The Last of Us: Part II (Release: 29.05.2020) - No spoilers

[Leagon]

IMO, the title has at least two different meanings. Or rather, one meaning with two main interpretations.

By "The Last of Us" it clearly means "The Last of Humanity." However, the word "humanity" has two meanings, one literal, one conceptual.

The game deals with both, as noted earlier by someone about how the Fireflies become just as brutal and morally expedient at the Hunters, who are just as brutal and dangerous as the clickers. The disease itself reflects this interpretation as it works in stages, going from the inactive zombie things, to the runners, to the clickers. In the disease's final stage, it takes the last of one's humanity and that is when we are most dangerous.

Final chapter Joel is a more prolific and unrepentant killer than the Joel earlier in the game. There's no Ellie to point out how horrific your kills are. To the soldiers in the hospital, Joel is essentially a clicker. He's creeping around, listening, searching for something to destroy. Sara's death took quite a bit out of him, but by the end, there's really nothing human left (other than, arguably, his love of Ellie, making Ellie herself an answer to the title).

But, yeah, the game could also refer to humanity in the biological sense. As in, no more humans. I'm with Gear in that I didn't necessarily assume that. The game is powerful both ways: on the one hand, Joel has doomed all of human kind; on the other hand, does the rest of humanity even matter after the ordeal we've been through? Isn't it enough to Joel and Ellie have become, in a sense, monsters?

 

[Madmick]

Only in your own mind, because the concession was never made.

It's implied. You refuse to offer any alternative interpretation of the title. I think you're fully aware that you dumbly overlooked it, as did so many other gamers who aren't trained readers in those pointless debates you remember from a few years back; the futility of which could have been avoided if armed with this simple kernel of knowledge and perspective.

You've stated your opinion that the title is important,

This is a universally understood truth by educated readers. Zinsser's On Writing Well has a phenomenal chapter on it, IIRC. It's a technique taught at universities around the country in composition classes, usually, but is also thereafter repeatedly raised in almost every language class for almost every work studied and reviewed.

and your interpretation of the title is what it is unless someone else posts an opinion that convinces you otherwise. At this point, you view the argument as more important than being right, so even if someone posts a detailed and logical opinion that most people would agree trumps yours, you're already emotionally invested in being right, or rather your ego as a mod won't let you be wrong. So I'm not going to bother convincing you your opinion is wrong, because it's just an opinion.

Btw, still waiting on any link to a development team quote that backs up your opinion, and until then, it's like your opinion, man.

No, I'm trying to educate you because you're a poor reader. This is really a common ignorance that has been allowed to fester due to the rise of schools like Deconstructionism/Postmodernism, but more acutely by the watering down of the discipline of the humanities. This notion that all art has valid multiple interpretations is a myth; simply because meaning isn't explicitly evident doesn't mean that there isn't a specific intent or meaning. It doesn't mean that it is multivalent or vague; it often merely means that it is dense or perhaps esoteric. It is a puzzle, perhaps with many jumbled pieces, but that doesn't mean it wasn't intended to be formed into a cohesive image. Let's examine a great example of this.

A narrow fellow in the grass (1096)
By Emily Dickinson

A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;
You may have met him—did you not
His notice sudden is,
The grass divides as with a comb,
A spotted shaft is seen,
And then it closes at your feet,
And opens further on.

He likes a boggy acre,
A floor too cool for corn,
But when a boy and barefoot,
I more than once at noon
Have passed, I thought, a whip lash,
Unbraiding in the sun,
When stooping to secure it,
It wrinkled and was gone.

Several of nature’s people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality.
But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.

Now, do you need Emily Dickinson to confirm for you who the "fellow in the grass" is? I certainly don't. Readers for over a hundred years haven't required her confirmation. It's never made explicit, yet there is only one correct interpretation. Only one.

You are the one who is attached to this somewhat infantile belief that every opinion is valid (what a wonderful refuge for people who don't do their homework). I'm dealing in reason and critical thinking.

 

[Madmick]

IMO, the title has at least two different meanings. Or rather, one meaning with two main interpretations.

By "The Last of Us" it clearly means "The Last of Humanity." However, the word "humanity" has two meanings, one literal, one conceptual.

The game deals with both, as noted earlier by someone about how the Fireflies become just as brutal and morally expedient at the Hunters, who are just as brutal and dangerous as the clickers. The disease itself reflects this interpretation as it works in stages, going from the inactive zombie things, to the runners, to the clickers. In the disease's final stage, it takes the last of one's humanity and that is when we are most dangerous.

Final chapter Joel is a more prolific and unrepentant killer than the Joel earlier in the game. There's no Ellie to point out how horrific your kills are. To the soldiers in the hospital, Joel is essentially a clicker. He's creeping around, listening, searching for something to destroy. Sara's death took quite a bit out of him, but by the end, there's really nothing human left (other than, arguably, his love of Ellie, making Ellie herself an answer to the title).

But, yeah, the game could also refer to humanity in the biological sense. As in, no more humans. I'm with Gear in that I didn't necessarily assume that. The game is powerful both ways: on the one hand, Joel has doomed all of human kind; on the other hand, does the rest of humanity even matter after the ordeal we've been through? Isn't it enough to Joel and Ellie have become, in a sense, monsters?

Perhaps it refers to the Fireflies who are the last "humans" in the sense of possessing the willingness to make individual sacrifices for the greater good. But the fireflies are shown to be a pseudo-terrorist group with a radical commitment to an anti-government cause, and they seem as motivated by fear as they are by a humane nobility. Perhaps it refers to the "good" characters we encounter in the story. Perhaps it refers to both Ellie and Joel in that they are the last humans who are willing to sacrifice yet more-- everything-- simply to sustain a profound and distinctly human connection.

This was an interpretation I considered, but it's far too feeble. First, no group is really granted a clear ownership of "humanity". Second, if it is intended to refer to disparate individuals we encounter such as Bill, then there is no reason to believe that these individuals will stop existing in this sustained post-apocalyptic environment. There are still people like Tommy and his wife out there. These aren't the "last" humanitarians. Third, in the case of Joel and Ellie, that doesn't stand up on the grounds that the current human race hasn't already made the conscious decision to self-destruct for some existential bond. "Us" doesn't make sense when that isn't what defines the present us.

Simply put, the reason this interpretation registers as invalid: if the human species isn't ending, then there is no compelling indication in the game that "humanity" will end despite the human race's survival.

All signs point to one obvious conclusion. The game is about the end of the species. The great philosophical question is whether something must be perpetuated in order to sustain meaning. This is a question that has always faced us. Without the certainty of God, as best we can tell, our lot as a biological species (just as it is for all our brethren) is to propagate. Perpetual motion seems to be the only purpose. The game investigates that.

It does this by presenting us with one potential ending of "us", and illuminates this against the backdrop of its incredible characters.

 

[electricfuneral]

last of us in canada. Starting in toronto, traveling to the safer norther territories.

 

[Leagon]

Perhaps it refers to the Fireflies who are the last "humans" in the sense of possessing the willingness to make individual sacrifices for the greater good. But the fireflies are shown to be a pseudo-terrorist group with a radical commitment to an anti-government cause, and they seem as motivated by fear as they are by a humane nobility.

Perhaps it refers to both Ellie and Joel in that they are the last humans who are willing to sacrifice yet more-- everything-- simply to sustain a profound and distinctly human connection.

This was an interpretation I considered, but it's far too feeble. First, no group is really granted a clear ownership of "humanity". Second, if it is intended to refer to disparate individuals we encounter such as Bill, then there is no reason to believe that these individuals will stop existing in this sustained post-apocalyptic environment. There are still people like Tommy and his wife out there. These aren't the "last" humanitarians. Third, in the case of Joel and Ellie, that doesn't stand up on the grounds that the current human race hasn't already made the conscious decision to self-destruct for some existential bond. "Us" doesn't make sense when that isn't what defines the present us.

All signs point to one obvious conclusion. The game is about the end of the species. The great philosophical question is whether something must be perpetuated in order to sustain meaning. This is a question that has always faced us. Without the certainty of God, as best we can tell, our lot as a biological species (just as it is for all our brethren) is to propagate. Perpetual motion seems to be the only purpose. The game investigates that.

It does this by presenting us with one potential ending of "us", and illuminates this against the backdrop of its incredible characters.

I don't think any of this refutes the alternative interpretation. Maybe I was unclear.

My stance was that the title could also refer to the general danger of losing one's humanity. The disease is only a metaphor. It drives the plot and brings about the physical end of mankind, but the story is really about what it means to lose one's "humanity," and that it doesn't need an extermination-level virus for it to happen. In this case, no one group needs to represent "humanity" in its entirety. It would actually be better if multiple groups represent different aspects. Others, like Tommy and his band, could still retain their humanity. This would even be necessary to show for the player to understand how far others have fallen.

But really, the most compelling reason for a dual interpretation is that it would be a pretty big oversight for the writers to write about the end of "humanity" in the literal sense without also exploring the end of "humanity" in the metaphysical sense. I could expect that in a book like World War Z or something, but in a work of this size that rivals serious literature, I just can't imagine the writers not seeing that avenue. Or seeing that avenue and feeling no compulsion to address it.

 

[Leagon]

last of us in canada. Starting in toronto, traveling to the safer norther territories.

Good call. They can go to another part of the world altogether. It'd be interesting to see how a small tribe in Sudan was affected by this, or a banker in Tokyo.

Or Greg Jackson's gym in New Mexico.

 

[Madmick]

I don't think any of this refutes the alternative interpretation. Maybe I was unclear.

My stance was that the title could also refer to the general danger of losing one's humanity. The disease is only a metaphor. It drives the plot and brings about the physical end of mankind, but the story is really about what it means to lose one's "humanity," and that it doesn't need an extermination-level virus for it to happen. In this case, no one group needs to represent "humanity" in its entirety. It would actually be better if multiple groups represent different aspects. Others, like Tommy and his band, could still retain their humanity. This would even be necessary to show for the player to understand how far others have fallen.

But really, the most compelling reason for a dual interpretation is that it would be a pretty big oversight for the writers to write about the end of "humanity" in the literal sense without also exploring the end of "humanity" in the metaphysical sense. I could expect that in a book like World War Z or something, but in a work of this size that rivals serious literature, I just can't imagine the writers not seeing that avenue. Or seeing that avenue and feeling no compulsion to address it.

Aha, you're talking about a interpretative duality seated in a literal reading that the title indicates the end of the species. That is not at all the same as arguing a entirely different (or mutually exclusive) interpretation or set of interpretations for this precise meaning.

Yeah, that's fine. That's free space to play. You can go crazy. In fact, that's exactly what I've been arguing; specifically my conversation with Dizzy. Literally, the species is ending. This is the clue into a deeper reading the title offers. The deeper reading is the "important" reading. What is humanity? What does it mean to be good, or evil; what does it mean to be human? How does one truly survive without survival being the end unto itself, and can one truly be human if the latter is one's only purpose?

No work of art can be great without engaging these fundamental "big questions" of the universe. The only thing I think you get wrong, here, Bush, is in thinking you agree with GSM. You don't. You and I are in perfect alignment.

 

[Leagon]

No work of art can be great without engaging these fundamental "big questions" of the universe. The only thing I think you get wrong, here, Bush, is in thinking you agree with GSM. You don't. You and I are in perfect alignment.

Maybe. I only skimmed the last few pages, so it's possible I misunderstood what either you or GSM were saying.

 

[Madmick]

Maybe. I only skimmed the last few pages, so it's possible I misunderstood what either you or GSM were saying.

GSM doesn't believe that it's made clear that the story is about the death of our species. That's plainly evident. Every consequence in the narrative-- every establishment of the stakes-- is another compass needle pointing in that same obvious direction, and the game's title just beats you over the head with it. True north is true north.

 

[Schoolboy Q]

GSM doesn't believe that it's made clear that the story is about the death of our species. That's plainly evident. Every consequence in the narrative-- every establishment of the stakes-- is another compass needle pointing in that same obvious direction, and the game's title just beats you over the head with it. True north is true north.

I gotta agree with you Mick, That's exactly how I seen the ending and was pretty sure everyone universally seen it that way.

 

[milliniar]

It was officially just announced at the playstation experience. looks fucking amazing. Naughty dog is amazing

 

[Dinkin_Flicka]

Ellie is quite a bit older so hoping she's the main character and Joel is the tag along muscle. There are 3 dead bodies in the trailer so you know she can throw down.

 

[Fraz]

Yuussss

 

[HenryFlower]

Oh god I hope we get to play as Ellie this time around. One of my all time favorite vidya game characters.

 

[HereticBD]

 

[Dizzy]

Was hoping for new characters this time around and that desire went straight out the window when I saw Ellie and Joel again. So glad to have them back.

Fuck. Yes.

 

[Monkadelic]

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Also, hngngngngngnnhngngngn.

 

[HereticBD]

Hmm, I'm guessing it's going to be Ellie and Joel vs The Fireflies, and that Joel has furthered his lying narrative about them, and has raised Ellie to fear what they stand for. She'll eventually find out the whole truth, and yada, yada, moral dilemma, yada, yada.

 

[Monkadelic]

Was hoping for new characters this time around and that desire went straight out the window when I saw Ellie and Joel again. So glad to have them back.

Fuck. Yes.

I was exactly the same.

 

[Monkadelic]

Sherdog Factions, what!