‘The Last of Us’ Teases a ‘Game of Thrones’ Style Death

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The challenge of adaption is knowing what to change, not just narratively, but also mechanically. In a video game adaptation, the issue becomes obvious when turning gameplay—actions made by a player, and not just by a character—into an entirely passive viewing experience. Change nothing, and you lose that player/character connection. Change too much and you might as well be telling a different story.

In The Last of Us, a game that succeeds by implicating the player in its characters’ moral decision-making, that adaptation issue is especially obvious. How do you implicate a viewer in the actions of cinematic characters?

It was an issue that writers Neil Druckmann (who also wrote the game) and Craig Mazin overcame in Episode 5 using dramatic irony—where Ellie, knowing that Sam is infected, attempts to save him instead of telling Joel; the knowledge implicates her (and so the audience) in Sam’s death. In the game, Ellie discovers Sam’s infection along with Joel, absolving her character.

In Episode 6, the series adapts another sudden act of violence: Joel’s injuries sustained during an attack. The reveal of these injuries, however, unfolds a bit differently in the series, where it’s only after the attack that we see the wounds.

The violence in the game was more sudden and brutal. (It is one of the few instances in the series where the moment falls short of the game’s intensity.) Still, the filmmakers found a way to turn the moment into effective cinema, leaving us with the same question.

What will happen to Joel?

Does Joel die in HBO’s The Last of Us?

We’ll have to wait until next week to see how the series adapts the next part of the story. We do, however, know the game’s direction.

Spoilers ahead ....

Does Joel die in The Last of Us video game?

No. But the injury is a lot worse.

In the game, Joel and Ellie are fleeing from inside the hospital; the attackers have come in swarms—maybe 20 total—and Joel and Ellie must run-and-gun their way out. As Joel (and, in this moment, the player) makes for a door, leading from an outside corridor overlooking the hospital’s courtyard, a man bursts through, throwing Joel against the courtyard railing. It’s a moment where gameplay seamlessly transitions to cutscene: the two struggle, and then both fall. The perspective of the fall is a skyward view from the courtyard, where a protruding piece of rebar frames the foreground. Joel and the attacker fall towards the camera. Joel is impaled on the rebar.

(You can watch the moment here, around 7:51:04. There are no spoilers for the show here.)

It is sudden and surprising moment for a player who was just seconds before in Joel’s POV.

The same surprise took place earlier in gameplay. In the beginning, we play as Sarah up until the moment of her cutscene death. We’re already primed for this type of shock—knowing that the game could indeed go there. First-time players are made to expect the worst: maybe Joel has died.

In the series, this sort of player-character proximity is not as easily achieved. Instead, we experience Joel’s injury through Ellie’s perspective, creating a kind of distancing between the audience and Joel.

The technique here seems to accomplish something different, though not necessarily less effective: we’re made to feel Ellie’s helplessness as much as Joel’s pain.

Still, the video game injury hits like a bloater’s fist to the head. It’s a difficult moment to top. The show did its best.

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