Ok, I finished "the last of us part II" and I'd so much fun, it's by far the best game I've played since a long time.
Hey, that's awesome! There's a lot to like...my favourite parts were Abby's battle with height, and the resident religious Cinnamon Roll Lev.
But I saw a lot of people not liking it...the LGBT community saying that the game was transphobic and homophobic. Can anyone enlighten me why ?
Well, of course it goes without saying that there are countless different groups, individuals, and opinions residing within the (online) LGBT community. I tried to summarise them as briefly as I could, so I hope 4 paragraphs isn't too many! I'll assume you played the first game and DLC, so be warned of spoilers for those. They're arranged with the two most prominent critiques at the top, so feel free to just read those, if you wish to keep it short. (I'm largely basing this on Twitter, and discussions I've had/seen on Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit.)
The first controversies began with the second game's initial trailers and press releases, which seemed to imply that Dina would die early in the game, instead of Joel. This rehashed a previous plot point, the death of Ellie's first love in the first game's DLC. This left a bad taste and impression in a lot of folks' mouths to begin with. A lot of "LGBT Twitter" outwardly project their desire for all LGBT characters to get their happy ending. Nobody in the series gets a happy ending, and the LGBT folks in the series, especially Ellie and Lev, get pretty chronically horrible treatment. By the end, Ellie has lost almost everything she ever had. Lev loses his community, his sister, and then is forced to kill his mother. If you believe that LGBT characters in media ought to be treated better in terms of their rewards, then The Last Of Us II fails this basic premise.
The second major controversy began with the game's release. The game features a sequence of scenes in which Lev is deadnamed multiple times by the Seraphites pursuing him. For significant parts of the community, this was considered completely unacceptable, as deadnaming is disrespectful and unpleasant for trans people, and could be significantly triggering to some. There is a larger discussion about whether deadnaming in media is ever okay, and it seems like in this case, the answer from the LGBT community was "no."
Point 1 intertwines itself with a broader view some people, many of whom are LGBT, hold of the game, that its primary contents amount to little more than the celebration of depravity, or put more simply, torture porn. I think this review in Polygon is a strong argument and summation of that perspective.
Continuing point 2, Lev's character and story have been the topic of much critique. To summarise briefly, the game is rarely, if ever, inclusive of Lev in his story, meaning that we only experience his story through the eyes of cis characters. To some, this is an extreme negative. Secondly, the other character's experiences with Lev are not always the most sensitive to his needs. As an example, in Day 2 of Abby's arc, Lev is revealed to be trans, and on multiple occasions she broaches that topic with him. For some, this is considered an intrusion of his privacy. Later, Abby and Yara have a conversation about Yara's experience coming to accept Lev, which is another intrusion of his privacy. To some trans people, this is disrespectful and unpleasant to experience.
Personally, as an LGBT person, I have a different view of the game than the critiques I've stated above. However, I've spent way too much time reading and discussing the game, so I sincerely hope (and believe) that I've done a respectful job representing their viewpoints.
last edited at Dec 6, 2020 11:00PM
