This entry is to basically consolidate my thoughts before beginning The Last of Us Part II tonight. If you’re very sensitive about spoilers avoid, although I wouldn’t consider anything here a spoiler personally. I will of course be writing my thoughts on it after finishing, but I have so many right now I want to get them in order.
I was inspired to this by reading the Polygon review of The Last of Us Part II, which is, as far as I can find, the only negative review of the game in the entire world. I encourage you to read it, it contains nothing I’d call a spoiler. Almost every notable publication has awarded it a 10/10 or something close to that, and from a critical standpoint The Last of Us Part II has secured itself in the elite halls of all time greats even before release.
Yet when the game’s story leaked earlier this year (leaks which I somehow managed to avoid), the internet was enraged. Fans were angry, disgusted, cancelling pre-orders in droves. Surprisingly it wasn’t related to Ellie, the protagonist, being a lesbian (for once). Devoid of context, the story paints a very dark picture of America, one that I suppose some people couldn’t reconcile with. Now that I’ve got some idea of what I’m getting into, I have a few thoughts.
Creator Neal Druckman calls this story one of empathy. He wants it to prove that we, as humans, are better than the characters in his story. He does this by showing humanity, stretched by a pandemic to its absolute breaking point, collapse back into our animal instincts. Druckman tells this story of humans not working together and tearing each other (literally) apart to try and convey that we must, in real life, stay together. Reviewers have stated that the game is so violent, so sadistic, so obviously disgusting that it has made them physically ill. Some have described it as a torture porn simulator. But they can’t stop playing, they must know what comes next. Players have to accept, by playing the game, that this is the story they will be consuming.
In Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding (2019), Sam Porter Bridges must reconnect a fractured world and rebuild America after the world is destroyed by an apocalyptic event, the titular Death Stranding. The game is literally a walking simulator, laying down internet cables and reconnecting isolated American cities after the apocalypse to prove that we are stronger when connected. That we can rebuild. That we must.
Kojima posits the exact same thesis that Druckman does, but approaches it in a completely different way — by showing humanity at its best when connected. Druckman shows us humanity at its worst when apart. Both writers believe in the same ideal, that humans cannot persist without relying on and aiding each other, but Druckman takes what I call The Lord of the Flies Route, adding horror and shock value at every turn to punctuate and accent the “evil” inherent in all of us, the evil that comes out only when we truly break apart.
Ostensibly, Ellie does not learn about empathy in The Last of Us Part II. It is not meant to be a redemption story. She is driven by a need for vengeance, a sadistic thirst that has certainly dwelt in some of us before. But is this a problem at all? Why am I telling Neal Druckman how he should have delivered his art, that he did it wrong? He obviously has a story to tell, and he told it the way he intended (as is evidenced by the nearly one year delay in release). But what is my point here? I’m mostly asking myself.
The only way to play the game, as Ellie, is to be evil. The game, however, continually tries to tell you not to do that, despite it being the only way to progress the story. You, the player, are evil for commanding Ellie to perform these evil acts in the game. This is me viewing the theme of the game devoid of context, outside of Ellie’s eyes. Perhaps once I see things as she sees them I will understand why her journey must turn this way. Druckman is passionate about the story he decided to tell, if nothing else, so perhaps this is the story that needed to be told.
I think that perhaps The Last of Us Part II is the Joker (2019) of video games. Joker was not a good movie, nor was it bad. Nor was it anything in between. I highly recommend you watch it, but I cannot in good conscience affix any sort of rating to it. Did it have a point? is the reason it exists to make me, the viewer, ask why it exists? Joker had absolutely nothing to say, and that was clearly by intention. That is fascinating to me. Joker is a set of ideas Todd Phillips managed to get on a camera and send to the movie theater. I only bring it up here because from what I understand so far the same can be said for The Last of Us Part II — this game, and the Joker movie, is either the highest form of art or the most pretentiously empty. Or maybe both. It’s probably both.
