The Last of Us: Game Diaries, Part IV
Nothing is simple.
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I’ve mentioned the way The Last of Us offers balance by following high-conflict, high-stress periods with long cutscenes or enemy-free parts of the map. The previous game segment left off as Joel, Ellie, and Bill were trying to make it through the high school in search of a serviceable vehicle. Despite the high school being full of runners and clickers (with a bloater at the end for good measure) the section of the game immediately following didn’t have the same air of reprieve.
Joel, Ellie, and Bill escape the high school to a safe house occupied by Bill’s former partner Frank. Frank was the one who stole the desperately searched-for truck battery, though he died before ever escaping. Bill is abrasive, paranoid, and controlling in a way that makes players aware just how meticulous you need to be to survive in such an environment. He and Joel share similarities. Bill also constantly makes jabs about Tess, though Joel never admits that she has died.
Discovering Frank’s body brings the similarities between Bill and Frank and Joel and Tess into sharp focus. Relationships in The Last of Us are vaguely defined but important, built on a mutual desire to survive. Frank and Joel both refer to their counterpart as their “partner,” which struck me when I first started playing the game, because it’s a description that refuses to be simplified. Joel could refer to Tess as his friend or lover, but he doesn’t. She’s his partner, his equal, and anything else is left open to interpretation.
Although Joel finds a note that makes it clear Frank was leaving specifically to escape Bill’s controlling ways, Bill used the same honorific to describe him: partner. Like Tess, Frank became infected and chose to end his life on his own terms rather than become a shambling fungus person.
Despite Bill’s warnings that it’s unwise to get too attached to another person, he’s clearly shaken by Frank’s death. It’s not obvious during the scene, but I think Bill’s reaction asks players to consider his and Frank’s relationship in a romantic light. It’s another moment that gets to the humanity of a world that eschews it. Bill is tough to a fault, but to me this scene shows that even he couldn’t fully shut down, despite that being his initial reaction. Like every human, Bill is still subject to the irrationality of human emotion, of caring for others, even though it’s in direct competition with his survival instincts.
Upon finding a working truck, Bill parts ways with Joel and Ellie, presumably to return to the relative safety of the church he turned into his personal armory. The next cinematic — a much-needed minute of balance — shows Joel and Ellie in the truck, maybe not okay, but finding a way to coexist and even start building a relationship. Bill and Frank’s relationship is all but confirmed as a romantic one when Ellie pulls out a porn magazine with male subjects. They’re easy to miss, but I appreciated these details because they contribute to Bill’s character in a meaningful and interesting way.
Even so, I don’t think we ever see Bill again.
This uncertainty — the idea of never seeing someone again — isn’t something I thought about until after Joel and Ellie made it out of Boston and into Pittsburgh. After sneaking past some hunters, Joel and Ellie wind up in a crumbling, rotting hotel with a coffee bar. Joel is more talkative than he’s been, and while he never speaks about the people in his past, he mentions to Ellie how much he misses coffee. Later, this short conversation made me think about the concept of legacy. Regardless of how long Bill lives, without Frank, who else will remember him? With Tess gone, does Joel speak more so someone will remember him?
The Last of Us doesn’t speak of the dead. Despite the dwindling human population, the introductory mission of the game shows that most survivors have no qualms about killing other survivors. In these early sections, the “kill or be killed” attitude is a defining characteristic of the game, but it recontextualizes how characters view their own losses. Joel never speaks of Sarah and has forbidden any discussion of Tess.
On one hand, emotions will surely get you killed. If Joel had stopped to mourn for Tess, the militia would have killed him immediately and without remorse. On the other hand, remember when Tess said she and Joel were shitty people, and Joel said they were survivors? I think about that conversation a lot, and my read of it is that Joel has reconciled his many kills in the name of survival. It’s a fragile reconciliation that doesn’t withstand interrogation, but still. There are probably plenty of people who wanted someone as powerful as Tess dead (Bill included; as a smuggler, it’s one less person he has to risk his life for). Joel’s memory of Tess is his, and his alone. To bring others into those memories would mean inviting others to take shots at his fragile conscience.
Besides, every other survivor has a Sarah or a Tess or a Frank. There are no public memorials, only private remembrances. It seems contradictory that legacy is relegated to private life, but for a world in which survival is the only way to carry on the memory of and honor the dead, it makes sense.
Next: The Last of Us: Game Diaries, Part V >
I’m streaming The Last of Us on my Twitch channel. You can check out the Part IV of the broadcast here.
