The HBO series did the right thing by giving the raiders their own story.
The Last of Us introduces more new individuals and adversaries with each new episode. We begin the section of the story where humans are just as much (if not more) of a menace than the infected as Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) leave the East Coast behind on their trek to find Joel’s brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna). Joel and Ellie have long since left Quarantine Zones and their trusted allies behind, setting off on a vast journey that neither of them is ready for. New factions, notably raiders, the second most frequent enemy class in the game, appear when they enter uncharted terrain. Raiders are a class of human foes that typically act in groups, but despite the fact that they are humans, the first game does little to make us consider the people we are slaughtering. The HBO adaptation’s fourth episode adopts a new strategy, attempting to humanize these folks and set them apart from the infected who pose a threat to what little humanity there is.
In the game, raiders are prevalent in both mobs and characters.
In the game, raiders are a specific kind of adversary. They prefer to operate with more camaraderie than the mindless hordes of infected and are typically found in or close to cities or communities. But beyond from that, they don’t really differ much from the infected. They converse with you when you are in an encounter with them, but there is no chance to negotiate or understand; instead, you are encouraged to murder them with the same impunity that you do the zombies. We eliminate them in the same manner as the infected because they don’t have a united front and we don’t know why they are assaulting Joel and Ellie. They are only considered foes since we don’t get to know them as individuals while playing the game. We can naturally see this adversary type in a more nuanced perspective by seeing more of them, giving them scenes to themselves, emotions, and a strong understanding of the history of their conflict. The raiders are still adversaries and continue to pose a threat to Joel and Ellie, but the program makes an effort to deter our eager trigger fingers.
Through their assault on Joel and Ellie in episode four, the raiders are first introduced to us. With the exception of the raiders talking to each other like real people and one of them pleading for his life before Joel has to kill him, this plays out quite similarly to the game. These decisions in particular seem to be evocative of The Last Of Us Part II, where adversaries were given conversation and painful reactions to make them seem more real during the conflict. The program uses this in a similar manner to get us to stop thinking of these battles as things you can “win” and start appreciating the impact that each character’s death has on them. It makes our emotions as viewers more complicated because, while we obviously care about Joel and Ellie and don’t want anything bad to happen to them, we can also somewhat comprehend what it’s like to be on the other side. Even later, Joel admits to having participated in the ambush from both sides before going on to add that these interactions, from both sides, are more about survival than morality.
In the television series The Last of Us, people still exist.
Making Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey) the major emphasis while we get to know this set of enemies was another modest change that addresses gameplay. (And not only because it talks about how the only raider character models in the first game were men. As we watch both of them battle with the choices they must make, it not only helps us understand these individuals on a deeper level but also reveals the long history of loss and conflict in Kansas City in the wake of the QZ crumbling. Because we have heard several stories of previous QZs failing and cities being completely silent, like the Baltimore QZ, we can empathize with these folks more after seeing how they created lives for themselves independent of FEDRA. We can tell these people are tough just from this. We can also tell Kathleen’s intentions are good because we see her eager to spare the doctor so he can save one of her own.
It’s not a little disagreement; she only harbors animosity toward him since she thinks the doctor was responsible for her brother’s passing. Although the specifics of the ill will between her people, FEDRA, and Henry (Lamar Johnson), are not yet known. By far, these characters differ from the NPCs you stomp on in the game when you give them context, a grasp of what life was like in a QZ, and the chance to see them express their sorrow for one another. These are paranoid people trying to live, not people acting intentionally or without cause. Even though Kathleen approaches protecting her people in a hostile manner, it is clear that she is acting out of need. Joel has always operated under the principle of “shoot first, ask questions later;” we are only seeing it through the eyes of the intruders.
Despite the fact that we still don’t know much about the raiders’ past, it is obvious that the way the show depicts them differs greatly from how they are in the game. As a hostile armed force, Kathleen and her followers have attempted to assassinate Joel and Ellie. They’ve done awful, regrettable things, but they’re still individuals, and HBO’s The Last Of Us is going above and beyond what the game did to remind us that even these characters are still people, just like our heroes. It is evident that Kathleen and her militaristic group share Joel and Bill’s (Nick Offerman) paranoia and want to protect their own. These scenes demonstrate that, despite their conflicts, these human characters have a great deal in common.
The Show Modifies How Raiders Is Framed and Used in the Game
Similar to how seeing Frank (Murray Bartlett) and Bill on their own helped to further flesh out the world or how the flashbacks to outbreak day give us a glimpse of other people’s perspectives on things, the change in framing to show the audience more about Kathleen and her crew serves the same purpose. It serves as a helpful reminder that even if this is fiction, it is ultimately about humans, and as such, all of its human characters—even those we don’t like—must be treated with respect. It prevents viewers from developing the us-versus-them mindset that is simple to develop while playing video games and instead encourages us to reflect more thoroughly on characters with conflicting morals.
Although Kathleen and her team are still mostly unknown, giving them their individual voices prevents us from viewing them as mindless mob figures. It not only enlightens us as to what is at stake for them, but it also makes it easier for us to comprehend how costly the encounters the raiders have with Joel and Ellie are. It’s one thing to take out a gang of attackers who were shouting insults and firing at you haphazardly; it’s quite another to kill someone while they were pleading for their mother. Giving the raiders a human face lets us appreciate the toll these encounters have on Joel and Ellie in addition to being beneficial to the raiders themselves. The Last Of Us as a whole portrays people as communal and reactive rather than overtly evil, and the inclusion of Kathleen and the rest of her group speaks to this humanism.
The common enemy is infected who devastated the Earth, but the factions and mistrust that are pervasive among the survivors of humanity are largely man-made. The raiders have gained more prominence in The Last of Us episode 4 than they did in the previous episodes. It gives them cohesiveness and compassion, which makes us and the other characters hesitate before taking action against them. It also helps us see past their origins as the stereotypical enemy. Although there will always be conflict in The Last Of Us’s universe, there are now more human connections and strands running across it than ever before.
