Ziklag T8.27 Joel
The Last of Us and Fatherhood
SOS Discipline - Daily Proverb and Red Letter Reader
The fool is his own trouble. cf. Pr. 11:29
There is nothing that goes unseen in the end. cf. Mt. 10:42
The Transformation of Joel
Telling Lies in “the Last of Us”
In the gritty, post-apocalyptic world of "The Last of Us," survival hinges on a delicate balance of brutality and compassion. At the heart of this narrative is Joel, a character whose journey encapsulates a profound transformation from a broken man to one who rediscovers his humanity through his relationship with a young girl, Ellie, whom he is paid to traffic for a local resistance movement called the Fireflies.
Joel’s transformation is not merely a backdrop to an action game, but a poignant commentary that draws the player into a dream of harsh truths and the lengths to which a man will go to protect those he loves. The story begins with unimaginable loss—the death of his daughter, Sarah, shot but “friendly fire” during the initial zombie uprising. This tragedy shatters Joel’s moral compass and leaves him emotionally barren. Stripped of his ability to connect, Joel becomes a hardened survivor. The next we see him, he is grim and sullen, driven by the necessity of survival rather than any deeper moral or emotional convictions. His relationship with Tess, his female partner in smuggling, is emblematic of this detachment. Their bond is practical, built on mutual benefit rather than emotional intimacy, further highlighting Joel's retreat from his own humanity.
Initially, Joel's interaction with Ellie is likewise purely transactional. He takes on the job of escorting her across the dangerous landscape as a means to an end. Yet, as they journey together, facing countless threats and forging a bond through shared trials, something begins to shift in Joel. Ellie's resilience, her naivety, and her unyielding spirit start to break down the walls Joel has built around himself.
The father in him reawakens.
This transformation reaches its apex in the game's climactic moments where, faced with the knowledge that Ellie will be dissected by the Fireflies in their pursuit of an antidote for the apocalypse, Joel makes a controversial decision, after saving Ellie, to tell her that they didn’t want her, and that her immunity wasn’t going to help anyone.
Understanding the risk in ways that Ellie could not, seeing how the human conscience and survivor-guilt move the young to folly, Joel chose to protect the child by shielding her rather than try to convince her naivete of the evils of the age.
This fatherly sovereignty over the little girl, who seems so much a woman, and yet even therein is wont to miss the love born by cold logic in near-sightedness of emotional truth:.
Saving Ellie is a such a complex moral decision that the Last of Us would not be the one-of-a-kind, life-experience that it is without it. Protecting innocence at the cost of expectations is the kind of fatherhood most homes are sorely missing.
Now, if only playing such a game could make one such a man. But, for that, one will need to put the blue light down….
