Fan reaction to the video game source material was notorious. Experts say what happens with the hit drama’s second season could be even worse because of the nature of TV and the actors on screen.
Warning: This story contains spoilers for both HBO’s “The Last of Us” and “The Last of Us Part II.”
There’s no way around it: The second season of “The Last of Us,” HBO’s hit adaptation of the acclaimed post-apocalyptic video game, was always going to be controversial.
“The Last of Us Part II,” the game on which it’s based, was, to put it mildly, divisive. To put it less mildly, the game became a dumpster fire of online discourse that turned into death threats and hate speech hurled at the developers and actors.
With the second season now upon us, the show enters its own perilous waters in terms of fan response, in large part due to a bold choice that is central to both the game and its adaptation.
In line with the story of the second game, Joel, the gruff survivor played by Pedro Pascal in the TV series who viewers spent the entire first season growing to love, dies.
Warning: Spoilers follow.
He not only dies –– he dies brutally, at the hands of a character, Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), who the audience has only just been introduced to in the second season.
The reaction to this moment was intense when the game came out in 2020, and it’s been just as intense with the second season of the show. But why? Haven’t shows like “Game of Thrones” trained us to think that a main character can die?
Experts say it has to do with the kinds of relationships audiences form with fictional characters on-screen –– and the ways “The Last of Us” tests the limits of those relationships.
Specifically, the intensity of the reaction around “The Last of Us” speaks to the parasocial relationships that fans can form with their favorite characters, says Steve Granelli, an associate teacher professor of communication studies at Northeastern University. Parasocial relationships are non-reciprocal relationships that someone has with their perception of a person, or in this case a fictional entity.
Often, parasocial relationships are connected to celebrities like Taylor Swift who have strong, vocal fan bases. But Granelli says the relationships fans form with their favorite characters can fill the same role and can actually be stronger in some ways.
“I argue that when we make connections with characters on shows and then also, by and large, connections with the person portraying the character at the same time –– when we develop affinity for both –– then that strengthens the parasocial relationship because we’re basically creating two fulfilling relationships that might fulfill two separate interpersonal needs,” Granelli says.
In this case, viewers spent an entire season watching Joel –– and, thus, Pascal –– lose a daughter, grieve, shut down emotionally and eventually connect with Bella Ramsey’s Ellie, a teen girl who becomes a surrogate daughter for Joel. They connect emotionally with Joel’s journey and Pascal’s performance and come to identify part of themselves as a fan of “The Last of Us,” Joel and Pascal.
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Granelli says in the current social media landscape there are even more avenues to engage with content around the show and actors like Pascal and Ramsey. Fans have a new level of access to people like Pascal and Ramsey that affirms their level of fandom and gives them a sense that they truly know these people. It can reinforce the idea that there is a real connection between fan and performer that only goes one way.
The fact that Pascal has become the internet’s “daddy” doesn’t help mitigate the outcry around Joel’s fate, Granelli says.
“[In the game] you felt ownership over the characters,” Granelli says. “Multiply that by a lot now.”
“[The reaction] is going to be worse,” he adds. “It’s being experienced by such a wider audience.”
The relationships fans have with their favorite characters can be a healthy way to connect with other people. It’s the best part about fandom: community building.
But the fact that, unlike a real person, a fictional character can’t respond, or disavow negative behavior, only makes these parasocial relationships stronger and potentially more fraught, says Vance Ricks, an associate teaching professor of philosophy at Northeastern.
“In a similar way that you could come to feel possessive about a human celebrity, you could come to feel possessive of the world itself and be devastated when one of your favorite characters is killed off and maybe think that it’s a personal betrayal on the author’s part,” Ricks says. “You can forget that this character is ultimately coming out of someone else’s imagination, and now you’re incorporating it into your imagination in a way.”
Granelli acknowledges that the response to “The Last of Us Part II” was not solely about the relationship fans had created with Joel. Misogyny and the more toxic elements of gaming also played a role. But he says the creators of the show, which includes the game’s director, Neil Druckmann, have the advantage of hindsight.
The trailers heavily foreshadowed that Joel’s actions at the end of the first season would have consequences. “Every path has a price” was the tagline splayed across almost every poster. Making Pascal the face of the response to fan outcry around Joel’s death could also “put a damper on it,” Granelli says.
Ultimately, Joel’s death is also only the inciting incident to a story that delves into tribalism, hate, love and the way people define “us” and “them.”
“There’s still a lot of story to tell after Joel dies,” Granelli says.