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Darren Mooney explores the visual language of violence in HBO’s The Last of Us.
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I did not like this game.
I did not want to watch the tv show.
I watched this video.
Now I want to watch this tv show.
Both The Last of Us game and the TV show really captures the morality insinuated by the title. It battles with what’s necessary to survive, versus the brutal and often cruel nature of what the remains of humanity are capable of, especially when they are desperate. Watching the actors carry with them the acts they commit, I both empathise with, and have a small amount of hatred for some of the decisions characters make.
Very intrigued to see how the do the second game’s plot, hopefully they won’t pad it out like the game did with pointless chaff!
This makes me appreciate the editing and filming of Last of Us more
nailed it.
Thought this was out of frame by FEE. sad 🙁
2nd
Ryan Hollender has a video comparing the violence in The Last Of Us and Rockstar's Manhunt.
The Last of Us 1 specifically got away from ludonarrative dissonance though, Joel wasn't hurting because he was capable of violence or having committed a lot of violent acts to survive, Tommy does for sure but Joel's scars come from a different place. Whenever there's enemies around he goes into kill mode and he doesn't regret it afterwards, he'll blow people away with bombs, shoot heads off with shotguns and bash people brains in with a pipe and don't shed a single tear over "who have I become". That's why the first game worked so well as a believable narrative, it's a violent world and nothing's there to contradict that fact.
I will say that the show handled violence in a good way converting it to TV, however because we don't see him go up against more than 2-3 at a time the final shootout ended up being a bit silly in contrast because the story required Joel to kill off most of the Fireflies. It's a bit ironic that the game has less ludonarrative dissonance than the show ended up having in a way, only because of that last episode though, the rest worked well enough.
Excellent analysis. I had noted that we rarely saw a person getting killed directly – but I had missed the exception with Marlene. I just remember how shocking it felt. That's how you make sure the viewers aren't desensitised to violence unnecessarily.
Wow they made Calgary look good
Still Calgary, though.
The show didn't have the kind of epic fights I expected from the video game adaptaion. It fits the narrative. It fits the message of the series. Most of the times a fight is just 1-2 strikes and then the victim is dead/captured. Even the last one is mostly about Joel.
Perfect analysis, and exactly what I couldn't quite put my finger on the whole season. I couldn't explain to friends why it was nothing like TWD or other similar stories, but this nails it.
I think this might be my favorite of the In the Frames so far. It's an interesting analysis on something that I don't think would have been examined otherwise. Kudos.
I really enjoyed this! I hope we'll get more 🙂
I once stumbled into the Boston quarantine zone. Got attacked by seagulls, but I found a lot of loose copper wiring.
Saying that "both parties of violence suffer" is a statement which has been used to get us to sympathize with people who have done horrible things, like war criminals. I recall Himmler used to talk about the sacrifice his men had to make, the horrible things they had to do for the glory of the Fatherland.
That just feels a little too easy to me, a way of letting Joel off the hook. I don't think we should.
The very specific choice to make the performers of violence the subject of the frame in the context of zombie movies is particularly interesting. With a bare handful of exceptions, zombie movies frame violence as a thing inflicted and received on the object of the shot; at first on those killed by the violence of zombies, then on those suffering the violence of becoming zombies, and eventually on the violence of humans – whether it be the darker mood of violence inflicted on humans by humans or on the exalted heroic violence inflicted on zombies by humans. It's heavily dehumanising by implication, whether it be questioning in the moodier films or glorifying in the schlockier ones. In The Last of Us, this genre standard is almost entirely absent – the violence inflicted is rarely shown to us directly, rather than centre of the frame. But the hurt the violence does or even fails to do to those who inflict it is show in exactly this way.
It seems to be saying that while violence is a thing you inflict on others, dehumanising is a thing you inflict on yourself. In making yourself able to inflict this violence, you are making yourself less human. It is very telling that the one time the camera suddenly leans in to standard zombie movie framing of violence, showing the shocking act centre of the frame and lingering on the carnage wrought, it is as our lead's season-long struggle to regain his humanity fails completely.
Yeaaaah
Let's get this video to a lot of views in the first hour so that it gets love from youtube
Algorithm bless this video which i liked even before watching it because it's that good
Seriously, sometimes i end up pissed off because i can't like it again after watching it, fix that youtube
Lots of words lots of engagement, yadda yadda
Excellent work! You know you can make a whole video contrasting the depiction of violence between TLoU and The Mandalorian. The Madalorian has some, although bloodless, very gruesome depictions of alien and stormtrooper kills. Played for cheers or laughs they often feel tonally off in the context of a "child friendly" show. There are no real consequences, just a slick glorified depiction of the heroes committing various types of creative homicide. The perpetrators never feel remorse and the viewer never sees the horrific agony the victims suffer beyond a clichéd Hollywood sound effect.
💜💜💜
What this adaptation has made me consider quite a bit is the various linguistic techniques and tools that video games and cinema have that the other doesn’t.
For instance, Joel carrying Ellie at the end of the game bookends him carrying his daughter at the beginning in a way that can’t translate to TV, while games can’t get away with framing violence in the way this video discusses; the player need to be able to clearly see both the player character and the enemy, only leaving games like shadow of the colossus or mortal kombat able to get creative with how violence and killing is framed.
There are, however, other techniques available to games. The original doom, for instance, leaves corpses rather than despawing them, letting the player use corpse-littered floor for navigation, but also playing up the one-man-army nature of the game. Compare this with the newer doom games, in which violence is a way to express the slayer’s endless rage, with corpses despawning once you’ve torn them apart like chewtoys. (This is borne more of technical limitations moreso than creative decisions, but I think it’s still relevant to the tone of the games.
Anyway, I’m mostly bringing this up as an excuse to point out how hotline Miami frames violence; corpses fall in ways that communicate what direction they where killed from and how, mimicking the language of environmental storytelling, selling the games themes of violence and disassociation.
I wonder if the final sequence of Joel going on his rampage would've been better communicated if he didn't use guns. Framing him in a similar way to the infected might have done more to demonstrate that he's making a mistake here. Imagine him clubbing doctors and stumbling over debris, maybe even getting shot and still standing, the way the first one they encounter does.
Particularly after the (questionable) line from that scientist about how the fungus "protects its own" or feels love or whatever.
I liked it for making Joel more sympathetic. I liked it less for making us less connected to Joel.
I was the ruthless killer in TLOU game, I was shooting, bombing and breaking things. the final act, especially the scene at the hospital, made me feel the complete opposite of a ludo narrative dissonance, because while I know what Joel did was wrong, after all this time being Joel, I couldn't imagine doing anything different.
Sometimes a game makes you the kind of person that you are not, it forces you to be the quite frankly, horrible person that Joel is.
I liked that more about the game, but I still adored the show.
I haven't played 2, but I sure hope it goes down a much more violent path, as iirc it's all about the misery and brutality of violence and revenge.
Whenever I see or hear about someone killing a dog l, I think of Of Mice And Men
this was really insightful! thanks for the great content! im surely gonna watch the rest of the videos of this series
Great video. Very well done!!!
Wonderful episode
Can anyone tell me what show it was at 2:20 – 2:24?
I couldn't figure out why it had such a different feel until I heard your thoughts on this earlier on other shows and articles. It's an amazing thing that I didn't pick it up on my own. Great analysis of the show.
It's really interesting seeing this thesis develop in real time as you appear on the podcasts discussing the idea
Grave of the Fireflies is an anti-war movie that doesn't glorify war at all.
solid take
You might want to look up 'euthanize'. Whatever the merits or hopes of the doctor at the end of the season, what they were doing was murder.
This was a fantastic essay until the end. Your major point on the last episode is that the show suggests that violence against victims…. hurts the victims?
I want to think that you were going to use the chance to pull back and talk about how TLOU focuses on the pain we endure by doing things necessary to survive. Then in the last episode, it shows that we’ve been so absorbed in reactive trauma, that we’ve ironically been ignoring the actual victims, and it sets up the theme of consequences, which plays in heavily in future stories.
But you stop just short of that and cap off some amazing analysis with a limp final message.