The Last of Us Review

The Last of Us was a brutal, emotional tough game. It is not even remotely a fun game. You will probably cry at least once. But you sure as hell should play it. It follows the story of Joel and Ellie as they travel across the country in a futuristic America torn apart by a zombie-like fungus. Along the way you must fight infected people and groups of rebelling non-infected in order to reach your goal. Within this horrific world Naughty Dog has managed to create something beautiful. Most of America has been overtaken by nature and such a gorgeous background contrasted with the brutality of the storyline creates an interesting atmosphere. I found myself really appreciating the scenery because of what was happening in the game and because of how well the game is crafted. And the soundtrack. Oh my god. I cannot accurately describe how perfect it was.

For existing in such a terrible world, it sure is pretty

 Now, I can't talk about this game without spoilers so the rest of the review is below:
***Warning: Below are spoilers!!!***

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The Last of Us relies on a lot of clichés in regards to zombies and diseases, but it manages to feel wholly new.  I think this was due to the amount of emotion and weight put on each of the characters. Normally these types of movies will kill off characters, but only a few. The Last of Us writers clearly studied at the Joss Whedon School of Introducing Characters, Making You Like Them, and Then Killing Them. I knew Tess, Sam and Henry were going to die from the second they were introduced. But it was still heart wrenching when they did. I enjoyed the amount of diversity put into the game, as there were characters of color, female characters, and even a gay character. The most important part of all these character is that it wasn't thrown in your face and no one was tokenized. There were usually multiples of characters (i.e multiple female characters), and the point wasn't their race, gender, or orientation. With Bill, the point of his story was not that he was gay; rather it was the tragedy of his relationship with his partner that was his storyline.

 I also think the game felt new because of the ending, which I was surprised by. I was fairly certain that Joel was going to die, mostly because I assumed Naughty Dog was aiming for a trilogy like with Uncharted, and Ellie would continue the journey. I did have a problem with how the hospital played out, as I felt both Joel and Marlene were taking away Ellie's agency. In a perfect game, she would be allowed to choose for herself.  However, I did like that Ellie knew that Joel was lying because it conveyed that the lie was for Joel's sake, not Ellie's. Joel's decision to kill Marlene fit in with the overall tone of the game: You do what you have to do. I enjoyed that the character we play as isn't necessarily the best person, nor does he pretend to be.

Now, onto the portrayal of the female characters in the game.

The rest of this review is mostly a direct response to this article

To call Ellie anything less than equal to Joel is a gross misreading of the game. Although having a playable female character is something the gaming industry is sorely lacking, I wholeheartedly reject the notion that any game, movie, tv show, book, etc. with a male lead cannot be feminist. And the Last of Us gives us a male character that is only surrounded by one well written character, but many. 

In the article "Strong Female Characters are Bad for Women" by Shana Mlawski, she says: 

"I think the major problem here is that women were clamoring for “strong female characters,” and male writers misunderstood.  They thought the feminists meant [Strong Female] Characters.  The feminists meant [Strong Characters], Female."

The writer of The New York Times article clearly wanted the former when he got the latter. 

A lot of people think there is a cookie-cutter way to create a feminist character. That usually includes guns and a snarky attitude. Now, I love any snarky character, but there are multiple ways to write feminist characters.

Here's a different way to think about it. I will list what I think are the some of most feminist television show on right now:

The Good Wife

Pretty Little Liars

Parks and Recreation

Castle

Grey's Anatomy

Lost Girl

Now, all these shows are different.  Grey's Anatomy and Pretty Little Liars are more ensemble casts. Pretty Little Liars and Lost Girl are mysteries. Lost Girl, Castle and The Good Wife are procedurals. Parks and Recreation is the only comedy. All of the shows have different types of feminism and patriarchy influences our characters on these show in different ways. And Castle has a male lead. There is no one right way to write a strong character, female.

His daughter is not a woman in a refrigerator. This trope mostly refers to storylines of revenge, which this is not. Sarah dies, but we understand that Joel has attempted to deal with it over the past 20 years. And we watch Joel deal with her death throughout the course of the game: at the beginning he cannot even mention her, and at the end he can talk freely about her with Ellie. The journey in this game for Joel is to cope with his daughter's death, and for Ellie it is a coming-of-age journey. Her death is not a plot device, rather one of many heartbreaking deaths that occur within the game. The magnitude of deaths in this game make sense, as we are in an broken society, and these deaths are not limited to female characters. Men and women die and both of our leads have near death experiences.

There is one death that could be considered a "woman in refrigerator" and that is Tess. But the reviewer doesn't even mention her by name even though she is apart of the storyline for almost half of the game. I found her death to be the most plot device-y, but I mostly had a problem with how she and not that it happened. Her death was used more as motivation and we did not see Ellie and Joel deal with it like the others. Death is a major theme in this game. Of the 9 characters we really get to know, 6 of them die. And two of them almost die. In fact, the entire plot of the game is to survive or "not die". I mean, that's generally the plot of most games, but this one heavily relies on this. You are put into a gruelling and gruesome situation and you have to make it out the other side.

As I said before, we see Joel deal with the death of Sarah. We also see him contemplate his killing of other characters. And we see Ellie deal with her killing a man and the death of her friend. This article erases any importance of these characters other than that they died, and that devalues them as well-written female characters. And for a video game to not have 1, but 4 is something I have never seen. The characters aren't perfectly feminist, but that does not mean that they are completely terrible. This isn't and either or situation, and we need to stop treating female characters as such. Feminists are not always perfect feminists, and that's okay. And its okay for our characters to be that way too.