Ok I thought I was gonna be making one nitpicky rant about TLoU show deaths but
I guess I’m actually making two. Because I saw another death and while I find there was nothing broadly wrong with it, there was some cinematic choices that drove me bonkers that I just wanna stress over.
So the rest will be under the cut, but for starters, this is about Sarah and Tess
Ok so Sarah isn’t really the meat of this rant, but I do want to talk about her death scene in the show because several things about it had bugged me. And please, I’m not really here to talk about the race swap. Overall I think it’s a little sus, moreso because the actress is the daughter of one of the executives of the show; so it suspiciously indicates nepotism. But the actress herself actually managed to do a pretty great job for Sarah’s death so really I couldn’t give a shit. ANYWAYS, the show’s death. What bugged me about it was the fact that there were CUTS while Joel is trying to comfort her and struggling to pick her up. The beauty of the cinematic choice in the game, where it turns into one continuous shot the moment Joel crawls over to Sarah, is that it inherently puts us in that moment with Joel, and by panning the camera over instead of cutting each time, it really shows how Sarah is right at death’s door, like you can HEAR the exact moment that she cries her last little whimper and just... goes quiet, right when the camera pans towards Tommy’s face. The problem with having scene cuts is that it drags the scene out in such an awkward way. Plus, Sarah’s still actively crying while Joel is screaming for Tommy to help him, and then the moment it cuts to Tommy the audio just cuts out very clumsily. As it cuts back to Joel Sarah’s just already dead, and additionally it makes no sense for Tommy to call to Joel to have him realize Sarah’s dead when she was still screaming and crying right as the camera cut. And then additionally, I’m not fond of the addition of Tommy saying Joel’s name, it feels almost... cold and detached. Like the tone of that line is “Joel she’s dead, it’s too late”. Whereas in the game, he’s moving towards Joel and Sarah and he’s in so much shock because he’s watching his niece dying in a crying, bloody mess.
So long story short, nothing wrong with the scene itself (though I gotta say I don’t think I’m a fan of Pedro Pascal’s line deliveries while he’s trying to stop Sarah’s bleeding. That’s less of a “one’s better than the other” and more of “that’s just my opinion that the emotion of the line delivery in the game was better”). Scene stayed true to the game.
But ohhh, OHHHH, you wanna know which death REALLY ruffled my feathers? Tess. Tess’ death was done so damn dirty in the show compared to the game (and side note, I hate the change to Tess’s character design. I loved the short hair held up by the headband, and I loved the short sleeves that showed her arms). I think by changing the entire death in the show, you take away from the character herself, and let me explain how.
In the game, they get to the Firefly meeting place, the Fireflies have been wiped out, and we find out Tess has been bitten. The military shows up, and Tess tells Joel that she’ll buy them some time and convinces both him and Ellie to leave. And the IMPORTANCE of her line “I WILL NOT turn into one of those things!”, which I’ll talk about. Joel and Ellie leave, Tess composes herself and gets ready to fight the soldiers. As you leave, you hear gunshots and hear Tess scream, and you find out she took out two soldiers; there was six guys and Tess took down two of them. This death is a perfect encapsulation of Tess’ character: resilient, stubborn, tough-as-nails, takes matters into her own hands. That is a death that treats the character with respect and actually plays into the character’s personality. It FITS. Tess is a woman whose life, her choices, it’s all in her hands and she will do what SHE wants to do.
In the TV show, they get to the Firefly meeting place, the Fireflies were killed by infected, and everything still plays out the same with Tess’ infection reveal (and I gotta say I’m not a fan of the dialogue choices nor am I a fan of the fact they tried to heavy-handedly push how Joel and Tess are a couple with the cuddling scene, whereas in the game the ambiguity of their relationship plays better into that final scene. I like the “Look, there’s enough here that you have to feel some sort of obligation to me” way more). Joel hears the infected, Tess starts tipping over some gasoline and grenades, and Joel and Ellie leave. Tess is panicking and frightened as the infected approach and flood in while trying to light the lighter, and then the BULLSHIT. The FUCKING KISS from the infected. And no I don’t wanna hear any ‘bUT it’S NoT A kISS, iT’S INfeCTiNg HEr’ excuses. It’s a fucking kiss disguised under the thin veneer of being some cool new infected lore, and it changes the entire death from a defiant last stance to a creepy, voyeuristic scene that’s going for a cringe-out factor. Like... Sure, you COULD explore that method of infection, it COULD be a neat behavior that we haven’t seen before.
But you don’t do that for Tess. She’s the wrong character to explore that with, and the show better actually try to stay consistent and show that again if people are gonna use the excuse of that scene being necessary. And the reason why it bugs me so much is because Tess, despite her short time in the story, is such a poignant character. She’s Joel’s partner, she’s OUR first partner. Taking that power out of her hands, putting her in this freaky powerless position where it’s like she’s being taken advantage of, does not compliment the character, especially when the death is a very easy to pull off trick that only solely relied on the lighter not working for cheap tension. If you wanted to give us a tense action scene, they could have actually shown us the Tess gunfight scene from her perspective, maybe give her one or two more kills than she had in the game. But this death was really insulting to the character.
TL;DR I’m incredibly autistic about all this dumb shit and it really just boils down to a difference of opinion.
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Totality - Undertronic
Seth and Sine spend time admiring the eclipse. Written in one hour, 832 words.
“Do you know how beautiful your art is?”
Seth stared at the sky with clasped hands. A gentle breeze blew past - Zephyros’ sigh, he supposed. He couldn’t help but wonder who held that God Soul now. Seth had always wanted to meet the wind god; perhaps the two could make a good pair.
What a silly thought.
Golden hair fell into his eyes, yet he never moved. Never took his gaze off of his work. Not a second could be missed. He heard laughter behind him.
“What are you doing?” Sine reached from behind and brushed Seth’s hair out of his face. He couldn’t help but notice how his touch lingered longer than it had to. He couldn’t help but notice how he didn’t mind. “You can hardly see through all of that.”
“Like you would know,” Seth quipped. The skeleton behind him snorted.
“Hey, I can make some guesses.”
Sine crept into the corner of Seth’s vision. He pulled off his hood and craned his neck to match Seth. One hand rested in the pocket of his cloak; the other nearly startled Seth out of his trance when it grazed his fingers.
“I could get us something. Tea. Whiskey. Coffee, extra-strong. On the house. Off the rocks. I could go on.”
Seth grinned. “No, thank you. This is enough.”
“But you don’t have anything?”
Seth held his tongue. This was more than enough.
“Won’t it be too dark?”
Seth paused. The thought did cross his mind, but he was not one to be afraid of the dark. A bit of daytime nightfall wouldn’t bother him - he didn’t know what it would take to make him fear the dark, but this was not it. “Not with you around.” He made a vague gesture to the skeleton’s ears. Their calming light was sufficient to keep the growing shadows at bay. Sine gently scratched at one of Seth’s clasped hands, and he let it fall open. The two looked upwards to Seth’s work of art.
The eclipse neared its totality.
“Do you think,” Sine started, “Do you think…”
Seth cocked his head to the side.
“Nevermind.”
The remaining sunlight faded around them.
“No no, what were you saying? Please.”
The shadows cut deeper.
“It’s silly. It’s just a silly thought.”
Sine’s light danced across his face.
“You know those are my favourite.”
“Do you think we could stay like this forever?”
And the world fell yet darker.
“I don’t want this to end. It’s beautiful. Look at it,” Sine mused.
“There’s nothing to look at.”
“Exactly. You did this. You did this, Seth. Look at what you can do.”
Sine’s grip tightened around his hand. He felt dizzy from how his heart beat so unusually. They both knew it was a silly thought. The planets would pass, life would go on. Every couple decades or so, Seth would sit down and repeat the process, as this soul had done for hundreds of thousands of years. This was nothing special. This was just as the last ten thousand had been. It was the same one, the same sun that had people worshipped long before these souls reached their hosts. This couldn’t last forever. Their tails curled around each other. Maybe not forever.
“...I can make you a compromise.”
Seth couldn’t make it last forever. Not even a minute. The others would notice; planets were not something to be trifled with. The Death Well flashed in his mind. Yes, that was a fate he would prefer to avoid.
But a moment wouldn’t hurt.
He squeezed Sine’s hand back, flesh caressing bone. “I think…”
Sine smiled. “You sure about that one?”
“You- Come on, I lost my train of thought.”
“It’s alright,” said Sine. Seth tore his eyes away from his art to meet his. “I think that I think so too.”
The light began to fade back in around them. Seth quickly turned to hide the flush of his face. If anything, it only made Sine look at him more. “You’re kinda cute when you think you’re being slick, y’know.”
Seth exhaled sharply and turned away. “Come on. These always tire me out,” he lied. As much as he hoped Sine wouldn’t catch on, he knew it was a losing battle.
“Aah, so Mister Destruction needs a nap?”
“Shut-” His words were cut short by his own stammering. Sine cackled behind him. He sighed and made his way back inside.
“C’mon, you know you love me.”
They both stopped mid-step. The daytime betrayed both of their expressions. They simply stared at each other in silence.
“I…” The words caught in Seth’s throat. He knew what he wanted to say. He knew what he needed to say.
I think…
No.
I know…
He put his hand back into Sine’s. His gaze softened. Perhaps not everything had to be said.
It didn’t matter how dark it had gotten; Seth could still see one thing clearly. His work could never compare to the art that had stood beside him.
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