The Last of Us - Jeremy Webb 2023
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The most surface level take on Last of Us 2 is that it’s about violence and inhumanity; you’re getting closer if you realize that the ugliness of violence is meant to be understood as the game’s vehicle for illustrating its message about vengeance.
I think what Last of Us 2 does that is really profound is that it supercedes its protagonist in order to illustrate the experience of having their worldview. Playing as Abby gives us empathy for that character as an audience, but the thing that makes that thematically relevant to Ellie is that it creates a framework for empathizing with her choices at the end. By forcing you to take a step back and experience Abby’s story, it also forces you to understand how utterly irrelevant it is to Ellie’s obsession with her. Ellie’s hatred is based on an event, it’s based on trauma and emotion, and as such it is detached from empathy. The realization that the hatred of Abby has nothing to do with Abby—the audience has already been set up for that understanding by the structure of the game. That’s why Abby’s perspective matters so much. That kind of writing, that grabs you by the collar and forces you to engage with theme through different perspectives rather than being tied to simply presenting it in linear fashion and hoping the audience is willing to follow along… That is so much deeper of an engagement with a story’s ideas than you will see in almost any game. It’s also very challenging and asks a lot of you, as the player, immersed in characters and story, but you really cannot take away from the depth of it. It is about experiencing empathy, where it comes from and how it’s lost and where it goes, not just considering it abstractly. When I see people write the game off for wanting to say something but just being a simple story about “violence bad” or whatever, it is just betraying people’s own unwillingness to actually engage meaningfully with it as an experience.
thinking about how orpheus turning to look back at eurydice isn’t a sign of mortal frailness but a sign of love
“Eurydice, dying now a second time, uttered no complaint against her husband. What was there to complain of, but that she had been loved?”
― Ovid, Metamorphoses
Orpheus, I can forgive you, then,
There’s not a soul alive who wouldn’t have looked back
thinking about how orpheus turning to look back at eurydice isn’t a sign of mortal frailness but a sign of love
“Eurydice, dying now a second time, uttered no complaint against her husband. What was there to complain of, but that she had been loved?”
― Ovid, MetamorphosesThis is true no matter the version you're reading.
1. Eurydice trips and Orpheus turns to help her because he loves her.
2. Orpheus cannot hear Eurydice behind him, and fearing that he's been tricked, turns to make sure she's there.
3. Orpheus makes it out of the Underworld, and so full of love and excitement to be with Eurydice, turns to embrace her, forgetting that they both need to be out of the Underworld.
No matter what happens in the story, Orpheus loses Eurydice because his love for her compels him to look.
The Descent, by Tyler King
Don’t forget Gluck’s opera, where Eurydice doesn’t know Orpheus is forbidden to look back, Orpheus is also forbidden to tell her, she assumes he must not love her anymore, and Orpheus finally looks back to reassure her of his love because he can’t bear her anguish.
In that version in particular, but possibly in all retellings, a part of us wants Orpheus to look back, because his failure proves his love.
god-u
