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Notes -
This reminds me, in many ways, of The Wire (one of my favorite television shows, comfortably in my stranded-on-a-deserted-island list).
The Wire is a tv show produced by HBO that's explicitly about a diverse cast (one which fairly accurately depicts the demographic makeup of the real life setting), the cycles and epicycles of violence, ethics, and both the failure modes and successes of community. Its message, from my understanding of its author(s), is intended to be a hard look at a serious problem (or set of interconnected ones, presented as one block) as written from a progressive perspective; something like the politically mirrored image of the likes of Death Wish. It achieves its goal, in my opinion, not by highlighting the absolute worst or best hypothetical examples (caricatures, if I'm being unkind) of one side or the other, instead it shows the viewer what these things and their consequences look like in reality.
I understand that TLOU is fiction, that it's a deliberately "fake" depiction of reality in a fantasy setting, that it's a post-apocalyptic narrative centered around an explicitly lesbian young girl and a damaged, morally gray aging man. Stories that focus on [pain or loss or evil or guilt] lose some meaning, value and impact when they rely on caricature and exaggeration to tell their stories. Their messages are more effectively delivered when you can understand the why of each characters motivations, even if you might disagree with the actions those motivations inspire.
Gallons of ink has been spilled on this specific property, the original game attracted a sizeable amount of discussion and praise for its story and execution. If I may attempt to cut the Gordian knot? The narrative from the very get-go was sloppy and low quality, it received orders of magnitude more praise than was deserved, and Neil Druckmann has already demonstrated time and again that he has little ability in writing compelling stories or multifaceted characters. The story here is sold through manipulating low-hanging emotional fruit, and basically all entertainment made since GamerGate which carries some sort of message isn't intended for you the individual, it's meant to to appeal to one specific tribe or another's sensibilities (not to hail back to the halcyon days of yore, exploitation movies have been around for decades).
TL;DR it's not bad because it depicts something I find categorically objectionable (though it does), it's bad because most stories told these days aren't any good.
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