Game characters you disagree with common descriptions of

[popopdc]

Are there any game characters you commonly hear people interpreting or describing a certain way, but you just don’t agree? 

For me, I often hear people say Ellie in TLOU Part 2 was dislikeable. I thought she did some foolish and selfish things, but they didn’t make me see her as dislikeable overall. I almost saw it as her going through a phase of her life not unlike Joel’s darker days in his younger years that the games allude to. And in the end, she did manage to make (what I feel is) the right decision.

[Moonface]

Pfft, forget Ellie, all I ever hear people kicking up a storm over is Joel and Abby when it comes to TLoU2. With Joel, it's how it was somehow out of character for him to provide his name in the cabin, except for a few things:
1. Five years have passed since the first game, during which Joel has interacted with people from outside of the camp multiple times without issues. One example is the coffee he is drinking is traded with outsiders. Then there's however many people have been found outside the camp and brought back, or came to the camp themselves and were welcomed in. Of course he wouldn't be the uptight guy we know from Part 1.
2. Even then, he provides his name openly in Part 1 as well to strangers, namely Henry and Sam. It's not like the instance in Part 2 is the only time the guy gave his name over.

Then there's the complaint Joel went out like a bitch instead of some heroic death, as if anyone who we saw die before him had a noble death. The closest is Tess who stands her ground and gets gunned down but she only does that because she knows she's already dead and would rather be gunned down than turn into an infected. Sam dies by being shot upon turning, Henry blows his own brains out, Robert gets his arm broken then shot in the head like a dog on the floor, and the two hunters Joel executes in a cutscene are tortured and unceremoniously killed. Yet somehow, Joel getting his kneecap blown off and bashed in the head with a golf club is a step too far. I get it, he became a beloved character due to Part 1 but that game very easily establishes nobody on any side gets to go out in a blaze of glory. So I really dislike seeing takes that Joel acts out of character or that his death diminishes his character because he didn't get some grand death.

As for Abby, what she does is really far less damning than anything Joel ever did. He was a hunter and did awful things that gave Tommy nightmares, and then when Ellie was going to be operated on for a cure he slaughtered an entire hospital of people to reach her. Abby's revenge from that incident involved harming only him and letting anyone else go as nobody else was a part of what Joel did. Yet somehow, people constantly refer to her as this awful person who is the most heinous character across both games, and while I'm not saying she isn't a bad person it's hilarious to see that her killing one guy damns her this much when we hear quotes towards Joel in Part 1 of "We're shitty people Joel it's been that way for a long time" from Tess and "The stuff you put us through gave me fucking nightmares" from Tommy, as well as Joel admitting himself he knows the despicable tactics of the Pittsburgh hunters because he's been on that side of the fence, but Joel is put on this pedestal of being a great guy because all we see of him is the tragedy he experiences and the journey with Ellie.
I could go into the "Abby is built like a man" descriptions people like to throw out and try to come up with all these claims of how she couldn't be as big as she is, but I'm not wasting my time entertaining the misogynistic bullshit that is the majority of those takes.

For Ellie, she absolutely does things that are harmful and bad to those around her, but that's kinda the point of her story. Both her and Abby sought out revenge that came at the expense of those around them, both mentally and physically, and Ellie's story is meant to be us witnessing the path of revenge from the start while Abby's is at the tail end, where we get to see the consequences of both sides playing out simultaneously to help us get to the realization that all the revenge they both chase after is pointless when all is said and done.


As far as other games go, it's been a while since I saw any particular character being talked about that I know of, but I would say there's usually a trend of characters that are anti-heroes such as Joel, or Arthur Morgan from Red Dead 2, being viewed in a greater light than they actually should be. By all means, love them as characters, but don't act like they're both good people because they absolutely are not even if we see them doing good things. Other media is the same too; just look at how many people love Tyler Durden in Fight Club as if he's a great guy when he's a total piece of shit. Again, love the character but don't perceive them as a hero or good guy when they're at best an anti-hero.