The Last of Us and What's Worth Surviving For

there's something interesting about the Start screen of the Last of Us it's not bombastic or loud or even scary or threatening there's no ominous music no strange happenings it's just a broken window curtains blowing out from the wind vines reaching in the curtains are torn and dirty the walls around it are chipped and peeling it feels old and abandoned as a fly darts in and out of the windows seemingly the homes only resident and the music is this slow decided strumming of a guitar it's not hyping you up or getting you excited or even sending chills down your spine it's calm quiet sad lonely but the window is just so ever slightly cracked the limited view of the outside can be widened if you just push it open and it can be widened even more if you step through there's a whole world beyond this little room full of natural wonders and beautiful sights but also dangerous animals and threats unimaginable but if you want to go through that window if you want to enter that world take that risk all you have to do is press Start [Music] I still remember when the Last of Us was coming out it was one of the most hyped games of 2013 a year packed full of major releases like BioShock Infinite Grand Theft Auto 5 and many many others and yet The Last of Us managed to standout developed by naughty dog The Last of Us was their biggest departure from their origins yet I mean what could be more different from Crash Bandicoot than a story and character driven survival horror game with so much violence in it hello is quite the departure from Naughty Dog's last new IPV indiana jones esque action adventure game uncharted a series that had started all the way back in 2007 mind you so people were excited for an all new IP from one of Playstations top developers not to mention that the creative director was neil druckmann one of the co writers and game designers for the first two Uncharted games and the game director was Bruce Straley the game director of Uncharted 2 even though I didn't play The Last of Us until 2016 a few years after it was made I could not escape the height for this game and subsequently I couldn't escape the critical praise 10 out of tens across the board several Game of the Year awards in an undying and passionate love from just about everyone who played it yes there are a few outliers who consider this game overrated as hell and their opinions are valid but it's far from a controversial opinion to love this game and love it I did and do I loved it so much that I actually played it three times in a row because I just couldn't get enough of these characters in the story in this world in this game play it stands firm as my second favorite game of all time I still own my original pre-owned copy of the game and have it on display because of how much it means to me certainly not because it looks pretty but what about this game makes me feel this way why did it do so well among such a gigantic crop of great games how does this game manage to do everything it sets out to do and more what makes the Last of Us so great well I think the best place to start is with the thing that distracts me the most when playing the game the [Music] do I even need to tell you this game looks amazing just look at it Naughty Dog was already pretty well known for pushing the ps3 to its graphical limit with the first two Uncharted games but this is just a whole nother level the level of detail here is astonishing with everything from the character models to the environments all having distinct looks feels and identities a lot of this comes from the fact that as a generation of consoles goes on there tends to be a certain evolution to what developers are able to do and the last of us came out only about 5 months before the ps4 release so when you combine the developers who set the standard full with the ps3 could do graphically with all the experience they got to have working with the system you get this look so good the lighting the colors the absolute beauty 1 but the game's graphics as good as they look aren't just there to look pretty no this game does a little thing called environmental storytelling The Last of Us is a particularly good example of how games can tell stories and create character through their environments and a particularly good example of that within the game is Sarah's bedroom this is the first interactive part of the game after the opening cutscene and all you need is this bedroom to get to know Sarah very well with every little detail adding another part to her character from owning her bedroom we learn she's athletic she cares about her family she likes trashy teen movies so she probably doesn't think they're thrashing she reads a lot she likes a lot of different kinds of music she's messy she even has an interest in science do any of these details necessarily matter not really especially considering you know but it does add something imagine if we wake up as Sarah in just a plain boring old bedroom with nothing on the walls very little furniture and absolutely nothing to show us who Sarah is she wouldn't feel real and considering you know we don't exactly have a lot of time to get to know her a lot of time to care about her before you know what happens by adding all these little details in Sarah's room Naughty Dog stops her from feeling like a plot device only there to die she feels like a person she feels real she feels alive and all of that communicated solely through the visuals of her bedroom but the game's visuals don't stop there the visuals themselves are steeped in the juxtaposition of natural and urban Emory with nature overtaking and building from the room the past the game takes place 20 years after the apocalypse with most major cities entirely abandoned and with maintenance being 20 years late these places aren't in very good shape skyscrapers have teetered and fallen cars are left to rust and piles on major highways vines are growing up and currently around street lamps and telephone poles it's a world that has adapted and changed created new life from ruins of the old it makes for some stunning visual presentation that allows for the familiar images of city landscapes to feel new and strange and sometimes horrifying threatening and imposing but beyond just urban landscapes there are sewers once home to adaptive communities of people hotels and apartment buildings made in the basis by bandits college campuses once quarantine zones and a firefly lab then totally abandoned except for these sick ass chimps what I'm trying to get out as the primary motif of the games of visual presentation is adaptation and new life whether its nature overtaking a once densely populated city or monkeys trying to get an education the world has been forced to adapt to its new circumstances and that's just the thing it doesn't die it adapts it survives there's a sort of new beauty to these old ruins but within them are people that have been forced to adapt just as much to find new ways to survive I love how this game plays the controls are tight and responsive the stealth sections are well designed every weapon has an appropriate amount of weight to it that makes every shot feel solid and brutal it just works the gameplay is very slow-paced though your movement speed even when sprinting isn't too fast and that weapon weight makes using it kind of sluggish but that's the beauty of it the game slow pace allows for greater focus on stealth and exploration but when the pace does ramp up for whatever reason it's not slow enough to feel unfair but it's not fast enough to feel easy everything becomes much more tense and difficult but not in a way that feels impossible there's a wonderful sense of balance to the way the game functions you never have too much ammo or too many supplies to feel like you can just waste them but you also never have too few to feel like you've softlocked yourself you can't be careless but you can take on whatever challenge you may face each combat or stealth encounter you come across is given a sense of tension and fear while also giving the opportunity for satisfaction you make it through each by having to make the tough decision of what weapon to use on what enemy at what time if ever at all each of those decisions can greatly affect whether or not you make it out of the situation alive and so every decision matters but if I'm going to be talking about the gameplay I have to address something that comes up a lot when talking about the Last of Us I can't in good conscience not talk about it because not only do I vehemently disagree with it it actively contradicts one of this game's best elements so here I am saying it loud and proud it isn't just cutscenes people like to pull this out all the time they like to say that the game is barely even a game at all because you have very little say on how the story plays out or what you do next I cannot tell you how many times I have heard somebody say I'll just look at the cutscene Mewtwo is factly the same thing it's just an interactive movie no bad stop it and here's what in my opinion the Last of Us actually has a much more nuanced understanding of its mediums narrative strengths and in order to explain that I need to get a little broader and explain exactly why videogame narratives are so unique in the first place most storytelling puts the audience and the role of the passive observer the video games allow the audience to play an active role in a narrative rather than just watching aliens invade you're an active part of the fight against them rather than just watch Batman stop the Joker you're the one beating down his goons to get to him and so if you make a mistake or do something wrong you can fix it or die from it but it's always your responsibility as an active participant and the last of us understands this the game puts the player in the role of enabling the game's action rather than choosing what Joel was going to do next you enable him to do what he was going to do anyway save for a few minor things and in that way the nature of the gameplay actually fits thematically in a sense you're trusting Joel and Ellie not to do something that you wouldn't want to do and through this role that gameplay creates a sense of identification perspective and character you're allowed to identify with the characters you play off by being able to see things through their perspective and what you can do as them creates a sense of character within them let's go back to Sarah with this idea because Sarah is such a young girl she probably wasn't watching the build-up to these events the adults were what's happening therefore is completely new to her and entirely surprising and that perspective is reflected in the powerlessness you have playing answer you can't do anything significant just watch as everything happens and the world burns down around you but when you play as Joel you're allowed to have much more power you can be more brutal and take on a lot more enemies and when you play as Ellie you aren't as brutal or powerful as Joel but you also aren't nearly as powerless as Sarah being allowed to hold weapons but not as many and not being able to use effective melee weapons not to mention the lighter controls compared to playing as Joel is Mark her sense of experience and intuition while also showing her youth and physical weakness or think about the mechanic of working with another character in order to progress giving another character a boost or carrying them around on a plank of wood in the water because they can't swim and the progression of these mechanics allows us to see the trust these characters have with each other so the broad strokes of the gameplay allow for broad characterization both of individuals and their relationships as well as the ability to see things from those characters perspective creating a sense of identification of the player but even when we get more specific we still see the gameplay reflecting the narrative the slow-paced nature of the game's exploration allows for natural moments of chemistry between our two main characters natural instances of dialogue that wouldn't fit well into actual cutscenes or story beats I love the entire section of Bill's town where Joel and Ellie are simply exploring the abandoned properties of this place there are so many little moments of dialogue where Ellie will notice something and comment on it or so we'll have to explain something or Ellie will be trying to learn how to whistle and when she finally does later it's amazing it holds them and it makes me happy are you all right I'm trying to learn how to whistle you don't know how to whistle does it sound like I know how to whistle this would also be a great time to mention how much I love naughty dogs optional conversation mechanic they had a ton of wonderful little moments of character development and showcase the growing relationship of Joel and Ellie while feeling totally natural in context they also function pretty well as a sort of litmus test for how much you want to hear these characters talk to each other but beyond even that when you get down to exactly the things you do in the game and the ways you do them the gameplay is still working to develop the themes of the narrative particularly in regards to the nature of survival fitting since this is a survival horror game after all the game doesn't necessarily encourage murder because well survival isn't an excuse to be a shitty person you can kill people certainly you can kill people but you don't actually have to all the time in fact there are several sections of the game you can get through without taking a single enemy life and while I'm sure there's no such thing as a pacifist runner the Last of Us you can most definitely refrain from and unless absolutely necessary in most cases and the only item dropped by enemies is more ammo or weapons which you could see as a strange sort of violence only begets violence message all you get for killing other people is the ability to kill more people you don't get supplies or heels or anything else just instruments of death and on top of all of that there is still more there's a certain duality to a lot of the game's controls and items you can use SHIVs either as weapons to kill enemies silently or you can use them to open Shiv doors in order to further explore areas and get more items the button you use to shoot guns or throw bombs is the same button you can use to heal yourself many of the crafting ingredients can be used to either make heels and defensive weapons like smoke bombs or offensive weapons like nail bombs by creating this duality the game frames these actions as active choices by the player it forces them to consider am i focusing on hurting people or am i focusing on surviving do you believe me after this game isn't just cutscenes well just in case I wanted to compare The Last of Us and its gameplay cutscene balance to another game that came out that same year Tomb Raider met a lot of critical acclaim upon its release mostly for its design and fun gameplay but what it met a lot of criticism for was its lack of consistency between gameplay and cutscenes you see they were telling two different stories the cutscenes would have you believe that main character Lara is an intelligent but ultimately an experienced and frightened person trying to get through the most horrifying experience of her life and learning to find her inner strength and sense of confidence throughout the story but the gameplay would have you believe that after Lara has killed one person she's suddenly able to handle her damn self killing anyone and everyone that gets in her way with military-like efficiency and brutality you're telling me that the same girl who just almost threw up because she had to kill somebody is the same person now killing people with apparent ease and skill I don't think so both of these stories completely undermine the other when the game is near its end and is trying to be like oh look how different Lara is now look how much she's grown it's hard to believe because she's acting the same way in the gameplay if she had been from nearly the beginning but in The Last of Us the game's cutscenes work in tandem with the gameplay rather than against it but a lot of the games in the history of this medium don't understand is that the narrative doesn't take a break when the cutscenes end the gameplay has to tell the story too after all in a game that takes about 15 and a half hours to play through only about an hour and a half of that is actually cutscenes it's just narrative Leon economical to not have the gameplay doing a lot of the heavy lifting and in The Last of Us they do the game play tells the exact same story that the cutscenes to do which is the story of a cynical and desensitized old man trying to survive and find purpose while protecting and bonding with a new much more optimistic daughter figure speaking of which Joel and Ellie on their own are two of my favorite characters and video games and together they make up one of my favorite video game duos these characters are everything I love a character to be nuanced emotionally complex and deeply flawed they don't feel like someone came up with them they feel real they feel alive the point is that these characters are some of the most well developed of any game I've ever had the pleasure of playing but why do they feel this way let's have a look shall we Joel is a big beefy beautiful man who also just so happens to have a penchant for violence and brutality on the level of old-school Kratos but with too much realism for it to not be uncomfortable after losing his daughter Sarah in the most heartbreaking opening I've ever played Joel has become an embittered violence and broken old man 20 years on trying to just lay low and wallow in his own self-pity for as long as the world allows him to he doesn't want to get close to people he doesn't want to let anybody else in this world broke him tore him apart from the beginning and just continued to shred because it's just kind of an [ __ ] like that and he adapted by totally closing himself off to the rest of the world keeping only the most superficial and insubstantial relationships his relationship with Tess in the early game is indicative of this they have a rapport they have some slight banter but for the most part their relationship is solely business where she's the brain and he's the Brawn they need each other but only on the most superficial of levels in which they help keep each other alive it's hard to imagine Joel and Tess hanging out on the weekends playing Mario Cart together you know what I mean he's not emotionally vulnerable he doesn't let himself be he was before and look what happened he lost his entire world basically at the flip of a coin only to then lose his brother Tommy not that long after when he left Joel to become a Firefly he doesn't let people in because he knows how that ends he knows where that all ends up someone always gets hurt it's the nature of things to end whether you're emotionally equipped for it or not why get close to anyone when it will inevitably fall apart Joel constantly shrugs off the cure the fireflies are tatting because it symbolizes a return to the way things used to be but for him nothing can be like it used to be he's lost too much for that if the world goes back to normal Joel is still going to be the same man and so he just sits back and watches the world turn waiting every day for his eventual demise trying as hard as he can not to get hurt in the process this makes Joel this quiet loner archetype but I think he goes beyond that it's kind of weird when I see videos on YouTube about the most badass moments when really the brutality and violence he uses is more result of how emotionally numb yes murder violence brutality those things just don't affect him anymore he's seen too much of it done too much of it so when somebody gets in his way he has no problem using it it's hard not to feel bad for the guy but he also isn't just supposed to be sympathized with he is violence he is brutal the game never shied away from those realities Joel is kind of a bad person who has zero sense of mercy he just kills anyone who gets in his way but it's easy to understand exactly why and it's not like he just kills people for the hell of it he's understandable he's easy to empathize with because he's rooted in that sense of never ending loss and grief that has just made him a broken shell covering up any sense of emotional vulnerability he might have left but then a certain someone comes around and changes all that [Music] Elly is like my favorite person ever in fiction or real life I love her so much I can't wait to get to play as her for an entire game though that's probably the exact reason that I'm going to be an emotional wreck by the end of that game but whatever I still love Ellie Ellie was born six years into this post apocalypse and now at 14 has never known a life besides it she has no experience with the way the world used to be as far as she's concerned it's always been quarantine zones and soldiers and infected she's never known a world like this what is this oh this is an ice cream truck an ice cream truck yeah Henry told me about these it's still ice cream out of the truck what no way Joel that's true this thing drive around and play real loud creepy music and kids would come running out to buy ice cream you're totally [ __ ] with me I'm serious man he lived in a strange time but unlike Joel's he's not been broken by it she's optimistic excitable and endlessly curious she has tons of questions and all she wants in the world is to be able to play a video game she's an absolute dork who says Roger Dodger on ironically she's my hero you just stay close to her from now and she has this undying love for life despite her circumstances that comes out when danger isn't afoot and she's just allowed to take in her surroundings she constantly wants to try new things she's constantly asking questions and she loves bad puns what does a pirate say while eating sushi I don't know what ahoy pass me some soy I don't get it she also has a good survival instinct she knows how to adapt to unpredictable situations and she's quick enough on her feet to carry it through she's intuitive and knows how to read a room fairly well and for the most part she doesn't take [ __ ] from anyone she's quick to defend herself whether physically or verbally and if someone insults her tries to hurt her she will take it personally and she will bite back and on top of all of that perhaps most importantly she's trusting and emotionally vulnerable when characters die Joel is ready to brush it off and forget about it but Ellie wants to talk about it she wants to work through her feelings in a way Joel doesn't seem capable of doing like I said she hasn't been broken by the world like he has she holds onto the hope that things can get better if she just pushes through wall gel has become resigned to his isolation and from there we can start talking about their relationship because as wonderful as these characters are individually it's in their relationship that things become truly interesting and the best way to talk about the relationship is to talk about one of my favorite scenes in the game [Music] so a little bit of context joel has reunited with his brother Tommy who is now an ex Firefly Joel thinks that Tommy will know where to find the fireflies and can bring Ellie there for him Tommy is initially resistant but ultimately decides to take Ellie off of Joel's hands but Ellie being the intuitive person that she is figures this out without anyone telling her steals a horse and runs away unwittingly petting straight into the territory of a group of bandits Joel and Tommy go after her and Joel finds her alone in an old ranch house and then this scene plays out is this really all they had to worry about boys movies deciding which shirt goes with which skirts this bizarre it up we're leaving and if I say no do you even realize what your life means huh running off like that putting yourself at risk it's pretty goddamn stupid well I guess we're both disappointed with each other then what do you want from me admit that you wanted to get rid of me the whole time Tommy knows this area well I'm sorry I trust him better than I trust myself stop with the [ __ ] what are you so afraid of that I'm gonna end up like Sam I can't get infected I can take care of myself close calls have we had well we seem to be doing all right so far and now you'll be doing even better with Tommy not her you know what Maria told me about Sarah Ellie you're treading on some mighty thin ice here I'm sorry about your daughter Joel but I have lost people too you have no idea what loss is everyone I have cared for has either died or left me everyone [ __ ] except for you so don't tell me that I would be safer with someone else because the truth is I would just be more scared [Music] right you're not my daughter and I sure as hell ain't your dad firstly this is the only place I feel like I can mention the soundtrack to this game by Gustavo [ __ ] can't pronounce it double Santa Lucia I don't know much about music so I can't fully explain why it's so good but never before has a game had this good of cutscenes already only for the music to sweep in and make it even better and I would be remiss to not at least mention it especially in one of its best uses its subtle flow smoothly with the drama of the scene and helps to build the tone of desperation anger and sadness that runs throughout all while doing so little it's absolutely phenomenal and I wish I knew better how to explain why also just to note that these performances are also kind of incredible the little details like Elly trying desperately to hold back tears Joel's shaky voice mixed with frustration when Sarah gets mentioned ah god it's wonderful Troy Baker and Ellen Page I mean Ashley Johnson do a phenomenal job in this game and I don't envy whatever actors are chosen to match them in the upcoming adaptation you know if it ever happens but with that out of the way let's breakdown the scene itself remember at least curiosity the way she persistently asks questions about the world around her and what used to be well here we see it being used almost as a coping mechanism of sorts ignoring her own emotional turmoil by choosing to pay attention to others problems from the past the only thing is that the problem she's chosen to focus on her comparatively insignificant there's no way for her to fully escape from this conversation but I don't think she wants to as I said before Ellie is much more emotionally open than Joel is much more vulnerable and in that I think she wants to face this perhaps that's why she chose to focus so specifically on the problems of a teenage girl from 20 years ago that are so insignificant because while it's only natural to want to run away from the problems she's having I think that was more of an impulsive decision made from overflowing feelings she didn't know quite how to handle time but what are those feelings well Ellie's afraid deeply afraid of being alone being by myself I'm scared of ending up alone she's desperate for someone to just give a [ __ ] about her someone that cares about her just as much as she cares about them but Joel is the exact opposite his greatest fear is growing to care about Ellie it's coming to look at her as he once did Sarah he's terrified of getting too close because as we've already covered he knows how that ends and so he's dismissive of the way she feels he doesn't even ask her what she's going through or why she ran away the only reason they have this conversation is because Ellie forces him to if he starts asking those questions starts beginning to care he sentences himself to do something he swore he'd never do again it's why Ellie tells him that she's not Sarah if we could go back for just one second let's look at this scene here where Ellie reunites with Joel after being separated from him that takes place a little before I'm not hurt no she goes straight into talking about everything that transpired like an excited kid telling their dad about the home run they scored during recess that day she took this traumatic and life-threatening situation and made it something exciting just by having someone to tell about it and going back to I'm not her we find that Ellie's greatest insecurity is that no one wants her to do that that as much as she wants people to care about her the same way she cares about them no one really does that all Joel wanted to do was just throw her away or pass her off to someone else she's scared that she's nothing more than either a liability or unwanted because people only run away or die when they get too close she can't help but believe that it's her fault if she dies alone she hides that behind this simultaneously rough but optimistic exterior she wants to be able to blame it on other people but when the emotions start pouring out she can't help though that greatest fear she's come to trust Joel and if he leaves her behind now she might not ever be able to trust anybody ever again this is her last chance the Joel doesn't want to be trusted he doesn't want to be put in that kind of situation where he can once again fail to save someone he cares about he doesn't want people to care about him and he doesn't want to care about anyone else but the fact is he's human and it's a natural thing to seek out those connections and to do that he has to be vulnerable and if he's going to be vulnerable Ellie has to learn how to depend on her own strength and as she can only do that if Joel allows himself to be vulnerable it's this cycle that's back and forth that makes them work so well together each part of one informs another part of the other and the only way that either of them are allowed to grow is if the other one does both of them have their own fears but the only way for either of them to face those fears is together it's this perfectly symbiotic relationship where neither one can truly be without the other they both give each other what they're missing what they need and it would be easy for me to stop there it would be easy to go into some big emotional speech about how this is the theme of the game how life is all about finding the people who complete you were something like that but I'm sure you've noticed that there's still quite a bit of video left and that's because there's more to it there's a complication a darker side to this story to this relationship to these characters and to explore that I have to talk about [Music] the ending of this game is pitch perfect it's dark it's challenging it's emotional as all hell it sends chills right down my spine each and every time I love it but like I said it's dark it's challenging it hurts it's the perfect ending just not quite in the way you might think so here's how this [ __ ] goes down Joel and Ellie reach the city where the Firefly lab is where the fireflies will be able to use Ellie's immunity to create a vaccine for the cordyceps virus but right before they reach it we find out that Joel is more than willing to let all of it go by this point Ellie is basically like a daughter to him and I think Joel is more than willing to just let it all go because he got what he needed he finally has a new connection that he can latch on to but Ellie doesn't see things like that after all we've been through [Music] everything that I've done I can't be for nothing Elly has been through Helen back to get here and a lot of people have died on the journey death she blames herself for she can't just let this go because if she does that all those people died for nothing all the pain and fear has been for nothing so on that note they keep pressing forward soon after a series of unfortunate events Joel and Ellie nearly died in a flooded tunnel only for the fireflies to find and save them you know after eliminating any potential threats they get taken in by the fireflies in an old abandoned and repurposed hospital where Joel and the Firefly leader Marlene have a conversation take me to her you don't have to worry about her anymore we'll take care I worry yes let me see her please you can't she's being prepped for surgery oh you mean surgery the doctors tell me the cordyceps the growth inside her is somehow mutated it's why she's immune once they remove it they'll be able to reverse-engineer a vaccine vaccine but it grows all over the brain it does it's that classic moral quandary if your daughter needed to be sacrificed to save the entire human race would you do it and for Joel that is an emphatic no Joel and Ellie are practically inseparable by this point and while Marlene insists this is what Ellie would want she's not exactly there to say it herself so once Joel is left by Marlene he takes action he isn't going to let Ellie die even if that means he has to go through every fire flight to get to her so enabled by the player Joel makes his way through the hospital to find Ellie being prepped for surgery as Joel the player has to at least kill one of the doctors before taking an unconscious Ellie in his arms and running for it Joel escapes the fireflies kills Marlene because you just come after her and leaves but here's the real kicker here's where things get really complicated if Joel killing that doctor wasn't enough to make you question his actions if killing Marlene and cold blood wasn't enough this has to be Joel lies how am i wearing let's take it easy drugs are still wearing off what happened on the fireflies [Music] turns out there's a whole lot more like you really people that are immune as dozens actually ain't i'm a damn bit of good neither if exes they've stopped looking for a cure I'm taking this home sorry and even when Ellie turns away obviously emotional over the fact that to her everything they did everything she did was for nothing he doesn't take it back he doesn't tell her the truth they go back to Tommy's they're going to live together in peace no more infected no more fireflies and no more cures just them and then hey wait back in Boston back when I was bitten I wasn't alone my best friend was there and she got bit too we didn't know what to do so she says let's just wait it out you know we can be all poetic and just lose our minds together I'm still waiting for my turn Ellie her name was Riley and she was the first to die and then it was tests and then Sam none of that is on you you don't understand I struggled for a long time I'm with surviving and you no matter what you keep finding something to fight for now I know that's not what you want to hear right swear to me swear to me that everything that you've said about the fireflies is true I swear okay uh yep those are chills that yep yep there they are and waiting for them that okay doesn't do me every time all right let's break this down just leave it to the last of us to create an ending filled to the brim with moral ambiguity and complex emotions from every character involved it somehow manages to sit so firmly in the morally gray that there are almost no definite conclusions that can be drawn from it it's designed to be that way no one here is a total villain no one here is the hero everyone involved are just people who want to do what they think is best whatever that might be Marlene doesn't want Ellie to died that much is obvious she's pretty close to Ellie too but she feels that she has a moral responsibility to not let that get in the way of eradicating this virus not to mention just how much she's been through and how much she's lost trying to get to this point so of course she's going to be able to convince herself that this is what Ellie would want and of course she's not going to wait for Ellie to wake up because she's terrified that she's wrong joel has finally gotten back what he lost 20 years ago and he's not about to lose it again he's not about to let it end the same way it did before with authorities higher than him making the decision to tear away from him the one thing he cares about but of course he's going to lie to Ellie when there's every possibility that Marlene might have been right and if she were Ellie would never forgive him and he was looser all the same the fireflies themselves are even more complex here because while their dream of returning the world to normal is admirable it's basically an idealist pipe dream there will to kill a kid to achieve how do they plan on distributing this cure in a world so broken and there's every possibility that this vaccine won't turn out in the first place but Jo kills so many people including a totally defenseless doctor in an already shot and bleeding out Marlene all because he can't bear the thought of losing Sarah again and would Ellie have chosen to die for the Cure I don't know I honestly don't because yeah she does say it can't be for nothing but that love for life is still apparent in the way she reacts to just seemed giraffes right before she says that dying for the Cure was never on the table she had full intentions of getting out of there alive so while she seems so certain about letting it happen she didn't know what that would actually entail but guilt is a powerful thing and might push her to sacrifice herself the point is that there's certainly no way that either Joe or Marlene could definitely know what she would have wanted and then in the end joel chooses to actively betray her trust out of fear for the relationship and you can tell she doesn't believe him you can tell she thinks it's all [ __ ] she wouldn't have told him to swear to it otherwise but she says okay because she trusts Joel implicitly and is willing to believe that he wouldn't betray that trust even though that's exactly what he's doing and I completely understand why but I'm also very against that course of action oh my god this ending is perfect nothing about it is easy nothing about it is simple this entire game is focused on the imperfection of people and the complexities that come with them the imperfections of ourselves our systems our morals and most of all our relationships no relationship here is at all perfect Henry and Sam had a deeply entrenched imbalance of power and control Tommy and his wife weren't above having disagreements and pretty nasty fights bill and his partner were the epitome of imperfect so to have an ending where the relationship between Joel and Ellie is perfectly saved and impossible to break would be to go against everything the game stands for about the nature of imperfection and how it makes trusting people a risk putting your trust in someone else being vulnerable around them saying okay that's a monumental risk to take and ultimately this game is asking one very important question is that a risk worth taking and considering that joel has now built the foundation of his and Ellie's continuing relationship on a horrible lie that takes advantage of the trust Ellie chooses to give him it seems like the answer is no that okay is a risk that isn't going to pan out and if Joel and Ellie's relationship isn't worth the risk then what relationship is why go through that window at the Start screen why not just close it up and huddle away in your home away from other people away from that risk that is so unlikely to pay off what worth is there to put your trust in other people what worth is there and being vulnerable when people will always take advantage of you why put yourself out there for people who are inherently flawed for people who will inevitably fail you lie to you and let you down and even if we can adapt and survive so easily why do that why survive if this is what awaits us what's worth surviving for why put yourself through that why press Start okay we need to lighten the moon ready it doesn't matter how much you push the envelope it'll still be stationary what is that no pun intended volume 2 by will Livingstone let's get going I tried to catch some fog earlier I missed do you know what's not right left 3.14 percent of sailors are Pyrates 3.14 I stayed up all night wondering where the Sun went then it dawned on me I get it what did the mermaid wear to her math class what an algebra it's the little things it's the bad jokes it's learning how to whistle it's giraffes out in the distance it's the new life born from the worst of circumstances the last of us asks us the question of whether or not that risk of trust is worth taking and from the ending I think it would be easy to say that's a no because how could any of that be worth that kind of risk but I have to go back a little bit in order to explain why that's not the case to do that we have to look this story of remember when I said that Joel had to learn to be more vulnerable if Ellie was going to learn to depend on her own strength well that's at its most literal here Joel is severely injured after fighting off some bandits in what used to be a firefly lab he and Ellie managed to escape with their lives but joel is fading and suddenly Ellie has to depend fully on herself not only to survive but also to keep Joel alive in his most vulnerable state this prospect terrifies her but using her intuition and survival instincts she manages to not only stitch up Joel's wounds but even finds an abandoned neighborhood for them to hold up and while he heals she does the hunting and the scavenging and everything seems to be going pretty well all things considered then one day on the trail of an enormous buck that would feed them both pretty heartily she comes across a man named David him and his partner coming from a nearby settlement David seems entirely focused on gaining Ellie's trust he has the soft soothing voice of nolan north he gives in to every demand she gives him including giving her his rifle and when infected attack them both he helps her to survive all of this eventually leads to Ellie pretty much trusting David not even bothering to point the rifle at him after the infected attack but then it turns out that David wasn't quite what he seemed and the settlement he was a part of was actually where the bandits who injured Joel came from and now he and his group want to kill the man who killed their friends but David continues to help Ellie even feeling this he gives her the antibiotics he promised her he lets her go but it isn't long before they come knocking having tracked her to the neighborhood she and Joel are living in Ellie tries to lead them away and succeeds only to get caught by David who seems to have some ulterior motives at heart you're loyal and you're special David is slowly being revealed as someone who wants to gain Ellie's trust for no other reason than to betray it especially when taking into consideration that gross hand touch and its implications he smart a manipulative who's even to say how many times he's taken advantage of others in the past Ellie sees through that manipulation but not before she's in this very bad situation at David's mercy her cunning allows her to escape but to where she has nothing no supplies no weapons barely even any visibility in the torrent of snow from above and while she does find some of these things they're minimal at best she's at a steep disadvantage suddenly she's completely powerless an idea only compounded on by the contrast of changing to playing as Joel who can murder people with efficiency and ease and with that contrast the reality of the situation becomes clear Ellie is powerless in the middle of a settlement of people who want to find and kill her more specifically a group of people who follow a man who wants to do unspeakable things to her this is scary this is real this is everything you don't want it to be and everything that it is and then after wandering through the blistering cold and the blinding white snow she becomes trapped in an old restaurant with who else but David armed with a machete and a grudge Ellie's able to survive for a little while even wrench free David's machete but soon she's on the ground hurt and tired and scared and desperate she crawls towards a machete on the ground nearby slowly and painfully and then David is back up he taunts her suddenly the soft voice of a friend mere hours before gone without a trace in place of a terrifying evil man who wants nothing more than to satiate his own base desires on health little girl Ellie continues to crawl not willing to give up the hope that maybe she can reach that weapon have any ounce of power left to keep her bide and get back to Joel but David won't let her have that he kicks her sits on top of her begins to strangle her whether to kill her or for some sick pleasure I don't know when then Ellie manages to grab the machete vicious barely so within region [Music] that moment where all the rage and fear and hatred comes pouring out and that moment all she wanted wasn't to survive but to absolutely slaughter david who gained her trust only to put her through the scariest hell of her life and then elisa he didn't save her from david le saved herself she proved she could rely on herself in a physical capacity but she can't do that for her emotions her fear this moment for Joel stabs her and heavily yells again not to touch her again terrified him with little power she's had is suddenly taken away again by some other monster but it's not it's Joel the musical cues in this moment say it all it starts with this broken disjointed guitar and then when they embrace it smooths out this beautiful calming little piece of music that says that everything is going to be okay you're safe now no one is going to hurt you the ending doesn't lose that sense of tragedy this doesn't make Joel's lie okay but you realize that even if it would inevitably lead to that this embrace was the most important embrace of Ellie's life the one that said the trust isn't always misplaced the vulnerability isn't always a mistake that sometimes you need another person to save you there will be people like David there will always be people like David people who gain your trust only to betray it people who will hurt you and lie to you and let you down people who will leave whether you're ready for them to or not and maybe relationships will always be these imperfect things because they're made up of imperfect people but it's in those embraces that we somehow find a way to make everything feel okay after so much hardship and struggle and fear pain and fear are things we can't escape that we'll bust through the window no matter what we do it's simply a part of the human experience to be hurt by others and no fault and there's this question of whether or not it's worth surviving for that and it's not not for that it's worth it for those bad jokes it's worth it for those giraffes it's worth it for that moment of seeing live monkeys for the first time or learning how to whistle it's worth it for that embrace that says everything is going to be okay and getting to share all of that with someone else seeing all the horrors of the world and still finding some good that's what's worth surviving for the idea that it can't be for nothing is a fallacy it purports that these experiences are a means to an end rather than an end in and of themselves when really it's those experiences that make it all worthwhile and when those experiences hurt us we have to find ways to adapt to find new life love you can find ways to live again we can find trust together people will hurt us and betray us and make us wonder why we ever took the risk of trusting anyone in the first place but it's a risk worth taking because it's the risk that makes life worth living people are imperfect and are capable of horrible heinous and evil things but ultimately we need each other [Music] Ryan while no community that's canny Chris BPZ scopes blazing Crist bend over and addy thank all of you so much for pledging to the beach [Music]

Channel: StoryStreet

Views: 87,787

Keywords: StoryStreet, Video Essay, The Last of Us, Joel and Ellie, Joel, Ellie, What Makes it Great, Analysis, Theme, Video Game, Last of Us, The Last of Us Part 2, Marlene, David, Neil Druckmann

Id: dxjT3mLnL1E

Length: 51min 12sec (3072 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 14 2020