I did want to give warnings where warnings are due by stating that this article contains major spoilers for The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part II. I basically cover the major, spoilery-goo of both plots. I also briefly mention the ideas of death, suicide, and survivor’s guilt. This piece is intended to be a broad analysis of not only the story the series tells, but the lived experience that Ellie Williams represents. Therefore, I do not aim for this to be a greatly accurate synopsis or a sneak peek for any individuals who haven’t played the games or seen the show. I encourage you, my reader, to look into the games/show because spoiler alert (first of many): the series is breath-taking, and the series itself is one of the only things that can do it justice.
The game version of The Last of Us has plagued my mind for at least a decade. And I don’t know if it’ll ever stop doing so, especially as I unravel its themes and attempt to pinpoint why it’s hit so close to home. The Last of Us is a zombie-apocalypse drama—though this description doesn’t even begin to cover its depth—about a grieving father and a girl with an immunity to the wide-spread zombie virus. This father, Joel, is tasked with transporting ‘immune girl’ Ellie to Salt Lake City, Utah, where a neurosurgeon awaits her. The overarching goal of the game, as denoted by the several objectives the player must complete, is to take Ellie to a hospital and use her as a cure. I’m aware, this all sounds like the best-case scenario for a deadly zombie-apocalypse series—except that Ellie must give up her life to undergo the surgery that would obtain this remedy. By this point in time, the player has spent at least 15 hours, thumb to joystick, getting to know the young-spirited girl. Her charm, misplaced dad jokes, and love for dinosaurs and all things science serve as permanent reminders of the person beyond her immunity. And, by the conclusion of the game, right before he massacres the entire medical team to save Ellie, neither Joel nor the player is willing to let this surgery happen.
Not to mention, my father played The Last of Us on our barely functional PS4 console, and right before my eyes, I witnessed this series bloom into life. I indeed watched my father play as Joel, who archetypally represents fathers in so many different ways. During the time period the game takes place, Ellie was coming of age, just like I was. A couple of years ago, I played The Last of Us Part II, which showcases Ellie as the new protagonist. My dad watched as he witnessed the series continue to bloom into life. You can imagine how I felt when I watched the scenes unravel, during such different chapters of my life, placing me in such strange, unnamable, and distinct positions.
After Joel commits these several acts of violence, Ellie wakes up from her anesthetized state, laying in the back of his car, disoriented, and asks what happened. Joel says that they couldn’t make a cure and that there were ‘many more like her’. Pin drop—they stopped trying to solve this virus. She turns to her side, facing away the driver’s and passenger seat, to process this loss that she’s feeling. More on this loss later.
The Last of Us Part II picks up in Jackson, the settlement that Joel and Ellie live in after the incident at the hospital. Ellie’s suspicious that Joel lied to her about what occurred with the cure. She becomes increasingly more curious and visits the run-down hospital, only to find a voice recording confirming the original procedure (Ellie was to be killed in the surgery) and that she was the only immune person they knew of. She demands the truth from Joel, and it stabs her like a scalpel to the flesh: He lied. For years.
After this point, Ellie spends most of her time at Jackson bitingly bitter, specifically towards Joel, but also towards herself. And what really tugs at the heartstrings is that she pays for it in probably the cruelest way. Right before attending a movie with Joel and attempting to make amends, Abby (the daughter of the neurosurgeon—remember him?) finds Joel and murders him. Because their last moments were so driven with dissonance and anger, players express that Ellie should’ve been more appreciative of Joel’s actions and that she should’ve forgiven him sooner. After all, he loved her so much, like the daughter he lost early in the pandemic, and he couldn’t face losing a daughter again. So why does Ellie have such a long-standing resentment? I’m here to argue that it’s just not that simple.
Throughout the series, Ellie suffers from a severe case of survivor’s guilt. This guilt was repeated and reinforced through every death she experienced, whether this was directly or indirectly due to the virus. Her first death (and kill) was also her first love, Riley. They fooled around in an abandoned mall and got ambushed by clickers (zombies whose infection had moderately progressed), resulting in Riley’s untimely death. This commenced a tragically long line of lives lost to the virus, witnessed by the one person who’s immune from it, but can’t do a single damn thing to help.
That’s when Marlenne, who Joel also killed because she would ‘come for Ellie’, presented the possibility of using her as a cure. All of a sudden, Ellie can now help humanity. And all of these lives that were lost, these ugly deaths that resulted in anguish, disturbing infection, and suicide, would serve a purpose. They would be avenged. And most importantly, in light of a possible vaccine, the deaths would gradually stop. In her words: “I was supposed to die in that hospital. But you took that from me.” From this point on, she completely lost her purpose in life, and blindingly, her only way of coping with the deaths she inadvertently ‘caused’.
After Joel’s death, Ellie attempted to reinvent this purpose into avenging Joel by killing his murderer. Right before she succeeds in doing so, she releases Abby (Joel’s killer) from the chokehold, because she knows she can’t externalize her purpose of life anymore. It has to come from within, whatever that looks like. She also knows that Joel would’ve wanted her to do exactly that, as she pictures his face once more.
That brings me to my terribly long-winded claim. I am a person who constantly lives for other people, and I would argue that it’s excruciatingly difficult not to do so when you are physically birthed from someone else. I am also first-generation; my ability to receive education has been reliant on the backbones, the blood, sweat, and tears of my parents and ancestors. How could I ever be blind to this truth? Because of this battle, I struggle to contend with the past, namely with the academic decisions I’ve made. I will be the first to say I don’t have the answers, but somewhere hidden in all this pain must be the internal realization that I have a purpose. I have a purpose outside of the lineage I’m extended from, and I live not just for others, but for myself. It’s such a hard, gut-wrenching thing to believe, but I would argue that this is what faith is for.
I hadn’t noticed it until I started searching for answers within myself, but I think Ellie Williams embodies this struggle so perfectly. But she also embodies why this struggle must end with finding an internal reason to live. It just has to.