Lightning Update #5: The Biggest Project I’ve Ever Tackled on the Blog, and My Decidedly Sad Lack of Progress

Good afternoon my readers! It’s time for yet another lightning update, because I just simply don’t have the time to work on something more substantial.

And I hear you asking, dear reader, what in the world is my sad excuse this time? What could I possibly be doing to prevent me from blogging? Well, aside from a slew of home renovations, the answer is blogging.

I’ve talked a bit on here about how I have been working on a breakdown of the infamous, the controversial, The Last of Us Part 2. And with season 2 of the show looming on the horizon, I have kicked my ass in gear and started work on the posts themselves, rather than just my endless pages of notes about the experience.

Unfortunately, this development also means that I have started work on the posts themselves. Even though I knew this was going to be a massive project (hence why I’ve put it off for so long) I somehow still managed to take a step into the puddle and sink up to my eyes in work. I am currently chipping away on part 3 of my review, and I’m not even a third of the way through the game. My 3 posts have over 15 thousand words so far, and I am nowhere near finished.

This game is incredibly tiring and mentally exhausting to break down and analyze. I have discovered new problems all 8 times I have played the game all the way through, and have continued to discover new problems even in my own notes I’ve taken that are within the game. This is a project that is taking up the majority of my writing time, and if I want to work on anything else I have to do that first because of the raw mental toll the subject matter takes.

Now, your question may be, why are you doing this then? Why subject yourself to such mental anguish? A question my best friend has already asked. And my answer to that will simply be that this is what I’m made for, and I’ve lost sleep over the problems in this game, and I can’t rest in good conscience until I’ve put forth my thoughts on it. No review I’ve come across has adequately dissected this game in a way I’ve been able to feel genuinely satisfied with, and I feel that’s because people can’t stand to play it multiple times and discover that their critiques of it were merely the tip of the iceberg.

With all of that being said, my goal is to complete my series of posts on the game by the time the show drops. I would like to create a separate post where I discuss the differences between the show and the game and sort of analyze them separately when season 2 is over. There is already a huge discussion to be had about HBO’s choice to undo Abby’s muscles in the show, which were an enormous part of her character in the game (no pun intended). The showrunners have reportedly said that Abby’s muscles aren’t necessary in the show, because there won’t be as much action or the need to differentiate Abby and Ellie’s playstyles (paraphrasing) but her muscles were important to her as a character in the game. At least that is what the player is led to believe… Changes such as this almost seem like an admission that the game made some serious mistakes, or that a lot of the choices that fans have been defending as “subtle messaging and characterization” were nothing more than gameplay based decisions. And I happen to be in the camp of people that feels the showrunners should have doubled down on Abby’s character, rather than make her basically match Ellie in terms of build. Because at the end of the day, now they’re going to piss off genuine fans of the game, because they love Abby’s muscles and what her character represents, and people who have already chosen to hate season 2 would have done so whether Abby looked like Hulk Hogan or Melissa Rauch. Why alienate your audience further? Why divide the fanbase more than you already will since part 2 is notoriously divisive. But I digress, because this isn’t the post where I discuss the show vs. the game. I am hyped for it to come out, and I’m very curious how the showrunners are going to handle season 2.

I think it goes without saying my plan is to capitalize on the release of the show, and drop my blog posts alongside it. I’ll do the drops weekly, or whenever a new episode comes out, and if I happen to have more parts than episodes (God forbid) I will of course go on releasing my posts because I feel it’s likely the discourse will stretch on for a long time regarding the show. This series is a minefield, and any step the showrunners take will likely result in a lot of discussion and strong feelings on both sides of the argument.

I would love to confirm now that I will definitely be done with my posts by April, but unfortunately I can’t do that right now. Worst case scenario I will continue chugging away while the other episodes release, but my goal is to be completely done so that I can watch the show with a clear head alongside playing the game one more time and craft my comparison and analysis post from there. In the meantime, I am going to try my best to keep cranking out my once a week post, but keep in mind I am chipping away at this project in the background and it’s taking up a lot of my time. If posts seem shorter or less substantive for awhile, it’s just because I’m tearing my hair out trying to complete the biggest project I’ve ever attempted on here.

With all of that being said, I thank you all for reading my ramblings, and I hope you’ll join me again next week.

Happy reading!