The Last of Us Part II - Story Explained

hello and welcome to the next installment of law and order the deep dive video series in which we look through and unpack game lore and stories from games this time around we'll be looking at the story from the last of us now this isn't specifically exclusive for part two so we will also briefly discuss what happened in part one as well due to this game's narrative taking place over the course of many years and going back and forth a lot we'll incorporate the entire plot into a timeline explanation first so as to piece everything together more easily ready and let's go the date is september 26 2013 outbreak day austin texas the city goes into quarantine due to a mysterious illness going round the last of us his prologue takes place and joel's daughter sarah is killed at the end of 2013 the cdc federer and the us military are the only remaining factions of the u.s government a militia group called the fireflies are started up by a lady called marlene and the fireflies were at war with the military and federer infection quickly spreads throughout the country breaking through quarantine zones in early 2019 ellie was born we don't know who her father was but her mother was a nurse who was friends with the leader of the fireflies marlene marlene becomes ellie's guardian at the request of ellie's mother anna who is dead at some point between 2013 and 2033 joel's brother tommy joins the fireflies and joel becomes a smuggler in boston they go their separate ways due to tommy's disapproval of joel's methods of survival in 2033 ellie and her friend riley are bitten during the first timeline of events and left behind revealing that ellie is immune the main events of the last of us one start marlene tasks joel and his partner test to smuggle ellie out of the boston quarantine zone and hand her over to the fireflies at the capitol building deep in the city of boston the reason being that ellie's immunity has the potential to be used for a cure however the fireflies that were waiting there have been killed test dies sacrificing herself so that joel and ellie can continue on their journey at some point on their journey joel is injured and the second timeline of events have left behind takes place in late april 2034 after nearly a year of travelling ellie and jewelry salt lake city ellie is prepped for surgery marlene is speaking to dr jerry anderson who runs tests on ellie and determines that she won't survive the operation his daughter abby comes in and tells him that if it were her she'd want him to do the operation marlene is disappointed but agrees for dr anderson to carry out the surgery she goes to inform joel of the news but joel cannot simply accept that ellie will die in the process so he kills the fireflies the surgeon and marlene in his escape joel drives off with ellie eventually reaching jackson joel tells ellie that they don't need her anymore as there are lots of others immune like her and the fireflies have given up on finding a cure abby later finds her father dead and is distraught ellie is suspicious of joel's explanation of what happened at the hospital making her question how honest he is being with her in 2035 now the fireflies are pretty much gone abby and her friends known as the salt lake crew owen also abby's ex-boyfriend manny nora jordan nick leah and mel owen's current girlfriend have joined the wlf the washington liberation front in seattle wanting to avenge the brutal murder of her father she is frustrated that she's no longer able to find joel as all the leads to him have dried up in 2036 due to her suspicions of joel ellie returns to the fireflies hospital in salt lake city and works everything out due to a tape recording found inside the operating room even if we found her or by some mirror go found someone else that's immune it made no difference cause the only person who could develop a vaccine is that she tells joel we're done and doesn't speak to him anymore in december 2037 abby informs owen that she has found tommy i found joel's brother he's at a settlement out in wyoming how do you know that the fireflies who served with him got picked up at the wall due to him being an ex-firefly one of tommy's old friends who is also a firefly reveals his whereabouts in early 2038 abby and her friends arrive in jackson and they stay at the abandoned baldwin mansion in march 2038 this is where everything kicks off ellie and dina kiss at a dance prompting an old man named seth to throw a homophobic slur ellie and dina joel gets involved and shoves seth but ellie told joel she doesn't need his help ellie goes to joel's house and tell him that she will never forgive him for what he did but she wants to try and forgive him and they set out to try and repair their relationship the very next day ellie's due out on patrol but oversleeps and her and dina ride out meanwhile abby and owen scout the jackson settlement where tommy is supposed to be living owen drops the bombshell that his current girlfriend mel is pregnant and after an argument owen and abby part ways and abby decides at that moment to go after tommy a storm hits and ellie and dina take shelter underneath an old library abby encounters a horde of infected and is chased she ends up being rescued in some cruel twist of fate by joel and tommy later on she realizes who they are and in shock that she is face to face with her father's killer manages to come to her senses and they escape she informs them that her friends are being holed up at an old mansion and they set out for it while being chased by a horde in the storm meanwhile a guy named jessie who used to date dina arrives at the shelter and informs ellie and dina that joel and tommy who are on patrol didn't show up and they will split up to go find them joel tommy and abby arrive at the lodge and a group of friends attack tommy and joel with abby shooting joel in the leg and nora knocking tommy unconscious ellie arrives at the lodge and finds joel being beaten to death by abby who is wielding a golf club ellie goes to take abby down injuring one of the group in her efforts but she is ultimately subdued and forced to watch as abby inflicts the fatal blow upon joel in the days after the salt lake crew leave jackson joel's funeral is held and tommy leaves for seattle to pursue abby and her friends ellie and dina follow suit a day after leaving for seattle in order to uncover clues which will lead them to the washington liberation front a couple of weeks later the main events of the game run in parallel over the next three days so we'll do our best to go over them in chronological order abby wakes up after a bad dream in the washington liberation front base located in an old stadium abby and another of the salt lake crew manny have been called up to the fob which is the main base for the wlf also known as wolves it seems that the leader of the wlf isaac is tired of them losing battles against the local cult called the seraphites also known as scars and is preparing a major assault on the scar's main island that afternoon ellie and dina arrive in seattle and look for the washington liberation front eventually tracking them to an old hotel called the seravina however all the walls have been taken out they find one of the salt lake crew nick tied to a chair and ellie recognises the torture method as one that joel used meaning that this was tommy's handiwork during this event abby and manny head out to the fob and are now heavily pregnant mel a medic tags along too they are attacked by scars shortly after leaving their base and are diverted through an old warehouse which is full of infected they get through it and end up fighting with scars but in the end they're rescued by more wolves who pick them up and take them back to the base another of the salt lake crew nora informs abby and manny that owen's patrol partner dany is dead and owen has now gone awol nora says that dany crawled back to the camp somehow dying and then mentioned in his last breath that owen killed him abby and manny meet with a wlf leader isaac who tells him that he wants them both to lead the attack on the scars island abby mentions that she wants to go and find owen but isaac refuses to let her go back with ellie and dina they leave the seraphina hotel but trip and mine which kills their horse dina escapes but ellie is captured ellie's new capture is revealed to be another of abby's friends jordan whom ellie hurt with the knife back in jackson after dina rescues ellie and ellie kills jordan they find a new lead jordan's girlfriend leah who is hold up at the old tv station ellie and dean are fine leah but she's dead he's been killed by scars fresh from her orders not to go and get owen abby does it anyway with the help of manny however on her journey through scar territory she is knocked out and captured upon leaving the tv station ellie and dina get chased by hunters chased into the spore-infested tunnels below the city after a tense encounters with some clickers and the hunters ellie and dena escape however ellie's mask breaks even though she didn't need it dina tried to give her math to ellie forcing ellie to stop her and reveal her secret to dina a secret of her immunity dina complains that she is super tired so they both take refuge in the cassandra theatre in order to rest here dina who has been throwing up on their journey and feeling tired mentions to ellie that she is pregnant and the baby is jessie's hours later abby comes too she is dragged into the woods and strung up by the scars she is just about to be gutted when two more scars drag a young scar girl called yara in and break her arm just as they are about to break the other arm one of the scars is killed by an arrow and yara kills the other abby kills the third and is cut down the person who rescued them both is yara's brother lev also a scar these siblings have been ostracized from their community due to the simple fact that lev shaped his head we'll get to why that is a big deal later on yara's arm is hurting badly so abby and lev find somewhere where ayara can rest abby helps her by making a splint and then leaves for the aquarium in search of owen again she finds him aboard a sailboat in the aquarium which he is fixing up and owen explains that he shot dany to defend himself abby and owen sleep together leading us into day two abby has another bad dream about saint mary's hospital back in salt lake city where her father died and the dream involves yara and lev as a result she's worried about their safety and goes out to get them and brings them back to the aquarium around this time ellie and dina identified wlf hotspot over the radio called hillcrest which is a potential lead to where tommy is ellie reaches hellcrest but just as she is facing more danger she comes face to face with jesse who was somehow turned up and helps her escape they retreat back to the theatre meanwhile abby reaches yara whose arm is worse now and lev and she takes them back to the aquarium mel states that yara needs to have her arm amputated abby needs to go to a wlf run hospital and get some supplies upon arriving there abby is arrested due to isaac reporting her awol noora frees her and tells her that the supplies she needs will probably be in a closed off part of the hospital which just so happens to be ground zero when the outbreak first hit seattle abby finds what she needs but has to do battle with something called the rat king some sort of messed up hybrid infected which we'll discuss later and manages to escape but it does seem that abby is now being hunted by her own people over their radio ellie and deena hear about medical supplies being moved by the wlf so ellie tracks nora down to the hospital after her very first encounter with the scars she arrives at the hospital and finds her way in whilst crawling for a vent she overhears a conversation with two guards who accuse nora of freeing abby ellie confronts nora who taunts ellie about joel's death prompting a chase ellie catches her and grabs nora as a hostage as three guards come through the door spotting spores below them and knowing that she is immune she throws them both down there which will be fatal for nora ellie catches up to nora who is struggling due to the spores and tortures her for abby's location after this event it's likely around this time that abby and lev arrive back at the aquarium and yara's arm is amputated ellie arrives back at the theater visibly shaken from what she just did to nora and reveals that abby has holed up at the aquarium and this leads us into day three owen has heard rumors that the fireflies are active and in santa barbara yara wants to go but lev wants their mother to come with them however the problem is that their mother is so devout in her faith that she will never leave the scars owen asks abby to come but his girlfriend doesn't want abby to go with them lev runs off and takes a boat to travel to the scars island to get his mother yara panics and says to abby that their mother will kill lev if he goes to the camp as a result abby and yara travel to the pier to find their own boat so they can get to the island before they can do that though abby is pinned down by a sniper it's tommy manny appears and both he and abby are surprised to see one another manny informs abby that tommy had taken out his entire squad single-handedly they managed to advance into a cruise ship terminal in pursuit of tommy in their events however manny is shot in the head and abby is visibly shocked by this abby moves through a restaurant and is surprised by tommy on her exit yara interferes and pushes tommy over the edge allowing abby and her to get a boat and leave for the island it's probably around this time that ellie and jesse leave the theatre and push towards the aquarium during this trip though they encounter for a patrol who mentions tommy jesse and ellie have a minor agreement on how they should proceed ellie wants to take the boat and go to the aquarium believing that they only have a short window of opportunity and jesse wants to go and get tommy as a result they split up and ellie manages to steal the boat and get to the aquarium a violent storm breaks out and ellie is thrown from the boat by a huge wave but she makes it and comes across owen and mel arguing she kills them both during a struggle but they both die before they can tell her where abby is ellie is visibly shell shocked as she realizes that mel is pregnant and that she has effectively just killed the baby too tommy walks up to ellie who has now teamed up with jessie and they all leave together but ellie leaves her mat behind after a few hours abby and yara make it to the island they arrive there just as isaac is carrying out his grand plan to attack the island after sneaking through the villages they find lev who has been attacked by his mother and his mother is now dead they leave together but on attempting to escape yara is grabbed by a wolf and is shot they're cornered by more wolves and isaac warts out the woods towards abby he tells her to let him shoot lev he is prepared to shoot abby as a result and counts to three but before he can shoot her a still alive yara pulls out a gun and kills isaac after fighting through the wlf abby and lev have to make it to a boat fighting their way through and defeating a huge serophyte they make it to a boat and head back to the aquarium but when they get into the aquarium they find the bodies of owen and mel abby throws up as all of her friends and the love of her life are dead lev finds the map and abby assuming that this is the work of tommy sets out for the cassandra theatre with lev when they get into the theatre abby confronts tommy she hits him and the sound draws ellie and jesse from the next room jesse and ellie burst through the door but abby shoots jessie killing him she forces ellie to throw her weapon tommy attacks abby but lev shoots him with an arrow and abby shoots tommy in the head ellie makes a run for it ellie and abby fight abby is gaining the upper hand when dina comes in and attacks abby lev shoots dina with an arrow and abby attacks dina abby is about to brutally kill dina but lev intervenes abby says she doesn't ever want to see ellie again and leaves with lev months later ellie and dina have seemingly settled down with a house and dina has given birth to a baby boy named jj all seems well and ellie is herding some sheep into their barn when the shovel simply falls to the ground and triggers ptsd in ellie regarding how she witnessed joel's death she comes round and is comforted by dina more time passes and ellie returns home after hunting rabbits they have a visitor it's tommy he's half blind and can't walk very well after he's shot on the head by abby he tells ellie that they have a lead on abby who seems to be in santa barbara dina intervenes and tells him they aren't about that anymore tommy's hurt by this as his brother's killer is still out there and he simply can't go himself he guilt-trips ellie saying that she promised to make abby pay he leaves but his words obviously worked as ellie is severely struggling with ptsd and feels that killing abby will bring her some sort of closure dina tries to stop her but ellie leaves for santa barbara anyway while ellie is on route to santa barbara avi and lev arrive at 24-25 constance a tip leads them to an underground basement bunker with a radio inside a radio for help and all seems lost until a voice comes through the fireflies are alive and still active they test abby to see if she is indeed an ex-firefly and as she passes they inform abby and lev that if they can get to catalina island they can join them ecstatic they begin to head to owen's sailboat but are attacked and captured by a local group called the rattlers they are taken as slaves for a couple of months ellie arrives and finds their sailboat along with a clue on a notepad 24-25 constance she sets out to find it but on her way there she gets caught in a trap and gets horrifically wounded after a while the same rattlers who took abby and lev turn up she manages to get free and kills both of the men but not before they tell her where abby is she tracks abby down and after a few months of being malnourished she is strung up to a pillar on the beach as a punishment for trying to escape ellie cuts abby down who then cuts down lev and abby leads elitism boats so they can all escape ellie and abby fight ellie despite losing two fingers in the fight has the upper hand and is about to succeed in killing abby when she has a moral epiphany of joel and stops and lets her go distraught ellie sits there as abby sails away eventually ellie returns back home but finds dina and jj gone and the house empty ellie leaves the house and walks away ending the story for now now that is a long story but now let's start to unpack what happened so what caused this outbreak well in the last of us unlike other zombie-esque horror titles it wasn't started through a malicious corporation nor was it a man-made virus it was purely a result of nature a mutated strain of an otherwise harmless to humans at least virus well when i say virus i really mean infection the infection which ravaged the earth in the last of us is called the cordyceps brain infection or cbi for short it's a fungal infection cordyceps fungus is actually real and is dubbed the zombie fungus it exists deep in the jungle and it primarily infects creatures and literally turns them into zombies it's very malicious and has the strength to wipe out entire species spores from the fungus land on the skin and embed themselves into the muscle of the creature apparently these spores control the creature and make it move to an alternate location which is a perfect environment for fungi reproduction it's parasitic in its nature so after the creature is dead it feeds off the creature reproducing fungus in order to release more spores and therefore infect more creatures it can't affect humans as the human body is much more adept at fighting off infection so if it can't affect human beings how did it all start mutation the strain of this infection evolved somehow before the events of the last of us it became stronger more contagious this specific strain was called ophiocordycep unilateral at the start of the last of us sarah joel's daughter finds a newspaper stating that a mysterious illness is breaking out and it seems the culprit was contaminated crops imported from south america an insect must have been infected with the cordyceps and landed on the crops which contaminated the other crops creating a mutation and starting the downfall of civilization so after being infected by the cordyceps the infection would normally take around two to three days to kill a human the body literally dies from the inside as the parasite takes over a fungus attacks the brain and starts manipulating the behavior of the host someone can be infected through a bite to an infected corpse or through airborne spores full body deterioration when exposed to spores only takes a few minutes there are four main stages of infection and we see these four stages on ephedra leaflet stage one infected are called runners these are the people who have recently become infected although they are the weakest of the four stages they still possess high speed of movement and have a tendency to attack people as part of a horde they still seem to possess some part of their consciousness as sometimes they will walk somewhere and then tend to hunch over and moan or cry this is down to the cordyceps infection not fully taking hold yet they seem to be semi-aware of what they are doing but are powerless to stop it they also moan in pain due to the cordyceps growing in their body their appearance seems to show them as suffering hair loss bloodshot eyes and being covered in lesions stage two infected are called stalkers the time frame of this stage of infection is anywhere from two weeks to a year these infected are suggested by the name tend to hide themselves and camouflage themselves by merging with cordyceps fungus on walls and then breaking free and ambushing survivors their appearance shows them with fungal growth around their eyes and upper body stage three infected are called clickers formed and mutated from one year after initial infection you will hear them before you see them a unique clicking sound emanates from them when they stand still this has a purpose though they have developed a form of echolocation which can detect the slightest movement hence why when you get too close to one they'll run towards you flailing their arms aimlessly this is because they are completely blind due to the cordyceps fungus growing over their eyes they can even at some point be seen scratching at it trying to get it out of the way which might suggest that some vestigial human memory remains as for their appearance their skull seems to have split in two in order to accommodate the facial cordyceps growth and finally the last of the four stages is the bloater at this point the fungal growth has expanded so much that it's essentially started to produce an armor type of plating this growth ends up causing the host to bloat significantly they possess the ability to throw spore bombs by tearing fungus off of their own bodies it does need to be noted though that infected only progress to these four different stages under very specific conditions for example you see a lot more runners outdoors than clickers stalkers and clickers and bloaters tend to be situated indoors rather than outdoors though at some point you may see some outside due to them wondering enclosed dark and damp spaces seem to be the best at the end of the life cycle or when the fungal growth becomes too much for the host to handle the host tends to just go to a corner and just die emitting spores so it can infect a new host this is what's known as a fruiting body hence the need for gas masks in spore filled areas now there are two more variants of infected which are more rare the first of the two is the shambler these are infected who have been infected for several years and normally reside in damp areas with water nearby they are similar to bloaters except they don't throw spore bombs they just expel acid spore clouds from their bodies burning the skin of their prey they also explode upon death and the second is what's known as the rat king this is a special infected encountered only by abby in the hospital in seattle formed and mutated over the course of 20 years since the outbreak began it contains three infected rolled into one a clicker a stalker and a bloater attacking it and dealing enough damage will trigger a defense mechanism in which one of the infected types will detach itself from the rat king and will attack its prey alongside what remains of the rat king the rat king is colossal and possesses a ridiculous amount of strength literally tearing off limbs if you get too close as previously mentioned the fireflies were a militia established in 2013 by marlene their main goal was to fight back against military oppression in qz's or quarantine zones they suffered many casualties in their war against federer and were in danger of being completely wiped out but the casualties didn't just come from the war against federer due to the firefly cause they were going to cue z's and create an uprising causing survivors to brutally revolt against the military after the fireflies gained control these unaffiliated rebels eventually got tired of taking orders from the fireflies so these unruly citizens turned against the fireflies and started killing them too these citizens became what are known as hunters hunters had this vision and goal of creating their own government when joel and tommy first left austin they joined a group of hunters they regularly took part in ambushing tourists which is what hunters call outsiders and took part in torturing people for information and stealing their food and supplies due to this tommy and joel's relationship soured tommy wasn't happy with the things they were doing just to survive so he and tommy split tommy joined the fireflies hoping for a life with more purpose to it i mean i say that but he went to denver and bombed military checkpoints as part of a firefly terrorist cell anyway the fireflies due to being attacked by hunters were forced to flee this left the citizens to adopt a survival of the fittest mentality instead of trying to rebuild civilization shortly after the denver mission tommy left the fireflies and moved to jackson county to settle where he met his wife maria over the years the fireflies searched in vain for a cure for the cordyceps brain infection setting up research stations but found nothing that was until 2033 when in boston the fireflies were involved in a shootout with the military outside of the qz and were losing ellie and riley used smoke bombs to help the fireflies escape they went into a nearby mall and became trapped by infected but were saved and then captured by the fireflies marlene turns up and obviously recognizes ellie so orders them kept alive marlene frees them and then she tells ellie about her mother she gives her an envelope which contains a letter from her mother marlene mentions that she's been watching over ellie for years as a promise to her dead mother she gives ellie her knife a switchblade which belonged to her mother which we see in the game then we all know what happens ellie and riley get bitten ellie survives reilly doesn't marlene sees ellie as a huge advancement in their search for a cure the events of the game then play out so what happened to the fireflies after joel killed dr anderson we knew that upon joel's escape from the hospital he was cornered by marlene and that he shot her his reason for this was that he knew that marlene and the fireflies would come after ellie for the cure well also due to the death of dr anderson this caused them to believe that their only cure for cbi was now gone and due to the death of their leader marlene at the hands of joel they became extremely demoralized over the years they lost countless battles to the us military and eventually voted as a group to disband bringing about the end of the fireflies the fireflies that didn't want to disband ended up moving and starting up either smaller factions and many others wanted to go after joel and ellie and continue making her cure this led to abby and her friends the salt lake crew joining the wlf in seattle at the end of the game we see that a small group of around 200 fireflies had set at base in santa barbara on catalina island as abian lev contacted them better known as wolves the wlf are a paramilitary organization in seattle they started out similar to hunters who became enraged at the rule of the military and federer in the qz's so rose up and as the name suggests the goal was to liberate washington not necessarily by killing the military or federer by stealing military supplies and hitting convoys they were started up and led by married couple jason and emma paterson after the pattersons were taken out by the military isaac became the wlf's only leader he was voted in but shortly after he escalated their goals to killing federal soldiers this was met with some controversy but actually seemed to strengthen their cause as many as more civilians ended up joining them as well as defectors from federer themselves the majority of the military eventually pulled out deeming the fight against the wolves impossible all the fighting intentions led to one final assault on what remained of the military in federer culminating in the wlf gaining control of the seattle qz however with great power comes great responsibility due to the number of infected in seattle it came difficult to transport food and supplies to survivors as usual an uprising was brewing due to unrest so isaac ordered the population of seattle to be moved and housed inside the soundview stadium which is based on the real-life lumen field whom of the seattle sounders and the seahawks he ordered the wlf to hunt and kill all remaining members of federer and the military hiding in the city he also ordered any civilians outside the stadium to move to the stadium or to leave seattle facing execution if they refused to leave ruling with an iron fist is what led many people to believe the wlf were actually no better than those before them so if the wlf were hostile to outsiders why did they accept the salt lake crew into their ranks well the fireflies were well documented from the start of the outbreak and were likely quite notorious it's very likely that wlf had heard of them and maybe even took some form of inspiration from them they had similar hatreds which was the us government and the military and to be honest why wouldn't they accept soldiers with battle experience but that being said the military and federer were not the only enemies in the crosshairs of the wlf this leads us to the serophites scars which is considered to be a derogatory term by the serophites were started during the early days of the outbreak started by a woman who is known only as the seraphite prophet this prophet saw a vision of living an egalitarian lifestyle now this essentially means that you believe in the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities very similar to the goals of the wlf no although similar in its concept to socialism they have two different methods with which to achieve their goals but that's a different story that we won't discuss here as normally happens to people during times of strife people begin to latch onto anything that give them the slightest bit of hope in dark times the prophet discussed her visions in a religious text which as with most religions and cults the members worship and study from her belief was that cbi was a warning from some sort of god that all the technological advances of mankind had poisoned the atmosphere and as a result must live off the land and lead a more simplistic life at some point down the line though the prophet and her serophytes blew up her truck which contained soldiers this sparked a three-way war between federer the wlf and the seraphites one battled dubbed mata's gate between the three sides culminated in the prophet being captured by the wlf and she was imprisoned and tortured we find a note by a wlf soldier stating that she talked to the prophet and it seemed that the seraphites and the prophet weren't as insane as the soldiers have been led to believe stating that the prophet seemed to talk a lot of sense she was later freed by the seraphites and once the wlf had defeated the military the seraphites started to move in and occupy the suburbs of seattle they attacked and threatened the residents who were living there forcing them out as a result the residents received an offer to join the wlf and fight back against the seraphites to escape the wlf a settlement was set up on an island just outside of seattle the prophet died at some point but it's not really clear how but it does seem that isaac executed her as at one point abby says this isaac you turned a crazy person into a martyr a truce was struck but as is normally the case with two warring factions it doesn't take much to break it both sides blamed one another and the fighting broke out once again it does seem however that since the death of the prophet her words of prophecy have been twisted and used for bad much like most religious texts in the world today this was remarked upon by lev stating that this is not what the prophet would have wanted at all however it does need to be noted that abby disagrees with lev on this point as the prophet herself even committed acts of violence the cult has a hierarchy one example being that the elders get first choice of food and it goes down through levels some people at the bottom don't get any food at all this is a far cry from the egalitarian lifestyle they claim to follow this likely changed after the death of the prophet they all have a scar hence the nickname on their faces apparently to acknowledge the imperfection of mankind or something like that due to their belief about the sins of mankind they believed that human sacrifice would atone for their own sin this is why they tend to gut their victims exclaiming that they were nested with sin they also developed a primitive form of communication whistling [Music] this is used to communicate things like their positions whether they are in danger or if they see a trespasser the elders of the cult also reserved themselves the right to a wife and this sometimes took the form of a young child this leads us to lev lev is a transgender male who was marked to become the wife of a terrified elder due to not wanting this to happen and seeing himself as male lev shaved his head much to the dismay of the seraphides he and his sister yara were banished from the seraphites and were hunted and captured at one point in which we see in the game their mother was so devout in her faith that she sided with the cult so much so that when lev returned to her she tried to kill him so why were they annoyed about lev shaving his head well the serophytes dress identically with minor differences between the men and the women the women have their hair braided and the men will shave their heads and have no facial hair this is why the seraphites were so annoyed at left shaving his head he had been hand-picked to become the wife of an elder but changed his appearance to be more like a man after the main events of the game abby and lev as well as ellie come across a faction called the rattlers while we won't spend too much time on these people they do have some input into the story based in santa barbara california the rattlers are a slaver gang based out of a large mansion they patrol the suburban areas looking for survivors to capture they also capture infected so they can chain them up and put them on the perimeters i guess to deter people from trespassing due to their sadistic nature they lock the slaves up in cages and if a slave tries to escape they send them down to what they call the pillars which are wooden beams on the beach designed to kill the slave by exposing them to the elements which is why we see a very sunburned and emaciated abbey at the game's end after ellie freed the prisoners following her taking out the majority of the rattlers it's likely that the remaining rattlers were killed by the escapees so that explains what started the outbreak the different infected and the antagonistic factions but there are still a couple of questions to answer here the first being how did abby find joel we see a few flashbacks of abby and owen in seattle which show that at numerous points abby is searching for leads on joel she obsessed over it to the point in which it led to her and owen breaking up it took her around four years to find him but she eventually found him through tommy it seems that her next firefly joined the wlf and abby asked about tommy and the man mentioned that he moved to a settlement in jackson county wyoming she got all of her friends on board but it likely wasn't just the death of her father that spurred abby on there were numerous things remember abby was a firefly like the other fireflies she believed in a cure for cbi and that was now gone as joel didn't just kill her father he likely killed the only man for miles that possessed the skill to create a vaccine he also killed marlene their leader and as young people the salt lake crew probably looked up to her nora and mel being students of dr anderson were likely enraged due to their closeness with him so this wasn't just about abby's father this was about joel's actions leading to the downfall of the fireflies too and dooming humanity many people like myself were shocked by the death of joel some people even flat out disapproved you know people love joel the one thing you cannot blame joel for in his anger and brutality is the death of his daughter sarah as you'll recall she was shot by the us military following an order to eliminate anyone regardless of infection we learn that in the years after joel and tommy teamed up as hunters but even tommy joel's own brother grew to hate him so much due to his actions that he had to walk away many topics of last of us debates involve the question of joel being justified in his actions but under a microscope he wasn't really justified at all his best friend and partner tess died to protect joel and ellie so they could progress on their journey to deliver ellie to the fireflies he completely undermined her sacrifice meaning that this actually meant nothing in the end the game doesn't really tell us whether ellie was informed that she would die during the operation as we don't see this this all comes down to sarah and her death joel had lost sarah and didn't want to lose ellie remember they were traveling to salt lake city over the course of pretty much an entire year and she even saved his life at one point they were close but this wasn't about saving mankind or ellie at all though this was all about joel pretty selfish really he didn't think about the millions of lives that could have potentially been saved joel said at some point in the game that eventually his luck will run out this tells us that joel knew at some point in his life that his past was going to catch up with him after he's been shot in the leg he has no clue who abby is at that point but he says this why don't you say whatever speech you got first get this is a man who knew this would happen at some point he's already accepted it i mean the guy hasn't exactly poured coffee over someone's computer he's destroyed the fireflies and killed their hope at finding a cure to the fireflies at least that's huge joel also seems to show no remorse for what he did even after ellie said that she wanted her life to matter i was supposed to die in that hospital my life would have [ __ ] mattered if somehow the lord gave me a second chance at that moment i would do it all over again but did joel deserve to die no not really the flashback of joel and ellie on the porch left me frustrated as they had agreed to repair their relationship and then the day after he was killed but if you really look deeper and discover his character he really wasn't a very good person but then again is anyone in this game really a good person so right at the end of the game ellie and abby fight but all this shows us even after watching abby kill joel and traveling to seattle hunting abbey in seattle killing and torturing abby's friends seeing abby on the pillars on the beach and not immediately killing her shows that ellie is horribly conflicted ellie understands why abby did what she did i know why you killed joel he did what he did to save me it's likely that nora told ellie about abby's dad when she was trying to get information from her that's very likely why ellie is so shell-shocked here she's not shocked because of what she did to nora she's shocked because she realizes that abby had a reason for why she killed joel you see ellie after cutting abby down from the pillar at that moment realized that abby had just been through something far worse than what ellie would do to her he decided to let her go until this moment when ellie checked her wound and had a flashback of joel changing her mind they fight and then ellie is drowning abby and stops but why well it's because of this flashback ellie saw herself on the porch with joel and she had chosen to try and start to forgive him she saw that she is in fact capable of mercy she also realized that this obsession with revenge was eating away at her so at that moment she simply decided to forgive abby and let her go this ended the cycle of violence that was ignited by joel this is less about vengeance for ellie and more about accepting that joel is gone dealing with that and accepting that killing abby isn't going to change anything we see at the latter stage of the game that after the nightmare of the cassandra dina and ellie are back in jackson although not living in the settlement and dina has given birth to a little boy named jj after his late father jesse after ellie decides to leave to go after abby it appears that dina packed up all their stuff and left the house with jj but what happens after that i mean the game doesn't really tell us but i'm sure the next game will what can only be assumed at this point is that dina and jj went back to live in the jackson settlement we find a letter on the table from jesse's parents dina does mention in the game at the start while she's out on patrol with ellie that jesse's parents are like her family given that dina's family are all dead this letter shows that those thoughts are reciprocated as they say that she will always be family to them off the back of the letter it's clear that dina and jj went to stay with jesse's parents which makes sense seeing as they're jj's grandparents whether she and ellie got back together remains to be seen as it did seem like dina gave the impression that if she leaves to go after abby then that's it for them after ellie returns home she tries to play the guitar which joel gifted to her but due to having two fingers bitten off by abby in their fight she's unable to play anymore the final shot of the game is ellie abandoning the guitar and leaving the house after abby and lev make it to a boat and travel to the aquarium we see the wlf and the seraphites still fighting each other it's likely they just killed each other off until one person was left standing if you think about it this entire game focused on a cycle of violence and revenge that didn't really ever have an end in sight without everyone dying in the process although we don't know if isaac did actually die after being shot by yara the elders likely fought alongside their fellow seraphites and they probably all died i think the game leaves this as an unknown intentionally as the bigger question is does it really even matter who won obviously at the end of the game we see abby and lev sailing off into the mist it's clear where they're going they're going to catalina island to join up with the fireflies which was their original plan this is kind of confirmed by the loading screen on completing the game as it shows abby and lev's boat on a beach with a large dome building in the background this may give us a hint of what the next stage of this story might feature hopefully a lot of questions will be answered in the next installment of the last of us i'm looking forward to it and i hope you are too let me know down in the comments what you think about the plot and the narrative but ultimately that's it for this video if you did enjoy this one please leave a like and subscribe to the channel but for now take care and i will see you in the next one [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Gaming Harry

Views: 190,301

Keywords: the last of us 2 ending explained, the last of us part 2, the last of us story explained, the last of us 2 story explained, the last of us full story explained, the last of us 2, the last of us gameplay, the last of us 2 joel death, the last of us part 2 ending, the last of us story, the last of us 2 joel, the last of us storyline, the last of us story so far, the last of us 2 ps5, the last of us 2 story recap, gaming harry story explained, gaming harry explained

Id: lsidKYDjmNU

Length: 40min 56sec (2456 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 20 2021