Every True Villain In The Last of Us 2

Few videogames have garnered the polarizing reactions of The Last Of Us 2, and the vast gulf between critic reviews and some player responses show it accomplished exactly what it set out to do, showcasing through its protagonists and villains ugly truths about hate, humanity, and cycles of violence. A mature story of this nature steps past simple heroic fiction, and while there are certainly protagonists and antagonists, clear cut labels like hero and villain are difficult to apply to The Last Of Us 2, by design. The protagonists are easier to define, as these are the player-controlled characters, Ellie and Abby, who provide the lenses through which players experience the post-apocalyptic world of the game, and the hands that take countless lives on their respective quests for revenge, and in their struggles for survival. With proper analysis, some clear-cut villains can still be identified in the game, which include The Rattlers, the Cordyceps infection, and certainly Joel Miller, whose actions in the first game included killing the hope of humanity itself.

[Warning: Spoilers for The Last Of Us and The Last Of Us 2 below]

The Last Of Us 2 forces perspective onto the subject matter of “revenge fiction,” making it difficult, in the end, for players to take satisfaction in fulfilling any vendetta. Typical revenge stories cast one party as the clear-cut villain, which provides for a perhaps cathartic experience, but The Last Of Us 2 aimed for more. Its pursuit of a more nuanced story, instead of the emotional payoff of a simpler revenge narrative, led to some players review bombing The Last Of Us 2, as it prioritized challenging players’ views over delivering prepacked feelings and simple satisfaction. For the most part, heroes and villains are a matter of perspective, and The Last Of Us 2 made gamers experience the viewpoints of conflicting sides of an ongoing feud. Players controlled Joel in the original Last Of Us game, but in the end, despite being the protagonist of the story, Joel became an undeniable villain.

The Cordyceps Brain Infection is clearly one of the villains of The Last of Us 2’s story, but it is a plague, not a group or individual that can be easily characterized. The effects of the infection can be examined, and these obviously identify the infection as a villain in the game, and an antagonist to humanity at large. There is no moral justification provided for the effects of the infection, as it requires none – it is an unthinking phenomenon that has destroyed society and turned nearly all of humanity into killers without empathy for others.

The Cordyceps Infection has done this to nearly all humans, however, not just “the infected,” such as The Last Of Us’ monstrous mutations like Clickers and Bloaters. The infected are remorseless killers because they have been reduced to animalistic instinct, operating on the instructions of the fungus which controls what is left of their consciousness. The other remains of humanity have largely become murderers without empathy due to societal collapse.

The Rattlers Are Human Monsters In The Last Of Us 2

The remaining humans in The Last Of Us 2 have developed bonds with their immediate peers, including surviving family members, friends, and surrogate families, as well as communities like Jackson, the WLF, and the Seraphites. They are victims of the Cordyceps as much as the infected, however, as the tribalism that has risen up in the absence of civilization leads them to murder those who are part of opposing factions with as little mercy or empathy as the infected show for uninfected humans. Voice actor Troy Baker, who portrayed Joel, recognized the villainy in his character.

Joel’s priorities in the original game are shown again in the rival factions in The Last Of Us 2. It is easy to show love and empathy to the people closest to someone, as Ellie was to Joel, but much harder to offer such empathy for those outside one’s social sphere. In a civilized world, it is easier to recognize the humanity of strangers, including those separated by geographic distances and cultural divides. The Cordydeps virus has reduced the world of The Last Of Us 2 to brutality, making it difficult for anyone, infected or not, to show empathy and mercy towards humanity at large.

Beyond the enemy of humanity itself, the Cordyceps virus, one human faction, The Rattlers, is portrayed distinctly as villainous in The Last Of Us 2. Some residents of Jackson and WLF members are at odds due to the deaths of specific people, and the WLF and the Seraphites battle over territory and ideals, but each of these groups is humanized, offering a different approach to survival in a broken world, and different coping mechanisms for the ongoing, worldwide trauma. The Rattlers’ actions, which include slavery and torture, are much more unsympathetic, earning the group the title of villain in TLOU2.

Though the Seraphites’ inflexible dogma leads to cruelty, as with their actions towards Lev and his sister, it provides a source of faith and strength for its members, making the Seraphites less a “villain” group then a general antagonist and example of zealotry taken too far. The implied actions of the Rattlers indicate pure malevolence simply for sport, forcing prisoners to battle in an arena for their amusement, infecting those who betray the group, and crucifying their captives when they are done toying with them. The player is given no reason to sympathize with the Rattlers, or to try to understand them, as they are true villains.

Joel Miller is the last villain of The Last of Us 2, having become a villain to all of humanity, along with the Cordyceps virus, thanks to his actions at the end of the original The Last Of Us. Earlier sequences in that game showed Joel as a survivor, willing to kill however many people were required to preserve his own life. Over the course of that story, Joel came to view Ellie as a surrogate daughter, filling the void of his deceased biological daughter Sarah. Joel lies to Ellie in TLOU’s ending about what took place with the Fireflies, knowing she would not have approved of his actions.

In the endgame sequence of the first game, Joel prioritized Ellie’s life over giving the human race a chance to beat the virus and return to a world where life could be about more than survival. It was an extremely human choice, and a relatable one, but in that case the basic utilitarian need for a cure outweighed any individual life. Joel made the choice for every other uninfected person alive, including Ellie herself. He made his own determination that keeping his surrogate daughter alive was worth damning the human race. Ellie herself is furious at Joel when she learns the truth in The Last Of Us 2, as Joel robbed her of a chance to let her immunity to the virus, and consequently her life, have meaning.

The Last Of Us 2: Joel Was The Series’ Worst Human Villain

When information about the game’s story leaked, and some fans responded angrily, it led the game’s director to doubt The Last Of Us 2’s planned course for the narrative. Joel is killed fairly early in The Last Of Us 2, beaten to death with a golf club by Abby, the surviving daughter of the Firefly surgeon whose procedure would have given humanity a chance to recover at the cost of Ellie’s life. The sequence mirrors events from the show The Walking Dead, where Negan killed two captive characters with a baseball bat. The key difference is that Joel was a villain who clearly earned his death in The Last of Us 2. Many fans reacted poorly to his demise coming early in the story, and without a great deal of fanfare, but that suddenness and brutality was entirely fitting for the tone of the games.

Though The Last Of Us 2’s Abby, as protagonist, acts more out of a personal vendetta to avenge her father and the slain Fireflies, Joel is guilty of a crime that dwarfs the sadism of the Rattlers, or any other individual depicted in the setting. Joel robbed humanity itself of hope, leaving The Last Of Us’ world a place where hope is dead. There are many interpretations of the series’ title, but Ellie was arguably “the last of us” to have any hope for the human race, which Joel snuffed out for her and everyone else, making him one of the gaming fiction’s most sympathetic characters, as well as one of its worst villains.

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