So I recently got around to play The Last of Us for the first time (I only picked up a second hand PS3 about a month or two ago, so I'm trying out some of the exclusives), and I've been trying to wrap my head around the ending. Now, obviously, thematically, it ties into the issues with inclusion, society, and group boundaries that the game spends pretty much its entire (video game equivalent of) runtime going through. From the soldier who tries to kill Joel and his daughter to the cannibals who decide to survive, we constantly see boundaries on what we might think of as acceptable behaviour being shattered in the name of preserving the group. These characters draw lines around who or what they empathise with, and, in the case of David, the leader of the scavengers, put it directly to us that we do the same thing. That moment was important to me, because, really, it contextualised the entire preceding events of the game which I had largely taken for granted because of the way games suspend our disbelief - we're, as Joel, not killing these guys because it's a game and that's just what you do in games, we're doing it because they're threatening our social group, and if you don't kill those soldiers, those bandits, then they'll prevent you from meeting your goals. Sometimes this is as simple as pure self-preservation, but it also served as the entire motivation from the development in the second act of the game: Joel didn't decide to keep taking Ellie onward because he thought it was the objectively moral thing to do, he did it because Joel's social group was falling apart, with Tess about to die, and when she tells him that this is something he needs to do [i]because of what exists between the two of them[/i], it's something he does because that's all that's left of what was there. It's fundamental to all that remains of his existence, with her, as part of a wider whole. And this focus is maintained pretty much throughout the game, with every character you interact with (directly or indirectly) touching on it some way. So in this way we can just see that the conclusion to the game, where we're likely to be compelled to see the competing interests of humanity versus Joel's relationship with Ellie, really don't come to competing interests for Joel. His old group is dead, and it's been allowed to die principally because it was supplanted by his relationship with Ellie. None of this is particularly revelatory (and people have put it better than I have quite a while ago now), but it's also a bit of a plain theme by itself. Importantly, what frames the conclusion of the game, the return to the theme, is the crushing despair of the very end, after the hospital scene. We feel it less when we're being forced to take the action to kill all of those people even if we don't agree with what we're doing, but afterwards, the entire situation is miserable: taking Ellie's position others Joel; his happy reminiscence about his daughter clashes with her depressed state; and the story about her and Riley, and the fierceness of Joel's straight lie to her face leaves the game on a totally beaten note. To say that the game itself is critical of Joel's tribalism (which has really been [i]our own[/i]) might be a bit of an understatement. But what does this inform? Well, thinking about the mechanics of the game, it does say something about the way we engage with violence in video games. It's not some [i]The Line[/i] level meta-commentary in scope or viciousness, but the fact that this tribal attitude isn't something we even need to adjust to, that it's just what we expect from the way gameplay is framed when it comes to shooters, (especially in the climate of outright Jingoism mainstream video games have inhabited since Call of Duty 4) throws the myopia and total lack of empathy so built into this attitude right in our faces. I liked this because so much of the game's mechanics are totally divorced from any kind of thematic weight, so for there to be something in there that's meaningful with respect to what the rest of the game has to say really came as something of a shock to me when it hit. Of course, that's not to say that I'm uncritical of the ending of the game, and I do think that there is at least one major issue where the game stumbles here: Joel's characterisation. Joel's issues are that he's insular, tribalistic and selfish throughout pretty much the entire game, but the framing for this, emotionally, is the loss of his daughter. We cut pretty much straight from her death into his miserable life, and are constantly reminded of his issues when it comes to dealing with loss and grieving. Through his growing bond with Ellie he manages to come to terms with this and eventually learns to think of his daughter fondly again, so we get this really weird situation where, in terms of actual character development we're primed to expect evolving emotional maturity, but the game thematically demands the opposite: stagnation, or even regression, to the point where Joel will possibly doom the entire human race to avoid getting hurt again. It feels like they needed this emotional development to really propel the narrative side of the game and sustain it in the quieter moments, but then they forget about it out of convenience, either to satisfy their desired ending or to shove a big pew-pew boss fight in there, and I think this is probably part of what a lot of people felt really uncomfortable about in the end. Part of that discomfort's definitely intentional, but I also think part of it might be a rejection of this discrepancy - or, at least, it felt that way to me. Anyway, I think that's more or less what I wanted to say. This was probably a bit all over the place: I was largely assembling my thoughts as I wrote it, so that'd be one reason why, and I'm sorry for that as well as any mistakes I might've left in. I am interested, though, to know what other people thought of (and the way they reacted to) the game - the last section and the parts with David, mostly, but any other part that could be relevant, too. Thoughts?