The Last of Us Part 2: A Piece of Gaming Literature

The Last of Us Part 2: A Piece of Gaming Literature

My thoughts on the narrative of The Last of Us Part 2

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Introduction

Hey everyone, welcome to my first post of my new gaming blog. After 7 LONG years of waiting, we finally have The Last of Us Part 2 in our hands. The Last of Us (2013) is my favourite game of all time, so as you can imagine my excitement for this game was immeasurable. Despite seeing a couple of the leaks (fuck you internet), I didn’t let it affect my excitement and in a way it made me eager to see what leads to these events and I was definitely not disappointed.

While I will be writing a proper review for the game, this particular post will instead just be a written monologue of my thoughts after finishing the story. This won’t talk much about the actual gameplay, more about the narrative. It will obviously contain full spoilers for the game so please only read on if you have finished the story or if you aren’t fussed about playing the game. If it’s the latter, you’re silly, stop reading and go play the damn game!

I just want to state for the record that this is what I took from the game and what follows are my opinions. I’m not trying to dictate to you how you should feel about the game, I will just provide counter-arguments to things I’ve seen that I strongly disagree with. If you don’t like the game, that’s fine, there’s plenty of widely praised games that I don’t like as well so I’m not going to be telling you that you should feel different.

This won’t always be cohesive; it’s stream of consciousness and just me getting thoughts down on to the page. I had so many emotions and things going round in my mind that I had to get it all out, so here is me doing just that.

Joel’s Death

I’m just going to state from the off that Naughty Dog are literally my favourite game studio in the world. They make games of the very highest quality with attention to detail that just isn’t in any other games I’ve experienced. They look the prettiest, play the best and have stories that make you laugh and cry. That being said, with The Last of Us specifically, I think it’s their best game. By that, I mean the story as a whole. Both games. I don’t really see them as separate entities because they form this much bigger picture when thought of as one beast. I was both terrified and excited when Part 2 was announced because I really didn’t want it to affect my experience with the first game. For a second, I doubted if it was necessary. Now, the biggest compliment I can pay Part 2 is that it’s an even better game than the first and it’s a worthy addition to the story of Joel and Ellie. Naughty Dog have some serious balls on them to tell the stories that they have here and to take the risks that they do. Part 2 especially I think is extremely bold and brave for making decisions that nobody really wanted and still managing to make it exceptional to play and an experience that is truly unmissable. Yes, Joel is dead and fuck man, I can’t tell you how sad that makes me. But wow is the experience worth it.

I’ve seen Neil Druckmann (Writer and Director) and Halley Gross (Lead Writer) receive a LOT of shit from the leaks. “HOW DARE THEY KILL OFF JOEL THE GAME IS SHIT I’M BOYCOTTING IT WEH WEH WEH.” Okay, like no character you ever cared about ever died before? Come on. The best of it is, Joel’s death is incredibly well executed. It’s so shocking, so matter of fact. It’s so instant and impactful, that I didn’t even feel sad when it happened. I couldn’t. I didn’t have time to. I felt angry and helpless. The tears came in the scene afterwards, where you’re visiting his house. That destroyed me. I grieved with Ellie. The reason it’s done so brilliantly is because it’s faithful to the themes and the world of the games. There’s no heroic ending, no final flurry or anything like that. I’m so glad that he doesn’t go out with a magnificent hero death because it’s just not realistic. It just wouldn’t fit the themes of the game for him to die in a heroic way. Imagine if he died saving the world, riding a nuclear missile screaming “fuck you fireflies”, you would hate it even more because this game has never been like that. It’s not about creating epic moments, if you want that, go play Uncharted (which by the way I’m also a huge fan of I just prefer The Last of Us). This is gritty and grounded. Does Sarah die in a peaceful, loving way at the start of the first game? Hell no. She dies in an almost pointless way. It’s horrible because it’s unnecessary, she wasn’t infected, that’s why that scene is so fucking sad. She doesn’t deserve that. Joel however, as much as we don’t want to believe it, does deserve it. Sarah did not have a dramatic moment where she kills loads of infected and saves her dad. It stays true to the world and the themes, that’s why I’m so impressed with Joel’s death.

People who wanted his death to be different seem to have completely lost touch with the themes in part 1. Yes, it’s heart-breaking, yes, we are devastated that we lose Joel who is one of the best video game characters in history (not debatable, sorry). But it works. It’s really powerful. I’m really unsure why people seem to have just turned off rational thinking when it comes to part 2. Yes, it fucking sucks ass that Joel is gone. I loved that character so much. I love Joel that much that when I met Troy Baker I got him to write me a Joel quote so I could get it tattooed. But I keep seeing people saying that the game “ruins the first one”. How? It’s literally an extension of the story. It makes perfect sense that Joel’s bad shit catches up to him. Why is he not allowed to die but Tess is? What about Henry? Sam? Jesse?

At the end of the day, Joel is just another person. He’s no more important than anyone else in this world. That’s the whole point. We feel close to him because we’ve had empathy with him from playing his story throughout the first game. Now we have someone who challenged his decisions and made you realise that there’s always two perspectives to a person’s actions. You’re always going to influence someone and affect them in some way and Joel’s huge decision at the end of the first game has influenced potentially the entire world on a grand level but also people personally, hence why Abby is the surgeon’s daughter. Literally any person that you kill could have been Abby’s father and that’s the point.

Joel is not a good person. Nor a bad person. He is just who he is and makes decisions that to him are the right thing to do. He is true to himself and that is what makes him a wonderful character. He always defends those close to him over anyone else: Look at the start of part 1 where he ignores a helpless family, because he doesn’t want to risk anything happening to Sarah. His decision to save Ellie he truly believes to be the right choice. I think he absolutely thinks there’s a chance that there will be another opportunity to create a cure. If one person can be immune, why can’t there be anyone else. Instead he feels obliged to save his “second daughter” because he feels like he failed the first time. He’s always said that you have to “keep finding something to fight for” and Ellie is his something to fight for. He believes he’s gifting life to his daughter figure, rather than potentially taking away the lives of millions of others. Put in the same shoes, I guarantee most of us would make the same decision. If I had a choice of saving one of my close family members, or making a cure out of them and killing them, I’m really sorry but to the rest of the world: “bye bye dudes”. Unless they specifically requested that I let it happen, there’s no chance at all I’d kill them for everyone else. The reason is perspective… You don’t see the struggles of other people, you only know your own which is why the decision makes perfect sense.

I’ve also seen people complain about Joel even trusting Abby before she kills him. Why? Again this makes perfect sense. Joel has evolved so much since we last saw him. He’s in a community now where people aren’t out to go and war with others? They’re in a community where they look for survivors, they help people, they kill infected. Joel sees a teenage girl in trouble and saves her, with every intention of taking her back to Jackson and welcome her to the community. Why would you doubt that? Why would you look at a teenage girl and think “she’s travelled across the country just to kill me and only me?”. You have to realise they’ve been doing patrols for 4 years. Not once has this happened before. We find a collectable that shows how desperate Seth was, stuck in the blizzards with no food having just lost his wife and eldest child. Where is Seth now? In Jackson. Admittedly he’s a homophobic dick but he’s still adding to the community by running the bar. They found him, or he found them and they trusted each other.

I just want to say I fucking adore Troy Baker. What an amazing human and perhaps an equally amazing voice actor. He’s incredible. Props to him for being so on board with this scene, especially since this game shot him into being a household name. He could have fought hard against Neil when he pitched the idea of the story for part 2 to him but he accepted it because it was real. Think about that, he’s Joel, and he’s okay with it. I guarantee he and Neil love that character just as much, if not more than any of us do. I trust Naughty Dog and I trust Neil and I am so happy with how they handled it.

Just as a side note, Ashley Johnson lost her real dad when she was a teenager and she had to endure this scene where she is losing her father-figure and that fucking breaks my heart. So, thank you Ashley for going through that for us, you’re a superstar and I appreciate it.

Here I’m just going to tackle a few criticisms that I’ve seen about certain aspects of the story where people have said it makes no sense:

I’ve seen people describe Abby as “pure evil” and “not even remotely likeable”. I’ve got to completely disagree. The scene that people keep referencing is when she says “good” as she is attacking Dina and learns that she is pregnant. I don’t understand why people are looking at it so literally and forgetting the rest of the events in the game. It’s not about Abby wanting to kill a pregnant woman, it’s about retribution. She’s just found that her friends have been murdered (one of which is also pregnant) and she is so angry, so upset that she needs to release on someone, something. Think of times when you’ve been incredibly angry at an event and someone says something like “calm down” and you’re like “yeah you fucking calm down”. This is basically that. Heck, even if I stub my toe on something, if I break what I kicked I’m like “yeah well fuck you because you hurt me so I don’t care if you’re broken”. So for sure, if people you’re close to are killed, in that moment, when you have the chance for revenge you’re going to want to do some serious damage. How many times have you got angry at a game and threw your controller? Hit something? It’s that initial burst of anger that we all experience. However, a truly remarkable thing happens… Lev speaks. Just says her name. “Abby.” She doesn’t even say “stop”, or “don’t”, she just says her name. Abby decides for herself to stop, she isn’t told to. That right there is enough for Abby to find her humanity. Lev is a reminder of her humanity. That she is capable of doing the right thing, of showing remorse. That is why Abby is not pure evil, she’s realistic, she’s a person, she’s human. It’s excellent, grounded writing. Fucking brilliantly done Neil and Halley.

If you need more evidence. Look at the lengths Abby goes through to help strangers. She fights The Rat King, literally the toughest form of infected that anyone has fought in the world of The Last of Us. She conquers her biggest fear: heights. Shit, I’m telling you now, heights are my biggest fear by a mile and as much as I liked Yara, she can kiss her ass goodbye if you think I’m walking across that sky bridge. Fuck that shit. Yet Abby does it. I felt every piece of vertigo with her, it was horrible. Exactly how I would feel and she still did it. You want me to believe she’s evil? Not going to happen.

Abby goes back for Lev and Yara who lets face it is still a part of the enemy faction. The seraphites and killed and injured many friends in Abby’s faction but she sees through that divide to connect to these two on a human level. They save her life which they really didn’t have to and she feels that empathy for them. She could have just moved on but she actually goes back to help them, even overcoming her massive fear of heights just to go and help someone who is supposed to be part of her opposing faction. It’s for this reason that I think overall is actually a nicer character then Ellie. Ellie and Joel are the villains in this game for me and I’m okay with that. It makes perfect sense. Ellie instead ignores the pleas of Jesse to go and help Tommy and instead continues on her relentless hunt for revenge. She disregards Tommy’s safety to go and deal with something on a selfish level, whereas Abby connects deeply to people she doesn’t even know that she can trust not to kill her. It pays off because Yara actually saves her life twice.

Abby also doesn’t always adhere to her own faction’s values. You see her questioning the choices of the leader Isaac multiple times. Abby fights for herself, which is why she travels all that way to avenge her father. She kills Joel in truly brutal fashion and it turns her friends against her. She doesn’t seem too bothered by this though because she’s not doing it for them, it’s for herself. So yeah, we hate her from the start. But think about it, she could have done worse. She could have killed Ellie, killed Tommy, right in front of Joel. Really make it worse for him. She allowed these people to live because it wasn’t their decision or action to kill Abby’s father it was his. She tries to limit the collateral as much as possible. Ellie doesn’t do that. In this game, I genuinely think of Ellie as more of an “evil” person than Abby. I don’t suddenly dislike Ellie, I love her but I questioned her decisions far more than I questioned Abby’s. Abby tries to get Owen to be safe with Mel, to follow through with their plans to move to Santa Barbara. Ellie has the opportunity to go and search for Tommy and she bluntly refuses to continue her relentless pursuit of revenge. That decision right there was so impactful to me. Ellie lost me there, it was the wrong thing to do but Ellie’s obsessive nature took over. But guess what, even though I disagree with the decision, it still makes sense for her character so I wasn’t upset by it, it felt natural.

Ellie is obsessive. She has these addictive features to her personality. Killing Abby was her drug. She needed that hit. Think about it, why does Ellie collect trading cards, or comic books in the first game. She doesn’t just like stuff she obsesses over them. Look at her journal entries in Part 2, which are marvellous by the way. She talks about how Dina “brushes her arm” and it consumes her mind. She reads into it despite begging herself not to. Ellie is a flawed but exceptional character and I love her for it.

The ending

The ending of Part 2 is dividing people and on the surface, it doesn’t surpass the ending of the first part. But, dive in and I think it’s haunting and beautiful. It says a lot by saying a little, just like with the first game. There’s so much there to unpack and to think about. I think saying much more would ruin it. At the end of the day, everything you need to work out where the story goes from this point onwards is in the game anyway. On the surface, this ending feels inconclusive and unfinished but it’s actually in many ways an even better ending than the first game (again, my favourite ending to a game ever.) To me, the ending isn’t actually where Ellie walks away from the guitar. The ending is after the credits have rolled. As you sit there as the credits roll you find yourself going back through the events of the game, thinking back to what led you to this moment. It’s then when you realise that it’s all there. Nothing more needs to be said. It needs to let you breathe and think and it does so perfectly. Once the scene ends of Ellie walking away from the farmhouse it’s a slow burn of emotion that hits you. At first you feel kind of dissatisfied, like you wanted more to close out. But when you think over what you’ve seen in the closing moments of the game and what got you there you realise everything you need is all there throughout the game. It’s left open to your interpretation about the symbolism of leaving the farmhouse and the guitar. Is it purely because she can’t play it? Is it her finally leaving behind the ghost of Joel? Is she leaving behind all that anger? Or is she leaving behind the happiness?

The fact that she can’t even play the guitar properly anymore is honestly one of the most powerful pieces of symbolism in any form of media in my opinion. Those moments with the guitar in the game are the happiest moments she has on her journey through Seattle and so now she isn’t able to experience that is really bleak. Her moments of respite have gone and it’s about how she handles that. Does she relearn how to play guitar with three fingers… Therefore, relearning how to live knowing everything that she’s done, or does she move on from it to try and find some other form of recompense.

We have no idea whether Dina still wants to be with Ellie and I think in a wat Ellie deserves that because of how she left her when she really needed her. Ellie says to Sam in part one that her biggest fear is being alone. That’s how it ends for her in part 2. Her selfishness and bloodlust have brought that on herself, when she actually could have had an (almost, PTSD aside) perfect family life with Dina. That makes the ending both so sad yet also quite hopeful. She may be alone now but in finally facing Abby for a final showdown she has overcome the hurdle that she needed to. So there is a glimmer of hope that she is able to overcome the ghost of Joel and the obsession that has been eating her up inside worse than the infection on her arm is.

I’m glad Ellie didn’t kill Abby. The reason being is that she finally realises that the idea of justice never stops. There will always be someone affected by someone dying, which means that there’s nothing to gain from killing her, perhaps only more to lose. If we ever meet back up with these characters, Ellie can tell Dina that she didn’t go through with it, even though she had the chance, showing that she has tackled her demons without making them worse. Dina is probably terrified of another backlash and so had to leave to ensure she could be safe within a community, probably with Jesse’s family. It will be interesting to see if Ellie goes to their place to try and get her back because she will face a huge argument.

At first the final section for me felt unnecessary. I disliked that we travelled the country to go and find Abby one last time. But then I realised that’s kind of the point. We aren’t supposed to like that part. It’s a step too far. It shows that Ellie has lost her humanity, while juxtaposing that Abby is trying desperately to find it. Ellie has a chance to live a normal life and she can’t. She needs that closure because it’s what she’s accustomed to. She grew up surrounded by murder and fighting and determination to protect your own; she was literally raised by the leader of the firefly faction.

I’ve seen a lot of people say “how does Ellie see Joel and NOT kill Abby” when she’s drowning her. To me it’s pretty simple. That conversation she has with Joel, reminds Ellie of her humanity. She is reminded of Joel’s decision there to save her life. She’s also reminded of what Joel did that now ended up getting him killed. Ellie finally realises what every life means and killing Abby could potentially start this whole thing over again. She finally learns that no action can have no consequences and she proves her point without having to kill more people. Instead, Ellie actually saves Abby’s life which to me is the start of her redemption. Which is why it’s such a profound, bittersweet ending.

Things I’m impressed by

Everything in the game is explained. Every time I had a question, Naughty Dog had an answer. For example, I was so sad that I found a plot hole like “oh, so how is she just kissing Dina not knowing whether she can pass the infection”, that’s not good. Then bam, explained in a journal entry. She mentions how she got kissed by Cat, her ex-girlfriend who tattooed her and says how she jumped on top of her and kissed her. Ellie responded by throwing her off in panic, worried she might have infected her. So, to make sure she didn’t, she stays up all night watching her sleep for any signs. This is just one example of many and it just impresses me so much. Naughty Dog have thought about EVERYTHING. Even how the Pearl Jam song that is in the game was actually released before the album that it’s on, which was after outbreak day. Just brilliant.

I love that Naughty Dog made you fight Ellie as Abby in the first encounter with her. I really thought it would go back to the other way around but it makes sense for many reasons. Firstly, momentum. You’ve spent a few hours now fighting as Abby and getting a feel for her and how she plays, so it makes sense to not throw you off that. Secondly, at this point in the game you have to realise that Ellie is villain for this particular moment in the narrative. Overall, I don’t think there is a clear villain but Ellie here is definitely looking more the anti-hero than the protagonist we want to follow. She is the reason so many more people have ended up unnecessarily dead or severely injured; not Abby. Sure, I understand Ellie’s reasoning to go after Abby, shit I think I would do the same but Ellie’s actions have far worse repercussions. Abby did what she came for and left, Ellie wasn’t able to do that. That being said, it’s so powerful because you really don’t want Ellie to die. You’re playing as Abby and you feel like you’re in control of killing Ellie. Every punch you land feels like you’re punching yourself, it’s gut-wrenching winning a fight against the person we’ve adored for 7 years now.

There are SO many things throughout the story of the two games that come full circle that I think are amazing, and really show the care of the writing. Here are some examples:

· We see multiple times how similar Ellie actually is to Abby throughout part 2. For instance, Abby tells her father that she would want to die for the firefly cause, just how Ellie is sad that her life had a purpose removed from her in her mind.

· The flashes to seeing Joel teach Ellie how to play guitar and how to swim are amazing. They show normality in their lives and they add weight to the conversations within the first game that seemingly aren’t important. It makes it feel like the entire plot of part 2 was written at the same time as part 1.

· Abby’s journey is almost the reverse of Ellie’s in a way. By the end of Ellie’s side, I’m disagreeing with almost everything that she’s doing until she finally decides to let Abby go, by then it’s too late and she’s lost everything that could make her happy: Dina, J.J, Tommy, the house, the ability to play guitar. On the other hand, you have Abby who started out “bad” even though she’s doing something perfectly justifiable and then she progresses to be a character that I was really rooting for. The two fights you have between these two characters are horrible because I didn’t want either of them to die. In the end I think the choices they made make perfect sense and because Abby did what she had to, nothing more, she eventually gets the happier ending out the two of them.

· The moth represents Joel. That’s why it’s on the neck of the guitar as well as covering her bite mark. That bite mark is a reminder of everything her and Joel went through and it hides the monster inside of her both figuratively and literally.

· Jackson is a haven of hope and safety. As Ellie gets further away and the longer that she is away from the town she loses herself.

· The game opens with Joel talking about his decision with Tommy while holding his guitar. The game closes with Ellie putting down the guitar and leaving it behind.

· Early on, Owen says, “I want what you want but not at any cost”. This shows how obsessed both Ellie and Abby are to achieve their goal of killing who has wronged them. This line becomes perfect for the rest of the game because you see who is willing to give everything up and who has the mind to stop.

· In the first game, Ellie says to Joel, “Everyone has either died or left me, everyone fucking except for you” and this is how it ends for Ellie in this game now that Joel has gone. Truly spectacular writing.

Final points

The entire cast in this game deserve huge credit. The voice acting is the best I’ve ever experienced in a game, whether that’s from the main characters or down to the shouts of anguish from the killable npcs in the game. I think Ashley Johnson and Laura Bailey deserve some kind of award because they are so gripping, so real in their depictions that you can’t help but feel invested. Both of them faced incredibly challenging roles here, with scenes of sheer joy and of utter heartbreak, as their current selves and as a younger version of themselves, which is not an easy task at all. I give huge respect to Laura Bailey, for being brave enough to be a character that is going to be the face of what makes part 2 so incredibly divisive.

Despite what people are saying about Joel being disrespected, this is still fundamentally Joel and Ellie’s story. Right up until the very last scene in the game, it’s still all about those two. Ellie wants to hurt Abby, for Joel. She has PTSD of what happened to Joel and she can’t let go of him. We find out that Ellie had forgiven Joel by the end of the flashbacks and it’s Joel’s memory that helps Ellie decide on her actions.

My only issue with the structure:

My issue is that once you get to the second half of the game you feel determined to get to the end because you want to know the resolution, however I’m not sure how you could change the structure to make it better. It’s still a bold structural decision to make though because most forms of media would keep jumping between the two characters until they meet at the end but I don’t think this would work because you need that prolonged time with Abby to build up the understanding of her character and to remove the hatred that you have for her because she killed Joel. It’s kind of like showing two seasons of a tv show, each based around a single character’s path. Which to my knowledge has never really been done before and I think it’s super interesting. Essentially, we are getting two games in one (Naughty Dog you spoil us). By the time we return to Ellie and are attacking Abby with the knife, forcing her into a confrontation, I’m fully with Abby, which goes to show just how important that second half of the game is. That being said, I’m super glad that they both survive.

Honestly I have so many more thoughts, ideas and notes written down and my mind is still consumed by this game, this story, this experience and these characters.

Thank you Naughty Dog.

Thank you Neil and Halley.

Thank you Ashley, Troy, Shannon, Laura, Jeffrey, and all of the amazing cast. You guys absolutely smashed it.

You deserve every award in the world.