*shrug* About 1% of the population are born sociopaths. They didn’t choose to be that way, but it does certainly give them some advantages in some domains.

The Last of Us sort of illustrates this... whatever the domain... if the conditions are tough then the shittiest people tend to rise to the top. Frank was a damned miracle.

Tess was the “bad cop” in the game and... yeah... that is a big part of the problem with how they portrayed her in the show. The Tess in the game is a ruthlessly selfish person that sacrifices the little time she has left to buy Joel and Ellie mere minutes to (hopefully?) escape... without any real certainty that it…

Is this where I say “your silence is deafening” like it’s a point?

It’s one thing to *learn* about it being about tendrils and not spores. It’s another to *see* how inherently horrifying it is when it is about the tendrils.

I respond when I notice an alert and have the time to respond. You’re reply didn’t fall in the sweet spot, but I’ll get back to it at some point.

I’m at work at the moment. Silence is me working.

I imagine Halo is about as much like Last of Us as Persona 4 is like Last of Us. The Halo example simply illustrates that it can be done, even in a context where virtually everything else in the project is poorly received... this is not really the same as a hand-wavy “sure, anything is possible”.

*shrug* The validity of that claim would be in the argument.

Yes, it is odd to find nuanced arguments on the internet.

I’m going to be honest, I believe this change was not meant to reduce Tess’s standing in the show and more to do with explaining HOW the cordiceps in the show differ from the ones in the game in as scary and brutal a way possible.

This exact thing was already covered multiple times in the last two episodes. It’s in the scene with the first infected we see and it’s what startles the mycologist in episode 2.

No one is saying that adding these sorts of elements would necessarily make the show better... but adapting them well, as they did in Halo (an otherwise poor adaptation mentioned in the article), arguably would.

This can be a good adaptation and not have every aspect of the game.

This is a policy that can only work, in principal, if it’s hidden from the workers (that’s why supervisors are told to hide it)... which, to my mind, makes it pretty clearly unethical before you even get the question of if it’s actually effective in any cases.

She spends most of her time in the game doing things (often ruthlessly and without regret) to other people. She spends most of her time in the show having things done to her. That difference is all over the place, but it’s most clear in her last stand.

There is a less obvious, but similar, problem with Joel. Joel was…

To characterize horror movies as simply a collection of horrific imagery, as if it doesn’t matter whether that imagery serve the narrative or the relevant character arcs, is... well... just really really stupid.

I think they held back a bit in regards to the brutality around Joel and Ellie in these first two episodes because they have this much longer arc... and Tess’s much much more brief part suffered for it. So much of how badass Tess was in the game is imparted through the combat... which is probably the most difficult…

Nowhere here did anyone say they would prefer “slavish adherence” to the source material.

I think there is a particular liability with this show because so much of it is a shot-for-shot reproduction of the game... I mean... down to the composition of specific frames... so every significant change is going to draw a lot…

The reviews are going to be more than a little misleading in the context of your argument here. The critics are reviewing based on episodes that haven’t even aired (I think it was 4-5 episodes, if not the whole first season) which means it could be the “brutal” next few episodes that really had them giving it great…