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The Not So Hidden Israeli Politics of ‘The Last of Us Part II’

Published December 4, 2023

  • The Not So Hidden Israeli Politics of ‘The Last of Us Part II’

    This is actually really quite insightful — and explains why it was such a painful, and ultimately unenjoyable, game to play.

    The Last of Us Part II focuses on what has been broadly defined by some of its creators as a “cycle of violence.” While some zombie fiction shows human depravity in response to fear or scarcity in the immediate aftermath of an outbreak, The Last of Us Part II takes place in a more stabilized post apocalypse, decades after societal collapse, where individuals and communities choose to hurt each other as opposed to taking heinous actions out of desperation. More specifically, the cycle of violence in The Last of Us Part II appears to be largely modeled after the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I suspect that some players, if they consciously clock the parallels at all, will think The Last of Us Part II is taking a balanced and fair perspective on that conflict, humanizing and exposing flaws in both sides of its in-game analogues. But as someone who grew up in Israel, I recognized a familiar, firmly Israeli way of seeing and explaining the conflict which tries to appear evenhanded and even enlightened, but in practice marginalizes Palestinian experience in a manner that perpetuates a horrific status quo.
    (via Alex)

    (tags: vice commentary ethics games hate politics the-last-of-us israel palestine fiction via:alex)