The Last of Us: What Is the Price of Hope in a Broken World?

From a distance, the Last of Us may seem like a story of survival. But in reality, it is a story about the price that comes with survival and preservation. In a world where humanity lost the war against nature, the remnants of civilization only present themselves as dreadful husks of a bygone era. Here, hope is rarer than ‘civil laws and manners’. 

In this hopeless world, surviving comes at a cost. To earn sustenance, every man, woman, and child has to expose and adapt themselves to the cruelest forms of violence. If you don’t have the strength to do what is ‘necessary’, then there is no tomorrow for you. However, even death is not an escape in this world.

The fungal overlords who successfully eradicated most of humanity have the ability to bestow a fate worse than death to its poor victims. Spreading in the body, way up to the brain, Cordyceps fungi turn their victims into brainless monsters whose only purpose is to help the spread. So running is not an option. 

But is there no hope in the world of Last of Us?

There is hope even in this wretched world, but it comes at a high price. (spoilers for the season 1 ending ahead) 

Read More: “It Was Bittersweet”–‘The Last of Us’ Star Bella Ramsey Reflects on Ellie’s Key Moment in the Season Finale

In the last episode of the Last of Us season 1, the main character Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal) was presented with a choice. In order to extract the cells from Ellie’s body, the doctors at the Firefly facility had to perform brain surgery on her. If the procedure was performed successfully, humanity may have gotten a new hope of survival. 

But as a result, Ellie would have been lost forever. Removing the cells from her brain that make her immune would have been fatal. Although the choice was very hard as she had promised Ellie’s mother during her dying breaths, that she will protect her daughter forever, Marlene had made the choice and decided to give humanity hope in exchange for Ellie. 

After losing his daughter, Ellie was the only reason for Joel to be alive, and in that desperate moment, Joel refused to accept the bargain. He killed almost everyone at the Firefly facility, including the doctor who was about to perform the surgery on Ellie. In order to keep his hope alive, Joel paid the price by dooming humanity forever. 

In the Broken world of the Last of Us, the price for hope is death. 

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