What Does "The Last of Us" Mean?

Yes, another Last of Us blog only a couple days later since the last one, but this is something that has been on my mind for a while. The Last of Us is filled with so much subtext and themes and metaphors and foreshadowing that it would be impossible to talk about all of them, so every so often I'll be doing a post talking about something like that, and in today's case, I want to talk about what it means to be "The Last of Us". What does that title mean? And who really are "us"? Well obviously what it means is humans; there was a zombie apocalypse and now humanity is on the brink of extinction, this is the story of the last humans...but I think it goes deeper than that. One of the biggest themes in The Last of Us is what it means to be human, what do we survive for? What are we meant to be? What are our duties to our planet, to ourselves and to each other? What is it that makes a human a human? Think about the type of humans you meet in this game, most of them are shitheads. Cannibals, rapists, thieves, murderers, liars, people who would kill for their own selfish desires, in the 20 years since the apocalypse happened, humanity has been stripped down to its bare bones and are now nothing more than animals. "Us" doesn't mean humans in general, it means those who still have morals, who still can have hope and joy even in the littlest of things, those who have the qualities that we look for and respect in people.

So who are The Last of Us? Joel & Ellie? Well, you're half right. Ellie is definitely part of "us" she is a loyal character who still manages to find the joy in the little things in life, whether that be a chuckle from a lame pun or the beauty of a sunset. Ellie has not given up hope that humanity can be saved and that things can go back to the way they were. This is impressive for two reasons, one: she never experienced life before the apocalypse. Ellie was born during the apocalypse and it's all she's ever known, she has no idea what life was like beforehand yet she still yearns for that life to return because it was a better time, she's nostalgic for something that she doesn't even know. In a world where the environment has turned everyone into monsters, a person who was born into that environment is more human than any of them. And even more so, she's experienced the worst that humanity has to offer. Being encaged by cannibals & rapists and nearly murdered more times than she can count, she has more reason than anyone to think humanity is beyond saving, yet she never gives that up.

While Joel on the otherhand is not one of "us". As I said in a previous post about The Last of Us, I personally see Joel as the antagonist of the game, he murders, he steals, he lies, he tortures, most of the time it is for completely selfish reasons without caring about other people. He even saves Ellie at the cost of saving all of humanity, Noble or shitty? You decide. I think Tess summed it up perfectly in just one sentence "Guess what, we're shitty people Joel, it's been that way for a long time" and that statement rings true. Joel is a shitty person, he is a horrible person. Even before the outbreak he was still a shitty person. Remember when he, Sarah & Tommy were driving and they past a family on the road? Joel refused to help them, and this was back when humanity was still a thing. Sarah wanted to help them, she was Joel's conscience, his moral compass and even then he wasn't listening to it.

Sarah, like Ellie, was also one of "us" and she died, so, who else in the story could be considered "us"? Tess had lost her humanity but shows signs of wanting to change that and wanting to make the world a better place, because she has already lost her humanity, she dies. Henry & Sam show that you can be compassionate people and care about others and they both die. The only two partners who survive are Bill & Tommy. Bill is definitely not one of "us" in fact, he would like to be as far away from "us" as possible. Tommy on the otherhand is one of "us" he has created a community and has begun to rebuild society without crossing the line. The reason why he survives is because he has always been able to balance out the optimism of a human as well as the crimes of a shithead.

Joel is not The Last of Us, this is why most people would disagree with his actions and gravitate more towards Ellie, who is in fact The Last of Us.

-Danny