this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2024
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There definitely are. Before the collapse of society, these two characters would not have been allowed to marry in the place where they live. It was only after societal collapse that they were free to be their true selves without discrimination or government oversight to tell them that their love was wrong.
It would not be the same story if it was a hetero couple, and it is dismissive to the unique challenges faced by gay people to suggest it would be.
Does it really matter though? Because from what I watched that episode was what someone would do for love. And to be honest, I don't think it would've had as big as an impact with a hetero couple.
I mean I think that's the point of the episode. Love is love.
I just disagree with the idea that the context doesn't matter, because heterosexual love and homosexual love were not viewed the same before societal collapse and so it wouldn't have been liberating in the same way for a hetero couple.
Before the societal collapse, these people were early ~~teenagers~~ infants, if that. They never lived an adult life under such a regime, and have just as much an understanding about life in such a regime as hetero couples that did live under it: they probably heard about it, and know that on paper it was bad, but they never had to live it.
Ellie is 14 when we first meet her, some ~~6 months~~ 20 years after the collapse. She has zero understanding of what it was like to live under the pre-infection government.
Edit: initially got the time jump wrong. It's 20 years not 6 months
This whole thread is about the two middle aged guys who we meet somewhere around halfway through the first season, not the reveal that Ellie is gay near the end.
Ah. Huh. In the games, specifically the first one, you not only get this info much earlier, you even get to meet her partner pre-infection, albeit in flashback form.
I thought it was this that would have gotten people pissy.
Still this episode is a nice addition IMO. Don't get why the pissiness, it's not like this is even anywhere near off-brand for TLoU.
Honestly when I first watched it, having not played the games, I probably eye-rolled a little and thought about how recent streaming shows have been going full tryhard mode about incorporating LGBTQ characters into existing storylines, but then I learned that was how the original character was portrayed in the game and thought no more of it.
Back when the game was first released, the inclusion of so many LGBT characters was pretty avant-garde (remember this was before things like Gamergate).
I don't doubt this helped the series gain the fanbase it has. Besides being an excellent game with a well written story and Nintendo ERD levels of technical wizardry, it gave a lot of LGBT people actual characters to connect to, out of a desperately small pool at the time
Can I upvote x100? That's the thing that struck me the hardest, I guess. Finally no-one to judge them. For them to be them and just be two humans with nothing but true love. But it needed a zombie apocalypse to be free from all other shit