In this article we want to take a look at the end of “The Last of Us: Part 2” and analyze the events of the final act – also in order to create a basis for a factual, respectful discussion about these events. Of course, we are not going to massive Spoiler get around, which is why you should cancel this article now if you haven’t finished playing Naughty Dog.
The latest work by the California developer studio, like its predecessor, allows for multiple interpretations. It often refuses a simple black and white drawing, as we know it in many other video games, and draws a commentary on moral relativism. This is, as uncomfortable as it is in many parts of the game, extremely exciting.
Again: The following text includes massive Spoiler.
A real horror game
Already in “The Last of Us” there were no heroes, because although we can identify with Joel, it is always clear that he did terrible things to survive in a world full of monsters. Ellie showed him a piece of the beauty and innocence that he had long thought lost, and for which he ultimately sacrificed everything. He did cruel things out of love and possibly damned the whole world. At the same time, it should have been clear to him and us that this decision would one day take a heavy toll.
And the consequences of his deed actually catch up with him, as he is brutally murdered before the eyes of his foster daughter Ellie, his second chance of being a father. He had allowed himself to hope to live a reasonably normal life in the cold “The Last of Us” world and paid a high price for it. Ellie, who has also changed in the past four years, then swears bloody revenge.
“The Last of Us: Part 2”, like its predecessor, is a survival horror game that has parallels to “Resident Evil”. As Shinji Mikami increasingly alienated his protagonists from civilization in Raccoon City, Ellie is now also increasingly distancing herself from it: from the remains of civilization, she descends into a destroyed underworld populated by human-like monsters. She goes to living hell.
The pursuit of revenge as the meaning of life
Ellie’s motivation to embark on such a dark path, from which there could possibly be no going back, is nuanced in the game and interwoven with her trauma around Joel’s death. After her foster father snatched the chance from her, he took away her choice and not least part of her identity, which she had to hide from now on. Instead of dying for a good cause, she just had to live.
She found something that she never really had before, namely a real home. She found a stable social environment, friends and love – a normal life as far as it is possible in this merciless world. But even though she finds all of this, she is still broken inside, listless, despondent, and just as lacking in motivation. Added to this is the certainty of what Joel denied her, even if in the end they approach again.
All of Abby’s murder of Joel takes a back seat because she took Ellie a chance to correct things with Joel who was trying to forgive him. From then on, her only goal was to avenge the murder of her surrogate father. Anger, hatred and revenge fill that void to find something in her life that is worth fighting for – until she is so consumed by her obsession that she would sacrifice everything for it.
For much of the plot, Ellie is unable to quench her thirst for blood. The pain of a trauma suffered can change even the best people and the inability that results, which ultimately endangers not only their lives but also those closest to them, they reveal until the final act of the game another uncompromising, relentless monster in the “The Last of Us” world.
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Playing with perspective
And then, when everything around Ellie threatens to collapse again, “Part 2” shifts its focus and at the same time our perspective. About halfway through the game, we are forced to walk in Joel’s killer shoes and get to know her personality and her world. It quickly becomes clear that Abby and Ellie weren’t all that different when they were kids, because they both wanted to chase their dreams.
As is well known, things turned out differently because when Joel rescued Ellie from the Fireflies hospital, he killed Abby’s father and planted a seed that was to doom him years later. Abby lost sight of her Firefly ideals and became the flagship soldier of the WLF. It became hard and unapproachable, both internally and externally. Her revenge brought her satisfaction, but in the end no peace, no redemption.
In their role, we were forced to take on fights the outcome of which we could not or did not want to determine, which certainly led to alienation for many players. Abby did more than Ellie to achieve her goals, but the end result was that she had to watch her new family – Lev – her new meaning in life, die. Her revenge would have cost her almost everything.
As already indicated, “The Last of Us: Part 2” is a horror game in many ways. It is about perspectives, about control and the horror that is caused when it is challenged or even completely snatched from us. Abbys Part is not just about understanding their motivation and identifying us with the previously established villain, but ultimately smashing the idea of identification. The game forces us players to change and grow with us.
A light in the dark
In the end, however, Ellie also cost her thirst for revenge. She had a life together with Dina, but she is still troubled by the cruel memories of Joel’s murder. Unable to finish murdering him, she sets out again to hunt down Abby. Ultimately, giving up would mean giving up Joel and admitting that all the sacrifices made so far would have been in vain. She wants a degree. She needs a degree, no matter what the price.
However, when she tracks down Abby in Santa Barbara, she is only a shadow of herself. Weeks of torture have left her physically emaciated and broken her will to fight; she was just waiting for her creeping death. When Ellie frees her, Abby’s thoughts are only about Lev and about bringing her new family, the only family she still has, to safety – but Ellie stands in her way again.
There is a fight between the two broken women, at the end of which Ellie, after a picture of Joel appears, lets Abby and Lev go, who from then on have to live with the certainty that they owe their new and possibly better life to Ellie’s grace to have. Would Joel have wanted or expected Ellie to take no revenge? Probably not, because if he had been in her place he would have done everything to ensure that Abby was no longer a danger to his daughter. Maybe Ellie’s decision against her revenge is due to the fact that her last moments with Joel were not characterized by hate, but by forgiveness.
Ellie realizes that revenge will bring her neither peace nor healing. If she surrendered to her, there would be no way back and no potential future together with her family. She recognizes a light in her darkness and a new task: Ellie has to keep the last part of her old self, which has not yet been eaten up by her thirst for revenge. She has to forgive. Joel for his deeds, Abby for hers and ultimately also himself.
“If I ever lose you, I would certainly lose myself” – Future Days
When we see Ellie back in the farmhouse in the final moments of the game with the guitar Joel gave her, she seems to have lost everything. This becomes particularly clear when she tries to play Pearl Jam’s song “Future Days”, which has been mentioned several times in “The Last of Us: Part 2”. Were the words „If I ever were to lose you“ At first still positively connoted – they symbolize Joel’s love for Ellie and her love for Dina – it is different here, because for the first time we hear the second part of the line: „I’d surely lose myself“.
Because she couldn’t let go, neither Joel nor her desire for revenge, Ellie literally lost part of herself in the end. The song also makes it clear that there are no more days together for her and Joel in the future. At this point, she has to finally let go of her father and say goodbye to him. By leaning her guitar against the window and walking, she can finally do it and start a new chapter.
On the subject
Where Ellie goes leaves the game to our imagination, but no matter where she goes, she should be up to the challenge. Contrary to common horror game conventions, in which the main characters are usually unable to change, in Ellie’s case Naughty Dog stretches a redeeming arc that culminates in a bittersweet ending from which she emerges strengthened as a human being. Given all the nihilism and terror of The Last of Us World, she decided to forgive, heal, and most of all live.
Now you are asked: What is your opinion about the end of “The Last of Us: Part 2”?
More messages about opinion, The Last of Us: Part 2.
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