by Wolf Bird » Sun Apr 27, '14, 2:09 am
Have to share more of The Last of Us. After beating the game last weekend, one of the pieces on the OST that I used to kind of 'eh' at suddenly turned about 1 million times for awesome. It is another take on the 'All Gone' theme, which you hear a LOT, but this particular version of it plays during the climax of the game. The reason finishing the game made this theme so much better is because not only is it just good (IMO), but it conveys the sadness of the entire situation, but also the incredible moral weight of the decision being made at the end. Read the spoiler at your own risk.
When you reach the hospital/lab run by the Fireflies, you discover that in order to engineer a vaccine for the Cordyceps from Ellie, her brain must be removed, killing her. It is implied that Ellie has not been told the operation will kill her, so her consent has probably not been granted. A lot of games might give the player the choice of what to do, but Naughty Dog doesn't give you a choice, which I think makes this ending so, so, SO much better and powerful in what it makes you think. If you want to finish the game, you MUST make your way through the Firefly hospital, kill the surgeons about to do the operation and rescue Ellie. But in doing this, you deny humanity its last chance to defend itself from the fungus. This piece starts playing after you take Ellie off the operating table and it plays as you make your way out of the hospital, carrying her in your arms. It conveys the gravity of the moral decision being made, and how much moral grey area there is in the scenario. Given the prologue, with Joel's daughter dying in his arms after being shot by soldiers under orders to contain the Cordyceps outbreak at any costs, you can understand why he's rescuing Ellie - their journey has caused them to bond, she's become a surrogate daughter to him, and he can't bear to lose another daughter. Plus, her consent to be killed for this was probably not granted, and she's a young girl, so the Fireflies don't have all the moral high ground. On the other hand, Joel's decision basically doomed humanity to the fate of this fungus, by rescuing Ellie and killing the last people left with any kind of medical expertise who might be able to come up with some way to combat the fungus.
I'll put it this way. I'm still not sure what I think about it, or what I would do were I in Joel's place.
Edit: And now listening to it in my iTunes library, I can't help but tear up a little bit as I think about what all is going on in association with this music, moral gravity of it and all. That, THAT, is what a good soundtrack should do...
Last edited by
Wolf Bird on Sun Apr 27, '14, 2:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
Next Pokemon game(s): Pearl
Last finished Pokémon game: Shield
Other games: Skyrim Special Edition (Switch), Spyro Reignited Trilogy (Switch & PS4), Okami (Switch & PS4)
Other gaming goals: completing a Living Pokedex (minus some event Pokes) and going through at least 1 game per generation
