The TRANSCENDENT Worldbuilding of The Last of Us

dark Bleak lifeless destroyed sad desperate dangerous scary what's the difference between these two lists of words both of them accurately describe post-apocalyptic worlds and they both have a similar move to them Grim gritty Etc so what would you say is the difference this is a video about good versus Great World building specifically as seen through the world of the last of us because as much as there is to discuss about the Great Character work and the writing the World building in the show blows my mind and what I found so incredible is something I'm not really seeing a lot of people talking about so I want to use the show to Define what makes good World building good and what makes great world building great and maybe just maybe we'll see if there's even a level above that but in order to do that I want to frame this whole discussion with a very specific question if there's something first brought to attention by a patron I knowam and this isn't how he put it exactly but here's my version of the question last of us are you a zombie Starry or not make up your mind already because I see episode 8 fantastic episode no Zombies episode 4 another great episode no Zombies episode 6 no zombies episode 3 fan favorite episode knows uh well there's this guy in the beginning fine we get 10 seconds of zombie episode 9 the finale incredible and again maybe 10 seconds of zombie episode 5 episode 7 we get some zombies right here at the end but the story of these episodes isn't about zombies we got whole narratives about entirely other conflicts and yeah episodes one and two fine those are about zombies that's a season of Nine episodes where five have no zombies at all or minimal zombies and two more where zombies aren't even the focus overall you look at basically every big scene you look at all the major points of all the character arcs and zombies don't seem to be that Central to this zombie apocalypse show so what is going on with that if so much of the story doesn't need zombies why have them at all or put another way all the action in the show zombies included is there to highlight the character stuff because this is an extremely character driven story but zombies seem like a super plot-oriented World building tool that is how we are used to seeing the Muse seems to be that's what they're best at so what places zombies even have in a story like this what function do they serve in an entirely character different story in a human-centered drama and the path to answers to these questions is going to come from a more precise understanding of World building in general which has to do with these two lists of words I said at the beginning of the video so dark Bleak lifeless destroyed sad desperate danger scary what's the difference list number one is about the World list number two is about people that is the big principle The Last of Us pushed me to Define World building is people oh my God we're about being as people World building his people I can come up with my fantasy world map and my magic system and my history and cultures Etc but if those World building elements I'm brewing up are not penetrating to the other story elements to the characters that plot the scenes that is a sign you are just getting started your world has a long way to go before it is fully developed World building isn't just selecting random features of a random setting it's shaping the environment of your characters its answers to questions like how does the world treat its inhabitants how does the world feel to its inhabitants what are the obstacles of this world where's the drama in this world what are the needs what are the emotions what type of pain is prominent in this world what type of life is common in this world what type of Heroes does this world produce what type of villains a word like dark does shape an environment in a way that could impact the characters it's fine but a word like sad true it's broad but it relates directly to the character experience Bleak is a general mood of a setting dangerous is a specific pattern of interaction the setting has with the characters scary is a reaction probably to what's dangerous and similarly desperate is also a reaction give me a world of darkness and destruction and I have a world give me a world of death and cruelty and I'm already telling the story of that world so World building is people that's the basic principle but basic principles don't cut a knot here at schnee headquarters now we got standard simple we got quotas to meet level three don't give me a world of death give me a world of deterioration don't give me a world of Cruelty give me a world of necessity don't give me a scary world give me a wounded World level one was ideas that characterize a World level 2 was ideas that characterize a story within a World level 3 is ideas that don't characterize stories they are stories death is a scene deterioration is a whole progression deterioration I immediately see a beginning middle and it's not this element that appears in my story it's a structure that can apply to every story element we can show a society deteriorating and show the turmoil and violence of that process we can show a rich life being lived and then deteriorating and how that changes lives and impacts decisions we can show the Purity and liveliness and innocence of Youth and make that deteriorate through participating in terrible experiences and witnessing terrible tragedies we can show even the strongest character in the show deteriorating and make that a vital challenge of his Arc and the arcs adjacent to his and the last of us if it can deteriorate it will deteriorate and we feel at every step of the story in every aspect of the story and it's the same with Wounded every character has open wounds from their past that still hurt them now it's something that defines their starting point it gets poked throughout their entire Arc and the pain of it eventually defines their endpoint as well Kathleen the leader of Kansas City lost her brother and Henry's very existence is poking at that wound like crazy making her go all out making her go mad she needs to eradicate the source of her wound from this world and that pain makes her act on these extreme Brash ways that ultimately lead to her downfall Henry was informant and that guilt so haunts him he lives with the consequences and as soon as his last shot at Redemption dies all he has is this wound telling him he is a worthless wretched informant and he acts accordingly bill is interesting he's been wounded by his Loveless life before the apocalypse and that pain creates the lonely porcupine-like existence he's in at the start of his ark then once he finds love fear of that pain makes him so determined to keep his love and that same pain is what makes him eventually decide on how to end this journey of his love Tommy has his past the pain from back then from what he did is what makes him leave Joel it's also what makes him determined not to leave his family and it's also what Joel uses to convince him to leave his family before he doesn't have to Joel obviously has Sarah and that wound determines literally every step of his Arc with Elliot both his initial instinct to distance from her and of course as eventual closeness to her and then Ellie has all these people who left her and that determines every step of her Arc withdrawal as well both her eagerness to form a bun and her desperation to keep it and not let it die okay so there's one more term I mentioned here in this level necessity and this one is a tough one and we can't really talk about it unfortunately not at our current world building power level nope we need to go even further Beyond level four okay memes aside this is the first thing that broke my brain in half when I was thinking about this so This starts with thinking about this character Kathleen really stood out to me the casting is wild and it's the characterization really not the casting itself you see this character and think how the this woman really what this is the face of a badass radicalized revolutionary leader soccer mom lady and she's trying to find and kill this cute little kid with the sign language and the superhero drawings and stuff I know she's after Henry but still a completely normal looking guy and his kid brother Henry is also a character who does not fit what he is he does not look like the Most Wanted Man in Kansas City he looks like I don't know maybe a bank teller fourth grade teacher nurse technician he's a totally average dude so we get average dude versus soccer mom and that conflict looks like this and then turns into this what is going on here the definitions that came to mind were disorder or maybe chaos and once I was thinking in those terms I kind of started to see it everywhere it seemed like so many things in the star existed in this way that was wrong they weren't what they were supposed to be we got this dorky little punk who is the savior of humanity we got a stone cold killer living a peaceful life in a mountain villain Wyoming we got preachers feeding congregants to each other we got a university where they're supposed to be good men and instead there's bad monkeys so that felt okay but where level 3 started turning into level 4 for me was realizing no it's not chaos it's not disorder the underlying commonality here is necessity which had crossed my mind earlier and like oh yeah people need to eat food they're desperate they're hunting they're fighting that kind of way but no no it was much bigger than I realized it was everywhere and it was so extreme Frank runs out of medicine and he's forced to die prematurely and the way Bill sees it that forces him to make a decision to end his life as well very similar we have Sam who's sick Henry is forced to become an informant to act against his morals and that's how this normal average guy becomes the Most Wanted Man in Kansas City Kathleen we mentioned her brother is this born leader but he dies and she is forced to step in and in reaction to his death her trauma came this hatred this madness this need for Revenge that consumes her it's not a physical need but it robs her of her autonomy just the same and Joel is all about this idea we see it in his first scenes after the intro with the Dead kid and then also with this Exchange you got anything else tomorrow we got street sweeping or sewer maintenance which pays more that'd be the one with the and then he's forced to do whatever he can to get this battery Tess dies and his autonomy is taken away again she made me swear to take the kid it was her dying wish what the hell was I supposed to do and then narratively as soon as this journey with Ellie becomes something he wants to do his autonomy is attacked again and it's terrible but he realizes that he's getting too physically weak to continue responsibly with this life that he's come to find so meaningful so what differentiates the necessity in terms of how to characterizes the world of The Last of Us is that necessity isn't just an aspect of this world it defines this world everything we talked about up intona was a foundation for a result of necessity deterioration per se isn't what shapes these characters stories it's what the deterioration forces them to do the character's wounds Rob them of their ability to live how they want all the death and the cruelty and the desperation the darkness each one of these aspects is stamped with that necessity label that is its identity Necessities pervading everything in the story whether it's the soldier in episode 1 whether it's Joel Post Time skip or Joel at the end of episode one or tests in episode 2 or Bill and Frank's deaths in episode 3 are the horrifying Ellie scene in episode 4 or the even more horrifying earlier scene in episode 8 the centerpiece of what's happening with every character with every Arc practically Every Beat is this tension between what they want to do and how they're forced to act out of necessity and I want to draw your attention to specific unbelievable Nuance in this at the end of episode 5. it's this terrible scene and we can look at this big picture brother killing a brother is disorder it's a necessity but I want to talk about the way it happens the way his hand moves the way he actually commits this act it's too sudden it feels cold and harmless but it's almost something beyond that we don't get the big buildup we don't get the intense moment of decision it's almost like it happens before he can decide to do it it's careless almost it's like a reflex it's like slapping mosquito wear stomping on a cockroach it's more than just disorder this is wrong this is not how it's supposed to happen the reason why it happens this way is because this is Henry's life he is a puppet to necessity the need tears his hand away the need squeezes the trigger it is barely a choice of this one because that's how all of these characters live so I opened this video with a question if the last of us is a zombie story where are all the zombies and the time has come to up our power level once again what's he doing don't worry Master roshi I'll explain everything forget the Last of Us for a second why are zombies a thing at all why are we afraid of the Dead coming back to life someone's most simple level zombies it's a type of monster all my monsters are unnatural things this is a dead thing that is also alive that's a paradox it's not supposed to exist that's freaky to us fine okay what about a little bit more complex we are afraid of death death coming to get us that's scary it's being attacked by our fear of our own mortality okay but these definitions have explained some things about zombies in a general sense but they do not succeed in tying everything together why do zombies eat brains why do they moan and groan why do they slowly Lurch and put out their arms like this why do they also sometimes run and chase us down why do we see zombies why don't we see hordes of swamp monsters why don't we see endless ranks of vampires attacking towns why don't we get Ghost apocalypse stories no we get zombies and endless hordes overrunning the planet and causing the apocalypse that is the archetype that fits this other archetype why why do they go together and you can probably feel with these questions it feels like there's a lot of aspects of zombies that are getting at some greater concept and just monsters who remind us of death that doesn't quite cut it so let's take a step all the way back if I am writing a horror story I can make Cthulhu I can make a Kaiju we can do a scary place we can do a scary creature we can do an evil person we can do an evil inanimate thing we can do birds we can do empty space lots and lots of different ways of manifesting horror focusing horror but Gothic Horror in terms of its three major tropes is distinct from everything I just listed those three major archives have got the car if you're not familiar are vampires werewolves and zombies and what makes them distinct is because these are monsters that humans transform into every Vampire used to be a regular human every werewolf 2 every zombie and then they were bit and they didn't just change they transformed they become something different in their entirety a new type of being that functions completely differently than a human whether that's about how they survive or about how they become a wild animal or about a complete loss of sentience they don't become more evil they become something that is evil their existence becomes an existence of evil necessarily harmful so what is that there is a classic answer to this that I first heard from Mark rosewater head designer Magic the Gathering but he didn't make it up either this is a widespread Theory the gothic horror tropes are cautionary her they're designed to highlight human vices the terrifying parts of our inner selves and show us what happens if we let that take us over our lusts can become violent and predatory our anger can turn us into feral beasts these inner demons can turn us into outer demons because this thing that we dearly hope is this tiny little part of us the back of our minds that can consume everything that we are so I left one out what is the terrifying inner part of our existences that's embodied in the zombie archetype so as the theory goes it's mindlessness we have all had that experience of living on autopilot of being profoundly checked out of our own lives I always think of this quotation from Goodwill Hunting tomorrow I'm going to wake up and I'll be 50. and I'll still be doing this we do not want to become these automatons just sleepwalking through our own existence that is death to us vampires and werewolves lust and rage those are these simple concrete feelings impulses zombies get to something much deeper it's an existential fear it is a threat to humanity as a whole in a way that lust and rage are not mindless existence is a scarier fate than death than actual non-existence we would rather wink out of existence entirely than let something else take control then let empty animation consume Our Lives consume our world David is an unbelievable character again we get that wrongness that complete and total disorder David is a man of God his position should demand the highest ideals of morality and he is the worst of the worst that we've encountered by far and why because the winter was hard because they had no food because they had to survive necessity even his advances on Ellie he couches in the language of necessity well it knows I could use the help we do whatever we needed for our people and because of that his actions show him to be this absolute predator in every sense of the term in the name of survival he is willing to perpetuate his existence by killing and eating humans David is living the life of a zombie everyone in the last of us is living the life of a zombie Kathleen Henry Bill Tess Tommy Joel Ellie they are forced into a necessarily predatory existence all meaning in their lives is obliterated all of who they are is consumed by the need to survive is this really a human life is it life at all or is this death how is it any different from this maybe less ugly but it is the same existence it's one thing to make a zombie apocalypse world that has zombies walking around but taking the core of what the zombie archetype was created to encapsulate and letting that bleed into every narrative element in the entire story that is some truly Transcendent World building this story shows us zombies and it shows us humans and within the series of humans that it shows us that sequencing it shows as someone living by empty necessity in an everyday way it shows us necessity robbing our autonomy within parts of our lives and then within more of our lives and we begin to see people who are consumed we see the world drain of meaning everyone is forced to live this life that's wrong that is unnatural to them and we get to see the horrifying transformative results of being forced into empty lives of pure survival this is a zombie apocalypse that turns everyone into zombies mind the shells of humanity that will do anything to propagate the collective existence you can choose an empty human existence devoid of all meaning or it can choose an empty inhuman existence devoid of all meaning that dilemma is the antagonist that is what threatens the welfare of our main characters and that is in the end what Joel triumphs over in the end he faces the ultimate version of this test he can choose survival for the entire world and render his own life meaningless and empty or he can choose meaning for himself and doom the survival of the entire world and his choice is consistent with the journey he's taken Joel refuses to become a zombie he triumphs over the fear represented by zombies and he finds protects and keeps his life of meaning right that is what happens isn't it this final Conflict is about whether the protagonist has learned the cautionary Tale the zombie archetype tells whether he can be the one person in the story who escapes this world's emptiness who escapes zombiehood by finding and securing a meaningful life and because it's a zombie story we have what may not seem like a Triumph what may not be a Triumph in any other story but in this story finding meaning in life is winning so that has to be the resolution right it has to be that's what this whole journey was for Joel learns what life is from Elian he did what he had to he avoided that life of necessity the life of survival of the life that forced humans to live a predatory existence necessarily violent and now he and Ellie can live a meaningful life together the void that we sometimes see in characters faces in the show that hollowness that's haunted Joel since he lost Sarah he escaped that he'll never see that again right because if he did then why is it right here why am I seeing that emptiness in Ellie's eyes I had watched through a playthrough of this game when it came out so I remember the gist of the ending but I did not remember this final twist that turned everything on its head Joel's search for meaning in life was really just another form of that life of survival this life with Ellie that is survival for Joel and it's finding meaning in life that forces him to become a monster and force them to do what he has to do and that new wound he creates by doing this it leaves the one thing in this world that was bright and full of life staring at him with empty Hollow eyes so basic World building good World building is selecting interesting story elements great world loading is people it's defining the unique way your story World operates in terms of how it impacts the characters Transcendent World building is the force it's the hobbits in the one ring this level is when the story is defining World building element is so well developed so nuanced so perfectly tailored to the story that it becomes more than it is the force isn't just telekinesis it's the idea that Cosmic events are shaped by the moral choices within the hearts of individuals that is Light Side Dark Side the connectivity of all life versus the darkness of isolation that is the entire story of Star Wars even the arcs the characters that seemingly have nothing to do with the force even their story is the story of the force same with Hobbits the idea of human decency and goodness doing more for the world and overt strength every Arc and Lord of the Rings is about the idea of Hobbits that is Gimli Legolas it's Boromir faramir it's Aragorn charging into battle not to win not for the glory but why for froda this is also one piece's expansive story defining idea of pirates this is the Matrix this is the idea of vampires then let me in and it's zombies in the last of of us so find The Heart Of Your World building ideas and develop them until they expand into even everything they're not that is the idea here not every story needs to be on this level but that is what these stories do and that is the Pinnacle of world welding in my eyes if anyone watching this is a writer and is looking for a community to meet other writers and or creative people to share what you're working on to discuss fiction you love to analyze it to start writing groups Etc I just started a Discord for my patreon and it's been amazing so far I personally have been Super Active on it we got a lot of people there having great discussions about everything from writing tips to Arcane to projects they're working on to role-playing games so check that out if you're interested we would love to have you big thanks to all the patrons especially my latest High through subscriptions Wesley welcome back also bags Kagan and zile thanks everyone for the support it means so much subscribe and thanks for watching

Channel: schnee

Views: 310,626

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Id: p_XCOek9Lgs

Length: 19min 46sec (1186 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 19 2023