60 DAYS OF GAMING: DECADE ANNIVERSARY - DAY 5: Game Character I feel am most like (or Wish I was)
Then: Jim Raynor.
Now: Joel Miller (contains spoiler for the original Last of Us)
Much like Ellie, the central core of Joel is that he is human.
The intro of the game serves to make us understand and even excuse his character as he is for most of the game. A single dad who loses his teenage daughter the day of the outbreak of the fungus (based on the real life Cordyceps fungus) that turns people into infected flesh-eating zombies, Joel grows to become a highly resourceful, morally ambiguous survivor. Emotionally distant on the surface, but in reality a broken person that puts on a cold facade but is fiercely protective of what little human contact he has.
Joel does not allow himself to want more. He doesn't allow himself to love again. He does not allow himself to even grow close to people. And when it inevitably happens, their loss or their potential loss is enough to send him off the deep end, and enough to make him do whatever it takes, consequences (hell, humankind) be damned.
Am I anywhere near Joel as I am now? No.
Can I see myself adopting the same facade and doing the exact same things if I were in his shoes? Yes.
The intro of the game serves to make us understand and even excuse his character as he is for most of the game. A single dad who loses his teenage daughter the day of the outbreak of the fungus (based on the real life Cordyceps fungus) that turns people into infected flesh-eating zombies, Joel grows to become a highly resourceful, morally ambiguous survivor. Emotionally distant on the surface, but in reality a broken person that puts on a cold facade but is fiercely protective of what little human contact he has.
Joel does not allow himself to want more. He doesn't allow himself to love again. He does not allow himself to even grow close to people. And when it inevitably happens, their loss or their potential loss is enough to send him off the deep end, and enough to make him do whatever it takes, consequences (hell, humankind) be damned.
Am I anywhere near Joel as I am now? No.
Can I see myself adopting the same facade and doing the exact same things if I were in his shoes? Yes.
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