The Last of Us and the Loss of Love
The moral case for understanding what happens when love is lost.
Love is a magical thing.
It gives you an incredible feeling that is pretty much unmatched by any other. Love makes you feel as if you could do pretty much anything. You’re willing to believe that anything is possible in part because of how the way you feel is so energizing. This is something that is in large part due to the fact that you’ve found someone to love. To know that you have found the person who makes you feel as though life is worth living. When you find it you’re willing to do almost anything to keep it, including in some cases hurting others just to make sure your love is safe.
The problem with being willing to hurt others in order to keep love is that you run the risk of losing it. Of seeing all those incredible feelings this person gives you going away. If you’re lucky, it won’t be any kind of serious loss, such as an ordinary break up, either mutually or because the other person has decided to leave you. At the very least you still know that this person is in the world somewhere. But even then you’re going to want to protect it and maybe find a way to save it. Especially if that protection involves taking out the love of someone else, whether it’s family or something more powerful. You will turn these people you hurt against you and that makes it even harder to protect what you have.
When you lose the love you have, it’s incredibly devastating. It leaves a hole in your heart which might never be filled. Particularly if the person you love has died. All those feelings which made you feel so wonderful are gone forever. You’ll never get them back, leaving you empty. The kind of hole that makes you angry and bitter on a level few people truly understand unless you’ve actually lost love yourself. Part of you will come to feel like the world is a cruel place, giving you the opportunity to feel love so powerful but also take it away from you.
The Last of Us is very much about what happens when you lose such an important thing as love. Joel, as played brilliantly by Pedro Pascal, has lost everyone he has ever loved. His wife, his daughter, they’re all gone. To the point where he has given up on the idea of ever finding it again. So when he’s presented with someone who could actually be worth caring about in Ellie, he struggles with the idea of ever wanting to care about anyone. Ellie has the potential to give him hope again, but he knows where opening yourself up to love again can ultimately end, in tragedy. Letting yourself feel that type of thing when you know where it goes is extremely difficult.
It’s a beautiful thing and I encourage you to explore the tragedy of losing love by checking out The Last of Us as soon as you can.
Watch The Last of Us on HBO Max and Hulu in the United States, Crave and Amazon in Canada.
The Last of Us and the Loss of Love
I could talk about both the show and video games all day long! The show depicts the fear of loving and losing well. The game does it even more poignantly against the constant dangers it throws at you.