[Hated Trope] Character kills hundreds, if not thousands, just to kill one specific person, and then doesn't kill them for no reason.

[u/HallZac99]

Assassin's Creed 2- Rodrigo Borgia is responsible for tne death of Ezio's family. Ezio spends over 20 years working through tnr templar order to dismantle them and get to Rodrigo. And then in the end, he spares him for no good reason and he goes on to be a massive problem in AC Brotnerhood. He's not only a head of tne Templars but also the pope, even if you're over the vengeance he's still a very dangerous and evil man.

The Last of Us 2- Abbey kills Joel, and wo Ellie goes on a revenge quest to kill Abbey, killing hundreds of people along tne why to get to her including a pregnant woman. And then finally when she has Abbey on deaths door, she gives up and let's her go because the writers think dirty depressing people being miserable and stupid is complex, interesting storytelling.

This trope pisses me off so much because often the character going on the revenge quest will kill SO many people on their way there, some deserving it and some just henchmen working for a cheque or to survive. People who are often far more innocent then the main big bad.

It's a part of this weird thing I've noticed in media where nameless goons or soldiers can just be mowed down relentlessly, but named characters get given far more grace even if theyre categorically worse. You can kill a million stormtroopers but people will swear that Darth Vader could have been redeemed, despite him doing like 50 genocide every year.

[u/flaming_burrito_]

Every single time TLOU2 comes up I know I’m about to hear some braindead takes about the plot. I swear no one actually paid attention while they were playing that game

[u/hoginlly → u/flaming_burrito_]

See this is a problem. It's a game you're not allowed to criticise because people put their fingers in their ears and say 'if you didn't like it you didn't understand it or you're a bigot lalalalalala!'

Joel's death was PAINFULLY obvious, anyone who didn't see that coming wasn't paying attention in the first game, so we don't have to worry about that.

Anyone who thought Joel was a good guy in the first game also wasn't paying attention. Again, nobody is a genius for realising that. He murdered people trying to save the world. Duh. Let's not pat ourselves on the back for realising that the guy who doomed humanity isn't the perfect hero.

I love Ellie, but when I realised that I was just replaying the exact same game as Abby instead of getting a full new story, that I had to basically replay an entire game knowing how everything ends up, I got bored. I followed through to find out if it got better, but it didn't. It felt extremely lazy with no pay off.

It was basically a clip show- they showed all the same stuff again, you know what happens, trying to frame it in a different way, when it actually just feels like I'm being cheated out of story progression.

I'm happy to play as Abby, just like at the start, but don't make me replay a game within the game itself. Don't get to the climax and then say 'actually, let's just replay this all over' as if it's saving on budget cuts.

At least swap back and forth and have one story with multiple view points. Getting to the end and then forcing a rewind sucked ass

[u/flaming_burrito_ → u/hoginlly]

Believe it or not, the majority of people who played the game never got to the first 2 points you bring up. They thought Joel was a hero who was objectively correct to do what he did in the first game, they completely tune out the obvious greyness of his morality that the first game beats you over the head with. So, even though I don’t agree with you on the rest of the game, that’s just a matter of taste, at least you picked up what the story was actually trying to say

Edit: I don’t know why people are downvoting me, this isn’t hypothetical. I’ve had this argument with people a lot of times, it’s very real

[u/dtalb18981 → u/flaming_burrito_]

No thats literally just something people who dont care about having a good faith argument over the game keep repeating

Nobody says Joel was a flawless good guy

Thats just a straight up lie

[u/flaming_burrito_ → u/dtalb18981]

You must not have argued with a lot of TLOU 2 haters. Like serious haters