The Last of Us is a third person action-shooter that is widely regarded as one of the greatest games of the last console generation. Some would argue it’s remaster is still one of the best game of the current one. The story takes you on a wild cross country road trip in post-apocalyptic America to hopefully save the world from the mutant cordyceps spore pandemic that consumed it. Joel and Ellie are the main heroes of the story and are as beloved by fans as they are complex.
Joel especially is a hard nut to crack. On the one hand, he’s a caring father and father figure and is fiercely protective, for which we’re meant to identify and sympathize with the character. This is firmly established in the opening scenes when he loses his daughter after going to painstaking lengths to keep her safe as the world crumbles around them at the onset of the outbreak in suburban Texas. Fast forward 20 years later to the time of the main story and you come to discover throughout the game that Joel isn’t exactly a saint.
Killing Robert
you find Joel as a smuggler, helping his “friend” Tess hunt down his other “friend” Robert to seek revenge and to get their contraband that Robert failed to deliver. In fact, the rest of the plot only occurs because Joel helps Tess kill Robert in cold blood when they discover he sold their guns to a militia group called the Fireflies. Joel wouldn’t have met fellow protagonist Ellie and they wouldn’t have taken their long trek across the savage wilds and perilous cities of the United States in order to save the world had Joel not first been an active murder accomplice…
Fool Me Once…
Adding to the list of shady things Joel has ever done, Joel and Ellie arrive in a seemingly abandoned Pittsburgh when in front of their vehicle approaches a hooded man hunched over and calling for help. Ellie asks if they should slow down, to which Joel coldly replies, “He ain’t even hurt.” Long story short, the man attacks their truck, they crash into a gas station and fight off half a dozen the hunters that lured them into their trap. In a brief exchange following the tense confrontation, Ellie inquires as to how Joel could have known that the the man was a threat and not a poor soul in need. Joel mumbles with a reluctant “I’ve been on both sides…”
What Wouldn’t a Father Do?
Let’s set the scene; Joel wakes up from a near lethal impalement injury in snowy Colorado, only to find his caregiver and daughter figure Ellie missing. A gang of cannibals are closing in on his location and it goes without saying that Joel eventually makes quick work of his assailants. However, if this story isn’t dark enough, Joel captures two of his would be killers and engages in “enhanced interrogation” to learn of Ellie’s location, complete with choking, stabbing and concluded with promising to set them free if he gets what he wants, only to kill them as soon as they do. The scene is dark and tense, so much so that you could almost forget that he does what he does to find and save someone he loves.
All in the Name of Love
This story concludes when they reach the Fireflies, whose base the duo have been trying to find so that Eliie’s immunity to the spores might possibly be used to hopefully manufacture a cure. Joel, however, was not aware that to save the world, Ellie first has to die. Unwilling to see yet another daughter die, Joel tears through the facility, killing everyone in his path. He finally finds the sedated Ellie and whisks her away to safety. However, when Ellie asks what happened at the Firefly base, Joel lies and tells her that they couldn’t use her to find a cure. Ellie appears to accept the lie and story ends. To this day, it is one of the most thought provoking and conflicting endings to a game I have ever witnessed.
At the end of the day, Joel is primarily depicted as a sympathetic, broken man having not healed mentally or emotionally from losing his daughter and learning to love again through his protective relationship with the young teenager, Ellie, with whom he comes to develop a strong fatherly attachment throughout the course of the story. However, in spite of his fatherly virtues, combined with telling clues about his past and the myriad of questionable choices he makes for the sole purpose of protecting his new “daughter”, you can’t help but wonder where the line is between hero and villain or what really separates him from any one of the game’s antagonists. Regardless of one’s point of view, it’s these deep moral quandaries and complex character relationships that make The Last of Us one of the most moving and compelling story driven games to date and arguably one of the greatest games ever made.