it is difficult for me to discuss tlou2 without ranting about liberal zionism. i wish more gentiles tried interpreting the game's themes a little more critically, because it's hard to discuss something critically when the vast majority of folks don't fully understand the thing.

like, the shul sequence in tlou2 gave me feelings that i've never gotten from a video game. jews exist in so few games, that it felt miraculous to me. but i also grew up in zionist communities and understood that the game's message of forgiveness is facile and self-serving.

it doesn't even require that deep a read on the game's text. which community does the plot contort itself to serve? the seraphites are portrayed as transphobic extremists, whereas the wlf are fierce, but tolerant, organized, and principled.

but here i am, ranting again.

anyhow, this isn't to say that it's a bad game. it isn't! but i am, no hyperbole, scared shitless of anyone who played through both tlou games and thought that the real heroes of the game were the doctors willing to murder a teenager for a cure they had no means of distributing.

a) there was no consent offered to ellie, a minor
b) there was no guarantee they would succeed with a cure
c) they had no way to get the cure out to people across the country

back to my greater point, there are countries who believe they know better about who lives and dies.

every country decides this on some level for its citizens (see: 2020) but some countries dictate more forcefully the conditions of other peoples, communities, nations, etc. that's called imperialism. and yeah, tlou2 is very clearly justifying it.

the handwringing it does about violence is so liberal zionist. "it's such a shame that all those people had to die. if only they chose peace..."

peace isn't easy or simple, and there are always conditions attached to any offer of it. but violence against others isn't unavoidable

when one country controls (and often withholds) healthcare from another, the righteousness of practicing medicine is compromised. tlou2 either understands this and works to obscure it, or it believes its own lies. having lived in israel, i tend to believe the latter.

anyhow (again), i'm just very tired of leftleaning gentiles praising the sophistication of how tlou2 tells its story without at all interrogating what it's telling its audience (and perhaps itself).

the last of us 2: https://twitter.com/Ol_Deuter/status/1345223002485616640