Back to the Drawing Board! #1 - The Last of Us, or How NOT To Kill Your Main Character and Alienate Your Audience!

Welcome to the first edition of what I hope will be a regular blog for me (at least semi-regular). As a storyteller, I can’t help but judge other stories. Regardless of their medium, whether reading a book, watching a show/movie, or playing a video game, I want to first and foremost be entertained (as I’m sure a great many of you reading this will agree). To that end, sometimes the stories presented fall short of my bar and disappoint me. This is not a straight bashing or review, but rather a “What if…?” where I identify where the story broke my immersion and how’d I fix it. Yes, I know this is very subjective. But let’s be honest, isn’t everything related to reviewing stories? What makes the word of so-called “experts” and “professionals” reviewers/critics any more legitimate than a regular Joe Schmoe like me?

What makes this different from a regular review blog is that I’m not just saying what I liked/loved/disliked/hated about a story. I plan to dig deeper into what works, what doesn’t, and how to “fix” the story to reach its full potential. No, I’m not just going to say “Throw it all out and start again!” The challenge here is to take those pieces that work or could work and craft something new from them to replace the parts that don’t. Or to even take those things that didn’t work and re-tool them into a possible working scenario.

So here’s my first “Back to the Drawing Board!” piece: The Last of Us series. If you aren’t familiar with this series, it began as a video game on the PS3 (which I played), later garnering a sequel (Part 2) and then recently was picked up for an HBO series, which just finished airing its second season at the time of this writing. Now, I’ve never seen the HBO series, and there’s good reason. Because I watched what happened in Part 2, and, let’s just say, I knew the series creator Neil Druckman would stubbornly cling to the choices made in that video game for the show (https://x.com/asnauthor/status/1898525678242283945).

And they suck! I am being completely serious when I say that Part 1 was a masterpiece! A rare game that kept me (and tons of other players) going almost entirely because of the story of Joel and Ellie. It was gripping. It hit hard. It made most of us tear up and reach for a Kleenex. By the end of the game, you felt like you had a transcendent experience and I dare any non-gamer to play it and tell me they still consider video games an inferior medium compared to books or cinema!

And then…Part 2 kicked open the door, slapped our mommas, dropped their pants and took a steaming dump on the series before having the gall to call us stupid for not understanding its “deeper message.” I’ve had this game stuck in my craw for years because of what they did to Joel and Ellie, as well as many other supporting characters, and for its disgustingly nihilistic and anti-man narrative. Well, now that the normies have witnessed the same storytelling atrocity in Season 2 (which I predicted on X/Twitter months back), I’m deciding it’s time to take a golf club to Neil Druckman’s terrible Part 2 and offer my take on how I would fix the story.

PART 1: Backstory (SPOILERS AHEAD!)

  Alright, let’s assume you know nothing about the story of The Last of Us. It’s a take on the zombie apocalypse, where the “zombie virus” is a form of real-world cordyceps fungus that’s mutated from attaching and controlling ants into humans. Our main character, Joel, escapes the initial outbreak with his daughter only for her to unexpectedly and violently die soon after. Fast forward several years, and Joel is now living in one of the remaining, dystopian human cities as a smuggler of sorts, with a reputation for breaking arms or killing anyone who crosses him. Enter Ellie, a pre-teen girl who was bitten by an “infected” several weeks prior yet didn’t turn. A group of underground freedom fighters, the Fireflies, hires Joel to smuggle her out of the city and across what’s left of America to a Firefly medical facility where they hope to extract a cure. Over the course of the game, they survive attacks and ambushes from the infected, what’s left of the military, roving bands of raiders, and even the Fireflies, who aren’t being forthcoming about what they plan to do with Ellie. At the end of the game, Joel is faced with a choice: sacrifice Ellie or save her and disappear to one of the only free human settlements left in America.

  Joel is a hardened survivor, struggling to live on but too stubborn to die. Over the course of the game, Joel, unwilling to take this job at first and seeing Ellie as little more than a liability, grows to see her as a surrogate daughter, and she likewise a father-figure in him. Their bond is the glue that keeps the story together, up to the heartbreaking reveal at the end when Joel is told by the medical team that in order to extract the cure, they have to kill her and harvest what they can from her, leading to him busting into the operating room and shooting the doctor and the Firefly leader dead before spiriting Ellie away, hiding from her the awful truth. Again, I cannot overstate what an emotional tour de force this game’s story is. And the ending left us hopeful, that maybe in this messed up world, they’d be alright; that they’d find a happy life together in the end.

So when Part 2 was announced, fans (myself included) were initially excited. Then, weeks before release, leaks from one of the game’s developers exposed the horrible truth. Part 2 takes everything great about Part 1’s story and curb stomps it.

Some years have passed, and Joel and Ellie are living within the free city you briefly come across in the first game. Ellie is now more of a rebellious teenager, acting out towards Joel because he still tries to protect her like his daughter (which she perceives as him treating her like a child). While both are out on patrol, they come across another band of humans escaping a horde of infected. They reach the safety of an abandoned ski lodge, only for the first of many kicks in the nads to occur. Turns out, the group they saved are looking for Joel to kill him, and they succeed when their leader, Abby, shoots out his leg and beats him to death with a golf club while the others hold Ellie down as she watches. They leave, and Ellie embarks on a personal quest of vengeance against the group for the remainder of the game.

Whereas the first game left me with a bittersweet hope for the future of Joel and Ellie, Part 2 left me loathing practically every character, especially the leads Ellie and Abby, and killed any interest I’ll ever have in playing Part 3 (if it ever comes out), or Part 1 again, or watching the HBO series. There’s a lot I could dissect about Part 2 from a storytelling standpoint, but that would require almost a small book to properly catalogue every one of my gripes. For now, let’s focus on the introduction of Abby and the killing of Joel.

PART 2: What’s Broken

Firstly, let’s address death in storytelling, particularly concerning main characters. In short, you don’t take a main character’s death, particularly one so beloved as Joel, and just brutally murder him like John Wick’s dog. Neil Druckman will assert that he was just subverting expectations in order to set up a more compelling narrative about the futility and emptiness of vengeance (just listen to his interviews about the subject if you care to hear it directly from that bloviating buffoon). Well, he succeeded, much to many a fan’s chagrin. To be fair, there are defenders of Part 2’s story, and fine, I’m not going to try to change their minds. We can disagree civilly as adults.

The problem with Neil’s attitude (besides his arrogance and hatred for the fans) is that he forgets why people loved the first Last of Us so much. It was Joel (with Ellie being a close second). We watched him go from a broken man, long lamenting the death of his daughter at the beginning of the game, to a hardened father figure and protector for Ellie, finding some healing in their journey together. We watched as he made difficult choices in saving Ellie, keeping her safe from the infected and what was left of the human race, almost dying protecting her, all the while seeing the layers of cynicism and hopelessness slowly peel away to reveal the human still hiding within. He was the heart of the story that kept the narrative going.

So it isn’t hyperbole to say that what Neil did was rip the heart out of the story and golf club it to death in a sadistically unnecessary way. You don’t do that and then act surprised when fans scream obscenities at you for ruining the story they love. You can kill off the secondary characters a little more flippantly (not saying you always do), but the main characters deserve far more respect. Case in point, how Tolkien treated Gandalf’s death in Fellowship of the Ring. Up to that point, Gandalf was a main character: he set off the events for Frodo and the others to begin their journey; the council respected and listened to him about what to do with the One Ring; and, everyone mourned his death. Tolkien understood that a character of such importance to the narrative required an equally important death. And Gandalf’s sacrifice is such a pivotal moment it remains deeply ingrained in fantasy and pop culture lore. He stands tall against a massive foe of darkness, giving the rest of the fellowship a chance to escape. He’s heroic, self-sacrificing, and courageous, despite only a few paragraphs before he's rocked by the Balrog’s power, visibly shaken.

That is how you treat the death of a beloved main character! You give it purpose, meaning, and treat it with respect. You don’t golf club it out of the blue like Last of Us Part 2! When you first meet Abby, you don’t know she’s looking for Joel, or even what he did to warrant her vengeance. It’s only about halfway through the game (I know the HBO series put this part near the beginning of Season 2 from what I’ve read/heard about it) that the truth is revealed: she’s the daughter of the doctor Joel killed at the end of the first game. While her murderous motivation makes sense, narratively speaking, it comes at the expense of a known, beloved character. We, the audience, know next to nothing about Abby when she uses Joel’s head like a golf ball. She hasn’t proven herself to us. She hasn’t yet shown herself to be a character we can 1) relate to; 2) empathize with; and/or 3) root for. And she never will, because she killed the heart of the video game/show! It’s like killing John Wick’s dog: the audience won’t love you, no matter how justified your motivations are, and will actively cheer against you if not outright hate you (as a great many of us who played/watched the game can attest, and now that same phenomenon is playing out with HBO losing 55% of their viewers from Season 1 (https://screenrant.com/the-last-of-us-season-2-finale-ratings-viewers/). Gotta love being right sometimes).

PART 3: My Fix

How would I have handled this story element, assuming I’d foolishly continue with the plan to kill Joel. Well, that’s a tall order, but I would first start by giving Abby her own video game (in the case of the HBO series, at least half the second season all to herself). Start by showing Abby with her father as in her flashbacks during Part 2. Let us play the opening of the game as them, seeing the world through their eyes, getting to know the Fireflies more and her father’s role in the organization as a doctor. Keep hidden who her father ultimately is though. The point of this is to help us connect with Abby, to show she isn’t this inhuman monster who will eventually rip out our hearts with a golf club. Do this at the beginning rather than trying (and failing) to rehabilitate her image after the gruesome murder of Joel is completed.

From there, cut just before the death of her father and let some time pass. She’s grown up, rolling with her crew from the beginning of Part 2. Let us then play the game through their eyes for a few chapters, get to know them, their beliefs, their backstories (keep Abby’s father’s death hidden), and their group dynamics. What we only know is that they’re hunting for a man, but not who yet. Give us a chance to know and relate to them, to empathize with and root for them. They don’t have to be virtuous heroes, but at least have them err on the side of good more often than not.

After several scrapes with the infected and other murderous human factions, they find themselves near the settlement Joel and Ellie escaped to. By this point, we’ve already spent several hours with these characters, getting to know them. We still don’t yet know of their plot of vengeance against Joel, which is good because if we wanted to emotionally gut punch the audience, it would be best to wait until closer to the end of the video game (or TV season).

Set up the meeting between Joel and Abby organically. Credit to the YouTube channel that I first heard this from (forgot the name, sorry. It’s been at least a year since hearing this. And I don’t want to give credit to the wrong guy). Their idea of having Abby meet Ellie while she’s on patrol and have them take a little adventure together before Ellie brings her back and introduces her to Joel is a great idea (especially if you wanted to set up the Ellie vengeance plot that takes over the last 2/3s of Part 2). One other idea I have is keep the set-up of Abby’s gang being ambushed by a horde of infected and then rescued by Joel and Ellie, escaping into the abandoned ski lodge. It’s at that point Abby sees Joel and we immediately flash back to when he murdered her father. We see through her eyes Joel leaving, carrying Ellie out of the operation room, before Abby rushes in to find her father dead. Let us see Abby’s suffering as she cradles her father’s lifeless head, then have her rush out to find Joel, only to catch the taillights of his car driving off when she reaches the street.

However you set it up, it’s the next part that will still anger fans. But if done correctly, they will at least respect your story and stick around for Part 3. Joel cannot die meaninglessly nor cruelly just for the sake of cruelty or shock value. I would advocate you don’t kill him, but, assuming I was Neil Druckman high off my own arrogance and inability to listen to fans, here’s a scenario that could work.

While inside the ski lodge, Joel, Ellie, Abby and her group find out some infected snuck in through another way. Let a fight ensue, during which a Clicker (a more advanced and highly dangerous infected form) gets ahold of Abby, going for the kill. Joel rushes in to spear the Clicker with his shoulder, knocking it off her, but having the unfortunate side effect of having both tumble down a stair case or over the side of a second floor railing. Joel, being human, feels the effects of the fall more than the Clicker, which is able to get back up and starts clicking to find him (Clickers are blind because of the way the fungus grows on the human head. So they rapidly click their tongues and listen for noises around them to find their prey). Everything’s quiet and tense as the last Clicker hunts Joel.

Abby sees this and takes advantage by throwing an object at Joel to create noise, drawing the Clicker to him. Joel is able to fight it off and kill it. But now he’s confronted with Abby and her gang on the second floor, who have Ellie hostage. Abby is staring down at Joel, gun drawn, where he pleads to have them let Ellie go. Abby reveals who she is and how Joel murdered her father. Then she says that perhaps she should kill Ellie, since Joel loves her just so he can know her pain of holding a dying loved one. Joel again pleads for Ellie’s life and offers himself up instead to save her, claiming the decision to murder Abby’s father was his alone. Ellie protests, but Abby accepts and orders her friends to throw Ellie out of the room.

From there, we see things through Ellie’s eyes as she beats against a closed door. While on the other side, we hear muffled words and shouts before a gun shot and a loud thump upon the floor. The door opens, and Abby and her gang push their way through Ellie before leaving her alone to rush in and find Joel shot dead. She grieves, and the game (or show season) ends with Abby leaving the area, satisfied that she avenged her father, and a proper funeral for Joel, with Ellie swearing vengeance.

Here, Joel dies with dignity. He dies for Ellie, not just because of her. He dies as a father figure, willing to sacrifice himself for his “child.” It’s a noble death. A tragic death, yes, but one that at least has more meaning to it than Abby yelling “Fore!” before practicing her back swing on him. I still don’t want Joel to die. But, if I had to kill him, this is how I’d do it. He’d die as a man, proud and on his feet, for something worthwhile/he loves; not like how Part 2 handled it, on his knees like a dog just because he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time (they also made Joel a complete dummy compared to Part 1, but that’s for another blog post). Again, treat Joel with respect; not like the thugs needlessly beating John Wick’s dog to death just because they can (last time I reference that, I swear).

And, here too, Abby is at least seen in a more sympathetic light. We don’t immediately see her as a monster, but as a human, wounded and trying to find healing by killing the man that took her father from her. We don’t have to agree with her motivations. And we will still likely hate her after murdering our favorite character. But we would at least hate her less because we understood her from the beginning, and not because of terrible narrative writing/decisions. And certainly not because of Neil’s incessant force-feeding her down our throats while demanding we love her (again, another blog post to fully explore)!

PART 4: Conclusion

Again, I still advocate you don’t kill Joel, at least not at the beginning of the story. He deserves a hero’s ending, a triumphant send off at the end. And what The Last of Us Part/Season 2 shows us is the importance of these types of characters to fans and to the greater story. Once you remove them, especially in such an inglorious manner, the rest of the story crumbles like a house of cards (as is proven by gamers’ reactions years back and now, again, by the normies watching the TV series. It’s no coincidence that the rating for both Part and Season 2 have cratered worse than Wile E. Coyote).

This isn’t the end of my fixing Last of Us. Oh no! There is far, FAR more I want to say about the story and how to fix it. But that’ll have to wait for another blog.

Hopefully I spared you from having to continue past Part 1 of this story, if you happen to get that far. I will advocate that everyone play the first video game at least once (I don’t recommend the HBO series. They changed too much for the worse from what I’m seeing and hearing). There is a lot of good potential still waiting to be tapped within that story’s lore. Unfortunately, though, with nihilistic putzes like Neil Druckman stubbornly refusing to listen to fans (going so far as to insult them also. Not a great plan), I doubt we’ll ever see any of it fully realized.

Thank you for reading! If you like this breakdown and want to see more, please consider donating https://www.asnauthor.com/donate. Also, join my monthly newsletter when you donate (or from my site) to know when another blog has dropped and to be the first to know when my next books are being published.