mcree

By this point in the game, Ellie has explained that she has a self-inflicted chemical burn there, to make it look less like a bite mark. Then the tattoo was done on top. In any case, it has been visible to everyone already for months/years, if only at a distance; perhaps with an accompanying story/lie. Medical attention might give cause to look more closely. But other signs of infection are very obvious. Does anyone even know what a healed wound from an infected that had no effect looks like?

Yes. So while technically true, using "teen" and "teenaged" as an adjective gives the wrong impression. After all, this isn't (supposed to be) porn :) Also, Ellie could easily be 20 by now. 14 at the beginning of the first season, which starts in the summer, then takes place over a year into spring. Then five years later to New Year's; and E03 is three months after that. So it's spring again, 6 or 7 years after Ellie was 14. Just finished the E03 podcast, and Craig Mazin said Ellie and Dina are 19. Which makes him bad at math. Short answer: yes. The second game -- eventually -- answers several of these questions quite clearly. The show has already taken some liberties with the overall plot, but it would be surprising/disappointing if they muddied the answers. In the game and show, Marlene absolutely expects Ellie to die (if not immediately with the operation just starting, then shortly). She has made her peace with it: her lines to Joel about being there when she was born, and the promise made to her friend, Ellie's mother. She places her own loss/failure in exchange for the greater good as the highest. Unfortunately, she did not factor in that the grizzled amoral smuggler has found a replacement for the daughter he lost at the start of the outbreak.

They are not horse thieves. They are there to mete out (harsh) justice, not to hurt innocents (like Joel did). The two young women left behind will want the horses to get back to town (and drag Joel's body back). In their minds, they consider themselves good and righteous people -- a common mistake.

The second game refines and then expands upon the gameplay of the first; it may not be as well regarded as the story, but it's good. With its linear plot (as opposed to an "open world"), the game is a few dozen combat encounters, set in "levels" in Jackson and Seattle, surrounded by and slightly interspersed with the story. As with many games, there's an increasing selection of weapons (e.g. "now I found a shotgun") and abilities. When the game was re-re-re-released, they added a feature that allows you to play any of the encounters as any of several characters, including previously non-playable characters like Dina; each with their own special abilities. This is a case where a successful studio with a successful game can afford to spend money to add that as a bonus. But they wouldn't have done it if the gameplay wasn't any good.

They're called "infected". As we've seen, there are several stages/variants. On brief shot in the episode: at the end of the siege, someone shows a bite mark on their hand to someone else. We don't see any faces. That second person points a revolver at the person and shoots them, presumably in the head, as a well-understood mercy killing, so that the person "doesn't turn". If everyone is immune, that no longer happens. There is no intent to cure anyone already (long) infected, but with a "vaccine", it is now practical to confront the infected directly, maybe even to try and wipe them all out, since it will no longer spread. As I recall, they've never played the second game (or the first). The plot of the second was spoiled for them; probably not to the degree necessary to make pronouncements worth replying to.

No, that's both-sides-ing it. If you discount the outright bigotry and willful stupidity, the game is in fact, clearly well regarded. Once you are no longer concerned about spoilers -- hopefully after watching the whole show, so that you actually experience it instead of reading or hearing a summary -- the Wikipedia article on the game, especially the "Audience response" section, does a decent job describing some of the contours. Here's one on-topic sentence fragment They really took it poorly.

A basic human failing, demonstrated in many places: denial. "We had the cure for mankind in our grasp, and we let one guy take it away." One guy with three pistols, a rifle, two shotguns, a bow, a flamethrower, nail bombs, and no more than three Molotov cocktails, all in his backpack. "A smuggler brings her all the way here, then kills twenty of us and takes her away. Must have been a ruse."

One benefit of the fungus apocalypse: no more social media. The mere existence of someone that's immune is huge: who would get to control it. That's why they needed to transport Ellie in secret. No one knows about her. In that short scene at the graves in the first episode, Nora starts saying she heard rumors about "the kid" that Joel took, and without finishing the sentence, Mel denies it: "Something not true. Because it isn't possible", that Ellie was immune. Nora then says, "And even if it were, it doesn't fucking matter anyway." They don't believe it, or care about it.

How big a time jump? A week or two wouldn't change anything. Tommy goes off; Maria allows them to go after him.... Correct: not an inkling. They did make it more clear that she was uncomfortable with how it went.

No functioning adult fails to recognize why Joel decided to save Ellie. Some large portion would do the same. (Whether it is above or below the psychologically significant half-way mark, who can say. To be fair, be sure to survey them again after twenty years of misery and death; perhaps of the child or children they tried to save.) What's sad is the infantile need to make Joel completely blameless. The Fireflies' efforts are cast as impossible, pointless, reckless, and worse. The gaslighting falls just short of expecting the Fireflies to thank Joel for putting them out of their misery. With Omelas, the misery is perpetual and by design. In TLoU, children are dying regularly: Riley and Sam. Adults too: Tess and Henry. The notion of dying for something, even if it's just a chance; instead of dying for nothing -- that's not a crazy new idea.

That's certainly *a* real-world conclusion. Doctors and scientists working for twenty years to find a cure couldn't possibly have a working theory that is validated by finding someone that is actually immune, right? And if they did, production and distribution would be another problem, so why bother trying? It's not like billions of people have had and continue to have their lives cut short without their consent; that's not worth trying to fix, especially if you have to cut corners to do it. Granted, the show has infected humans developing echo-location, and the fungus communicating over distances; but let's not get crazy.

No; in the show Marlene says, "We didn't tell her, we didn't cause her any fear, there won't be any pain." After in the parking garage, she tells Joel that Ellie would "want to do what's right. And you know it." That first part might be self-serving, but Joel does not disagree. That's why Joel lies and says there are "dozens" more that are immune, but they couldn't make a cure work, so the Fireflies have stopped trying; all to dissuade Ellie from going back to seek them out. Not asking Ellie is more humane, and also avoids the quandary if she says no. Turns out it was a mistake not to; Joel would have had to accept it. But that would be a different story (and obviate the final action sequence and the sequel). It's telling that Joel doesn't go with that lie instead.

No. Salt Lake Tommy in Jackson, Wyoming tells them to go to Colorado Joel is injured in Colorado; they confront David's group They make it to the Fireflies in SLC, Utah Drive back to Jackson The show follows the game very closely at the end of season/part 1: "Swear to me.... OK." At that point, right after the event, you might read that Ellie suspects Joel is not telling the whole story. After five years (four in the game, but probably not a meaningful difference), what does Ellie know or suspect? The game explains it all, in an interesting way.

How would choice work in an HBO show? Viewers vote like on Dancing with the Stars? And then in Part/Season 2, Ellie either is or is not in it based on their choice? Thought-provoking tales have been told for a long time without choice. Choice can make a game more interesting and enhance replayability. It can also be a trap -- Mass Effect, for example. In the game, TLoU goes the other way: making the player complicit in Joel's choice by forcing them to push a button to advance the story. It's telling when people fill in the blanks left by the story -- because surely that would have been compelling gameplay/drama, watching scientists performing tests on fungus -- to manufacture a scenario that makes Joel's choices more justified.

People are trying too hard. What is actually said? Ellie is “being prepped for surgery” The fungus “grows in (or in the game, all over) the brain” If Marlene said, “But don’t worry, it’s just exploratory” or a biopsy, “so she should be fine” (except that there is always a risk with surgery) and Joel “can stay and wait to see how it turns out”: would Joel have taken that deal? Does Joel trust the Fireflies enough that they won’t alter the deal? Would the Fireflies have wanted the deadly smuggler to hang around and not cause some kind of trouble in the future? No, it’s “thanks for delivering her, but you have to leave (and here’s a souvenir)”; “I don’t trust you enough that when it comes down to it, you won’t kill her for a cure”; and for both parties, “don’t ask Ellie because she might say the opposite of what I want”. And they both thought that if trouble broke out, they could solve the problem with a gun. The maximum number of sides that win such an argument is one. The minimum is zero. Here, Joel won.