T w e n t y S i d e d

Everyone has that one game. It doesn’t always make sense why it reaches into your brain and pokes the dopamine button so easily. It just does.

Mine is ‘Last of Us’. Though the reason why isn’t hard to figure out.

Shamus and I disagreed with the game in almost every way. It’s easily the game which we varied the most drastically. He wasn’t as much of a fan because he disliked Joel so much. Couldn’t wrap his head around that guy, disliked playing a character he felt was so foreign. Illogical. Almost every decision Joel makes is pretty much the opposite of what he would have done, so the entire game was just running red lights.

For me, I’ve never identified with any game character more completely. I “get” Joel. Nothing he did seemed unreasonable. Well… ok… I probably wouldn’t have killed EVERYONE in the fireflies hospital. Only the ones in my way. So, only most of them.

In full disclosure, for those of you who might not know, before you judge me too harshly…. I lost a daughter. I’ve lost a child. But we’re not here to discuss that.

Point is, Joel means something profoundly more to me than anyone else who hasn’t endured that particular kind of agony. Anyone who has ever had the joy of having a child knows it irrevocably changes you, usually for the better. Losing one does the same, sometimes not for the better.

Joel did nothing unacceptable to me. I don’t think what he did was ‘good’ or ‘moral’ or anything so objective. Considering the state of the planet (in game) those concepts are somewhat luxuries, anyway. I’m not going to try and make the case that murder is acceptable. It’s not what was right or wrong, but what was necessary. Like everything else in the game, it was a matter of survival. Not of his body, but his heart and mind. Losing another daughter, which is obviously how he came to view Elle, was unfathomable. The mind can only take so much.

To me…. Joel was broken. As much as the world he inhabited. I think he knew it. He never rationalized what he did, never intellectualized it as some “greater good” sacrifice like the Fireflies. He was broken and did what he needed to do to see tomorrow’s sunrise. The alternatives were shown everywhere he went. Bill chose exile. Bill’s partner, like Henry, couldn’t adapt, couldn’t adjust. They chose suicide. We all like to believe that if we face tragedy, horror or trauma we would behave rationally, perhaps heroically, and come out the other side a better person. When people are broken, they don’t get to decide how the pieces look. The brain doesn’t always operate predictably.

I never played LoU2. I didn’t have the heart at first. Then, when I heard the rumors about how Joel was treated…. I didn’t want to. Couldn’t do it.

I downloaded it last night. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Patrick Young The race of insects that excavate the ruins of our civilization will determine we segmented time not by solar cycles but by aroma. Cinamon season. Pumpkin spice season. Sweet baby Rays BBQ sauce season....