So it’s official. The first draft of Part 1 of the book is done. Part 1 is tentatively subtitled “The Lifeline,” so go ahead and speculate as to what that means. I’m very early into the writing of Part 2, which is tentatively called “The Facility.” Proceed with speculations. Things are trodding along, slowly. It’s funny to look back to when I first started the book and was just racking up the word count. I thought I’d have the first draft finished this summer. Well, today is the autumn equinox, so that’s how that went. I’m hoping to have the first draft done next year sometime, if I’m lucky and studious in my writing efforts. So I prithee thee to stay with me. I assure you that the wait will (probably) be worth it.
Something had been hampering my progress, though. Ever since Naughty Dog put on the live performance that was The Last of Us: One Night Live, and reading accounts of the epilogue that was shown only to those in attendance, another idea stirred within me. I love, and loved writing, the Aftermath series. Thus far, it’s my proudest literary accomplishment. That said, the story told therein would not work well as a video game. At least, I don’t think it would. Ever since hearing Neil say the epilogue was written as “a goodbye to Joel and Ellie,” my brain got to working. I remembered a piece of fan/concept art that Marek Okon, an artist who worked on the game, came up with back in May. It depicted an older Ellie, sitting on a rock by the side of a body of water, guitar in her lap. Out of the mist behind her, several figures in riot gear approached, and at the back stood a lone figure on horseback. A caption accompanied the image, painting a small back story. Check it out here.
My mind took this piece, combined with the description of the epilogue that was performed at One Night Live, and started to weave a little vignette of what a prologue to TLOU2 might actually look like. Eventually, my mental ruminations could no longer be ignored and I decided I had to let the words out. And so, I did. I published it on fanfiction.net late last night, and you can check it out here if you’re interested. If you plan on reading it, do it now before you continue reading this.
Alright, read it? No? Go do that first. Okay now? Well, I warned you.
So, “The Hope.” That title comes directly from Marek Okon’s caption, and it felt fitting seeing as The Hope itself is Ellie. She’s the focal point of the story and in my mind would be the main playable protagonist in a prospective sequel. When Neil Druckmann said that the epilogue that was performed was “a goodbye to Joel and Ellie,” I took that to mean that their story, as a duo, was more or less finished. There wasn’t much more to be told, there. Joel’s arc has more or less come to its conclusion. Ellie, on the other hand, provides a much more workable canvas. So, what would happen, then, if the story proceeded with only Ellie? That’s the basis for what I came up with.
I’ve already seen one person express their disappointment that Ellie didn’t (SPOILER ALERT, LAST WARNING) get to say goodbye to Joel before he was killed, and that it seemed empty with that omission. My reaction to that is to say “good.” It’s supposed to. I think in our saturation with traditional Hollywood storytelling styles, we sometimes forget how unremarkable such events can be. They’re devastating in their stark plainness and unexpectedness. There’s no fanfare, no dramatic music, no slow-motion shot of our hero screaming “Noooooooooo!” We’re spoiled into thinking that every death needs a heart-wrenching, drawn out goodbye to be effective. Unfortunately, as often as not, that isn’t what gets to happen. Life hangs by a silver cord that can be severed in an instant, without a moment’s notice. And the world doesn’t care if you don’t get your dramatic goodbye.
A goodbye offers closure, and that’s something I wanted to withhold from Ellie in this story. It almost becomes a theme. She never gets closure. She never finds out what really happened with the Fireflies. Never finds out if she really could be the cure. Never gets to find out what Joel really feels towards her. Never gets to say goodbye to him. It’s a whole series of unsatisfying open-endedness. I can only imagine the kind frustration that would wreak on your psyche.
Marek’s captioned photo spoke of a woman who will stop at nothing to get to Ellie and find the cure. Rather than creating a new character, I thought it’d be fun to pull someone in from the lore. Someone who had lost all of her loved ones to the infection, directly or indirectly, and who made it a personal mission to find the cure, no matter what. I wanted to make her a sympathetic character in that regard, even more than Marlene was. The search for Ellie had almost become a holy duty to her, a promise made to those she had lost that she would do whatever it took to prevent others from experiencing the same loss she had. This comes out in her hesitation to threaten Joel. If you read closely, it should become obvious that she isn’t the one who shot him; it was actually the soldiers surrounding her reacting to him headbutting her. It was Joel’s hastily thrown-together plan to remove himself from the bargaining table.
The fun thing about doing this as a oneshot is that I don’t have to worry myself with what happens next. Leaving it at the exact moment depicted in Okon’s concept art feels right. And yes, I’d play that game.
Anyhow, that’s all for now. Hope you enjoyed the read!
–J.
The Hammer of Thor 