Okay, first off, apologies to all my friend who are putting up with this being a Last of Us Takes Account for a week or two. I'm sorry. It's just an extremely impactful series for me.

Second, we really gotta nail down "cynical" in criticism

I keep hearing "in this cynical series/setting" about the Last of Us games, and I'm told a high profile YouTuber recently used this term in a retrospective of the first.

It's not cynical. I know it's a common hot take to say "zombies = cynical" but in this case it's wrong

I'm not saying people are wrong to think that from being exposed to the surface - if you just read summaries and watch trailers or ultra-violent combat footage it (especially the first game) really does come off as "nuclear (found) family vs the world"

But it's not.

The thing is, and this is somewhat ambiguous in 1 but not at all in 2, the trajectory of the Last of Us world is that most people seek out groups and that most groups try to carve out a better world. Some of these groups do so by evil means, most are fairly grey.

The designers seem to have meant for the Fireflies to be the ideal group, but sort of failed to convey that, which is why there's such debate about the ending of the first game. In any case, it's simply not true that it's a redneck dad fighting everyone fantasy

In the first game Joel cooperates when he can, and he is viewed as a *uniquely* terrifying and violent individual, something that the second game intentionally highlights with a blazing red golf club shaped marker

The second game opens in a commune. A literal commune. And the tragic ending occurs because the heroine leaves the communal society to pursue individual revenge. But then she stops short of it, because she remembers her dad being nice.

That's not cynical. That's sentimental.

Literally both protagonists of TLOU2 do wrong things involving violence and have flashbacks of their fathers dying horribly, and both overcome this by doing the right thing and turning away from unnecessary violence, and find closure.

That's downright optimistic, not cynical.

Tl;Dr "bad things happen to people in this story" /= "this is a cynical story"

I mean the specific mechanics by which both Abby and Ellie find their redemptive moment is literally a happy memory of their dad smiling at them, replacing their repeated (and as someone with PTSD, highly accurate) compulsive flashback to his death

That's... Again, sentimental

Sentimental is basically the direct opposite of cynical

Ultimately TLOU1 is a *grim* story because it says that, as one person I am mutuals with who I apologize but cannot identify to credit put it, in earning back his humanity Joel dooms humanity as a species

TLOU2 is just about earning back humanity

We have to watch Ellie lose hers, which sucks for people who identify with the character, but as I mentioned it's fairly realistic. I would like to say, and think I have evidence for saying, that I am more like Abby (post-early game) in how I cope with trauma but I get Ellie