> [!Quote] A Soldier and Philosopher once said: > One sword keeps another in the sheath. Sometimes the threat of violence alone is a deterrent. Sometimes by taking a life, others can be preserved. I find **The Last of Us 2** to be one of the most embarrassing, poorly written, poorly designed games ever made in proportion to the praise that it has received. Not in terms of its technical quality - on the contrary, the game is so technically and graphically polished that it does nothing engaging with the fact that it's a videogame. [It's a weird Israeli metaphor](https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-not-so-hidden-israeli-politics-of-the-last-of-us-part-ii/). And it has a pathetic, almost child-like understanding of violence, which is what I'm focusing on today. **TLOU2** tries to make its overarching thesis "violence is bad." Not only is this a child-like view of the world, it also works entirely against the premise of the game itself. You cannot proclaim that violence is bad while also making violence the key mechanic in a videogame. Well actually, that's not true. Games like **Shadow of the Colossus** and **Spec Ops: The Line** use violence as a mechanic while making you reckon with it through the gameplay itself. **The Last of Us 2** does not do this. It has you enjoy the violence you partake in. It does this by making the game's violence feel good to enact. But when the chips are down and the climax occurs, the game's final message is that forgiveness is actually better than violence because violence just leads to more violence. Read that last sentence with a baby voice and it'll make more sense. This is why **TLOU2** is so cowardly to me. It wishes to appeal to the largest demographic of gamers possible by having them play what is effectively **Gears of War** without the aliens, but wants to tell a story deeper than those mechanics when it doesn't have anything of depth to say. **Metal Gear Rising**, on the other hand, embraces and revels in its violence while subsequently being less gratuitous than **TLOU2**. It is Raiden's means to an end. He doubts himself at the start of the game, wondering if his cause is justification enough for his violence, or if even has a cause at all. But by the end of it he recognizes that violence *can* be a tool to protect the weak. That there can be purpose to bloodshed, and that violence is sometimes needed to necessitate change. The mechanics and story work in harmony as a result. I compare the two specifically because it's wild that **Metal Gear Rising** grapples with violence in a much more interesting way while being a game that is ostensibly sillier and also 7 years older than **TLOU2**. It's an immediately more engaging plot that only becomes more relevant as we enter another turbulent era in America's history. "Violence breeds violence, but in the end it has to be this way," is more than just a cool-ass song lyric, it's also not far from the truth. Fascist ideologues seek a bloodless transfer of power both because they fear violence and recognize that their movement crumbles at the first sign of it. A bloodless revolution is a misnomer because it could only occur by reasoning with the revolution's opposition. But there is no reasoning with a fascist. I cannot calmly discuss my right to exist with the enemy. I must make it known one way or another.