When I started writing here, I made a point to say somethingpositiveaboutThe Last of Us. Not because I thought it needed another heaping of praise, but as a convenient reference point that even a game studio I normally take umbrage with has something they do right, and that my past issues withNaughty Dogcould hopefully stay in the past. There’s no sense beating dead horses, and if there’s one pile of glue above all that doesn’t typically warrant disturbing, it’s The Last of Us, especiallyThe Last of Us: Part 2.
Then Neil Druckmann had to say the following in an interview withBuzzfeed: “with The Last of Us, it’s up to us whether we want to continue it or not. Our process is the same thing we did when we did Part 2, which is if we can come up with a compelling story that has this universal message and statement about love — just like the first and second game did — then we will tell that story.” I’m told those within audible distance of me reading this statement heard a mixture of a spit-take and my eyebrows crashing into the ceiling in disbelief.
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Can a story about love involve darkness and cruelty? Absolutely. Is it possible to explore love outside of when it’s joyful? Of course, but that’s not what The Last of Us tells you through its characters or their actions. If anything, compassion for anyone just leaves you in misery in The Last of Us’ world, either by dying horrifically or making the world worse for everyone else so that you don’t have to suffer. It’s no coincidence that the TV show adaptation has gone so actively out of its way to try and soften several characters as opposed to how Naughty Dog’s narrative team portrays them.
Sure, Joel cares about Ellie, but it evolves from care to obsession by the end of The Last of Us. He actively goes against Ellie’s wishes in the end. Even if you ignore him murdering some of the only people capable of sparing the world more suffering, he actively violates Ellie’s consent so that he can selfishly have a surrogate daughter. It’s a moral dilemma that, while heartbreaking, has a very clear answer. If Joel actually loved Ellie, he’d see her mission through, making sure everyone gets that vaccine, that the world over knows about the brave young woman who sacrificed everything so that humanity might rebuild. Instead, he justifies his actions with a toxic self-interest that’s incredibly unhinged.
Realistically speaking, he’s known Ellie for a few months at most, and he’s willing to sacrifice the whole world. He wasn’t nearly as torn up about Tess, his partner and closest companion for years, dying so that he and Ellie might survive. The attachment he develops isn’t healthy. Players feel like it’s real because it’s a game with well delivered dialogue and the expectation you’ll care about these characters. Joel’s feelings for Ellie aren’t even about her, but his own unresolved grief. That’s an incredibly problematic arrangement.
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Then The Last of Us Part 2 goes a step further and plays on the emotions of those who went along with Joel’s crusade, sending Ellie on a quest for revenge that sees her murder, among others, a doctor and a pregnant woman. She essentially massacres enough people to fill a little league baseball stadium, not even out of a need for survival but purely out of a bloodthirsty rage. Her chaotic, half-in-the-bag killing spree gets the father of her girlfriend’s child dead, and eventually drives her and her girlfriend apart in one of the most needless epilogues in the history of AAA gaming - all in service to a man who behaved the same way for the same selfish reasons. At the end of it all, the most Ellie learns isthat murder is bad, a lesson so utterly simple it gave me a headache when I realized that’s all Part 2 amounted to, back whenI first played it.
Characters might feel compassion or lust from time to time in The Last of Us, butlove? It’s one of the few cinematic series I can actively say is strangely devoid of characters with a real enough grasp on empathy to actually express genuine love. That’s not even necessarily a bad thing if you just view it as a series about nihilism, selfishness, and peoples' struggles to self-improve and grow. In that frame of mind, it’s a harrowingly bitter pill, but at least The Last of Us makes sense then. Consider Sony’s other mega-hit series,God of War. There’s a genuine love there between Atreus and Kratos, as well as toxic love between Freya and Baldur. The Last of Us is like if only the latter existed, and we’re supposed to sympathize with both of them as they ruin Kratos and Atreus' lives.
To say it’s a series aboutlovethough? That it hasuniversalmessages about love… that may be one of the most dissonant things I’ve heard in gaming. It’d be one thing to hear about it as a theorized analysis of the games from a fellow player, but for Druckmann himself to say it? I really don’t know how to feel about that - what I can say for certain is that if The Last of Us is about love, it’s a tainted love, that’s for sure.
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