HBO’s 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us is not just a narrative expansion of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Naughty Dog’s masterpiece, it’s also a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:surprisingly honest admission of mistake🌼s. Bill and Frank’s tertiary romance changed from a harsh separation to a shared death spurred forth by the bonds of🐓💧 queer love. We had an entire episode dedicated to their growing relationship and🐎 its thematic relevance. This is a story about death, loss, and destruction - but the continued value of love outshines them all.
This week’s episode sees the show finally tackle Left Behind, a beloved expansion that has been re-examined in the years since its 2013 release. Once labelled groundbreaking for its queer storytelling and willingness to explicitly state its heroine’s sexuality, critics have since considered it problematic thanks to its reliance on the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:bury your gays trope in the name of character development. In a time when queer characters in the mainstream gaming space remained few and far between, having the realisation of queerness followed immediately by tragedy leaves a bad taste in your mouth, no matter how much it might fit within the ruthless nature of Naughty Dog’s world. There was a hope this would be addressed in the show, but unless the plot experienced a fundamental shift in delivery, preventing Riley’s🌸 death was impossible.
The game never shows Riley’s death, and neither does the show. We are left to fill in the blanks ourselves and assume the obvious. However, her existence isn’t retroactive anymore, with Ellie and Marlene making specific mention of her and what she meant. Hඣaving to watch the first girl she ever loved succumb to infection and more than likely then kill her to survive while learning that she is immune to the very thing that tore Riley away is heart-wrenching. It’s tangible trauma Ellie has been living with long before we meet them.
As the episode draws to a close and the two girls sob in one another’s arms, we return to the present da🐷y when Ellie is doing everything she can to save Joel. Here, she has the agency and power to bring a life back from the brink. While gays remain buried and Riley’s destiny is forever sealed, recognisingꦜ that Ellie deserves to make her own decisions very nearly makes up for it.
Left Behind was a defining moment for Ellie’s character, but also a complimentary addition that only served the first game in retrospect. Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin acknowledge that shortcoming and have already begun piecing together parts of its world and characters which are much wider reaching than the games coul♊d ever hope to be. Removing combat is a natural reason to double down on character drama and dynamics, delving deep into what we already know in order to keep our attention. There is a single moment of violence in the whole of Left Behind, and it hits harder than anything the show has given us thanks to how real the consequences feel.
Queerness is front and centre too, no longer held back to serve as a startling narrative revelation. It feels definitive. Previous expressions of confusion on Riley’s face exchanged for mutual admiration and the realisation that all the planning she made for Ellie’s farewell wasn’t for nothing. If anything, her feelings being requited is the so𒆙le reason she decides to stay before it all fades away. There are so many adorable touches.
Ellie forces Riley to turn around before she strips to change, fixes her hair in the reflection of a shop window, and so often does reckless things to impress a girl she is slowly falling head over heels for. To be young and in love is a beautiful thing, even growing up in the apocalypse. Left Behind was a huge moment for closeted people like me at the time who grew up with video games and frequently c♑onfided in the medium for somewhere to belong.
All of a sudden one of the biggest games ever made held up a queer love story that mattered. It was flawed, but a lot of first steps are, and to see Naughty Dog recognise its legacy and the problematic baggage that comes with it in an adaptation like this is progress to be treasured. You can see🍷 the relieved joy come to life in the eyes of Ellie and Riley as they savour the little things, piercing the once daunting threshold of intimacy to understand true happiness.
Left Behind’s first iteration could dance around that beauty while the show reclaims it and refuses to giv🦂e us any other interpretation. Riley in the game responds to Ellie’s kiss with a perturbed glare of anxiety, having no time to process what just happened before both girls are infected and need to make big decisions. Here it’s reciprocated, their love beating out everything else even in the wake of tragedy.
After the success of Bill and Frank’s return there was a worry The L♛ast of Us couldn’t jus🎐tify the presence of two queer love stories across its run of nine episodes, and now those fears have been cast aside. Bigots might hurl insults at the show’s wokeness or believe it is distracting us from the important stuff, but a more comprehensiv𒀰e glimpse at Ellie&ౠrsquo;s queer identity was always going to come, and only serves to make her a far stronger and more empathetic character given the events that await.
I’d love for a conversation about Riley to take place between her and Joel in the🍌 remaining two episodes. If only to give Ellie a platform to air her grief similarly to Joel and Sarah. They both lost someone irreplaceable, and this common ground can be used to bring them to a place of delicate yet valuable understanding.
