Fans of the original The Last of Us know that the game is incredibly dark, taking place in one of the bleakest takes on a zombie apocalypse in gaming history. The Last of Us' main appeal is the growing bond between Joel and Ellie (at least, before The Last of Us 2 sends their father-daughter relationship into a tailspin), which makes this little hidden moment at the end of the game even more painful. Please note that this article will have MAJOR SPOILERS for The Last of Us.
The game's final stage follows Joel as he breaks an unconscious Ellie out of the Firefly's hospital before they can dissect her brain to try and make a vaccine for the Cordyceps brain infection, killing a lot of people in the process. Whether or not players agree with the morality of his actions (after all, the Fireflies have done this before and failed every time), it can't be denied that his quest resonates emotionally with a large portion of the audience. One sharp-eyed fan even spotted an eye chart apparently cheering Joel on during one of modern gaming's most powerful moments and took a picture of the TV at exactly the right time.
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Located in the Fireflies' headquarters, the eye chart reads "Run. You are nearly there. Don't quit!!," which would be quite the blow to the heart on its own, but Redditor benjamincraigrowley encountered it while carrying Ellie to safety. The context made it an incredibly painful moment, which the poster admitted was very sad, especially knowing how Joel's decision to prioritize Ellie's life over the potential to find a cure plays out in the sequel. Ellie's presence takes the sign from a fun easter egg to a desperate warning, just as this youthful cosplayer of Ellie's original look injects a sense of life and fear into her dilapidated surroundings.
The post has been largely well-received, with several posters claiming that this marks the moment they fell in love with the game. However, several posters had difficulty reading the eye chart, with one remarking humorously that the chart works and they clearly need glasses. One poster even had difficulty telling Ellie at the end of the game apart from Sarah at the beginning, which seems fitting, as the two girls are almost certainly overlapping for Joel as well. Both The Last of Us games are packed full of detail, and fans have generally embraced these hidden and sometimes gruesome moments.
The knowledge of how Ellie and Joel's relationship eventually breaks down, specifically because Joel killed the Fireflies to save her and lied about it, is part of what makes this little moment so sad. However, even in-universe, the hope of making a vaccine by killing Ellie was a long shot. While Ellie did consent to the experiment, she was a very distressed 14-year-old, making her judgment questionable at best. Bringing real-life vaccine science into the picture makes it clear that if Joel had let Ellie be dissected, it would have accomplished nothing but killing one of the world's only immune people. It's uncertain how much of this Ellie truly understood, even as an adult, but another fan has been getting into her head by recreating Ellie's journal from The Last of Us 2. This gives readers a chance to see the fallout of Joel's decisions from her perspective.
The Last of Us is available now on PS3 and PS4.
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Source: Reddit