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Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us.
Loss produces heavy emotion; losing someone close to you tugs at your heart and can be a traumatizing experience. In the case of protagonist Joel in The Last of Us, loss is a prevalent theme that drives the narrative. In the first 10 minutes, we’re greeted with Joel and his daughter Sarah. You can tell from the get-go how close their relationship is. Sarah presents him with a watch for his birthday. They make it clear that they aren’t just father and daughter … they’re best friends.
And then Joel loses her before the title card even appears.
Above: Of course you are!
It’s losing his daughter and the unknown of that 20-year time span that hardens Joel to the point of no return. He appears broken and tired. It’s here where we are introduced to Tess, Joel’s partner in the post-apocalyptic world of dangerous fungi. Tess clearly wears the pants in the relationship; she travels around by herself, shows up at the door battered and bruised, and tells Joel about the cache of weapons that have not been delivered to them. Where Joel appears to have lost the will to fight, Tess acts like a guiding light in a world gone awry.
And then Joel loses her after she sacrifices herself to save him and Ellie.
When Joel and Ellie run into Bill, Joel doesn’t bother to tell Bill that Tess spent her last remaining moments of life trying to save him. He defends her when Bill puts her down. It isn’t until Bill discovers the body of his partner where we realize that Bill too has also lost someone. Though it’s only a short moment of reflection, Joel apologizes to Bill for his loss. Joel knows the pain of loss.
And then we’re introduced to Sam and Henry.
Much like Joel, Henry is a guardian figure to Sam. Although Sam is about the same age as Ellie, Henry treats Sam as though he were a burden. He’s not really a burden and proves that he is fully capable of survival; Henry is just afraid of losing his little brother. They’re all that they have, so it’s understandable for Henry to be overprotective of Sam. Sam’s death is another pivotal point. Henry’s resulting suicide contrasts with Bill’s stoic reaction to loss. Sam was Henry’s will to fight … and to live.
But it isn’t until Joel is faced with the potential loss of Ellie where we see his paternal instinct kick in.
The parallelism between Ellie and Sarah is made quite apparent. There’s a scene where Ellie stops and looks across the horizon toward the Capitol Building. “But man, you can’t deny that view.” Joel smirks and looks down at his watch. The watch that Joel wears is the only tie to his past to the most important person to him before this fungi-induced nightmare all happened. Ellie had even earlier made a quip about Joel’s watch being broken.
Above: “For the record, you were right. It was either him or me.”
Because relationship between Joel and Ellie is the main focus of the game, they struggle to maintain a balance of both trust and respect. What starts out as a simple escort mission becomes a journey. In the scene where Ellie takes a horse and rides out to an unknown part of town, Joel tells her, “You’re not my daughter, and I sure as Hell ain’t your dad.” It’s a powerful scene where in the midst of all the chaos, it’s clear that Joel is still struggling with the loss of his daughter.
Despite this, Joel does anything in his power to keep Ellie alive … even if it means erasing the possibility of a cure. Saving humanity takes a backseat in a world where humanity itself has crumbled under its own weight. Joel isn’t a bad guy. Sure, he’s shot, stabbed, and maimed flesh on his journey in the name of survival. But that doesn’t necessarily make him the root of all evil. He’s just a man — a man who’s lost nearly everything. The pain of losing another person drives him to protect Ellie even if it means lying to her.