The Last of Us' enemies often beg for
mercy when they are on the brink of death. You can kill them, and
many times in the game you can entirely bypass encounters if you're
stealthy enough.
The game also establishes Joel as an
open murder. He trades weapons, uses torture, has killed innocents,
and admits that he will do whatever it takes to survive.
The narrative structure of the game is
so potent, that I often felt myself right in Joel's shoes.
I was a murderer. A sociopath.
My driving emotion was to protect
Ellie. At any cost. Even if I knew as a player that she was immune to
most threats in the game, I still felt the parental need to protect
her.
If I was in a fight, I wanted to make
sure nobody would surprise me from behind. I would clear every room I
could, picking off stragglers and leaving no survivors. Even those
that begged for mercy would die.
In the game's final moments, you break
into an operating room to rescue Ellie, where three doctors are
prepping her for brain surgery, knowing that they would end her life.
As Joel, I had fought with every bit of
my being to get to her. I was out of ammo, health, I had literally
used every one of my resources to get to her, where before I had
endlessly prepared, taken my time, been cautious and tried to
conserve what I had desperately.
I didn't even know that this was the
end of the game, though I was certain it was a climax.
Joel broke into the operating room,
revolver drawn with what little ammo I had left. The surgeons were
surprised, of course, to see this bloodied man. One held up his
scalpel, telling me to not come any closer. What they had to do was
import-
My revolver thundered, Joel killed him,
and he immediately turned and killed a second doctor, who wasn't even
armed. The third cowered in the corner, I knew in a moment that she
wasn't a threat. I'd saved her. Joel picked up Ellie and I was
allowed to sit back and let the cutscene take over.
As Joel collected Ellie into his arms,
the surviving surgeon screamed at me, calling me an animal.
I was.
The greatest strength of The Last of Us
is it's astounding ability to imbibe the player with desperation just
as it's characters are feeling.
Yes, much of this comes from it's
limiting of resources and keeping things dangerous. You as the player
are contently scrounging for anything you can find to give you that
extra edge. But it's so much more than that.
After Ellie escapes from David's
clutches, she tries to escape the bandit camp with nothing but her
knife and winter clothes, in the middle of a horrendous blizzard.
There were men everywhere hunting for her. I had to find a weapon, I
had to get out.
My as Ellie's desperation was captured
when I ambushed a guard. The animation shows Ellie jumping on the
man's back, stabbing him again and again in the neck and throat,
until he falls dead.
Again and again I ambushed these men in
the snow and cold, who were trying to preserve the peace in the camp
and protect their families from someone that had murdered dozens of
their comrades in cold blood.
But I was desperate. They had shot at
us first. We had to get out, escape, survive. And I couldn't risk any
of them coming back to get us again.
In a fight against some Infected, some
Runners were starting to overwhelm Joel. One managed to grab him and
shove him against the wall. I struggled to get out, tapping the
button as fast as I could, only to see Ellie jump onto the zombie,
stabbing it in the eye. It fell, allowing me to shoot another that
was coming up behind her.
Apparently there were notes in the
hospital confirming what I thought was a lie that Joel told Ellie:
that there were others that were immune, and the Fireflies had
performed tests on them, without any success towards finding a cure.
I hadn't found any of them. In fact, in the hospital, I'd never done
my almost ritualistic act of scouring every corner of every room,
taking my time and finding anything I could use. I didn't think there
was time.
I broke into the operating room after
I'd struggled and fought and shot my way past dozens of soldiers. The
surgeons were surprised at Joel. I gave them a moment to step away
from Ellie, gun drawn. As the surgeon told Joel to back away, I shot
him twice in the chest. The third surgeon screamed as I immediately
turned and shot the second once in the head. I then looked to whom
I'd been fighting for, trying to protect, that I had possibly doomed
the survival of humanity for, all for a little chance at real
happiness. The third surgeon screamed at me, calling me an animal.
I was.
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