Quote:
Originally Posted by timun
How is it not sadistic? From the OED:
sadistic adj. deriving pleasure from inflicting pain, suffering, or humiliation on others She was textbook, 'definition', sadistic. She enjoyed killing Joel. That she ultimately found little relief or peace afterward is irrelevant.
She did these things as means to an end, but didn't seem to get any pleasure out of it, whereas Abby did. Ergo, Abby is sadistic, and Ellie is not.
I get the other arguments you've been making, but this I categorically disagree on.
I do definitely agree that the game is forgiving to neither Abby nor Ellie, and going right back to the first comments I had in this thread: I got to the point where I didn't really want to play the game to its conclusion. I did not want Ellie to leave for Santa Barbara, I did not want her to hunt Abby down, and I did not want to fight that sad, pathetic, emaciated sunburnt shell of a person Abby had become. Those last few bits of the game were a slog for me. |
I agree with most of the things you've stated, but I think we're just going to have to disagree with the sadistic part.
This is just my opinion, but I personally don't think Abby derived any pleasure from killing Joel. I think she wanted to, I think she wanted to feel happy and satisfied. I think she wanted to sit there and relish it. But I really do believe that she hated every moment she swung that golf club, just hoping that the next swing would bring her the pleasure she was praying for. I think the look on her face as she stared at him after swinging that final blow tells me that there was nothing satisfying from that experience.
I've finished the game three times now and took a nearly two year break between the first and second play-through. In my most recent play-throughs, Ellie's actions horrified me more than Abby's did..
I know it's part of the structure, but Abby's story is all about starting at broken and monstrous place and finding redemption through the heroes journey, while Ellie's story goes in the opposite direction. Her story ends with her making decisions as monstrous as Abby did at the beginning of the game.
I also think it can be argued that Ellie could have been deriving pleasure in what she did to Nora, as she was exacting some form of revenge for what happened to Joel.
I think that's what makes this story so good, is that there isn't really a right answer or right interpretation.