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This game didn't need to be 25 hours long.

It could have been a tight 15 hours and it would have been far better.

South Africa formally accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza before the UN International Court of Justice in The Hague.

This is why The Last of Us Part 2's story cannot be separated from its structure.

Its structure is the story.

It was, it was, they were threatening my parents.

They were threatening my baby who was a baby at the time.

I was pregnant when we were filming Last of Us.

Again, this game was just extremely disappointing.

Plugging The Last of Us 2 into the moist meter, I'm giving The Last of Us 2 a 55%.

And really the main negative about this is its narrative.

Its narrative is truly fucking terrible.

In The Last of Us 1, I became Joel.

In The Last of Us Left Behind, I became Ellie.

In The Last of Us Part 2, I became disappointed.

I'm very conflicted about The Last of Us Part II.

On one hand, I have sunk over 150 hours into this game

and plan on sinking more because the game is that good.

The gameplay is amazing, the characters are well written, and the story is gut -wrenching.

The only thing the game is missing is a factions mode, and then it would be near perfect.

However, the hate this game gets is often misplaced.

You see, the game has received a lot of hate not

because of its use of liberal identity politics as a mask for bad messaging, but because of the gaming industry's misogyny problem.

The women in Part 2 do not fit the very small box gamers put female characters into.

And pairing this alongside the death of a beloved character led to a harassment campaign similar to the heights of Gamergate,

with many members of the team receiving abhorrent messages and threats.

Because of this brigade, many people ended up overlooking the valid critiques of this games very liberal and very pro -Zionist messaging.

So here I aim to tackle it all.

I want to talk about gaming's misogyny problem.

I want to talk about the misogyny tied to the controversy around The Last of Us Part 2.

I want to talk about the narrative and how The Last of Us does a decent job writing its women.

And finally, I want to talk about the real criticism we should have about this game, that it tries to use diversity to hide neoliberal Zionist messaging.

So let's dive into the mess that is The Last of Us Part 2.

Gaming from its inception has been rooted in patriarchy.

After the video game crash of 1983, in order to bounce back from one of the harshest market crashes the tech sector had ever experienced,

gaming companies started marketing games towards a young male audience, believing that this would be a surefire way to gain a devoted base.

Ads began to center young boys, with them being presented as the protagonists of every advertisement.

Consoles were deliberately put in the boys section in toy stores, to the point where games became culturally associated with boys.

On top of the marketing, games depicted certain types of men in a certain type of light.

There was an emphasis on the macho, the coolness factor of male characters, the power in the protagonist's hands.

Male characters were always the one at the helm, directing the journey.

In contrast, women were often the reward for a protagonist journey.

There were very few female protagonists during that era, with the exceptions being considered mind -blowing at the time.

This type of environment cultivated a boys club for gaming.

Gaming would not see a more equal audience until the 2010s, and in today's world, women make up 48 % of gamers.

However, despite all the issues the gaming industry had with representation,

gaming still became a safe haven for nerds where both boys and girls all over could immerse themselves into a new world.

Now, it was still rare to see girls showing up to a fighting game tournament, but women around the world were still playing games.

In fact, by the 2000s, Nintendo saw that women could be a great market to tap into and started marketing their products to both genders.

I remember making so many friends as a kid by just having a DS and playing in public.

In contrast to Nintendo's strategy of getting everyone in on the action, Xbox and PlayStation dug into their male fanbase.

This was the era where games became a lot more grittier, darker, and everything had that hue of piss yellow on it for some reason.

It was during this time period where we would see the advent of online gaming.

In the early days of online gaming, bigotry went unchecked to the point where if you called out vile behavior, you were viewed as the weird one.

Slurs were hurled regularly.

You heard every obscene thing under the sun.

If there was a competitive mode in a game, be prepared to hear the most insecure men say the worst things on the mic

and there are still people who act like this

so many people talk about the old modern warfare 2 cod

lobbies like they were a good thing like shouting slurs

and saying degrading things about women was just a normal thing to do

and something that should have been looked back on fondly on top of

that male gamers oftentimes did not know how to interact with the opposite gender

and would end up at best making girls uncomfortable

and at worst straight up harassing women women were always bullied for being in the game.

They were told to go back to the kitchen, to make the guys in the matcha sandwich, called derogatory terms, made to feel less than.

This still happens today.

And this is excluding all the issues within the gaming industry, where women have been historically underrepresented.

Female directors were and are few and far in between.

Women were and are already looked down upon with massive prejudice being thought of as less capable.

If a woman achieved anything in the industry, people assumed that she had to be sleeping with someone in power.

If she had any success, it had to be attributed to a man.

So with all this blatant misogyny littered within the gaming world, it is no surprise that the biggest online harassment campaign was against a woman.

Gamergate was one of the most horrible and influential online harassment campaigns in the modern era.

It was so influential that the internet can be divided into pre -gamergate and post -gamergate era.

The event dates back to 2014, where a disgruntled man wrote a blog post of about 9 ,000 words, where he claimed that his ex -girlfriend, who was an independent game developer,

was allegedly trading sex for positive reviews.

Her name was Zoe Quinn.

Now, did he have any evidence of this happening?

No. But did this stop an army of angry men from harassing not only Zoe Quinn, but a bunch of women in the gaming industry?

No. Because of this post, 4channers began this organized campaign where so many women in the industry were relentlessly persecuted,

being doxxed, receiving death threats, rape threats, and that was just the beginning.

This was the era where swatting had become a popular form of harassment.

Imagine wasting federal resources and taxpayer dollars, all because a woman in gaming had a different opinion women like Zoe Quinn

and Anita Sarkeesian received the brunt of the hatred but

so many women who were simply involved in gaming received unjust hatred because of a rumor.

The FBI has a whole page specifically documenting all the harassment and hatred these women and men sympathetic to feminist causes received.

I recommend you check it out.

It shows truly how depraved everything really was.

This event in many ways acted as a precursor for a lot of the rage bait engagement bait culture

that we see online.

Thousands of men consistently harassed various women that were labeled social justice warriors

and deemed their radical ideology that wanted more representation in gaming as an evil thing

that would rob them of the great games they had.

Because you know, who wants better depictions of women in gaming?

Who wants better depictions of minorities in gaming?

Who wants more women in the gaming industry?

Even though they make up like damn near half the player base

and the icing on the cake is these women didn't hate

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all video games they were gaming journalists for a reason they

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were passionate about this sphere they didn't want the call of

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duties to go away they just wanted better depictions of diverse

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people in their games like maybe we should have more women

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in gaming who are more than just objects in relation to men you know like actual people

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but a bunch of lonely women hating men could not have

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that for these men gaming was their safe hate where they felt

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that they could not be held accountable for their thoughts and actions.

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So as game studios made more games with better representation, these men saw their safe haven for bigotry slowly become infringed upon.

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In reality, the men behind this campaign didn't care if Quinn was actually sleeping with her viewers.

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They just wanted an excuse to push back against the wave of representation and progressivism in gaming.

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Because God forbid that there are more protagonists than just white men or gooner women.

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And again, most people who like games want more representation.

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Games like Tomodachi Life are blowing up because of the amount of customization that you had.

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Baldur's Gate 3 was praised for all the ways you could create your character.

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Fortnite, unironically, has some of the best Black representation in gaming, and it is the most popular game in the world right now.

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Have you seen the justice they do to Black hairstyles?

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It's amazing.

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But there is a specific type of gamer who hates to see people different than him.

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He hates to see representation in his space because that representation makes him uncomfortable.

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For the longest time, he was the default figure in all media, the workplace, and almost all advertisements, considered the default in America.

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Hell, he was the default across the world.

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But as time went on, different people groups saw that the system was not working for them and advocated for a more egalitarian and equitable system.

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But since these gamers viewed diversity as an invasion of their space, they could not handle inclusivity and retaliated against the movement through harassment and threats of violence.

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And all women had to feel it.

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Gamergate made being a woman who was into gaming so much harder since it made it more acceptable to mistreat women online.

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Many male gamers had been trained since they were young by this system to view women as simply objects in their story.

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So any depiction of woman that went beyond keeping her as a romantic option

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or as an object in relation to a man was heavily criticized.

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Any criticism the games would get would boil down to They're trying to shove wokeness down our throat.

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Even if the game just had a female protagonist that wasn't purely for sex appeal.

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Look at how they spoke about games like South of Midnight just because games like that had a black female protagonist.

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Or how people were talking about Intergalactic just because the game has a beautiful bald -headed woman of color as the lead.

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As I was revising this script, I saw the reaction to the God of War Laofei trailer.

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And oh my god, gaming is full of losers.

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Many women in these spaces still face harassment from men who feel entitled to their attention.

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I've heard so many stories of women having to change their username so they don't get bullied, using voice changers, or even just leaving a game they love entirely because they were harassed without end.

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We need things to change.

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Gaming companies have been able to push back, but we need to continue to call out this horrible behavior.

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And it was in this toxic environment that we got the conflicting masterpiece that is The Last of Us Part 2.

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the last of us part 2 was one of the most anticipated games ever

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and with good reason it was a follow -up to one of the best playstation exclusives sony had ever produced

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and that's on nakey jakey you can call neil druckman many things a zionist being one of them

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but that man is talented i remember just watching the let's plays of this game

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and simply falling in love with the world, with the story, with the dynamic that was Joel and Ellie.

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Many people had become so emotionally attached to those characters.

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So when Naughty Dog announced in 2016 that the game

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that had one of the best twists in gaming was getting a sequel, I was so excited.

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Questions like what were the consequences of Joel's actions?

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Where were they going to take the story?

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How are they going to change the gameplay?

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Flooded the community's collective mind.

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I remember hearing so many theories

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and just feeling the anticipation rise as the game's release date

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drew near each trailer made the game look only more intriguing the 2018 e3 gameplay trailer was phenomenal

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and despite the game getting a couple of delays we finally got a release date june 19 2020 and then

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the leaks happened the leaks were probably the worst thing to happen for this game

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because they immediately took the wind out of this game sales

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not saying this game was a flop it sold nearly 4 million copies the week it launched.

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But they changed the conversation around the game.

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The leaks happened during a time where everyone was inside the house due to COVID, and it was during this time where people only grew more polarized.

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So in an environment where a lot of gamers were prone to act in toxicity

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and with vitriol whenever they encountered media that challenged them, stacked on top of an environment where people were stuck at home scrolling and growing more anxious,

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this was just a powdered keg that was waiting for a spark.

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Leaking the fact that Joel dies, that a new character kills him, the fact that you're forced to challenge your preconceived notions by playing as this character,

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it ruined the surprise and a lot of the power that moment had for the fanbase.

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The fanbase went from speculating that Abby was Ellie's mother to absolutely hating on the character.

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And we cannot forget that the leaks mentioned that there was a trans character in this game.

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From that point on, there was a swath of videos made hating the game before it even released.

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Tons of people called the game woke, saying that the game would flop.

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They said the game would be garbage all this negativity all

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without having experienced the game at the time i was brainwashed into believing

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that this game would fail i'm glad i was wrong the

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game was released to critical acclaim the critics gave the game nines

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and tens across the board it was deemed a masterpiece the game sold insanely well

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and has sold 15 million copies globally today but despite all

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that the stench of hatred and bigotry still remained around this game

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because the last of us Part 2 chose to defy the long -standing boxes

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that women in gaming had been placed into for years.

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The women of The Last of Us Part 2 are some of my favorite characters in all of gaming.

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Ellie and Abby are both such well -written characters with completely different yet compelling character arcs, amazing parallels, and memorable dialogue.

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I love these two characters to death.

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They are both interesting, in my personal opinion, having their own inner struggles, their own lives.

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Their worlds are different yet so similar.

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Ellie is a character we have seen grown since the last game in 2013.

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We end up grieving with her, feeling her fears, feeling her joy, her rage.

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Abby is a character that many fans have learned to empathize with through the story.

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We get to see her redeemed, see her learn to find new hope, a new light.

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However, it would be an understatement to say that one character receives a lot more hate than the other.

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And this is not me saying Abby doesn't receive valid critiques.

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I think it's fine that people are uncomfortable with the fact

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that they have to play as Joel's murderer for half the game.

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But of course...

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I cannot address Abby's character and story without talking about all the unjust hatred and vitriol the character received,

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since a lot of it is rooted in misogyny and even transphobic.

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So in this segment, I'm going to talk about the controversy around Abby, discuss her narrative, and then I will talk about Ellie and her narrative.

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It is no exaggeration to say Abby is one of the

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most divisive characters in all of gaming people either love her

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or hate her it's a rare feat to find someone who feels indifferent

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but a lot of that hatred goes beyond the fact

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that Abby killed Joel a lot of it is rooted in the fact

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that she is a woman

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that killed Joel I do not think the backlash for Abby would have been as strong

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if Abby was a man but

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because Abby was a woman the hatred was on another level the type of harassment

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that Laura Bailey received for simply playing Abby was on par with the things said to women during the height of Gamergate.

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They threatened her life, her family, her newborn child.

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How evil do you have to be?

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But because Abby represented the intrusion of wokeness into gaming, just like during Gamergate, it caused a visceral reaction in a certain part of the gaming community.

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But the gamers' hatred of women blinded them from the beauty

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of one of the most well -written characters in all of gaming.

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Abby is very different from the female protagonists we have had in the past.

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Instead of being portrayed as petite and feminine or as some sort of femme fatale, she is tall, standing at about 5 '9".

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She's muscular, weighing at about 170 pounds.

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And her muscles aren't just for show.

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Her gameplay makes you feel extremely powerful and the close quarters combat is extremely satisfying.

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And one of the best aspects of Naughty Dog's storytelling is that they do a lot more show and don't tell.

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So when it comes to giving us an explanation for Abby's amazing physique, they immediately demonstrate it to us.

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The first scene in Abby's playthrough of Seattle has us walk by the WLF gym where we see tons of people training.

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If we pay attention during the flashbacks with Owen, Abby mentions how she had hit a 185 bench while training.

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That is extremely impressive for a girl who was only 16 or 17 years old at the time.

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If we pay attention some more, we see that when Mel scolds Abby on day three, she mentions that Abby was Isaac's top scar killer.

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Showing that she was in active combat for years on end.

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All these context clues lead us to realize why Abby had been training so hard.

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Why she had become the top scar killer.

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She was training for an encounter with Joel.

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She had been tormented night after night by the man who murdered the Fireflies.

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The man who killed her father.

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Every rep she pushed out, every shot she took, every Seraphite she killed was all the way for her to prepare for the day where she would take her revenge.

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And all that anger, all that training, all that meditating, day in and day out, brought her no peace.

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Until she started using the very strength she built to kill Joel to save Yara and Lep.

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Now, if the conversation about Abby's muscles when the game launched was about how they served the narrative, then the world would have been a much better place.

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But instead, the conversation revolved around policing how Abby's body could look.

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Comments immediately began saying it's impossible for a woman to look like that.

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That Abby's muscles were too large.

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Her frame was too wide.

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Abby began receiving transphobic comments, all while being canonically a cisgendered woman.

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And a straight cisgendered woman at that.

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But this is not the first time a cis woman has received transphobic hate.

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Matter of fact, this happened very recently.

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It's the summer of 2024 and the Olympics are in full swing.

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But amidst the buzz of Noah Lyles running the 100 -meter dash and Simone Biles being the GOAT of gymnastics, there was a controversy brewing in women's Olympic boxing.

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The match was Italy's Karini versus Algeria's Khalif, and 46 seconds into their welterweight fight,

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Karini gave up, saying that Khalif had hit like no woman she had ever fought before, insinuating that Khalif was the fabled trans woman who transitioned in order to compete in sports.

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This has led to a long harassment campaigns centered around this woman

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because conservatives thought that she was trans and still think she's trans.

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And I'm going to tell you right now, from my research, she's not trans.

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She may not meet the standards of traditional femininity, but she is not trans.

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There's no evidence of her being trans.

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If anything, she might be intersex since she was recently asked during an interview about having the SRY gene, which is typically found on the Y chromosome,

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but can be found on the X chromosome in certain cases.

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But we do not know the extent to

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which this may be affecting her because she has been very private about this matter.

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But Khalif still clings to the fact that she is genetically a female and a woman.

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She had been raised a woman.

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Her family knows her as a woman.

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She has pictures from her childhood as a little girl.

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This, however, has not stopped people from continuing to say that she is a man, that she is trans, that she is trying to take advantage of women.

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I mean, even while researching this, I found so much bias in the reporting because mainly right wing sources are reporting on it.

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That's why today's video is sponsored by Ground...

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Nah, I'm just kidding, I'm not sponsored.

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Khalif is not even undefeated in boxing.

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It's not like she's beating women so badly they are getting injured.

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It's not like she has a crazy knockout rate.

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She's just built different.

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And just because she has a biological advantage does not mean that she should be disqualified from the sport.

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I mean, if we were to use biological advantages as an example, take a look at Michael Phelps.

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He was literally built to beat every Olympic swimming record.

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He had the wingspan, a longer torso, double -jointed ankles.

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His lungs could hold more air.

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He is literally built to be the goat.

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All this to say that humans come in very different shapes and sizes.

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Not all men meet the ever -evolving standards of masculinity, and of course, not all women are going to meet the ever -changing standards of femininity.

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But instead of people reflecting and holding space for complexity in gender and biological studies, people resort to black and white thinking.

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And this type of thinking has led to transphobia and misogyny.

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Transphobia because they hate the person for the thought of them being trans

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and misogyny because they believe women can only come in a certain shape and size.

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But the truth is, women aren't built one way.

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They are extremely diverse because humans are diverse.

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Abby is a bigger woman.

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She has a larger frame.

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She is strong.

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She doesn't fit conventional beauty standards.

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And that isn't me calling her ugly, but she is still an amazing character.

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My problem is that people, in an effort to hate on Abby, ignore her narrative.

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Abby as a character has always been very interesting to me.

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She is witty, sassy, and hardened, but she is also caring, loyal, and very tribal.

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I, personally, am a sucker for a plot twist that changes the perspective of the viewer, player, reader.

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So first, she is typecast as the villain of the story.

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She shows up, murders Joel and disappears just as quickly as she appeared.

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We spend all this time as Ellie seeing Abby as this

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nefarious mastermind who stole Joel from us up until we get to her side of the story.

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We see the pain that Joel's killing spree caused her.

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And although many people think that this moment is meant to make us immediately empathize with Abby, I think this scene only serves the purpose of giving Abby a rationale,

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since we spend such little time with her father Jerry.

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When we start Seattle Day 1, Abby's emotionally stuck in limbo.

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She clearly has PTSD from what Joel did that night in Salt Lake City.

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All her friends have been distant except for Manny.

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Her ex's girlfriend is pregnant and she has been fighting a war she has been losing interest in.

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She feels stuck.

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The guilt of killing Joel clearly weighs on her mind.

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And by the end of the first day, we end up disliking Abby even more because she helps her ex cheat on his pregnant girlfriend.

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She's a mess.

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But then day two starts and Abby's body instinctually drives her to go back

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and help save those Seraphites who saved her briefly in day one.

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Here, the game presents its thesis.

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The way to heal from grief, the way to end cycles of violence, is to invest in others selflessly.

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When Abby risked her life to get the materials necessary for Yara, fighting Seraphites, facing her fear of heights dead on,

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descending through the hell that is the hotel with Lev by her side, fighting a monster that was the amalgamation of her trauma, grief, and shame, That is what healed her.

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When Abby risked her life to save Lev on Seraphite Island, that was her choosing the life.

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Now, this narrative is nothing new because surprise, surprise, this is the same arc Joel goes through.

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Both characters start off as disgruntled protagonists who are hardened by trauma.

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Both are suddenly thrust with the responsibility of protecting a teen learning to navigate a dangerous world.

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Both end up risking it all for this kid that they end up treating as kin.

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Granted, Abby's arc happens a lot faster since it's over a three -day period

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while Joel's arc is over a year but the parallels are clearly there.

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And this is purposeful.

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The story wants you to make these connections so we can see

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that there is no evil side in terms of their motivations.

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This will pose a problem later, but I understand how it serves the narrative.

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And of course, we cannot talk about the woman of The Last of Us Part 2 without mentioning the other protagonist of this game.

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I believe Ellie is a great example of a queer character written right.

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The game is sometimes a bit on the nose about its political messaging, especially in Ellie's story, from the Dome being a synagogue to the Pride Month bookstore in Seattle day one.

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But the game does not sacrifice the narrative in order to place a diverse character.

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Ellie and Dina are more than just the lesbian couple in the game.

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Their relationship feels genuine.

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There is a kaleidoscope of emotions

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and feelings in this toxic dynamic between an avoided attachment -style lesbian and an anxious attachment bisexual woman.

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I love these two and how they show up for each other.

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I love how the stakes are raised by the end of day one.

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I love the fact that they are doomed Yuri.

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I'm sorry, that was a bad joke.

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I don't mean to fetishize lesbians.

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Anyway, but in all seriousness, Ellie's arc has a great blend of representation and narrative care that is very rare in most media today, including the show.

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dad.

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On top of the representation, Ellie's arc is meant to show the depravity of grief -driven violence.

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With every kill, Ellie inflicts more pain on herself.

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It's why the game goes from this free -flowing, adventurous gameplay on Seattle Day 1 to the darkest, most restricted, and forceful gameplay.

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Because this is how Ellie views her time in Seattle.

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By the time we get to the hospital, when Ellie is holding that pipe in front of Nora, she believes that she has hit the point of no return.

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She had risked so much after day one turned sour, fighting legions of WLF, fighting Seraphites on day two, killing infected, because she had not reaped any rewards for her sacrifice.

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All she had seen was more death, to the point where she feared losing the ones she loved the most.

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And on top of all that, she was constantly retreating to memories with Joel, remembering all the times their relationships began to sour.

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But despite all that fear, all that pain, and

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because she was blinded by grief she chose joel over all the people important to her

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and it cost her it cost her tommy it cost her jesse

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and it cost her dina it cost her her happiness her peace her joy to the point where

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when we returned to ellie on the farm she had become a husk of herself

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and the crazy part is this is exactly where abby was

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emotionally back in jackson both struggled with ptsd both set out

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for a journey for revenge ellie's seattle experience is meant to represent and Abby's journey to Jackson.

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The hell both of them went to.

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The ruminating on how it would feel to get revenge.

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The people trying to talk them out of it only for their loved ones to pay the consequences.

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And both make the same decision in the end.

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To let the other go after having every right to want to kill the other.

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In Abby's case, her new light pulled her out of her darkness.

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And in Ellie's case, it was the remnant of Joel left that pulled her out before she let go.

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She let go of Abby.

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She let go of revenge.

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She let go of the anger that she felt and got the closure that she needed.

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I understand being upset with Ellie for not going through with killing Abby, but Ellie would have lost herself forever the moment she had killed her.

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Instead, in her darkest moment, she chooses to remember the light that Joel was to her.

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And that's why I find the game so beautiful.

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Now, for some, I get it.

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They play video games to insert themselves into the character, so when Ellie makes a decision they wouldn't make, they feel a disconnect.

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To have the choice of ending the cycle represents healing rather than letting the player continue the pain.

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Now, I've been praising this game a lot, and that's because I believe that in a space full of hatred and so full of negativity, we ought to praise the good that we see.

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We ought to encourage good representation so that we can see more boundaries broken in our media and more representation.

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I love seeing well -written queer characters, well -written women, and of course, just diversity as a whole.

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However, this does not mean that we start engaging with media we love uncritically.

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The Last of Us Part 2 falls into a category of political messaging I like to call diversity masking.

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I just made that up.

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I don't know if that's a real term.

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It's the same problem I had with Arcane.

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It has all these diverse faces that are well written for the most part.

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But when you peek under the mask, you find that the story is using diversity to hide pro capitalist,

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high key conservative political messaging about trust and political structures, warfare and capital.

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In the case of The Last of Us Part 2, we find

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that although the game has great female representation tries to hide very bad messaging around a certain conflict in the Middle East.

380

Yup, it's time to talk about Zionism and The Last of Us Part 2.

381

I just want to give a quick shout out to Jack Saint

382

because a lot of the information from this segment I got from his video Zionism and The Last of Us,

383

it is legitimately an excellent video and I will be providing similar critiques of Part 2 with my own perspective of course.

384

I also want to say anti -Zionism is not anti -Semitism.

385

There will be no tolerance on this channel for slurs against Jewish people.

386

Now with that out the way, let's dive into this.

387

When it comes to analyzing the very obvious political messaging of The Last of Us Part II, you have to look at Neil Druckmann's background since it is clearly an influence on the way he wrote the narrative.

388

Neil Druckmann is an Israeli.

389

He lived in the West Bank until he was 10 years old.

390

So whether he did it purposely Truthfully or not, his story does have parallels to his experiences.

391

When Druckmann spoke about the inspiration for the theming behind Part 2, he references the killing of two Israeli soldiers at the hands of the mob in Ramallah,

392

and how it made him feel in the moment.

393

The rage and desire for revenge that coursed through his body, and the remorse he felt for those feelings after further reflection.

394

But this experience was the foundation upon which Druckmann built the narrative that is The Last of Us Part 2.

395

Taking that into account, this recontextualizes a lot of what we see in part two's narrative choices.

396

Choosing to have the narrative be based on how hatred

397

and the desire for revenge drives us to depravity directly reflects the apparent cyclical nature of the Israel -Palestine conflict,

398

since it has been nothing but seemingly endless violence between both parties based on her one another.

399

On top of that, we can clearly see who represents who in Part 2's story.

400

There is a regional conflict between two local governments about who should control the land.

401

Party 1 is a secular modern militia where everyone pledges unfettered loyalty to the cause of keeping their people together.

402

And Party 2 is a religious group that is near primitive and extremely bigoted in their interpretation of their religion.

403

And although they are smaller in terms of size, they are still able to push back through brute strength and sheer will.

404

Both are extremely brutal in their war tactics, doing whatever they can to defeat their enemies.

405

They have had multiple treaties in the past, but time and time again, someone on either side ends up violating the treaty, leading to the violence repeating once again.

406

What Neel is trying to portray is obvious.

407

Isaac very clearly represents the Israeli Prime Minister's role in the violence, while the Seraphites are treated as a group that is ruled by committee, similar to Hamas.

408

The conflict has been going on for ages, so much so that there are children on both sides who have been born into nothing but war.

409

On top of all this narrative symbolism, the game also has some of the most gruesome dismemberment in all of gaming.

410

Heads and limbs blown off from different guns and explosions watching enemies shriek

411

while lit on fire and to put icing on the cake, enemies shout each other's name when killed.

412

All this to demonstrate to the player not only the brutality of violence and the depravity of war, but the lengths that we go to dehumanize our enemies.

413

That people are willing to lose themselves to violence.

414

With all this detail placed into the game, Neil Druckmann plants his flag and self -righteously states, the situation is just too complicated to solve,

415

so all violence is to be condemned.

416

He frames it as if the violence committed by both sides is equal and that therefore, there is no possible way we can sort it out.

417

Both sides simply want to lay claim to the land that they've always lived on.

418

But there are a number of problems with this framing.

419

Because although Although there is truth in the statement that things are always more complex than they seem, they are not so complex that you ignore the very obvious lopsidedness of the conflict

420

that has killed and is killing thousands of Palestinians based on an ethnocentrist colonial ideology.

421

Political Zionism was an ideology created in the mid -19th century with the express goal of establishing a Jewish ethnostate in Palestine.

422

Through this ethnostate, they would be able to protect themselves from the anti -Semitism rooted in all societies they encountered.

423

They started sharing pamphlets, settling in Palestine under the authority of the British Empire,

424

and began building the idealistic utopia free of anti -Semitism.

425

But I just want to let you in on a little secret.

426

If you didn't know, just because you go through oppression doesn't mean you can go and colonize another people group.

427

You can't just go into someone's home and claim it as your own.

428

But that is exactly what happened.

429

Israel is a settler colonial project and has, for all of the nation -state's existence,

430

been ethnically cleansing the Palestinian people in order to establish an ethno -state.

431

Every temporary ceasefire has been violated over and over again, all

432

because Israel has been allowed by the most powerful government in the world to continue killing Palestinian people for its own benefit.

433

On September 16th of 2025, the UN Commission officially declared that Israel had been committing a genocide on the Palestinian people,

434

citing four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Convention of Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

435

They're late to the party, as they were one of many international organizations that have recognized this genocide,

436

alongside the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders, and many others who have seen what is happening for what it is,

437

a systematic targeting of a people group in order to eradicate them.

438

The Israeli government has been seen targeting journalists,

439

with over 260 Gazan journalists being purposefully targeted in drone strikes since the attacks of October 7th.

440

They have blocked all humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, sending away any organization that attempts to help starving and injured civilians.

441

They have bombed hospitals in the name of stopping Hamas, but have only left the Gazans with no medical infrastructure.

442

They have violated ceasefire agreement after ceasefire agreement and have continuously been the aggressor in the conflict, time and time again.

443

And on top of all this, they are backed by the most powerful military in the world.

444

Another genocide America is implicated in.

445

Now why do I bring this up?

446

Because if you were to go based on The Last of Us Part 2's framing of the conflict, you would be under the impression that the violence is committed equally on both sides, and that both sides are equally guilty.

447

Isaac is bad for wanting to go in and eradicate all the scars, but the Seraphites are wrong for wanting the same because they are just as implicated in the violence.

448

But in reality, this is simply not the case.

449

Hamas does not receive constant aid from the most powerful nation in the world to harass Israel.

450

But when we look at who is the more powerful nation, the nation who is committing the greater violence, committing more war crimes, the one who is being called out by all organizations,

451

it is not the Palestinian rebel group.

452

On top of the parallels, look at how The Last of Us attempts to paint the Palestinians.

453

The Seraphites are violent.

454

They are brutish.

455

They are bigoted.

456

They are entrenched in their gender roles, described as reinterpreting their holy book in order to commit violent acts, mercilessly killing people in the name of their prophet.

457

You can find tales of their horrible murders throughout the game.

458

Narratively, it's pretty good foreshadowing.

459

But this is clearly meant to represent Muslim extremism.

460

And if this were not so heavily shaped by the Israel -Palestine conflict, maybe I could excuse it.

461

But re -contextualizing this through this lens, it feels as if Druckmann is painting the Palestinians as violent and dangerous because of their faith.

462

Their faith may have some beauty to it, but because of all the misrepresentation and misinterpretation, all the Palestinian people have gone violent.

463

And that's simply unjust.

464

Now compare that depiction to how he depicts the wolves.

465

They are disciplined.

466

They are gentle when they need to be and brutal because they have to be.

467

Their violence feels more justified.

468

However, even in fiction, they cannot help but gun down kids.

469

I understand Druckmann was going for a more balanced approach, but even when trying to give a serified character to empathize with like Lev,

470

the story still paints it as Lev trying to escape his primitive, violent, hateful culture rather than Lev fighting to protect his culture and his people.

471

This portrayal doesn't even represent the accurate experience of queer Palestinians.

472

Because queer Palestinians have existed in Palestine for a while, and although Israel portrays itself as a safe space for all LGBTQ plus members,

473

they show no compassion for queer Palestinian refugees.

474

It is textbook pinkwashing, where the issues of the queer community and queer rights are used to justify colonialism and imperialism.

475

LGBTQ rights are then discarded when it comes to other issues.

476

This rhetoric was constantly used against the people advocating for the Palestinian cause in 2023.

477

But no matter how hard you try, you can't pinkwash the genocide.

478

But if you were to go off The Last of Us Part II, you will go, man, there is simply no answer to the violence.

479

When in reality, that just ignores the dynamics at play.

480

One of the most powerful things about Part 2's narrative is

481

that it forces you to take the perspective of a perceived enemy.

482

You are forced to empathize with Abby and see her world from her perspective.

483

You see her fears, her hopes, the things that keep her going, the pain she feels losing her loved ones.

484

We get the whole range.

485

However, when we experience the conflict between the Wolves and the Seraphites, we get only two perspectives.

486

A perspective from an outsider peering in on the conflict

487

and the perspective from a loyal soldier turned defector because she met one of the good ones.

488

Ellie only sees that both sides are bloodthirsty and therefore both evil, while Abby eventually sees the war as bad because there is no nuance in the fighting.

489

But the story lacks one more perspective, the perspective of a Seraphite, the perspective of someone who has fought against the wolves for years.

490

I believe the narrative attempts to do this with Lev, but this is not a first person point of view and on top of that, Lev is actively a defector from the conflict.

491

Because of this fact, the player rarely feels guilt for killing a Seraphite warrior.

492

I mean, look at how they portray the brutality these people have.

493

When we are introduced to Yara and Lev, Seraphite Emily has the soldiers break Yara's arm so bad she needed it amputated.

494

They gut people after hanging them.

495

They assign extremely rigid roles to their community to the point where they assign 13 -year -olds to be mothers.

496

How can we empathize with that.

497

Oh, because we read some of their prayers

498

and they ask for the prophet to do stuff for them like all religions do?

499

I believe this lack of perspective, whether conscious or not, reflects how Druckmann and many other liberal Zionists view the conflict.

500

Both sides are wrong for the violence, although one is clearly worse to the point where they are bigoted,

501

but that doesn't 100 % exonerate the better aside from the atrocities they commit.

502

From Ellie's perspective, the war is just another obstacle in her way of getting to Abbey.

503

She thinks all Seattle's residents are awful because they are killing each other nonstop

504

and have mistaken her for one of the enemies.

505

The violence feels nonsensical to her.

506

When we recontextualize this through the lens of Israel Palestine, Ellie's outsider perspective is supposed to be the neutral party.

507

At least this is the perspective Druckmann believes the outsider should take, those who have no allegiance to the Palestinian or Israeli cause.

508

This is where the complaints of the game's messaging of war is bad comes in.

509

The game refuses to take a clear side condemning all violence universally, treating the violence as equal.

510

But the problem is, outsiders are not seeing the violence as equally bad.

511

Most nations outside of the ones who have a vested interest in Israel recognize the genocide.

512

The violence doesn't seem senseless, nor is it equal.

513

Recently, South Africa has filed court proceedings against Israel in the International Court of Justice on the grounds

514

that Israel has violated the 1948 Genocide Convention.

515

The third parties, see the truth abby's perspective is one of someone who becomes

516

slowly disillusioned with the cause she was once fighting for she had once been adamant

517

that she was on the right side saying the seraphites deserve to die for breaking the rules

518

and killing wolves even going as far to justify the killing of children

519

but when the weight of guilt

520

and her instincts drive her to save a pair of siblings

521

who she would have killed without hesitations she begins to empathize with their cause

522

and with the help of owen she realizes the war she was waging was pointless

523

that her Her quest for revenge clouded her judgment and made her view the world through the black and white lens.

524

And although you could view this in some sense as noble, there are many problems with this framing.

525

Firstly, Abby doesn't really change her attitude towards the scars.

526

She only changes her mind about all the fighting.

527

She finds a couple Seraphites that aren't very bigoted, albeit they're the only two in the entire population that we know of and decide she wants to leave.

528

This is how many liberal Zionists see the conflict.

529

They reduce the conflict to maybe there are good people out there.

530

But all the fighting seems impossible to stop.

531

It's all just this big cycle of violence.

532

This perspective only serves as a covert way to justify the acts that Israel is committing.

533

Because when you really poke at that idea, what you find is that in reality, liberal Zionists don't want to deal with the fact that Israel is committing a genocide.

534

They try to play the part of the enlightened centrist.

535

Well, you see, both sides are wrong.

536

It's gotten to the point where a lot of Zionists are just straight up saying I'm pro -genocide.

537

Honestly, I'm pro -genocide.

538

Like it sounds really shitty, but like I think that Israel should just drop its fucking borders about where it is now.

539

Both perspectives that the game feeds us are left with a blindside.

540

And for a game all about empathy, this is my biggest criticism.

541

Because how can you truly empathize with the Seraphites

542

if the only perspectives you get through the entire game are either then trying to kill you

543

or the two who you help because they aren't like the others?

544

How can you only present the conflict as if there were only two valid perspectives and nothing more?

545

In reality, there's only one valid perspective in real life.

546

And listen, I'm willing to grant the fact that if they added a Seraphite perspective, they probably would have had to delay the game another two or three years in order to polish the story.

547

But for a game that emphasizes making the player feel bad for being a spree killer as Ellie,

548

and for murking all of Abby's friends who had some justification for wanting to kill Joel, It does not extend the same humanity to the Seraphites.

549

It wants them to remain dehumanized.

550

And like, isn't the entire point of the game to get you to humanize those you deem inhumane?

551

To people the unpeople?

552

Now don't get it twisted.

553

This does not mean I'm pro Ellie killing Abby in the end.

554

I think the game purposely has Abby parallel Joel, as I stated in chapter two.

555

And so for Ellie to kill Abby would be the same as Abby killing Joel.

556

And I think it was the right decision.

557

But at the same time, when I look at this as a reflection of Druckmann's Zionist ideology,

558

when I look at the symbolism of Israel -Palestine in the game, I see neglect.

559

I see a failing to acknowledge the suffering of the people who have been colonized

560

and are now crying out to the world for justice.

561

Palestinians have been reduced to second -class citizens.

562

They cannot vote.

563

They cannot go places without special permissions.

564

They are harassed by police.

565

And on top of that, they are now once again witnessing their world crumble as they are being bombarded by the Israeli government again.

566

And half the things I listed were already problems in Israel before October 7th.

567

Israel has continually committed violence against these people.

568

They are victims of a colonial project, just like how the slaves in the Atlantic slave trade were victims of a colonial project, and the Native Americans were victims of a colonial project.

569

You cannot both sides this issue.

570

We cannot let the world forget about this.

571

Which is why I wanted to say I understand that we live in a capitalist society.

572

I understand that we live in a society that feels the need to justify the atrocities we see regularly on the news.

573

I understand liberals want their imperialism with a side of diversity.

574

And because of those facts, these ideologies end up bleeding into our favorite media like The Last of Us and Arcane.

575

Both media with amazing diversity that falls flat because they capitulate to the status quo in one way or another.

576

But this isn't exclusive to these two shows.

577

Our media is only going to be so radical.

578

Think about Black Panther, which had a literal white savior in the movie.

579

But this shouldn't make us throw our hands up in the air and say, well, I guess we shouldn't engage with any media, nor should it have us going, nigga, it's not that deep.

580

But instead, this media gives us a way to open up a conversation,

581

A way to teach people about how certain ideologies fall flat and how to truly combat harmful ideologies.

582

A way to spread awareness about real issues happening across the world.

583

At one point, I wanted to title this video, I Hate That I Loved The Last of Us Part 2.

584

And it's because I enjoy the story.

585

I understand its messaging.

586

I love the characters.

587

I enjoy the world.

588

But I also understand that it uses diversity as a cover for a genocide cover

589

so what do we do with this we use the best

590

tool we have critical thought we analyze the stories we are fed we recognize the good

591

that they do we recognize the good messaging

592

that our media tries to send and we contend with the propaganda

593

when we do this we are able to recognize not only

594

when we are being propagandized because we are always being propagandized

595

but we could also call out the harmful rhetoric in the real world

596

and of course contending with media like this allows us to explore the history of ideologies

597

that are rooted in oppression and combat the rhetoric as well as raise awareness for the cause of the oppressed.

598

Making this video, I realized two things can be true at once.

599

The Last of Us has pretty good diversity.

600

It represents women pretty well and its gameplay is extremely fun.

601

But it also has terrible messaging around the Israel -Palestine conflict and ends up being a huge genocide apologetic.

602

And to contend with both is to recognize the flaws not only in the gaming industry, but with media we consume as a whole.

603

Everything in our world is deeply shaped by politics.

604

Jaden Smith was genuinely right.

605

And I look and I go around sometimes

606

and I hang out with other people that are my age and they're just kind of just, we don't want to hate on media uncritically like a lot of the lunatics on the right do.

607

But we need to use our minds in order to analyze the benefits

608

and the harm that the media we consume is producing.

609

I know Druckmann wanted this story to be inclusive.

610

He made it a point to bring up the conversation around cycles of violence, to make sure that the story starred queer characters.

611

But in the end, he excludes a major perspective in his story, one that in real life needs to be elevated and listened to.

612

And this rhetoric can be harmful.

613

People are dying because of this right now.

614

I will say with my chest on this channel, free Palestine.

615

I do not stand for oppression anywhere, whether that be in the United States or outside of it.

616

I implore you, read the news about Gaza, read the UN's investigative reports,

617

look at what some international aid organizations and humanitarian aid organizations have to say.

618

Alongside that, free Congo, free Sudan, free Cuba, we need to advocate for true liberation for all people, man, woman, and everything in between.

619

Do not let your advocacy be limited to trends.

620

Keep speaking truth to power, keep bringing awareness.

621

Listen, right now I'm in a situation where this is the best activism I can do.

622

I don't have much power.

623

I don't have access to wealth.

624

I still live with my parents and I am a closeted leftist.

625

This is me doing the best I can.

626

In the description, I'm going to link a lot of Gaza journalists that I found on Instagram

627

because we need to spread the word.

628

We also need to continue tackling patriarchy.

629

There's so much intersectionality in our world.

630

We need to speak out for queer rights.

631

They're saying that there is a trans genocide in America.

632

We have to keep fighting.

633

If you made it all the way to the end of this video, I want to say thank you.

634

My name is Eli, and if you couldn't tell, I'm a leftist video essayist who enjoys analyzing media through a critical lens.

635

I've had this idea brewing for a while, but as I wrote the script, I just realized there was so much to address with this game, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and I didn't even get to go through all of it.

636

If you enjoyed this video, please like, subscribe, comment your thoughts.

637

And if you're on mobile, please hype the video.

638

I want to see this video get a little farther than last time.

639

I'm not complaining because God showed so much love on my last Arkane video.

640

And I say thank you for that.

641

But we need to spread awareness to Israel -Palestine.

642

I should have implored that more in my last video.

643

Yeah, I have plans.

644

I'm thinking of starting a sub stack where I could put all my sources for this video.

645

I have a lot of Israel Palestine sources a lot of sources on misogyny in the gaming industry

646

because this game covers a lot this game has a lot

647

of information I want to talk about political messaging in our media I may even do some political focus videos

648

because my major was poli -sci

649

and I would like to go back for my master's in

650

the future in sociology political science that's down the road I

651

just want to say thank you for the love on my last video thank you

652

so much y 'all have been showing me so much love

653

so much support this video has taken me a long

654

while to produce um and it's gonna take me a minute to edit so stick around because in the next video

655

we're gonna talk about black representation in media and media

656

that does black representation right thank you so much for watching peace

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Vocabulário e dicas de fala para esta lição

Este vídeo tem 656 frases e 9458 palavras para praticar shadowing. A fala dura 49:33. O falante fala rápido, cerca de 191 palavras por minuto, então espere sons ligados e reduzidos. Apenas 80% das palavras estão entre as 3.000 mais comuns do inglês, por isso o vocabulário é exigente.

Vocabulário principal deste vídeo

15 palavras do vídeo que vale a pena aprender, com pronúncia e significado:

Palavra	Pronúncia	Significado
narrative substantivo	/ˈnæɹ.ə.tɪv/	narrativa
representation substantivo	/ˌɹɛp.ɹə.zɛnˈteɪ.ʃən/	representação
genocide substantivo	/ˈd͡ʒɛnəsaɪd/	genocídio
translation substantivo	/tɹænzˈleɪʃən/	tradução, transmissão
hatred substantivo	/ˈheɪtɹɪd/	ódio
diversity substantivo	/daɪˈvɜː(ɹ)sɪti/	diversidade
harassment substantivo	/həˈɹæsmənt/	assédio
revenge substantivo	/ɹəˈvɛnd͡ʒ/	vingança
gameplay substantivo	/ˈɡeɪmˌpleɪ/	experiência de jogo, jogabilidade
gamer substantivo	/ˈɡeɪ̯mə/	gamer, videojogador
violent adjetivo	/ˈvaɪ.ə.lənt/	violento
diverse adjetivo	/daɪˈvɜːs/	diverso
colonial adjetivo	/kəˈloʊ.njəl/	colonial
awareness substantivo	/əˈwɛɹ.nəs/	consciência
journalist substantivo	/ˈd͡ʒɝnəlɪst/	jornalista, periodista

Phrasal verbs que você vai ouvir

Palavra	Pronúncia	Significado
end up verbo		terminar, acabar
blow up verbo		explodir
bring up verbo		criar
give up verbo		render-se
go away verbo		sair, partir
go back verbo		voltar
go off verbo		explodir
make up verbo	/ˌmeɪk ˈʌp/	compensar

Pronúncia para ficar de olho

O falante usa 67 contrações e formas reduzidas, como I'm, don't, doesn't. Diga-as na forma curta, do jeito que você ouve.

Os sons de “sh” e “zh”: representation /ˌɹɛp.ɹə.zɛnˈteɪ.ʃən/, translation /tɹænzˈleɪʃən/, emotionally /ɪˈməʊʃənəli/, oppression /əˈpɹɛʃən/, contrast /kənˈt(ʃ)ɹæst/
Palavras longas — acerte a sílaba tônica: representation /ˌɹɛp.ɹə.zɛnˈteɪ.ʃən/, diversity /daɪˈvɜː(ɹ)sɪti/, ideology /aɪ.diˈɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/, protagonist /pɹəˈtæɡ.ə.nɪst/, biological /ˌbaɪ.əˈlɑ.d͡ʒɪ.kəl/

Como praticar com este vídeo

Ouça o vídeo inteiro uma vez sem falar e anote as palavras que você não conhece.
Comece na velocidade 0,75×, faça shadowing frase por frase e volte à velocidade normal quando ficar fácil.
Grave a sua voz e compare com o original, prestando atenção a palavras como narrative, representation, genocide.

Gramática neste vídeo

As estruturas que o falante mais usa, com as palavras exatas do vídeo:

Estrutura	No vídeo
Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — uma ação que começou antes e continua	has been fighting · I've been praising · has been going
Present perfect have/has + particípio passado — uma ação passada que ainda importa agora	have sunk · has received · has been rooted
Voz passiva be + particípio passado — o foco está no que acontece, não em quem faz	cannot be separated · is often misplaced · has been rooted
Orações relativas who / which + oração — informação extra sobre uma pessoa ou coisa	people who act · women who were · people who like

O que é a Técnica de Shadowing?

Shadowing é uma técnica de aprendizado de idiomas com base científica, originalmente desenvolvida para o treinamento de intérpretes profissionais. O método é simples, mas poderoso: você ouve áudio em inglês nativo e repete imediatamente em voz alta — como uma sombra seguindo o falante com 1-2 segundos de atraso. Pesquisas mostram melhora significativa na precisão da pronúncia, entonação, ritmo, sons conectados, compreensão auditiva e fluência na fala.

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