July 14, 2020 • 15 mins
Anney reviews the new video game The Last of Us 2, and talks female revenge, queer representation, and ludonarrative dissonance while Samantha patiently supports her. Spoiler Alert: Anney liked it.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff.
I never told your protection of I heart radio. So
I'm so excited. I'm so excited for today's many But
(00:25):
I'm gonna go ahead and say if you have any
interest in playing The Last of Us two, the video game,
which is what I will be discussing. While Samantha asked
me questions, Um, that may be nodding to be fair
on this, Okay, I can't wait to tell you all
about it. Um yeah, skip this if you don't want
(00:48):
to be spoiled. I personally loved it. It's extremely divisive,
but I personally loved it. I beat it twice. I'm
about to start it again. Um should I probably not,
but that is what I will do. It is a
very difficult game, and I know you and probably ten
of my other friends were just receiving text from me
(01:09):
that we're like, oh God, this game. I'm crying again.
UM So, if you're not in a space for like
being very, very miserably sad and stressed, maybe skip it.
Maybe don't play it. So this is I'm going to
try to be, for the most part, as spoiler free
(01:29):
as possible, but sort of difficult and since Samantha has
you never played, uh the first one or the second one.
It's a brief plot summary. It's a zombie apocalypse UM
where pretty much by the time you start playing the
(01:51):
first one, you're at the point where society is almost
totally crumbled and there's a faction of this this group
called the Fireflies, and they're trying to rebuild and find
a vaccine UM. But for the most part, it's sort
of become a lawless, violent place. And there are zombies. Yes, yes,
(02:12):
very very scary zombies, including these things called clickers that
can hear you if you make any sound, and it's terrifying.
Oh is this one of the ones that you would,
uh know that was the Aliens game that you would
have the headphones on. You'd be like, yeah, oh yeah
that that's also very scary. UM. And the game is
(02:34):
an arc where you play this main character, Joel, who
is sort of this tough, hardened exterior, lost his daughter.
That's how the game starts. It's very sad, and you
get introduced to Ellie, who's like fourteen year old girl
and she is immune, so the game follows them as
(02:57):
their relationship uh reluctantly grows to care about her that
whole thing, and then in the end he chooses her
life over the possibility of a vaccine. And that's where
it is. And so this one starts off when she's
I think it's four or five years later, and the
(03:18):
basic plot is revenge and look what it does. It
just leaves bodies in the wake. Uh, it's it is
very very brutal. But I know you're listening and you're thinking,
what does this have to do with Steffan never told you? Well,
So there are a couple of things. One is Ellie.
(03:41):
The character was one of the few female video game
characters where I was like, oh, yes, she's well written
and I love her. Um, she is the main character
in this one, and the first one you get to
player for one section, but in this one she's the
main character. She's queer, and um, she is in a
relationship with another woman and it's a very sweet and
(04:05):
loving relationship. They travel together. It's not like, oh, in
the beginning you find out she's squeer and then that's
the end. It's like a pretty big part of the storyline.
So there's that, And uh, there is also a trans
character and this has been so the source of a
(04:27):
lot of debating conversation because you have the kind of
divisive fanboys who already were mad that like Ellie is
the main character, and then oh they just uh, they won't.
They are so ready to be so angry, but what
they see is like people coming in on their turf.
(04:52):
But yeah, yeah, and as you know, we've talked about
this a lot in recent weeks video gamers gamer is
there uh, at least one segment of them are very
very angry and like the voice actors in this game
have been getting death threats. Oh my gosh, I just
don't understand if you because even though I don't know
(05:14):
much about this game, that part I knew about the
disease and the young girl being the main character. That's
the one thing I knew about this. If you don't
like that, why even play or even by it? Yeah,
I think there's a part of there's almost like a
desire to be really angry. Why is this such a
(05:39):
good game and not have a male character? Only good
games can have milk, It should have male characters, bad
games can have the girl characters. Is that it is
something like that, and there is I've seen it the
kind of knee jerk comparison, because the first game is
widely regarded as one of the best games of all time,
(06:00):
UM one like over two d Awards, and so there
was already there no way is it going to be
as good, And then they come in and almost immediately
are like, so that character you be played forget about him,
You're playing Ellie. Also, she's queer. Here's this trans character,
and that's it. It's it's very different in a lot
(06:23):
of ways, UM and the argument around the trans character,
there are a lot of mixed feelings about it because
this character's name is Love and it's obviously, unfortunately one
of the few transgender characters in video games, and especially
when you're talking about popular video games and Love being
(06:47):
trans a trans person is it's complicated. It is it's
very important to the storyline, but also not the only thing,
if that makes sense. Like it was critical and a
lot of events that happened because he was a member
of a really religious sect who doesn't allow for trans people,
(07:09):
and a lot of the our argument are are there
was upset because the people in this religious sect um
use Love's dead name, which is like incredibly painful, and
it's meant to be painful, and it's seen as painful.
But um, there has been a lot of debate about
(07:31):
about this this character and representation which I believe is good. Um.
And so there's sort of like the angry mostly I'm
going to assume men who didn't like it at all
for including representation like that. And then there are people
(07:53):
in the queer community where a lot of this argument
is happening, who feel hurt by it or feel it's
tough because that game doesn't end well for anybody without
repealing it, you're in a zombie world. But that it
was just painful, um to see that play out. So
(08:14):
there's a lot going on when it comes to that
that conversation. And then I got to learn a new
word which I love, and it's called ludo dissonance. And
what is this, Well, I'm glad you asked. So ludo
dissonance is making you confront the fact that you like
(08:38):
the character that you play and you want to believe
you're a good character, but yet you're killing all of
these people. So Ellie, who you play for most of it?
I mean, at least I I love Ellie. Um. I
know some people don't know I do, and because you're
playing this character, there's a certain level of connecting with
(09:00):
them and their goals are your goals. But then it
does make you face look at what you have done,
look at all these people you killed, and look at
the consequences of that. Um And it's one of the
only games I've ever played where it made me feel
so it made me just confront how dark the things
(09:22):
that you're doing as that character are. UM. Oh, And
we've talked a lot about female revenge before, and this
game was very much about female revenge and how brutal
and bloody um it is. And I feel like a
lot of and we talked about this in our two
(09:43):
part Revenge episodes. I feel like a lot of revenge stories,
even if it's like, oh, look, this character has lost themselves,
there's almost a kind of fantasy, Yes, someone's getting what
they deserve element, you know what I mean, Like a vengeance. Yeah,
Like you're rooting for this character and they're killing all
these people, and you know you're kind of cheering for um.
(10:08):
And this was one of the few times where I mean,
by the end, I was I was speaking loud at
the game, like, please don't make me do oh no, Yeah,
so I liked that. I like that it really delved
into these dark aspects that is often that they are
often celebrated intermedia. Um, and this made me kind of
(10:33):
face that. Right, Well, I will say, when I watch,
uh my partner play Red Dead, huh, I'm very confused
because he's a bad guy. I'm like, why why are
you doing this? And so I often tell him I'm
rooting for the animal to kill him, like that's my
hobby because it feels so awful to watch, like why
(10:53):
are you doing all these awful things? Because he's you know,
as much as he's an anti hero, the I guess
the main player that plays but I'm like, what the hell, Yeah,
I want you to die. Yeah, there's a whole like, well,
who's really the villain here? Um? Well, obviously that's a
little different from the you know, this your game The
(11:16):
Last of Us, because you do have a young girl
who you kind of grown up with, essentially, as where
his character is not so much as an attached thing
because I'm like, yeah, there's nothing about you that I
like right now the Red Dead guy, you know, but
not necessarily like the Last of Us. I don't know
what that would be because I do see the previews,
and the previews for the games look much like movie trailers.
(11:38):
To me, I'm like what. I get very confused because
I'm like, I can't play this. Where is my do
do do? Do Do? Do? Do? Do? Noises? That is a
good point you bring up, because that it almost makes
it much shatter because she did play her as a
young girl in the first one, and she was very
sweet and she loved puns like don't get me wrong,
she'd kill you. She was off, but she was a
(12:01):
kid and she had like joke books and comics, and um,
you trying to protect her as the main male character,
so you have almost this like protectiveness of that and
then to see her just to see what that world
has done to people, what other people have done to
other people, is it made it really tough, um and
(12:21):
very sad. I also want to talk about very briefly
because we've talked about it so much on the show.
It depicts ptsd UM and she as the character. As
you play her, she'll get flashes of things or she'll
hear things, and that was one of the first times
I've ever played anything like that. UM, and my I
(12:46):
was telling somebody about about this the other day. I
was very upset because I'd like, just beat it. I
was like, I feel like the messages, we're all terrible
and look at these terrible things were capable of and
that's just it. Um, oh so this game, Yeah, alright,
then I loved it. It did have I don't want
(13:07):
to like go too much into detail because I don't
want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't played it.
And this is actually probably the most divisive part of it,
and I loved it. I've never played anything like that,
but it has an interesting narrative technique where you connect
with the villain. Also, um, you have to play that
person and see their side of it, which made it
(13:32):
even more painful. But I I do. I really loved it.
I highly recommend it. I get that it's very divisive. Um,
some people hate it, just absolutely hate it. But that's
my my review. Um, thank you so much for letting
me talk about it. I will watch you guys play
games all the time. I'll just sit there and knit
(13:53):
while you guys watch are playing these games. So you know, yeah,
I am campaigning hard for the last of As to
be in your game lineup. So yeah, um oh, and
I did want to add ludo dissonance. The term that
I love is also called ludo narrative dissonance. I just
shortened it. It is so good. I've never heard of that,
(14:17):
and I was fascinated by it. Um So, if anyone
has played and wants to share their thoughts, or if
anyone has other gay recommendations, you know Samantha and I
are always down right I love getting them. You can
email us at Stuff Media, mom Stuff at iHeart media
dot com. You can find us on Twitter, app, mom
Stuff podcast, or on Instagram at stuff I Never Told
(14:38):
you things as always to a superproducers Andrew Howard and J. J. Paseway.
Thanks guys, and thanks to you for listening Stuff I
Never told you. This prodiction of I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts from my Heart Radio is that I heart
Radio app Apple Podcasts wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
(15:00):
come on w
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff.
I never told your protection of I heart radio. So
I'm so excited. I'm so excited for today's many But
(00:25):
I'm gonna go ahead and say if you have any
interest in playing The Last of Us two, the video game,
which is what I will be discussing. While Samantha asked
me questions, Um, that may be nodding to be fair
on this, Okay, I can't wait to tell you all
about it. Um yeah, skip this if you don't want
(00:48):
to be spoiled. I personally loved it. It's extremely divisive,
but I personally loved it. I beat it twice. I'm
about to start it again. Um should I probably not,
but that is what I will do. It is a
very difficult game, and I know you and probably ten
of my other friends were just receiving text from me
(01:09):
that we're like, oh God, this game. I'm crying again.
UM So, if you're not in a space for like
being very, very miserably sad and stressed, maybe skip it.
Maybe don't play it. So this is I'm going to
try to be, for the most part, as spoiler free
(01:29):
as possible, but sort of difficult and since Samantha has
you never played, uh the first one or the second one.
It's a brief plot summary. It's a zombie apocalypse UM
where pretty much by the time you start playing the
(01:51):
first one, you're at the point where society is almost
totally crumbled and there's a faction of this this group
called the Fireflies, and they're trying to rebuild and find
a vaccine UM. But for the most part, it's sort
of become a lawless, violent place. And there are zombies. Yes, yes,
(02:12):
very very scary zombies, including these things called clickers that
can hear you if you make any sound, and it's terrifying.
Oh is this one of the ones that you would,
uh know that was the Aliens game that you would
have the headphones on. You'd be like, yeah, oh yeah
that that's also very scary. UM. And the game is
(02:34):
an arc where you play this main character, Joel, who
is sort of this tough, hardened exterior, lost his daughter.
That's how the game starts. It's very sad, and you
get introduced to Ellie, who's like fourteen year old girl
and she is immune, so the game follows them as
(02:57):
their relationship uh reluctantly grows to care about her that
whole thing, and then in the end he chooses her
life over the possibility of a vaccine. And that's where
it is. And so this one starts off when she's
I think it's four or five years later, and the
(03:18):
basic plot is revenge and look what it does. It
just leaves bodies in the wake. Uh, it's it is
very very brutal. But I know you're listening and you're thinking,
what does this have to do with Steffan never told you? Well,
So there are a couple of things. One is Ellie.
(03:41):
The character was one of the few female video game
characters where I was like, oh, yes, she's well written
and I love her. Um, she is the main character
in this one, and the first one you get to
player for one section, but in this one she's the
main character. She's queer, and um, she is in a
relationship with another woman and it's a very sweet and
(04:05):
loving relationship. They travel together. It's not like, oh, in
the beginning you find out she's squeer and then that's
the end. It's like a pretty big part of the storyline.
So there's that, And uh, there is also a trans
character and this has been so the source of a
(04:27):
lot of debating conversation because you have the kind of
divisive fanboys who already were mad that like Ellie is
the main character, and then oh they just uh, they won't.
They are so ready to be so angry, but what
they see is like people coming in on their turf.
(04:52):
But yeah, yeah, and as you know, we've talked about
this a lot in recent weeks video gamers gamer is
there uh, at least one segment of them are very
very angry and like the voice actors in this game
have been getting death threats. Oh my gosh, I just
don't understand if you because even though I don't know
(05:14):
much about this game, that part I knew about the
disease and the young girl being the main character. That's
the one thing I knew about this. If you don't
like that, why even play or even by it? Yeah,
I think there's a part of there's almost like a
desire to be really angry. Why is this such a
(05:39):
good game and not have a male character? Only good
games can have milk, It should have male characters, bad
games can have the girl characters. Is that it is
something like that, and there is I've seen it the
kind of knee jerk comparison, because the first game is
widely regarded as one of the best games of all time,
(06:00):
UM one like over two d Awards, and so there
was already there no way is it going to be
as good, And then they come in and almost immediately
are like, so that character you be played forget about him,
You're playing Ellie. Also, she's queer. Here's this trans character,
and that's it. It's it's very different in a lot
(06:23):
of ways, UM and the argument around the trans character,
there are a lot of mixed feelings about it because
this character's name is Love and it's obviously, unfortunately one
of the few transgender characters in video games, and especially
when you're talking about popular video games and Love being
(06:47):
trans a trans person is it's complicated. It is it's
very important to the storyline, but also not the only thing,
if that makes sense. Like it was critical and a
lot of events that happened because he was a member
of a really religious sect who doesn't allow for trans people,
(07:09):
and a lot of the our argument are are there
was upset because the people in this religious sect um
use Love's dead name, which is like incredibly painful, and
it's meant to be painful, and it's seen as painful.
But um, there has been a lot of debate about
(07:31):
about this this character and representation which I believe is good. Um.
And so there's sort of like the angry mostly I'm
going to assume men who didn't like it at all
for including representation like that. And then there are people
(07:53):
in the queer community where a lot of this argument
is happening, who feel hurt by it or feel it's
tough because that game doesn't end well for anybody without
repealing it, you're in a zombie world. But that it
was just painful, um to see that play out. So
(08:14):
there's a lot going on when it comes to that
that conversation. And then I got to learn a new
word which I love, and it's called ludo dissonance. And
what is this, Well, I'm glad you asked. So ludo
dissonance is making you confront the fact that you like
(08:38):
the character that you play and you want to believe
you're a good character, but yet you're killing all of
these people. So Ellie, who you play for most of it?
I mean, at least I I love Ellie. Um. I
know some people don't know I do, and because you're
playing this character, there's a certain level of connecting with
(09:00):
them and their goals are your goals. But then it
does make you face look at what you have done,
look at all these people you killed, and look at
the consequences of that. Um And it's one of the
only games I've ever played where it made me feel
so it made me just confront how dark the things
(09:22):
that you're doing as that character are. UM. Oh, And
we've talked a lot about female revenge before, and this
game was very much about female revenge and how brutal
and bloody um it is. And I feel like a
lot of and we talked about this in our two
(09:43):
part Revenge episodes. I feel like a lot of revenge stories,
even if it's like, oh, look, this character has lost themselves,
there's almost a kind of fantasy, Yes, someone's getting what
they deserve element, you know what I mean, Like a vengeance. Yeah,
Like you're rooting for this character and they're killing all
these people, and you know you're kind of cheering for um.
(10:08):
And this was one of the few times where I mean,
by the end, I was I was speaking loud at
the game, like, please don't make me do oh no, Yeah,
so I liked that. I like that it really delved
into these dark aspects that is often that they are
often celebrated intermedia. Um, and this made me kind of
(10:33):
face that. Right, Well, I will say, when I watch,
uh my partner play Red Dead, huh, I'm very confused
because he's a bad guy. I'm like, why why are
you doing this? And so I often tell him I'm
rooting for the animal to kill him, like that's my
hobby because it feels so awful to watch, like why
(10:53):
are you doing all these awful things? Because he's you know,
as much as he's an anti hero, the I guess
the main player that plays but I'm like, what the hell, Yeah,
I want you to die. Yeah, there's a whole like, well,
who's really the villain here? Um? Well, obviously that's a
little different from the you know, this your game The
(11:16):
Last of Us, because you do have a young girl
who you kind of grown up with, essentially, as where
his character is not so much as an attached thing
because I'm like, yeah, there's nothing about you that I
like right now the Red Dead guy, you know, but
not necessarily like the Last of Us. I don't know
what that would be because I do see the previews,
and the previews for the games look much like movie trailers.
(11:38):
To me, I'm like what. I get very confused because
I'm like, I can't play this. Where is my do
do do? Do Do? Do? Do? Do? Noises? That is a
good point you bring up, because that it almost makes
it much shatter because she did play her as a
young girl in the first one, and she was very
sweet and she loved puns like don't get me wrong,
she'd kill you. She was off, but she was a
(12:01):
kid and she had like joke books and comics, and um,
you trying to protect her as the main male character,
so you have almost this like protectiveness of that and
then to see her just to see what that world
has done to people, what other people have done to
other people, is it made it really tough, um and
(12:21):
very sad. I also want to talk about very briefly
because we've talked about it so much on the show.
It depicts ptsd UM and she as the character. As
you play her, she'll get flashes of things or she'll
hear things, and that was one of the first times
I've ever played anything like that. UM, and my I
(12:46):
was telling somebody about about this the other day. I
was very upset because I'd like, just beat it. I
was like, I feel like the messages, we're all terrible
and look at these terrible things were capable of and
that's just it. Um, oh so this game, Yeah, alright,
then I loved it. It did have I don't want
(13:07):
to like go too much into detail because I don't
want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't played it.
And this is actually probably the most divisive part of it,
and I loved it. I've never played anything like that,
but it has an interesting narrative technique where you connect
with the villain. Also, um, you have to play that
person and see their side of it, which made it
(13:32):
even more painful. But I I do. I really loved it.
I highly recommend it. I get that it's very divisive. Um,
some people hate it, just absolutely hate it. But that's
my my review. Um, thank you so much for letting
me talk about it. I will watch you guys play
games all the time. I'll just sit there and knit
(13:53):
while you guys watch are playing these games. So you know, yeah,
I am campaigning hard for the last of As to
be in your game lineup. So yeah, um oh, and
I did want to add ludo dissonance. The term that
I love is also called ludo narrative dissonance. I just
shortened it. It is so good. I've never heard of that,
(14:17):
and I was fascinated by it. Um So, if anyone
has played and wants to share their thoughts, or if
anyone has other gay recommendations, you know Samantha and I
are always down right I love getting them. You can
email us at Stuff Media, mom Stuff at iHeart media
dot com. You can find us on Twitter, app, mom
Stuff podcast, or on Instagram at stuff I Never Told
(14:38):
you things as always to a superproducers Andrew Howard and J. J. Paseway.
Thanks guys, and thanks to you for listening Stuff I
Never told you. This prodiction of I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts from my Heart Radio is that I heart
Radio app Apple Podcasts wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
(15:00):
come on w
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