Kalentan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
47,625
I love these games but this is a huge sore spot of them without a doubt.

Though I don't get why we don't just call it Racist?
 

PlanetSmasher

The Abominable Showman
Member
Oct 25, 2017
125,025
they were the best people for the role! /s

At least in Chloe's case, her race wasn't even mentioned until Lost Legacy. I always operated under the impression she was supposed to be Italian in UC2 and UC3.

They literally retconned her into being half-Indian, which makes it extra goofy.
 

Berserker976

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,478
I agree with most of this.

That said I think the issue is that treating the POC characters like the way they are in the last of us 2 kinda hits a sore spot since POC characters are rare in gaming to begin with.

If we lived in a world where POC main characters was a common thing and the online gaming community didn't have an alt right slant then I don't think people would have issues with this game specifically.
That's a valid point, the game doesn't exist in a political vacuum, and the context does make it stand out even more. All the more reason I hope Naughty Dog course corrects in their upcoming games. I absolutely think they're capable of it, as they've included more and more progressive representation in their works.
 

Sophistry

Banned
Jun 12, 2021
383
Which you don't torture to death, what's your point?

I didn't realize that torturing to death is a requirement for it to be considered torture porn. Also, the game makes you take control of the character to beat the woman. That is not the case for Nora, so I'd argue torture porn is actually at its worst in the last fight, forcing you to become an unwilling participant by throwing every punch, and then pushing a button in order to presumably drown her death.
 

Deleted member 85465

User-requested account closure
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Nov 12, 2020
976
I didn't realize that torturing to death is a requirement for it to be considered torture porn. Also, the game makes you take control of the character to beat the woman. That is not the case for Nora, so I'd argue torture porn is actually at its worst in the last fight, forcing you to become an unwilling participant.
So, you didn't read the article and don't remember the game, you have to participate in Nora's torture to continue the game, if you are gonna make bad faith arguments don't even try this.
 

PlanetSmasher

The Abominable Showman
Member
Oct 25, 2017
125,025
This one legit got me. I'm usually good with tough scenes in media, however this scene in particular haunted me for days.

The first time I realized video game depictions of violence had gone beyond the event horizon was the torture scene they make you do as Trevor in GTAV. I felt sick for half an hour after that shit was over.

TLOU2's torture porn is worse than that.
 

Onlywantsapples

alt account
Banned
May 13, 2021
1,521
I didn't realize that torturing to death is a requirement for it to be considered torture porn. Also, the game makes you take control of the character to beat the woman. That is not the case for Nora, so I'd argue torture porn is actually at its worst in the last fight, forcing you to become an unwilling participant by throwing every punch, and then pushing a button in order to presumably drown her death.
Not to defend it, because honestly, I do think there's a bigger conversation to be had with regards to if this was all tastefully handled or not, but that final boss fight to me just screamed

"you are the bad guy"
"how does it feel?"

because I don't think I've seen a single person who played through that part of the game especially and gone "this is fun", and that feels intentional when Neil himself is like "no this game isn't 'fun' "

It's a game that makes you do very horrific shit, in order to make you more engaged in the story, and making you reflect on the actions being done by the characters you play as. Be it the start of the game where you play as Abby for a bit before she kills Joel, or the end with the fight between Abby and Ellie.

Not defending but, and I think there's an argument to be had as to how tasteful or not tasteful and even "was that really necessary" but that felt very by design if that makes any sense. Your by no means supposed to feel good about what's going on in that scene, and I don't think anyone who played the game did. You could argue that it succeeded in what it was trying to do in that sense.
 

Sophistry

Banned
Jun 12, 2021
383
So, you didn't read the article and don't remember the game, you have to participate in Nora's torture to continue the game, if you are gonna make bad faith arguments don't even try this.

I rewatched the Nora and End fight scenes to remind myself before posting. Please describe how you have to participate in Nora's torture scene.
 

Jarmel

The Jackrabbit Always Wins
Member
Oct 25, 2017
21,039
New York
The black Brute character is definitely problematic and that's something a minority might have picked up on if they were in the creative direction room at Naughty Dog. The Nora stuff I don't think is on Naughty Dog in terms of how shitty/racist players took it. The TLOU universe is pretty shitty as a whole, pretty much nobody has a happy ending. Joel got gruesomely beat to death. The Nora sequence did its job and well, you weren't supposed to be comfortable playing through that.

Naughty Dog definitely needs to do better as a whole though.
 
Jul 20, 2020
1,314
I think one of the arguments people may wrongly say is "well everyone in TLOU is treated poorly" but black pain is only utilized to progress the story of the two main white leads. I hated the part with Nora and while I do think TLOU is a superb game and was my personal GOTY I hated it's treatment of the black characters. It was almost as if any black character that took initiative (Issac, Marlene, etc) they were killed off, if they weren't relegated to servicing the white main protagonist development. I really hated that aspect of it. Killing off the two brothers in the first game was such a missed opportunity and felt like it wasn't needed to progress the story at all. I actually wish they lived and we got a different perspective of the apocalypse through their eyes. Great article and we need more like this. The game industry as progressive as people think they are is still very segregated and needs a ton of work. We aren't telling our own stories sadly cause the outlets to get black creators in just isn't there yet. I can't wait for the black gaming renaissance similar to the black film renaissance that happened in the mid 90s and mid 2010's.
 

Jardim

Alt Account
Banned
Apr 7, 2021
644
Any time my brain struggles to try and form a coherent reason like "It's a brutal world, people die" to try to encapsulate how horribly both Last of Us games treated its minority characters, I remember Tommy died 3 times, with one of them being literally shot in the head, and hes still walking around by the games conclusion, while every single black character was murdered in a brutal way.

Naughty dog should do better.
 

Rixan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,477
It's tough to argue with these percentages when considering the fates of the POC characters. ND should have definitely approached that more mindfully.

That said, ain't no happy endings anywhere in this universe. It's not like there aren't horrific deaths for countless white characters, too. Many of whom also serve as catalysts for other characters stories.

Most characters die, horribly - main characters not excluded.

Also, if it counts within this discussion - the show appears to be "correcting" some of this via its casting, no?
 

MinusTydus

The Fallen
Jul 28, 2018
8,492
I didn't realize that torturing to death is a requirement for it to be considered torture porn. Also, the game makes you take control of the character to beat the woman. That is not the case for Nora, so I'd argue torture porn is actually at its worst in the last fight, forcing you to become an unwilling participant by throwing every punch, and then pushing a button in order to presumably drown her death.
That is false. Nora's death wasn't a cutscene, it's a QTE. You take control of Ellie, and you must hit X to beat her to death. If you don't, the game will not advance, and you are stuck in a permanent loop of Ellie angrily breathing heavy.
 

Sophistry

Banned
Jun 12, 2021
383
Ah ok, for some reason the two youtube videos I watched of it don't show button prompts during that scene. (example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnzCndh__ao). (OK actually it was the pop up video they do at the end of it blocking the visual of where the prompt is. Apologies for that mistake. Even so, the last fight felt much worse to me on the level of having to actively interact/fight, rather than a QTE. Perhaps it would more accurate to focus on black characters being killed off or stereotyped, rather than the torture porn angle, for this particular game).
 
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Weiss

User requested ban
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
64,265
I think one of the arguments people may wrongly say is "well everyone in TLOU is treated poorly" but black pain is only utilized to progress the story of the two main white leads. I hated the part with Nora and while I do think TLOU is a superb game and was my personal GOTY I hated it's treatment of the black characters. It was almost as if any black character that took initiative (Issac, Marlene, etc) they were killed off, if they weren't relegated to servicing the white main protagonist development. I really hated that aspect of it. Killing off the two brothers in the first game was such a missed opportunity and felt like it wasn't needed to progress the story at all. I actually wish they lived and we got a different perspective of the apocalypse through their eyes. Great article and we need more like this. The game industry as progressive as people think they are is still very segregated and needs a ton of work. We aren't telling our own stories sadly cause the outlets to get black creators in just isn't there yet. I can't wait for the black gaming renaissance similar to the black film renaissance that happened in the mid 90s and mid 2010's.
Yeah I think this is an important factor that's going to get lost in the sea of "but everyone is having a bad time! TLOU is about our inhumanity to each other!"

It's every black characters inevitably suffering for a white protagonist's character development. There's no other way to put that.
 

boomtrick

Banned
Jun 30, 2021
787
Any time my brain struggles to try and form a coherent reason like "It's a brutal world, people die" to try to encapsulate how horribly both Last of Us games treated its minority characters, I remember Tommy died 3 times, with one of them being literally shot in the head, and hes still walking around by the games conclusion, while every single black character was murdered in a brutal way.

Naughty dog should do better.

Yeah I'm cool with this games super cynical walking dead esque storytelling.

But Tommy really did hit a sore point. Dudes not even a main character, no way he deserves that level of plot armor lol.
 

psynergyadept

Shinra Employee
Member
Oct 26, 2017
17,397
As discussed before in the thread OP mentioned it's just wild that every person of color died in this series except fo Lev with most being black.
 

Jarmel

The Jackrabbit Always Wins
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Oct 25, 2017
21,039
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Yeah I think this is an important factor that's going to get lost in the sea of "but everyone is having a bad time! TLOU is about our inhumanity to each other!"

It's every black characters inevitably suffering for a white protagonist's character development. There's no other way to put that.
I feel in this game's case, everybody suffered for the development of the two protagonists' character development. I don't think it was particularly selective in either direction.
Yeah I'm cool with this games super cynical walking dead esque storytelling.

But Tommy really did hit a sore point. Dudes not even a main character, no way he deserves that level of plot armor lol.
Yea, Tommy should have been iced. That was a misstep on Druckmann's part for a number of reasons.
 

Jobbs

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,639
I'm not very attuned to this sort of stuff because I'm white and not super observant but even I noticed something was weird when a boss fight was "giant hulking black guy that shrugs off all damage" shit seemed intentional
 

Weiss

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Oct 25, 2017
64,265
I feel in this game's case, everybody suffered for the development of the two protagonists' character development. I don't think it was particularly selective in either direction.
Right, but how many games with this degree of clout and popularity are there where black characters exist who don't go through that, or just don't exist in any meaningful capacity?

It's like, everyone suffered, meaning 100% of the game's black cast suffered, but Tommy sure as fuck didn't suffer as much as Nora.

Which is to say that it's a lot more easy to swallow the deaths of a whole bunch of white dudes because I not only have a whole bunch of games featuring white dudes, I have games galore where the white dudes are the most developed, most focused upon characters.
 
Jun 23, 2019
6,446
As a black man, I absolutely love ND and their games. When the black characters died in TLOU1, I chalked it up to "well it's the apocalypse and Joel was justified." Then came Nadine being voice by a white woman which threw me off. Then this part came and I was like, "Why did none of the other minority characters in the game get this kind of treatment?" Look, I don't want to say that Neil Druckmann is racist or anything like that, but this Quentin Tarantino style of racism has to fucking go pronto. I was half expecting someone to get called the n-word several times in TLOU2.
 

Jarmel

The Jackrabbit Always Wins
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Oct 25, 2017
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Right, but how many games with this degree of clout and popularity are there where black characters exist who don't go through that, or just don't exist in any meaningful capacity?

It's like, everyone suffered, meaning 100% of the game's black cast suffered, but Tommy sure as fuck didn't suffer as much as Nora.

Which is to say that it's a lot more easy to swallow the deaths of a whole bunch of white dudes because I not only have a whole bunch of games featuring white dudes, I have games galore where the white dudes are the most developed, most focused upon characters.
Well Tommy wasn't beat to death but he's pretty fucked up at the end. I imagine Druckmann wanted Tommy alive at the end as a living reflection of Ellie's actions, also possibly to avoid the story being viewed as too nihilistic/grimdark, although again I think he should have died with how it was set up.

I do agree with the idea though that there needs to be more minorities in leading roles in games, I'm playing through Prey (Arkane) and it's great that your character is Asian. That's something all of Sony's studios need to work at.
 
Feb 5, 2018
3,221
Yeah I'm cool with this games super cynical walking dead esque storytelling.

But Tommy really did hit a sore point. Dudes not even a main character, no way he deserves that level of plot armor lol.
To be fair, while I have an issue with the games POC representation, Tommy surviving wasn't one of them imo.

He was given a pretty messed up personal hell by surviving. Maimed in the face, permanently handicapped, losing his wife, and hell bent on revenge that he can't get over or even do himself.

It made the story better that he did in my eyes, because he represented the side pushing Ellie back into getting her revenge
 

Weiss

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Oct 25, 2017
64,265
Well Tommy wasn't beat to death but he's pretty fucked up at the end. I imagine Druckmann wanted Tommy alive at the end as a living reflection of Ellie's actions, also possibly to avoid the story being viewed as too nihilistic/grimdark, although again I think he should have died with how it was set up.

I do agree with the idea though that there needs to be more minorities in leading roles in games, I'm playing through Prey (Arkane) and it's great that your character is Asian. That's something all of Sony's studios need to work at.
Right but what I'm trying to convey is that Tommy "alive at the end as a living reflection of Ellie's actions, also possibly to avoid the story being viewed as too nihilistic/grimdark", that's a luxury catered only to a white dude in the cast, while in the ending the oly person who lives in Ellie's manhunt is Abby, another white character.
 

Jarmel

The Jackrabbit Always Wins
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Oct 25, 2017
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To be fair, while I have an issue with the games POC representation, Tommy surviving wasn't one of them imo.

He was given a pretty messed up personal hell by surviving. Maimed in the face, permanently handicapped, losing his wife, and hell bent on revenge that he can't get over or even do himself.

It made the story better that he did in my eyes, because he represented the side pushing Ellie back into getting her revenge
Yea, I wonder if Tommy himself thinks it would have been better if he died in Seattle. His life post that is complete shit.
Right but what I'm trying to convey is that Tommy "alive at the end as a living reflection of Ellie's actions, also possibly to avoid the story being viewed as too nihilistic/grimdark", that's a luxury catered only to a white dude in the cast, while in the ending the oly person who lives in Ellie's manhunt is Abby, another white character.
Tommy himself though is the best person to be a reflection as you see what he's like pre-Seattle and how he was against all of this revenge business and then post-Seattle he's near deranged. It's more of a position given to him because he's Joel's brother and he was also viewed as the nice brother.

Some of the casting decisions, if you will, are baked in holdovers from TLOU1. Much of the leading cast in TLOU1 had to be white as either they were the same characters in TLOU1 or related to already established characters. Going forward ND definitely needs to be aware of this.
 
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boomtrick

Banned
Jun 30, 2021
787
To be fair, while I have an issue with the games POC representation, Tommy surviving wasn't one of them imo.

He was given a pretty messed up personal hell by surviving. Maimed in the face, permanently handicapped, losing his wife, and hell bent on revenge that he can't get over or even do himself.

It made the story better that he did in my eyes, because he represented the side pushing Ellie back into getting her revenge

My issue with Tommy is that any other side character would have died for less(and they did).

The dude brushes with death like 3 different times.

I do understand that they needed a character to represent the dark side of going after revenge for Joel. And who better than his brother?
 

JusDoIt

▲ Legend ▲
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Oct 25, 2017
39,617
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Black disposability in TLOU games does hit on a visceral level. I loved Nora as a character. And being complicit in her brutalization was difficult to stomach. And the Black Seraphite boss battle damn near felt like it came from another game. A much more insensitive and clumsily presented game.

But I don't know y'all…everybody be dying undignified deaths in that universe. Of the main characters from the original, only Ellie and Tommy are alive at the end of Part II and they both barely survive and their lives are in shambles.

Damn near everybody we encounter. White, black, Asian. Dies horribly. Violent tragedy is kind of central to the premise.
 
May 17, 2018
3,454
Anyone calling this series "torture porn" or saying it revels in its violence is straight up arguing in bad faith.

Like, the Nora scene is *literally* the exact opposite of torture porn. You are supposed to not like it.

I agree with the race problem, but, I'm so tired of this specific part of the argument against this game. If it didn't work for you, ok, but, it's disingenuous to say anyone at ND wanted you to actually get off on it.
 

Jarmel

The Jackrabbit Always Wins
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Oct 25, 2017
21,039
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My issue with Tommy is that any other side character would have died for less(and they did).

The dude brushes with death like 3 different times.

I do understand that they needed a character to represent the dark side of going after revenge for Joel. And who better than his brother?
Yea it felt like Druckmann prioritized the themes and 'lessons' over the practicality and realism of that universe. I get it, but I don't agree with it.
 

starfoxxxy

Gravity Is Hard
Banned
Mar 13, 2021
6,488
My hope for ND is they get some black writers in the room for their next game

It's annoying because they give themselves such a pat on the back for acknowledging dinas cultural history (and neils) a]but turn a blind eye to the characters of color
 

Pat_DC

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,925
The conversation of race and characters in ND games is worth having, so interesting to see this article and the thoughts and comments so far.

I will say for me that this is the turning point in the narrative where I started to step back from Ellie and her quest for revenge.

Early on after what happens in the story I was very much - "let's goto Seattle and hunt those WLF down one by one and get revenge!".
By the Nora scene that sense of getting revenge had completely worn off and shows how messed up the whole idea and Ellie are and gets worse as the game goes on.

I didn't read it as something that is meant to feel good but yeah the visuals/dynamics can be troubling. Up there as being as confronting was the end at the beach.
 

aSqueakyLime

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,434
England
Anyone calling this series "torture porn" or saying it revels in its violence is straight up arguing in bad faith.

Like, the Nora scene is *literally* the exact opposite of torture porn. You are supposed to not like it.

I agree with the race problem, but, I'm so tired of this specific part of the argument against this game. If it didn't work for you, ok, but, it's disingenuous to say anyone at ND wanted you to actually get off on it.

I don't think you understand what the phrase 'torture porn' means.

You don't have to be able to be aroused or shit by it to classify it as such lol.
 

starfoxxxy

Gravity Is Hard
Banned
Mar 13, 2021
6,488
Also, this part of the conversation is prob too in depth for what this thread is alluding to but….


nancy-cantu-nancy-cantu-nora.jpg

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latest
 

The Lord of Cereal

#REFANTAZIO SWEEP
Member
Jan 9, 2020
10,884
I love these games but this is a huge sore spot of them without a doubt.

Though I don't get why we don't just call it Racist?
Nah, an instance or two in one game and not in any other games is an oversight/coincidence, but multiple instances across multiple games feels undeniably intentional and racist, at least to me. This is also just knowing tbat ND has been called out for this in the past and haven't done anything
 

Zaied

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,760
Worse, Naughty Dog's next game will be a remake of The Last of Us, so we'll have to watch Sam, Henry, Riley, and Marlene die all over again. Until they make a third game, which could be never or a very long time from now, that'll pretty much remain the fate of their black characters going forward in The Last of Us. Definitely disappointing, but I'm hoping they can make a game soon where they do black characters justice, whether it's another Uncharted or a new IP.
 

RoKKeR

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,341
Great article and I knew exactly what the title was referencing before I read any further. Lots to think on but for a game with many disturbing moments it was near the top, and the writer did a great job of highlighting the many layers as to why - much more so than I could have articulated.