Saved From What

Caution, this post does contain spoilers for The Last of Us.

In a story such as this, we are left asking “Who saved who?”, but sometimes also “Saved from what?” When talking through what I did and didn’t like about the conclusion of the latest show where Pedro Pascal escorts a child to safety, I came to an interesting conclusion. For those that have watched the show, Pedro’s character, Joel, does a very morally questionable thing as he elects to save Ellie from an experimental brain surgery that may produce a cure for the fungal infection that has destroyed society. Ellie could potentially be a martyr at the altar of science to save all of humanity. However, Joel, appearing to be selfish, “saves” her by killing many resistance fighters and a surgeon, just so he can “have her to himself”. This is the surface read of the final episode, and does leave a bad taste in your mouth about both Pedro’s character, and, if you’re me, the show entirely. There is more here. Ellie, in science based theory, has the potential to cure humanity of its very real and quantifiable problem, however, there is a problem with this problem. The show makes it very clear, in a backhanded way, that cordyceps aren't the only danger. In fact, humans, those that are not infected, are a much more real and lethal threat than the fungus. Most of the grief of the story revolves around Human vs Human conflict with the infected serving more as an environmental hazard than a looming threat. Joel, being a human, is referenced to and shown to be capable of brutal acts on his fellow man. He is infected with the terrible disease of humanity. Ellie does present a cure. Not a special “I’m genetically gifted and if you slice open my brian I can fix it” cure, but a normal, “anyone could do it to anyone” cure. She cares about him, and values him as a person. By the end of the season, Ellie has, in effect, cured Joel. She, and all humans, can cure themselves of the real threat to their post apocalyptic society, which is not cordyceps but rather their fellow man. While Joel, leads Ellie to safety on their journey and “saves her” in some very real way, it is actually Ellie who saves Joel from the horrors of his past and a sadness that may not be so exclusive to a person riddled with post apocalyptic trauma.

Those of us on earth who just lived through the past few years might find the concept of a global world ending pandemic a little close to home. During our pandemic, the real one, there was a shift in how we value information. We consulted experts, asked google, and distanced ourselves from others, sometimes when they needed us most. There was, and still is, no undeniable cure, only proven mitigations. I can’t say with certainty what would've happened to a young girl with a genetic mutation that could cure COVID. Would people have rallied to martyr her as well in the name of science just as they did to Ellie? I don’t know, and that perhaps should scare me. In many world altering events, people have volunteered their livelihood and sacrificed themselves in the name of science. People volunteered to sacrifice themselves to fight the terror. However, the data from these experiments can only combat the data of the terror. This isn’t some “fuck the government, science is dumb” rant. This is more a question of the origin of our hardship and what exactly we are against. The pandemic revealed that, regardless of virus, bacteria, or fungus, we are our own adversary. We are the source of our own misery, locally and globally. Ke Hey Quan’s character in Everything Everywhere All At Once, noted this feeling to the effect of “your clothes don’t wear the right way, your hair never settles the same, our institutions are failing, no one cares for their neighbors anymore.” We can put a number on infected, on mortalities. We can fight those numbers with our numbers, with rationality, logic and science, but not this. This is what makes it so sinister. We all experience it. We all feel it, however data and science cannot qualify it. If we can’t quantify it, we can’t fight it with logic and science. The only way we can save each other is the same way that Ellie saved Joel. We can use our only weapon, kindness. It’s all been said before, and likely said better by others in the past as this fight has been codified in legends and tales for centuries. “Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.”