Nature in The Last of Us

I really don't think this is any new perspective that The Last of Us has heavy themes involving nature. Most of the environments, just like the one you see on your right, have nature consuming man made objects, nature taking back it's land. But it goes further than that. It's not just exploring the beauty and power of nature, but the antagonistic nature (Puns!) of man. I've already done a discussion on what is means to be human in contrast to The Last of Us, and basically put, humanity sucks. But we'll get to that, let's start of by looking at how The Last of Us depicts nature.

The first time that I truly acknowledged the beauty of this game is when you're walking through the forest on your way to Bill's Town; Gustavo Santaolalla's score begins building, we see a bird take flight, Ellie pointing out the cute squirrels and being amazed with the beauty of Fireflies (Real ones, not the rebellious group). But the most iconic image of the beauty of nature is obviously the giraffes, which is the pinnacle of nature conquering man. But then again I have heard a minority of people complain that this scene is also the one that slams the message in the hardest, which i get, i mean the scene has much more to it than just it's commentary on man vs nature, but that is the topic that we are talking about. Even the infection itself, it's a natural fungus that exists in our real world, and though it's never said explicitly, it infecting humans is either do to man tampering with nature too much, or it naturally evolving itself to harm us, and i don't know which one is scarier, did we doom ourselves or were we destined for this life?

But it's one thing to show the beauty of nature, how about the disgust of man? When you think about it, who are the real villains of this game? Who kills Sara? Who is the only boss fight in the game? Who tries to dissect Ellie at the end? Like it or not, mankind does not deserve survival in this story because we lost what separated us from the animals, we hunt each other down, we attack without thinking, it's a dog eat dog world and we have to question whether or not humans are even worth saving, because everything that's shown, nature was here first and we tampered with them. There's plenty more here about nature and man, but these are the main points worth discussing.

-Danny