Just Finished The Last of Us
FUCK. This game was beautiful, the graphics, the writing, the AI, the combat, fucking gorgeous. Astoundingly violent and with starkly realistic gore, it made you really feel the weight of your actions even while immersed in this world that could so easily be viewed as black and white, kill or be killed; there is so much more there. You can listen to enemies have conversation, and even the monstrous factions that prey on other humans to survive are humanized to some extent. A brilliant, heart-breaking game.
Now, fucking pardon me but I have some feelings. FUCK YOU JOEL. I understand, I understand why he makes the choices he made, this man who lost so much and did whatever it took to keep him and his alive through such adversity and horror. This man whose family, whose friends, whose self-identity are torn apart by the advent of the massive outbreak and the crumbling of civilization and morals, finally starts dealing with his feelings and letting himself become attached to someone again, to this wonderful, strong-willed, snarky little ray of tenacious sunshine that is Ellie. And then, after all the struggles they faced as a team, he is faced with the decision of either letting her be killed, sacrificed for the hope of saving humanity and restoring the world to some semblance of security and order, or slaughtering his way out so that they can be together. This man, this one man, makes the decision that, humanity be damned, he’s seen what “humanity” does with its back against the wall and it isn’t pretty, so he is not losing one. More. Thing. And slaughter he does.
All that I can understand. Joel’s decision, I think, would not have been my own, but, this not being an open-world rpg, I was forced to play down his path. Okay, fine. But then. He lies to Ellie, takes away that hope she had fought so hard for, lies to her about what happened when he made the choice to let the world stay in hell so that he could have her. This girl, by now his surrogate daughter, she trusts him so much, but she can sense something is off. She calls him on it, asks him to swear, because if you asked her what she wanted, SHE WOULD HAVE DIED TO SAVE LITERALLY ANYONE, SHE DOESN’T WANT TO LOSE ANYONE EITHER AND IF HER LIFE COULD EVEN MAYBE PREVENT THAT THEN YES SHE SURE AS HELL WOULD HAVE GIVEN IT.
And he swears, he swears that he told her the truth, he lies to protect her and himself. This broken, selfish survivor, he lies to her to keep her safe, to keep her alive for any amount of time he can. But not, I think, for Ellie. He might think he’s doing it for her, but I think it’s for him. In making that decision he completely dishonors Ellie and everything she’s faced, everything she would want. So, fuck you, Joel, and fuck everything that made me play this fucking beautiful, bullshit game. FUCK.
stormborns
gummygunk
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