#<-- Please heed this warning even moreso than the last David piece

[2x4plank]

Okay, yes. I know I wrote that entire thinkpiece about David and I should've stopped there. But I'm on Permadeath and keep having to replay the winter act, and I feel like I still have so many thoughts about not only David, but the entire act. I'm talking game-only, because I don't feel like watching the show, so spoilers for that if you want to play the game.

The more you acquaint yourself with David, the more you hate him. He is one of the only videogame characters that ever upset my stomach.

When you replay the game, his allyship and empty flattery just becomes that much more disgusting. Having to depend on him to fight enemies off of you (because on the higher difficulties especially, he's useless otherwise! Thanks for all those losses due to Ally Death, David!) and looking to him for help and helping him just feels terrible.

I notice that even James is surprised when David talks to him in that demanding tone. Part of me wonders if he used that tone to impress Ellie or something, like saying that he's the top dog around here. I hate it.

Sidenote: When Ellie calls David an "old man", I like to think she pulled that from Henry calling Joel that. I like to think. Henry and Sam are my favorite allies.

Paying more attention throughout the act, I noticed two kind of repetitive symbols: deer and fire.

The deer symbol is pretty obvious: Ellie starts out hunting a deer; she hides out in a hunting lodge; and all throughout the steakhouse, there are pictures of deer and deer mounts which I somehow didn't notice before.

But I never thought about the fire. How she starts out quite distant from the fire that David started, even though it is freezing cold in winter and she's rubbing underneath her nose because somebody needs to give this girl a scarf! But after they fight together, she gets closer and immediately regrets it because these two men she met aren't normal.

While navigating through the wintry hellscape that is David's town, fire lights your path as you crawl through buildings (I found the inclusion of an arcade interesting; it felt like a marker of childhood to me, and there's even a stuffed giraffe). And then of course, the Steakhouse is on fire, and that fire slowly spreads. The use of fire during this act sort of reminds me of the use of fire in Silent Hill 2, where Angela Orosco who experienced sexual abuse lived in this personal hell of narrow, fiery corridors.

And as I hear, "Ah, thank you, Lord!" for the millionth time, I realize that seeing David as similar to Joel still does not work for me. I just continue to contrast them. The only two things that allow for comparison is that David is an older man who also boosts her up to a higher platform. Otherwise, I don't see many similarities.

As I've said, Joel wants to protect Ellie--both mentally and physically. He doesn't want her to see the burning dead in Bill's town. He doesn't want to traumatize her by letting her shoot other people, or encourage her to jump on the frontlines by giving her a gun. He very much acts like a father who wants to take on all those burdens so his child doesn't have to.

David, on the other hand, exposes her to stuff as a weapon. He locks her in the cage in the same room they chop up bodies. He gleefully smiles as he almost cleaves off her head. He is more than happy to make everything worse for her.

And maybe it bears repeating: JOEL WOULD NEVER ABUSE A CHILD LIKE DAVID WOULD! Which is a vast land of difference when it comes to characterization.

Upon returning the steakhouse, it genuinely felt like going back to a place where something terrible happened, and you don't even want to think about it. It's so quiet, but you're collecting health kits to protect yourself because you know it's about to be something. It's this particular kind of dread. And then David bursts in, starts a fire, takes away your weapon, and you have to face him.

So come the next act, when I see Ellie staring at that deer like she can't pull away from it, it's very painful.