In my opinion, Abby from TLOU 2. During the first part of the game, she is portrayed as the bad girl, but when she become the playable character, you understand that she isn’t:
-Her father and friends were unnecessarly killed.
-She became pariah from her clan when she saved a member of a rival clan.
-She have been harschly tortured.
-She spared Ellie despite having occasions to kill her for understandable reasons.
I don’t get why many players didn’t changed their minds at the second part of the game, it’s so obvious that the real bad people are Ellie and Joël. Theres no problem about having sympathy for bad guys, but you must keep your critical mind.
And what infuriates me is that people even harassed the voice actress because of what her character did. Come on, guys !
I think one of the points of the story was that there aren’t bad guys (or everyone is a bad guy, depends on how each person decides to see it). Joel was selfish for wanting to protect Ellie, Ellie was selfish for wanting revenge, and Abby went through with her revenge despite being begged not to. It’s miserable story with miserable characters, there are no good guys.
As for why so many players didn’t change their minds, imo it’s due to several factors but I mainly blame pacing. The cut-out at the middle of the game, at a climax moment no less, into a new story that takes around 12 hours, turned off a lot of people. I can see people not giving Abby a chance due to her story starting at an inopportune moment, after being invested in Ellie for around 10-12 hours.
I don’t think it would fix all issues, especially because communities about hating TLoU2 and/or Abby popped up before the game came out (and they still exist after 3 years (jesus christ)), but I can see Abby being less hated if her story was presented differently.
Anyway, about the actual topic of the post, mine would be Pip from South Park. His only crime was that the other characters were far more interesting than him, so he was overshadowed. But somehow, it looks like some people actually hate him, even Trey Parker. Poor kid lol
I honestly don’t trust the narrative opinions of anyone who thinks TLoU2 sucked. By proclaiming you don’t like that game’s narrative, you simply call yourself out as not understanding it. There are no good guys or bad guys in TLOU story - and that’s the whole point. TLOU2 really turns the good vs evil narrative of the first game on its head after already turning the narrative on its head with the final scene of the first game. TLOU is entirely about what it takes for someone to give in to their worst impulses and how there’s a monster in all of us; It’s a showcase of the toxic and never-ending revenge cycle. TLOU2 really tied it all together perfectly by forcing empathy and understanding on the player. It’s a game designed to consider empathy for all its characters, which some people clearly overlook because they aren’t capable of that.
Just want to point out that you can understand a narrative, or the point of the writer, and still dislike it. It probably wasn’t your intention but proclaiming that if someone doesn’t like X then he doesn’t understand it is a bit condescending; and kills any potential constructive discussion.
Personally I don’t think they nailed the execution. I already talked about pacing, but another issue for me was ludonarrative dissonance. It usually doesn’t bother me, actually most times I don’t even think about it, but in this game I was constantly aware of it.
On one hand, it tells a heavy handed story about how violence and revenge are horrible, on the other it has a fun gameplay that allows me to experiment with killing enemies in different ways to see how the AI reacts.
After I beat the game, I replayed the combat sections just for fun. The devs were probably also aware that they made good mechanics because I remember one of the cheats is having infinite bomb arrows. Me, walking around blowing up everyone like a badass, is definitely not the vibe that the writers were hoping for in their game, I expect.
Hopefully they’ll fix some of the issues the TV series. If they handle better the pacing, they’ll have a really good show in their hands