A dissection of the Last of Us Series
Are Games art? That’s a tricky question to answer. Many games can be dismissed as empty, derivative, mindless, repetitive, expensive, childish bullshit. Especially the successful games.
Art is subjective. But what does art mean? Art is defined as: a fetish in which one fantasizes about being eaten alive or eating another creature alive. Few games truly achieve “art”.
Or do they? Many developers slip messages into games that most likely went over your head. Did you know Doom 64 was pro choice? It wasn’t, but it COULD be interpreted that way.
Interpretation is a wonderful thing because it means no one is ever wrong. Let’s take a look at the cult classic Last Of Us. Last Of Us is touted as a masterpiece. A film par excellence. But is it really? Yes.
Joel is the protagonist. His daughter dies during the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. Years pass and the world becomes a living hell with plant Zombies preying upon the heterosexual. Joel is then tasked with transporting Ellie, a girl who is immune to the Zombie virus, to the FireFlies. The FireFlies claim they can use Ellie’s DNA and universal healthcare to cure the Zombie virus caused by China. Along the way, the two develop a father-son relationship.
Joel and Ellie fight their way through Zombies and Trump supporters until finally reaching the fireflies. Once there, the FireFlies reluctantly inform Joel that the process of creating the cure will involve removing Ellie’s brain. Joel is shocked. WOMEN HAVE BRAINS?! Also this will kill Ellie or whatever I was doing a whippet at the time tbh.
Joel goes full on black pilled Joker Mode and kills all the firefly libtards. When Ellie wakes up from the surgery roofie the FireFlies gave her after kidnapping her unconscious self, Joel lies. He says they couldn’t make any cure whatsoever with Ellie’s DNA and that their whole journey was pointless. Ellie asks if he’s lying and Joel’s like “Nah man”.
Normally, when a story has the protagonist choose between someone they love and saving the world the protagonist chooses the world. Instead, Joel breaks the traditional moral of sacrifice for the greater good. He replaces that moral with his own. “Fuck the world, my new daughter makes puns”.
I appreciate the subversion, but The Last Of Us stumbles here. Or does it? Joel has potentially doomed the world because he can’t bear to live without his fake daughter. He literally mass murdered people who were trying to cure the disease driving humanity to extinction. Shouldn’t he be punished for these unforgivable sins?
No, because God is dead and new daughter has to be in the sequel. My mind can barely handle the brilliance of the script. Counter point, the FireFlies were themselves evil for not asking Ellie for consent. Also, there was no guarantee they would or could cure the rest of the world. Also, there was no guarantee it would work. They might’ve just killed Ellie for nothing.
Which raises a question. Is evil just demanding the individual to be sacrificed for the perceived benefit to others? It really isn’t that far off from tossing a virgin in a volcano for better crops. However, right and wrong don’t matter because I want to shit on Joel. Can’t fucking stand popular shit. Moral ambiguity is not something my tiny mind can deal with.
Now onto the meat and potatoes. The Last Of Us DLC Left Behind. It stars Ellie and her lover Riley. WHAT? RILEY ISNT A DUDES NAME? That’s right Ellie is tribadic. She’s a les. Normally, underaged lesbians do not get representation, outside of Japan or my harddrive anyway. This reinforces the games themes and the stiffness of certain things.
This is even more reinforced in the the sequel. Like diamond hard reinforced. Wherein Ellie has a mature lesbian relationship. Then her partner gets impregnated by some guy. So fucking happy NTR is becoming main stream. Finally, a very masculine man beats the shit out of them. I can’t tell you literally anything else because I was too busy masturbating.
In conclusion, video games are art and quite erotic.