The Last of Us 2 -- My Final Thoughts *SPOILERS*

Okay! So, I have thought a lot about it (obsessed), and I think I get what The Last of Us 2 was going for. I am still going to maintain that it’s not the game we wanted. HOWEVER, it was kinda brilliant and I deeply respect what they have created here.
AMBIGUOUS SPOILERS AHEAD
We spend the entire first game killing people like they are…well…video game characters. We never once pause to think about the nameless NPCs we’re mowing down to get to the climax, because we’re the protagonist, we’re the good guys. Since hopping on poor defenseless Koopas in Super Mario, we have been conditioned by games to just chew through the "bad guys" and not worry about the body count. Sometimes, if there is an achievement in a game to not kill anyone, or take a pure stealth route, we'll actually care, but that is about us, not about those nameless NPCs (non-player characters). 
In the beginning of TLoU2, we’re shown what it feels like to NOT be the protagonist, the hero of the story, but rather, just one of those pixel-people in the way of someone else’s climax. And we hates it!


We hate it so much we don’t even acknowledge it; it doesn't register that maybe this isn't our story as we head off on our quest for revenge, killing even more pixel-people without a care for who they are or what their story is. 
But this time they aren't nameless.
If you stand around in stealth long enough, you can hear the NPCs talking with each other about their own stories and lives. They got things going on! A lot of them just seem anxious to get home for dinner before the maniac slowly picking them all off (YOU) gets them. You kill a character in TLoU2, and some friend of theirs will happen across their body and mourn them, assuming you give the friend time before you kill them as well. You hear random names called out all through the game as you take characters out, including the DOGS.
Like Bear. I killed BEAR! OMG he looked like an overgrown corgi, and I demolished him with a hammer!

(RIP Bear. All he wanted was to play a little fetch with my liver...