The last of us remastered free#

The history of trans representation in all media is one where we have been killed, persecuted, made to suffer in almost all mainstream stories told about us. We are given virtually no opportunity in the mainstream of video games to tell our own stories. Even if Lev is a good, well-created character, it does nothing to change the fact that trans people are underrepresented both on the screen in AAA games and, more importantly, off it.

Which brings us, ultimately, to the real problem with any conversation about Lev and trans representation in games in general, which is that itвЂ™s not a conversation thatвЂ™s allowed to happen on even ground. Looking at that, it wouldn't be unnatural to view him as a synecdoche for trans experiences in general and to decide that, well, maybe being trans is just a nightmare. After all, he's the only trans person in the game, and one of the only in mainstream games. That what characters like Lev offer to predominantly cisgender audiences is a chance to feel some emotionally satisfying empathy that conveniently lets them avoid reflecting on the complexity of trans experiences or the way they might treat trans people in their personal lives. Where I see validation in viewing Lev from Abby's perspective, critics like Waverly (who uses they/them and she/her pronouns) at Paste Magazine see one more instance of trans characters being created, as they put it, вЂњto make cis voyeurs feel good about themselves.вЂќ Lev's suffering feels, under that lens, like just another example of what is often communicated about trans characters in media - that we exist only as buckets to carry around pain. To live any other life would be intolerable.Д«ut it's understandable that so many of my peers would disagree with me. He just wants to be himself he sees no other way to be. He has no interest in retribution, no interest in violence in and of itself. LevвЂ™s story breaks open the revengerвЂ™s logic that motivates much of the story. Instead of revenge, both characters are, by the end of the story, fighting for a mutual future (in which the two make up a nontraditional sort of family unit). For the both of them, pursuing LevвЂ™s path - a path away from dogma, away from conquest, and toward an honest self-actualization - provides a means to escape the cycle of meaningless violence.

The last of us remastered free#

His persistence to break free from them and embrace queerness offers an alternative to both him and Abby, whoвЂ™s desperate to find something meaningful in her life after her pyrrhic quest for revenge turned her into a person she no longer wants to be. In this context, LevвЂ™s suffering makes sense as the inevitable consequence of the religious fascism of the Seraphites trying to impose on his identity.