The Reason The Last Of Us Turned Me Into A Lunatic
People, it is getting real. There are many things that I tend to joke about. My weight, my job or lack thereof, my family and friends, my boyfriend, my cats, society, myself. But there is one thing that for SOME inexplicable reason, I am almost pathologically passionate about and cannot see humour or…for that matter, reason.
Before I tell you what mine is, let me be very clear: we all, to a certain extend, have such a thing. It doesn’t matter if it’s FortNite, Harry Potter, My Little Pony, knitting-patterns, Harry Styles or a certain bald dude that just got busted in Romania.
For me it’s…
YES! The Last of Us. It’s the bees knees, ellbows, stomach, colon, chin, enlarged liver and everything else.
And obviously SPOILERS ahead!
Some years ago, when I graduated from college, was in the midst of my exams and needed something to distract me from my crushing misery, I discovered gaming channels on YouTube. Particularly a YouTuber called The Rad Brad. I don’t know how and why, but I started watching his entire play through of The Last Of Us remastered with the channeled focus of a hawk and that’s something I most certainly wasn’t going to waste on my exams or school.
If you clicked on this article, I am pretty sure you know what The Last of Us is all about, but I am going to summarise it in one sentence and therefor butcher the game, the story and everyone that’s been involved in its creation:
A dude called Joel is hired by a militia group to smuggle a kid called Ellie across the US. In a world that is governed by the military and terrorised by flesh eating, fungus infected people that grow mushrooms from their heads and faces, Joel and Ellie murder everyone who crosses their path and in the end develop a strong father daughter bond. It made cry like I’m a disturbed infant.
It’s awesome!
Then in the second part Joel dies in the most gruesome way possible and wow…
I couldn’t believe it and according to the internet, a lot of other people couldn’t either. And THEN I turned into a maniac: while I watched the play through of the second game, my boyfriend Dominic watched it with me. He likes the franchise, but doesn’t really care about the story that much. He’s more the Counter Strike kinda guy, so he’s here for the gameplay but doesn’t really give a crap whether that old man befriends his human cargo or not. He, at one point, tried to skip a cutscene. Yeah…he’s a dangerous lunatic.
Unfortunately for him, so am I. When Joel dies, he says to me: “Well…he kinda had it coming. I mean he killed so many people and sabotaged the entire save-the-world-mission from the first part. Also I don’t like Ellie, because she just goes on a rampage and even kills innocent dogs.”
I just heavily misquoted him, but who cares this is my blog!!!!
So when these exact and unaltered words came out of his mouth, I WAS SHOCKED. I was angry and upset and, of course, started a fight. Because I’m an adult and that’s how you react if someone doesn’t feel the same way you feel about a random fictional character.
At the same time, I asked myself (and my therapist): Why on earth is that so important to me. Maybe it’s because I am crazy, but maybe it’s because this story is about a kid and a guy who loves that kid like his own daughter. And I was a kid and I have a dad that I love a lot. And when Dominic says “who cares about Joel”, all I can think of is: “you…WANT MY DAD TO GET HIS HEAD BASHED IN WITH A GOLF CLUB”
See the problem here? I’m not Ellie, I know that. But I associate myself with that story and that little girl so much that everything you say against it is a direct offence to me. Is it inherently wrong to feel and react that way?
Of course not, but it turns your life into a mine-field. Being so invested in something and having built such a strong opinion about it makes you automatically feel like everything you think about it is right and logical. Everyone that says something else doesn’t make sense, doesn’t get it, is an idiot and so on. I don’t know why we all make the mistake of believing that being emotional means being right. I am saying “us” because I know we all do it to a certain extend. Take a sports team, a game, a movie, a series, CrossFit or any diet on this earth.
We’re so heavily invested in things we have absolutely no control over. I don’t just mean the thing itself, I also mean the opinions of other people. No control! Sorry. It CAN feel super exhilarating when the things we want to happen actually happen. But boy oh boy if something goes wrong. Everything is unfair, illogical and we’re the victim of this cruel injustice.
Unfortunately but also fortunately for us, the stories that are told by other people are usually also controlled by other people. It’s better this way, because every time an author or creator is rushed by fans to finish a story they write and feels pressured to satisfy their fans wishes, it always turns out to be absolute garbage. That’s why George R.R. Martin doesn’t give a crap about what his fans want, but seems to make it his mission to do the exact opposite and I salute you, sir! I salute you!
After a lot of consideration, maybe Joel was supposed to die in order for the story to carry on. Now that I’ve said it, please don’t come to my house to murder me.
Needles to say, I am very curious about the show. Maybe it’s already out when I upload this video, who knows. But when it’s out, be sure to find my detailed opinion about it right here.
I guess the moral of the story is: Being a fan of anything is awesome and I there is no shame in being super invested in a fictional story. But maybe…mayyyybe we should cease to verbally abuse people if they don’t share our fandom.
We will NEVER all share the same opinion. NEVER!
I know it’s very tempting to believe that, as an individual, I have somehow found the perfect story, the perfect narrative, the perfect system. There is always gonna be people who think you’re insane or have no taste. These people aren’t crazy and neither are you. You’re just different. This is easier to pin down for fiction and fandom, it’s a bit harder when it comes to politics and social beliefs.
But talking about fandoms: I think it’s equally fine if you listen to the bald guy or if you watch my little pony. But if you start showing up in comment sections and Twitter rampages and start cussing out people who don’t see your point or who think my little pony is a medium for young men to develop a hyper fixation on money, devalue women and glorification of violence, you need to stop. Just like you’re allowed to claim Rainbow Dash is the best, these people are allowed to think it’s full of shit. And just like they’re allowed to think it’s shit, you’re allowed to think it’s THE shit. As long as we don’t hurt each other, it’s fine. Life. Laugh. Love. God damnit!
Dominic is allowed to think Joel deserved to die or even not care about any of that at all. That’s just how it works. I love him, because his opinion about The Last of Us doesn’t directly reflect his opinion on other things in real life. He likes my dad a lot and definitely wouldn’t support golf club related violence. And instead of getting angry, maybe I should have told him that I kinda see myself in that story and him saying what he said kinda hurts my feelings. Easier said than done, because I’m rather angry instead of vulnerable. Unfortunately though, that’s the only way we can have nice things.
I’ll remember that for myself and I hope everyone else tries to remember it whenever they feel the need to verbally abuse a teenage actress on Twitter just because they “don’t even look like the actual character”. Let’s all calm down collectively.
That being said: if the show isn’t any good I will SET MYSELF ON FIRE!
We’ll see how that turns out.
