Abstract
This chapter plays through the levels “Pittsburgh” and “Suburbs.” It examines the significance of race in the game’s representation of the hunters, an enemy faction, and argues that the hunters are a quasi-racialized group that contrasts with Joel’s and Ellie’s whiteness. The chapter extends the analysis of race to the Black characters Henry and Sam, and suggests that their primary purpose in the game is instrumental, namely, to die and teach Joel and Ellie lessons about love and vulnerability.
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Notes
- 1.
Dyckhoff, “Buddy AI in The Last of Us,” 438.
- 2.
Compare the QTE in the final release of the game to footage of the same QTE in the following trailers: Playstation, “The Last of Us—2012 Gamescom Trailer,” YouTube, August 14, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX6eqoCLbTc; Playstation, “The Last of Us—Story Trailer,” YouTube, December 10, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W01L70IGBgE.
- 3.
Murray has also noted Sarah’s glowing whiteness. Murray, On Video Games, 99, 111.
- 4.
Druckmann, AIAS interview.
- 5.
John Rieder, Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2012).
- 6.
Amy Chua, Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations (New York: Penguin, 2018), 1; David Berreby, “Why Do We See So Many Things as ‘Us’ vs. ‘Them’?”, National Geographic, March 12, 2018, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/things-that-divide-us; George Packer, “A New Report Offers Insights into Tribalism in the Age of Trump,” The New Yorker, October 12, 2018, https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/a-new-report-offers-insights-into-tribalism-in-the-age-of-trump.
- 7.
Paul Spickard observes: “At its base meaning, tribe is a lineage-based system of social organization. But it takes on other connotations as well. Indians come in tribes—primitive, animal-like—and so we are not bound to respect them. They are not like Europeans who come in families and communities, modes of social organization that we are committed to support.” Paul Spickard, Almost All Aliens: Immigration, Race, and Colonialism in American History and Identity (New York: Routledge, 2007), 26.
- 8.
In a 2013 question and answer session in a Playstation forum, a Naughty Dog representative claimed that memory limitations are the reason that there are no female hunters. I find this unpersuasive. The rationale conceals design choices about how to use given memory capacity. The forum can be accessed via the Internet Archive’s Way Back Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20160221221118/http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/Naughty-Dog-General-Discussion/UPDATED-Q-amp-A-with-Naughty-Dog-July-Edition/td-p/45239680/page/4.
- 9.
Baker, Druckmann, Johnson, Pangilinan, “What Are you Scared Of?—Summer Part 2.”
- 10.
Druckmann, AIAS interview. Johnson identifies as a gamer and understands the “burden” of the escort mission. This motivated her to advocate for making Ellie more “capable” and “helpful.” Baker, Druckmann, Johnson, Pangilinan, “What Are you Scared Of?—Summer Part 2.”
- 11.
Berger, “Propagation and Procreation,” 158.
- 12.
Retro Replay, “The Last of Us | The Definitive Playthrough—Part 8 (ft Troy Baker, Nolan North, Brandon Scott),” YouTube, January 7, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eGHzqNYRig.
- 13.
Artifacts in the sewers tell the story of Ish, a survivor who formed a small community in the sewers that was eventually overrun by infected. Ish’s story might serve as yet more evidence against cooperation and for the necessity of selfishness, but Ish escapes and affirms his belief in human kindness.
- 14.
Troy Baker, Neil Druckmann, and Ashley Johnson, “Commentaries,” The Last of Us Remastered, Naughty Dog, Sony, Playstation 4, 2014.
- 15.
TreaAndrea M. Russworm, “Dystopian Blackness and the Limits of Racial Empathy in The Walking Dead and The Last of Us,” in Gaming Representation: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Video Games, eds. Jennifer Malkowski and TreaAndrea M. Russworm (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017), 112.
- 16.
Black men have historically been portrayed as intellectually inferior but physically superior to white men, thus dangerous and requiring white control. Bell hooks also points out that while Black male slaves were dominated by the slave master, they also came to idealize and reproduce the slave master’s patriarchal power. See Arthur F. Saint-Aubin, “A Grammar of Black Masculinity: A Body of Science,” The Journal of Men’s Studies 10, no. 3 (2002): 247–270; bell hooks, We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity (New York: Routledge, 2004).
- 17.
Russworm, “Dystopian Blackness,” 113.
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Ramirez, J.J. (2022). Pittsburgh and the Suburbs: Sacrificial Blackness. In: Rules of the Father in The Last of Us. Palgrave Studies in (Re)Presenting Gender. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89604-1_6
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