The Last of Us Part II: Transcending Video Games [spoiler alert]
Note: This contains spoilers
The Last of Us (1) was one of the few experiences with any kind of story-driven medium where the end left me actually winded. I was rocked by the decision my protagonist made and consequently the actions I was forced to take. I was also completely gutted because it felt right - [Spoiler warning for Part I] Joel would let the world burn to save Ellie, this young girl he saw so much of his dead daughter in.
7 years later, I was not ready for the gauntlet of emotions Part II would put me through.
The following are my thoughts on a game that transcends the medium and swings for the fence 8 parks away, and kinda gets there. SPOILER WARNING - I will proceed to spoil the shit out of Part II, because there’s really no other way.
Still here? Good.
These are the 3 main story points I want use as anchors to talk about the game:
Joel’s death in the prologue
The Abby switch half-way through
The brutal final fight
1. Prologue
2 to 3 hours in, Joel is brutally murdered by Abby, a new character to the series. Because she’s playable in the prologue there’s some understanding that she will be more than simply a villain. The fact that the final blow happens with Ellie pinned down screaming bloody murder is all the more gruesome but really sets players up for the mayhem that’s coming.
Let’s first talk about Joel because this feels like the biggest hurdle the game could have thrown our way, and from my reading of fan reactions many feel absolutely betrayed by the decision. To those people I have to say, A - I understand you’re hurt, that was the point (also please keep in mind I fucking love Joel) and B - Joel had this coming for a long time.
Before you track me down and send me a dead horse’s head let’s take a deep breath and examine what we know. Joel murdered a lot of people in the first game and we’re led to believe that this was the nicer version of him compared to the years we don’t see. Remember, there were 20 years between Sara, his daughter, being killed and him meeting Ellie. Joel, for a very large chunk of his life, was a bad man. Now, on top of that he eviscerated a whole brigade of Fireflies, murdering the only doctors who were even close to finding a cure for the Cordyceps infection effectively eliminating any chance of pushing back against the apocalypse. That is some heavy shit. When you take all of it into consideration, Joel is an anti-hero at best but probably a little closer to a villain than we’d like to admit.
That being said, the Fireflies were no better when they decided to perform a lethal operation on Ellie while she was unconscious and unable to agree to these terms. It was her life to give and her choice to make. Neither Joel nor the Fireflies ever gave her that option.
It is fair to point out that given the majority of the human encounters in that first game, perhaps Joel wasn’t entirely wrong to choose Ellie over the swarms of assholes exhibiting the most appalling of human behaviors. But on the flip side, what about Tess, Bill, Henry and Sam, and every other innocent dead or infected? What were those deaths for? Apparently not enough.
I think Joe is one of the most interesting and challenging characters in modern fiction, but he is not a hero and he sure as hell isn’t innocent in the atrocities on display in The Last of Us’ universe.
Now that I’ve burnt that bridge, let’s talk about how Joel’s death sends Ellie down a path of hatred and destruction that basically costs her everything. Yay!
After the murder, Ellie regroups and heads out to Washington for ‘justice’ (or fucking revenge!) The group that killed Joel were members of the Washing Liberation Front (WLF or wolf for short). This makes up the first half of the game and spans 3 days. The gameplay and the corresponding story is fucking brutal. Honestly, this part of the game is not “fun”. It is grueling, filled to the brim with throat stabbing, dog smashing (this is particularly savage), infected dodging (I fucking hate mushrooms right now). Eventually, Ellie murders her way through all of Abby’s friends, including Owen whom we’ll find out she has loved for a long time, and Mel who is pregnant (tho Ellie didn’t know it at the time she jammed the blade into her throat). Mel’s death in particular weighs heavy given that Ellie has just found out her girlfriend Dina is also pregnant with Jesse, Dina’s ex’s, baby. But hey, after spending 72 hours murdering swaths of people this was never going to end well.
Ellie’s story in Part II is about the descent into hatred and hell - there’s a quite literal allusion to this at the end of Day 2. Her all-consuming hatred for Abby is her only guiding light and god have mercy on whoever stands in her way.
By the time the two finally meet, Ellie’s anger has cost another life, Jesse - sidenote, Jesse is one of the most likable characters we meet in Part II, and his sudden death fucking sucks - and it is at this point that the game really goes for it.
Mid-Point
We open to “4 years ago” controlling Abby. Now, because we’ve also been playing Ellie flashbacks, we should have some indication of what “4 years ago” means and… uh oh.
We also meet Owen, and her father, a doctor… and oh no.
And oh they’ve found that girl, and the tilt up to reveal the hospital, which we’ve seen a few times in Ellie’s flashbacks.
Sons of bitches.
Abby’s running down the hallways with the alarm blasting and we already know what’s at the end. The operating room.
When Abby screams out for her dead it’s intentionally framed like Ellie for Joel’s murder. We’ve just hit the point of convergence.
After this we open to “Seattle Day 1”, again. This time as Abby. My first thought was something along the lines of “you have to be fucking kidding me”. Second, “what fucking balls”. Third, “you have to be fucking kidding me”. And so on and so forth for a good half hour.
The second half of Part II focuses on the civil war in Seattle between the WLF and the Seraphites, or “scars” (due to the ritualistic scars on their faces). The scars are a religious extremist group that lost their saviour in the apocalypse and then lost sight of their cause. Similarly, the WLF is led by a man who once liberated the city from the oppressive FEDRA military group, but has since succumbed to more violent ways. Both these factions have lost their way in a world that only answers violence with more violence until there isn’t anything left.
What follows is a story similar to that of the original The Last of Us - a person molded by hate finding a renewed reason to go on. On Abby's Day 1, we meet Lev and Yara, two Seraphites who have run away because Lev shaved his head when he found out he was about to be married off to an elder. Also, Lev was born “Lily” and the Seraphite and massive bigots.
In Lev and Yara, Abby finds humanity in the enemy she’s been waging war against, and like Joel 5 years ago, she finds a new family through shared horrors. Now let me take a moment to gush over the Abby Days in The Last of Us Part II. Holy fucking shit, this was some incredible stuff. Day 2, in particular, is possibly the scariest most exhilarating gaming I’ve ever experienced (know that I don’t go out of my way to play horror games because fuck that). Day 3 is some serious Rambo shit and whereas Ellie plays like a fucking serial killer on the loose, Abby’s skill tree and weapons really lean on her ability to kick the shit out of just about anything with her fists (Abby has basically been hate-weight-lifting for 4 years.)
The point here is that you, as the player, are meant to spend a day (or 3) in your enemy’s shoes. One very basic rule about villains - no one ever sees themselves as the “bad guy”, we are each the protagonist of our own stories and need to therefore find reason in our actions, good and bad.
Ellie’s journey is a descent into hell, whereas Abby’s is climbing out of it. In theory, going through Abby’s journey should allow a player to at least understand her. Now I’ve seen the hatred directed to Abby (and the actress who played her, which is insane) and I’ve heard all the arguments under the sun and honestly, if you can play through the Abby portion and your feelings are still “Joel didn’t deserve that and fuck Abby” then I need to question how and what you consume as entertainment and art.
I don’t want to attack someone for having an opinion that the game does not succeed at what it is attempting to do, or that the game is not “satisfying” or what one wanted. Those are all perfectly valid, but if you can still blindly hate Abby and love Joel after her portion of the game, then you might need to stop consuming only things than pander to your likes and try something that challenges you once in a while. Food for thought.
At the end of our second Day 3, Yara is killed by the WLF and Abby and Lev escape an incredibly bloody war, they return to Owen’s personal getaway only to find the mess Ellie left behind - Owen and Mel (and her baby) very much dead.
The following boss fight is as Abby against Ellie and it is fucking brutal. Ellie we’ve known as a child, we’ve suffered her loss and we’ve murdered in anger with her. Abby we’ve only just gotten to know, but we’ve seen her tender and goodness, we have fought through impossible scenarios to save lives. We shouldn’t want either of these women to suffer any more - these 3 Days have been bloody and costly enough. Also, fighting Ellie is tough as shit, that girl is the fucking Baba Yaga man. Anyway, the fight ends when Abby has the upper hand on both Dina and Ellie but is pulled out of her hatred by Lev. Thankfully it seems enough is actually enough.
Epilogue
Or not.
In the epilogue, we find Ellie living on a peaceful farm where she plays records and herds sheep with Dina and their baby JJ (logic would suggest it’s some Joel Jesse combination). Unfortunately, Ellie is exhibiting some serious PTSD - Joel’s traumatic murder is still a raw nerve and one that Ellie might never be able to heal.
Tommy, having survived a gunshot to the face and an arrow to the leg, visits the couple and starts stirring up some shit because what-the-fuck Tommy?! He has found info that Abby and Lev are on the coast of Santa Barbara where Owen had heard about a new Firefly outpost. The guilt and trauma prove to be too much and shortly thereafter Ellie chooses revenge over her family. I’m telling you, this game is not about making you feel happy.
In Santa Barbara Ellie murders her way through a new faction - the Rattlers, who appear to be capturing and torturing (and who knows what else) people. She kills her way until she finds Abby and Lev who have basically been crucified on a beach for a long minute.
Hatred is like a disease, and although Ellie tries to fight it, it will not go away. And so, with Ellie beaten to shit and Abby hollowed out by god knows what kind of atrocities committed to her, you’ve entered the final “boss fight”.
The fight is fucking viceral and one of the most heartbreaking gaming experiences I can recall. We, the player, are forced to button mash as we stab and drown this post-torture Abby, who has payed whatever debt and then some. Finally, at the brink of murder, Ellie lets go. Mercifully (for us and Abby) this is as far as it will go, this is one too many, this is more than enough bloodshed for many lifetimes.
Abby and Lev leave, and Ellie goes back to an empty farmhouse, where she picks up Joel’s guitar and realizes she can no longer play his song - she lost a few fingers in that last fight. It is at this moment that The Last of Us Part II sticks the landing. One final flashback of Joel, the night before his murder, after defending Ellie at a festival dance from the town homophobe. Ellie confronts him about the choice and meaning he robbed her of 4 years prior, to which he painstakingly admits he would do it all over again. Joel in that moment in Part I saved a daughter, at a terrible cost but for all the right reasons. The last thing Ellie ever tells Joel is that she wants to forgive him and maybe someday they can be okay. This was the moment she saw when she let Abby go, that she let go of her anger at Joel, and her disappointment at her life not meaning what it should have. Ellie’s choice to let Abby live is cathartic because ultimately she’s also saving her humanity.
Last Thoughts
At the top I mentioned that The Last of Us Part II mostly succeeds and that’s because as with most things, it isn’t perfect. The game is a journey through hate and its terrible consequences, but it is also a game in which one can craft explosive arrows and blow hordes of enemies to smithereens which is pretty spectacular. In itself, the game is contradicting. That being said, it is a hard swing and packs an incredible punch, if you’re willing to go along for the ride that is. My suggestion, open yourself up to the possibility that what you think you know is right might not be the only right, allow your expectation to be challenged, and somewhere along the way you might feel something you weren’t sure how to feel about. That could be a very powerful experience.
Jorge Chaparro is a Montreal based writer