I think Druckmann himself said that he didn't meant The Last of Us 2 to be an allegory for the Palestine situation. Merely that he was inspired by the hate he felt when he witnessed the news footage of a crowd killing two Israeli soldiers.
To me the story is stronger too, being about the power of hate on a personal level, moreso than if it was about any specific political conflict.
@Herculean Maybe I’m mistaken or misunderstood, but I’m pretty sure I heard it from Colin Moriarty on his podcast, who is a personal friend of Druckmann. Colin and his brother did a full spoiler special Knockback episode on the game (I think it was like a 7 hours long!) and there was some very interesting insight and breakdown they did in that and I know the Israel-Palestine thing came up in their discussion, but I can’t remember if he said Druckmann told him that exactly, perhaps off the record, or maybe it was just Colin’s interpretation. But I do see that you’re right — Druckmann publicly said in a Washington Post interview that he was moved by watching those murders and how it cause a revolting reaction of hatred, followed by guilt in him. The main conflict in the game is personal, for sure, so you may be right, and the Scars-WLF conflict may be circumstantial. I guess it depends on interpretation and I definitely agree that a personal application of the lesson is the glaring one.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Th3solution There's a Colin Moriarty interview with Druckmann, where Colin also states that the game is a metaphor for the what's happening between Palestine and Israel, and Druckmann corrects him.
@Herculean Oh wow, very interesting! I never saw this as it was locked behind the patreon subscriber stuff, but this interview appears to been done right after Colin did the 7 hour spoilercast breakdown of the game. So the things he said then was before Druckmann did this interview. Really fascinating that Druckmann interrupts him and clarifies that there was no intent that the game was directly allegorical for Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It seems like he’s trying to clarify that it’s not a 1 for 1 symbol of the conflict, as in one side (or character) doesn’t represent Israel and one side (or character) doesn’t represent Palestine, and I think that’s why he was so clear to correct that because things can get misconstrued politically if it were stated or implied that there was a direct comparison to those real world entities. I never really took my interpretation to the point of ‘Ellie represents Israel and Abby represents Palestine’ or even with the factions like ‘WLF is Israel and the Seraphites are Palestine’ but reading between the lines of Druckmann’s comments here is that he really wants to set the record straight because likely those direct comparisons were starting to float out there and it was going to get he and Sony and HBO into a hot mess if they didn’t make that clear. I noticed he was very careful with his wording, especially there where you can see Colin specifically mention that they omitted the synagogue scene when they did the HBO show and didn’t emphasize Dina’s Jewish heritage. He does a double take on the subject and appears to look at notes, as if he has some PR guidance that he was given that he’s referencing. Maybe I’m over-analyzing his reaction though.
But I did notice and appreciate that he says, “At the end of the day, what you take away from it, so be it… but that was not our intent” (or words to that effect), and Colin mentions the “Death of the Author” theory which applies to this scenario. It’s something I remember talking about somewhere else in the forums not too long ago, about who is the owner and has the rights of interpretation, the artist or the consumer of the art? It’s a really fascinating philosophical and artistic discussion.
It reminds me (and apologies for the tangent here 😅) of the preface note that Mark Twain wrote to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn where he says something like “Do not attempt to find a motive or moral to this story”, which in the case of that novel is clearly satirical, but also is a bit of an attack at literary critics reducing one’s work to certain lessons or interpretations. And still, Twain went on later to talk about the meanings behind the narrative in the book later.
There’s been other authors who tried to correct (usually without much success) the interpretations of their works that they didn’t intend. One such example is JRR Tolkien insisting that The Lord of the Rings was not allegorical, and not connected to a moral commentary of World War II, nuclear power, or modern politics, despite those theories and interpretations being rampant still. Earnest Hemingway famously said “The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The fish is a fish” when responding to interpretations of The Old Man and The Sea. J.D. Salinger apparently was very vocal about misconstrued symbolism with The Catcher in the Rye which never stopped the analysis of the work’s possible symbolism and societal commentary.
Super fascinating stuff and thank you for clarifying and finding that!
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Topic: The Last Of Us Part II - OT (No Spoilers)
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