He’s a great character, but he’s an awful awful person

Many of these chuds seem to hero worship Joel. Is it just worshipping the cult of violence and vigilante justice?

  • Joel represents a power fantasy and he does it well. He’s also incredibly loyal to those he’s close with, which is an easy way to excuse all the awful things he does. He’s just defending himself, right? And you’d do anything to protect your own children, right?

    Completely unrelated, but Neil Druckmann is on record stating that the series at least partially pulls from his experiences growing up in Israel and the “cycles of violence” involved in that.

    This becomes really blatant in the second game

    when the primitive people of color have developed a series of tunnels bridges to which the IDF WLF soldiers don’t have access.

  • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Grisly middle-aged violent father figure that must avenge/protect the fridged wife/imperiled daughter figure. Again.

    It’s just a bunch of buttons pressed in their treatbrained minds that panders to their very nonpolitical politics. Any “this is not a thing to admire or emulate, actually” is lost on them, every time.

  • Venus [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    He’s a multifaceted character who commits arguably unforgivable actions for relatable, understandable reasons. To finish the story with the impression “wow, there was absolutely nothing to like about that guy at all and I did not empathize with him one bit” is just as bad as worshiping him as a hero, really.

    • FearsomeJoeandmac [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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      1 year ago

      I would say for the most part he’s pretty greedy and violent. Things I strive to not be, sorry.

      The people who like Joel and sympathize with him are the same people who sympathize with the psychopath Shane in walking dead season 2

      • Hazmatastic@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        He is. He’s also fiercely protective of the ones he loves, as well as being a lonely, closed off guy who has been devastated by loss. He’s someone a lot of guys can relate to. He’s a flawed, fucked up human being to be sure, but to say there is no good is as blind as saying there is no bad, which is the point the comment above was trying to make.

        • FearsomeJoeandmac [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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          1 year ago

          I didn’t say there’s no good. Just in my opinion the amount of bad in the man overwrites whatever good there might be.

          He wanted to protect Ellie for selfish reasons so he could have a surrogate daughter and didn’t take into consideration what she would have wanted.

          He’s a violent vigilante reactionary and there’s a reason chuds love him so much

  • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Pausing in the midst of editing my 2 hr youtube rant about why it was wrong of the developers to change Ellie’s appearance in the remake to think “gee, I am a stoic just like Joel from the vidya. I don’t react to anything.”

    -CHUDs

  • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    He hates the world and wants to protect his surrogate daughter and improve his relationship with her, which also represents his last remnants of humanity.

    From a parental viewpoint, I don’t think I would’ve done anything different from TLOU 1 Joel, maybe aside promoting communism more to Ellie. But yes, conservatives tend to like him for the violence and vigilantism, but also they want to fuck Ellie, and they have a myopic view of their actions - regardless if his actions were understandable, killing a doctor and ruining any hope of saving humanity is objectively based.