the themes of TLOU2 are a pretty perfect counterpoint and development of the first game
btw, if you care to know
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TLoU was indeed characterised by severe hardships and outright bleakness, but with a hopeful core at the end of it all. An emotional story about a man who's soul is in the gutter, who lost his most dearest thing in life and spends 20 years doing horrible shit in a horrible world, yet gradually learns to reconnect to his humanity and fishes his soul out of the gutter through the experience of a girl not unlike his lost daughter. A girl who shows him there's still beauty and hope in the world, shows him how to open up and carry on. She makes his life bearable again, happy even. It's quite a simple formula but very effective.
It was a morally grey story in a world that was complexly fucked, rife with untrustworthy people surviving, factions craving power, a dystopia where many weren't good although there was still good. Joel, scumbag antihero, for selfish but just reasons chose to save Ellie from the Fireflies; who didn't have a plan nor a clear pathway to a cure (strongly insinuated here), no guarantees operating on Ellie would do anything but kill her (the "surgeon" has a bachelor's degree in biology, hardly an expert in immunology and by no means an actual surgeon), who did not ask Ellie for her consent, and even if they could get a cure (how would they mass-produce / distribute? the cure is just a McGuffin for the emotional story, always was) they would just be another faction vying for power, using the vaccine as leverage to rule and terrorise. How nice.
Most importantly, Ellie also fully assumed she was going to make it out and then go wherever with Joel. She was looking forward to that. Again: she did not consent to die nor was given that chance. Which says: A. she wanted to live, and B. she trusted and really liked Joel.
The only subsequent good thing in TLoU is Joel saving Ellie and then returning to Jackson, where they can build a relatively peaceful and secure life for as long as they can. Yeah he lied to Ellie about the Fireflies, but to me it's strongly hinted she realised this but trusted Joel to make the right decision. She has trusted him doing so all this time, and in time she would understand his position.
TLoU2, then, wants you to believe a few things:
None of this rhymes with the original. Instead of having TLoU flow organically into a sequel, (bad) retcons are used to make TLoU2's plot function.
Thematically the story implores you to look past good/evil binaries and bridge the gap (see: Abby/Lev, despite Abby not bridging no gaps between Joel nor Ellie or vice versa). Since the world is complex and such black-white outlooks cause polarisation, hatred and violence. The game condemns violence, it's bad m'kay? Yet it never strays away from violence, because that is.. impossible; it's the entire fundamental gameplay loop. The game is literally a 3rd-person action-adventure shooter, though not as cleverly subversive as Spec-Ops: The Line or a Metal Gear Solid. There is no way to play a non-lethal run, you are forced to kill and then berated for being violent. Solid writing; respecting your audience. Entrapment followed by guilt-tripping, while the plot prances pretentiously around on the moral high ground.
Moreover, power (thus security and continued existence) flows from the barrel of a gun. Certainly in our world, but especially in a zombie-plagued hellscape where violent groups dwell and factions fight amorally over land, power, scarce resources and even humans. This game has the audacity to neglect its own worldbuilding and, frankly, insults the player's common sense by acting like some John Lennon holding up a "peace on earth"-sign in the middle of Stalingrad. That is not subversive storytelling, it ain't meta: it's just dumb. What is Jackson, for example, if not a fortified town you literally safeguard via armed patrols so people can live in peace?
The story continually nudges, via subtle and overt framing, that people such as Abby's friends are morally better somehow, while vilifying the Jackson people (Ellie, Jessie, Dina, Tommy) for foolishly pursuing them for their violent transgression and egging on the cycle of violence. There is no unified justice system anymore, except justice you seek yourself, and so they do. Are they to just let it slide, carry on? Of course not. Repay an unprovoked attack in kind.
Pertaining to the revenge story between the protagonists, Ellie has ample reason to pursue Abby, a stranger, after she brutally slaughtered her father figure in her hometown (don't get me started on the travelling plothole; the fact Ellie/Dina didn't encounter groups between Jackson-Seattle-Jackson). Later on she also kills Jesse, wounds Tommy and remorsefully threatens a pregnant Dina -- after which, lmfao, Ellie just goes home broken somehow. Whereas Abby was previously part of the Fireflies (as an 18yo-thereabouts adult) and without a speck of doubt endorsed Ellie's consentless-operation that would've killed her. So who's really the worse person here? Moreover this game paints Joel as a bad guy time and time again by way of Ellie's uncharacteristic (read: contrived) loathing of him and Abby's revenge on him (which is justified by the fact you see her backstory and perspective, which are presented quite positively).
On the whole this story is pain for the sake of pain, by which it seeks to feign an emotionally deep story that simply is not there as it does not organically happen nor has the characters to carry it. All of this isn't just a huge disrespect to established characters/story loved from TLoU/LB, it's contrived, pretentious and a waste of a good production. Pretense requires you to have a point and TLoU2 has none. The original's subtle worldbuilding of a morally complex world during a zombie apocalypse, which could've been explored and richly expanded, is omitted and substituted by hollow moralist fingerwagging that forces upon you an ethics lesson so self-evident, it wouldn't make it onto a Sesame Street episode.
So, myeah. Nah.