The Whole World is Dying: Feminism, Psychoanalysis, Video Games and The Last of Us

Video games have long lived a life as being just a recreational tool for people to get away from the hassles of everyday life. People sit at home in front of a console and play for hours and in some cases days without stopping. Yet the thought of video games as a tool for literary theory is still new for many people. Most believe that games don’t have stories and perpetuate violence to younger generations, the characters are two dimensional, and the story just isn’t a substantial literary device. There is often a misconception that for something to be a work of literature it must be written in a book and studied in classrooms. Within the past few years the gaming industry has introduced many video games that have had long storylines that parallel many novels that have been written throughout the years.  Many of these games are also being adapted to film just as many books have. So has the industry of literature as a medium for entertainment expanded to include video games? In Jesper Juul’s article “Games Telling stories?-A brief note on games and narratives,” he asks the question “Do games tell stories?” This can be answered by the release of Naughty Dog’s 2013 video game The Last of Us, in which the story plays a central role to the video game. Another aspect of this game that can also be used in a critical lens is the fact that the majority of the characters that interact with the two main protagonist are female. The game doesn’t follow many traditional gender roles, the main female protagonist of the game can attest to that as she herself doesn’t follow the traditional role of a damsel in distress. An additional aspect would also be the deep psychological ideas that the game instills on the player through the story, the main female protagonist clings to a father figure because she didn’t grow up with her parents. Everyone she gets close to dies either right in front of her or due to the illness that she is immune to, she masks her feelings through other interest but it doesn’t hide the deep psychological scars that follow her. What is it about the female characters in The Last of Us that break barriers in both psychological views as well as feminist views? There may be a reason why there are so many strong female characters in The Last of Us, a story set in a post-pandemic society, could it be that telling a story through multiple mediums change the perspective of how women could be in the future.

The story of The Last of Us can be used by almost any literary criticism to discuss the issues, problems, and character developments throughout the game. Though in order to discuss the strength of the female characters in the game feminist theorist Hélène Cixous may offer a stronger insight. In Cixous’ “The Laugh of the Medusa” she writes, “The future must no longer be determined by the past. I do not deny that the effects of the past are still with us. But I refuse to strengthen them by repeating them, to confer upon them an irremovability the equivalent of destiny, to confuse the biological and the cultural. Anticipation is imperative.” (Cixous 875) This is relevant to the female characters of The Last of Us because each one has a past, but they also don’t share the same patriarchal ties as the world before the outbreak of the cordyceps fungus. In the post-pandemic world everything has become a battle of survival of the fittest, which has destroyed gender roles. According to Lois Tyson’s book Critical Theory Today, Tyson says that “Traditional gender roles cast men as rational, strong, protective, and decisive; they cast women as emotional (irrational), weak, nurturing, and submissive.” (Tyson 81) The question of where would women fit in a world without patriarchal roles or without men taking the lead is one that is quickly answered with the introduction of two female characters who are strong and fit into Cixous’ theory when she says “It is time to liberate the New Woman from the Old by coming to know her – by loving her for getting by, for getting beyond the Old without delay, by going out ahead of what the New Woman will be, as an arrow quits the bow with a movement that gathers and separates the vibrations musically, in order to be more than her self.” (Cixous 878) Cixous wants women to break away from the patriarchal holds that have them bound to the old world view where would where they would be bound to being in the submissive role.

The first female character that is introduced in The Last of Us that fits into Cixous’ view of women breaking free is Tess. Though a minor character like most of those that are introduced within the story she is also one of the stronger characters. Not afraid to fight against men when she’s wronged or to help when it is needed she doesn’t fit into the old world views on women, she also tells it like it is saying "Guess what, we're shitty people, Joel. It's been that way for a long time." (The Last of Us) Tess works alongside the story’s male protagonist Joel as a smuggler inside the Boston Quarantine Zone, often having to hold her own she very smart, confident, and ruthless. Eric Monacelli a community strategist for Naughty Dog says that “Her ability to generate intelligent plans to secure the contraband for their trade is second to none. Tess and Joel subscribe to the same dog-eat-dog philosophy. They survive by being willing to do what others can’t or won’t.” (Playstation Blog) The second character to fit into Cixous’ view of the New Woman is Marlene, the leader of the militia group The Fireflies. Marlene is one of two African American characters that appear in the story but she is also a determined character who works for the demilitarization of the quarantine zones where most of the survivors live. She is also one of the antagonist of the story which shows that women could play the good and the bad. In The Last of Us American Dreams Marlene says “You have no idea what we have to sacrifice for you people.” Emphasizing the sacrifices that have to be made for those who don’t know what the Fireflies really do.

The main female protagonist of the story is probably one of the strongest female characters in the whole game, and she’s only fourteen years old. Unlike Tess and Marlene, Ellie was born into a world already plagued with problems and is more mature than any kid her age outside of the video game. She questions everything because she’s only ever lived within the confines of a military preparatory school, swears like a sailor, and can shot a gun. Ellie is also the only character within the world of the story that is immune to the disease. She embodies the role that feminist theory wishes all women would have to become someone that is not tied down by gender roles, but this might have something to do with her character being born six years after the outbreak of the virus. Ellie also has no parental roles that would instill the patriarchal roles of girl and boy. She’s the only character that appears in the whole series starting with American Dreams through The Last of Us, and lastly in Left Behind. Even though the majority of the gameplay within the base video game is through the story’s other protagonist Joel, the whole of the story is connect to Ellie. In an interview with Kotaku’s Kirk Hamilton, “Zombies, Women & Citizen Kane: Last of Us Makers Defend Their Game”, series writer and co-creator Neil Druckmann says "you could make the argument that it's just Joel's story. But for us, our artistic intent was to create a story both for Joel and Ellie. They both have pretty significant arcs, they both affect one another, and they both are really changed by the end. And ultimately the final decision is made by Ellie, not Joel, when she says, 'Okay.' (Kotaku.com) Ultimately the creators of the game have given Ellie a part in the dual protagonist story, showing the strength of having a female take lead in a video game. Instead of making the game about one character it choose to use two in order to show the struggles of both.

Another way to view The Last of Us is through a psychological perspective of the main female protagonist story and Sigmund Freud’s views from The Interpretation of Dreams. Freud writes “In my experience, which is already extensive, the chief part in the mental lives of all children who later become psychoneurotics is played by their parents. Being in love with the one parent and hating the other are among the essential constituents of the stock of psychical impulses which is formed at that time and which is of such importance in determining the symptoms of the later neurosis.”(Freud 919) This is the bases of Freud’s Oedipus Complex in which a child must love one parent and hate the other, and later by rejecting the parent they love to bond with the one they hate than this would make them regular human beings. Ellie is an orphan and has no parental figures before she meets Marlene, Tess, and Joel, yet she is able to become a strong willed individual which goes against what Freud is saying. Yet this changes when she meets Joel who essentially becomes a father figure to her. Ellie also carries around a letter from her deceased mother, Anna, which shows that she wishes to have a connection to someone who has already died. The only true connection to her mother is through Marlene who hands her off to Joel so that he can take Ellie to a hospital that would try to use her as a specimen to reverse engineer a cure for the cordyceps infection. If Marlene is used as the mother figure, than Joel as the father figure in Ellie’s life would fit into Freud’s theory.

Freud’s theories on the unconscious are that they are influences by things that happen during childhood and they also involve fears of loss of several objects. Lois Tyson writes that “The notion that human beings are motivated, even driven by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware – that is, unconscious – was one of Sigmund Freud’s most radical insights, and it still governs classical psychoanalysis today.” (Tyson 12) This is both a part of the oedipal complex, but also goes further into the mind of a person. In the case of Ellie her biggest fear isn’t death, low self-esteem, or sense of self, she has a fear of abandonment. As opposed to Hélène Cixous theory that women should be free of all kinds of patriarchal oppression be shouldn’t hold themselves back. Freud’s theory rings closer to what the character hides deep within herself. Ellie tells Joel during an argument after he tries to hand her off to his brother "Everyone I have cared for has either died, or left me. Everyone - fucking except for you! So don't tell me that I would be safer with someone else, because the truth is I would just be more scared."(The Last of Us) Ellie has the belief that everyone she’s close to dies or leaves her out right which has her at times afraid of speaking about what she really feels. Another fear that she has the fear of intimacy which coincides with her abandonment issues because she is afraid that being too close to someone would eventually hurt her more than staying away because in the end everyone leaves.

Ellie’s abandonment issues come into full light in the sequel/prequel The Last of Us: Left Behind, when her best friend Riley comes back after joining the Fireflies. Before Riley is sent away on a big mission she decides that Ellie is the only person she wants to visit before she leaves. Riley is also the main love interest for Ellie which is a first, to have an openly lesbian character within a game, series creator and writer Neil Druckmann explains in an interview with gay gamer.net, that “Because we didn’t explore it [Ellie’s sexuality] one way or another in the main game, it was up for grabs in this story.” (gaygamer.net) Ellie and Riley’s relationship is short lived because the two of them get infected with the cordyceps virus. Unlike Ellie, Riley isn’t immune to the virus but Ellie’s immunity wasn’t known at the time of infection. Yet like all the things in her life Riley is someone who Ellie was close to who just so happen to die as well. Riley and Ellie’s last conversation in Left Behind ends with Riley saying "Way I see it, we got two options. One, we take the easy way out. It's quick and painless. I'm not a fan of option one. Two, we fight. There are a million ways we could've died today. And a million ways we could die before tomorrow. But we fight for every second we get to spend with each other. Whether its two minutes... or two days... we don't give that up. I don't want to give that up. My vote? Let's just wait it out. You know, we can be all poetic and just lose our minds together."(Left Behind)  This doesn’t happen because as Riley gets infected Ellie doesn’t and she has to leave behind her best friend and move forward. This is when Ellie develops survivor’s guilt because everyone either leaves her or dies and she just survives because she’s immune to the one thing that can kill off the human race.

It is a difficult task trying to explain this game in a genre of zombie games or even as a literary title. It’s best described by Tom Bissell’s article “True-ish Grit” in which he states that “In a lot of ways, actually, The Last of Us is a proudly and stylishly “literary” game, starting with its title, which rings with the plangent modesty of a mid-list novel from Knopf.” The game itself isn’t like most games released, its pure focus is the story of survival for the two protagonist as well as their relationship to one another. Video game genres for the most part has always been considered an all-boys club for many years. In From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins decide to understand why, “Too often, the study of computer games has meant the study of boys playing computer games. In fact, too often the very design of computer games for children has meant designing computer games for boys. Here, on the contrary, the study of computer games entails the study of girls. This study will lead us further in the understanding of what computer games can be, and what girls are (and are not). It also leads us to examine the hidden gendered assumptions that have existed in the design of computer games, which in turn leads us to understand better what boys are and are not.” (Cassell, Jenkins 5) Cassell and Jenkins decided to study why games are geared towards boys and not both sexes by taking a view that Cixous would approve of and that is to separate the problem that has girls on one side and boys on the other side. They also take it from a psychological point of view by looking into the psychology of why some of the most popular games including the ones with female characters, such as Lara Croft, are geared towards boys. For many The Last of Us would be a game that would be considered a game for only men but with the context and the recent rise of literature that is based on the zombie genre more girls are gravitating towards video games.

As for what The Last of Us could be considered Reid McCarter’s article “The Last of Us, Chaos, and Control” explains the many difference of the game saying, “The Last of Us is about many different things. It is a dark adventure tale, a tragic story of two people coping with grief, an indictment of patriarchal power dynamics, and, most of all, a post-apocalyptic drama.” (McCarter) Although McCarter is making a good point he misses the point when he says post-apocalyptic, because the game and the graphic novel occurs after a pandemic, the world isn’t close to ending, the apocalypse didn’t happen. The lives of the characters whether they’re minor characters, or the main characters are intertwined in a web of tragedy that are all tied to the main antagonist in the game and that would be the virus itself. Though the game does have several human antagonist the environment plays the harshest role against the characters. The virus is what could eventually kill Ellie. When Marlene has to make the decision to create a cure she records a message to Ellie’s deceased mother saying, "Apparently, there's no way to extricate the parasite without eliminating the host. Fancy way of saying we gotta kill the fucking kid. And now they're asking for my go ahead. The tests just keep getting harder and harder, don't they? I'm so tired. I'm exhausted and I just want this to end … so be it.” (The Last of Us) For Ellie who is immune to the virus it is also the one thing that can kill her in the end. This shows that even in dire situations an immune person isn’t safe from the thing that has killed so many others. This is a major plot twist in the game because it is also where Joel realizes that Ellie has become like a daughter to him and he doesn’t want her to die. He takes a fatherly role towards Ellie, which includes lying to her to spare her feelings.

The thought of video games as a form of literature is still a new concept and with the gaming industry using a mixture of writers, animators, live-motion capture, and actors the games have turned into a type of storytelling that mirrors what many would read in a full length book. Yet the game industry has created more female role models in video games but some of the most popular series still are, outside of those created my Naughty Dog, geared towards male players. The Last of Us is one of those rare games that even though has a dual protagonist story line has captured the attention of players from both sexes and all ages. The opening sequence of the game shows the love of a father for his daughter and the tragedy of her death at the hands of someone in the military. Joel is reminded of this by one of the characters that helps him and Ellie just outside the Boston quarantine zone, Bill says, "You know, as bad as those things are, at least they're predictable. It's the normal people that scare me. You of all people should understand that."(The Last of Us) When what is considered to be predictable is someone infected with a virus over what people can do creates tension and foreshadows towards several of Joel and Ellie’s stops along their trip cross-country. For Ellie, Bill’s words foreshadow towards a meeting during one stop where a character takes an interest in her and attempts to at first gain her trust because he sees Ellie as a pet that he can tame, and keep for himself. When Ellie isn’t complacent with his plans he tries to kill her and himself. Sometimes people are monsters especially when they’re faced with their own mortality.

            What The Last of Us shows in the terms of literary theory is the ability to adapt its story to multiple theories. Whether its Feminist theory and the words of Hélène Cixous, or looking at Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic criticism and finding out that all the characters are flawed in a way. A Marxist critic could look at the socio economic problems, as well as the materialist problems that occur in a society where survival is the only thing that is keeping people alive. Or someone could look at it from a philosophical perspective. Even with video game theory on the rise Jesper Juul says about video game narratives that “The basic problem of the narrative is the fact that a narrative can never be viewed independently, an sich. We can never see the story itself; we can only see it through another medium like oral storytelling, novels, and movies.” (Juul) Yet the game industry has started creating companions to many series in the form of novels or as graphic novels in order to tell a bigger story that cannot be told within a game. The combination of the two mediums has created a demand for more stories from a game that has more to tell than just go there and kill that. Maybe it will take a little longer for people to warm up to using literary criticism for video games. Maybe sometimes it takes one step from someone interested video games and literature to open up the conversation for further discussion.

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