danny s three ninety four. I'm always talking
about Star Wars and the Last of Us. Let's check out. Yeah,
great content, we're checking out. Matthew and I'm old, so I'm not
anywhere, but but you can. You can find my web page, which
is Matthew Capel dot com and where I essentially tell you what I've taught and
why you should buy books. Um and if you search for studies in gaming
and my last name Capell with one pe, you'll get to that series.
And there are a lot of really smart people, smarter than than me,
who have done books for that series about some of the most important games that
have ever been released. So take a look at those. Those are definitely
worth buying. My publisher wanted me to say it that way too, but
I don't know. That's great. I'm hoping your publishers one day. My
publisher, so it's good to keep that person happy and of course, I
am Matthew Fox. I am the Ethical Panda. You can go to the
Ethical Panda dot com. You find all the podcasts. Most importantly, you
find ways to contact us. Let us know. What do you think about
the game if you've played it, what are you excited for for the upcoming
seasons? What are you worried about? How do you feel about all this?
Could you learn to love Abby? We didn't even talk about it.
There's so much more about her character we didn't get into. Let us know.
All that show information is at the Ethical Panda dot com. Of course,
Also think about becoming a patron. I love doing this show. It
is a lot of work. There's a lot of expense that goes into it.
The patrons really helped to make that possible. You get bonus content as
you're about to hear if you are a patron, So please think about that.
All the information is again in the show notes. So on behalf of
myself. Matthew and Danielle, thank you all so much for being a part
of this. We have spoken. First time seeing a monkey. It's such
a good boy.