If you’ve been on social media lately, or have just been following gaming and Pedro Pascal since 2013, then you’ve definitely heard of HBO’s The Last of Us by Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin — or, what is arguably the best video game adaptation up to date. The Last of Us, starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsay, follows the journey of Joel and Ellie — a stone-hearted smuggler and the girl he’s smuggling — as they travel across Apocalypse America facing mushroom monsters, raiders, and trauma along the way. While the medium does an amazing job at adapting some of the most iconic moments from its video game counterpart, its largest advantage is its ability to explore themes that may not have received as much attention in the game. Many conversations around this topic have centred around the iconic third episode of the series chronicling a gay couple, Bill and Frank, as they live out their days in the apocalypse. The show provides a moving take on older gay intimacy and doesn’t hold back a la Disney-style (ie., holding hands in the background for a single frame). In the game, Bill and Frank’s relationship is only hinted at in notes, likely an effort to balance gameplay and storytelling since Bill plays a much different role — a ‘manifestation’ of Joel’s potential fate if he continues to repress. This is where the show works wonders in enhancing smaller game moments that are left for player interpretation. It’s why I feel the show handles trauma, particularly male trauma, in a much more compelling way.

The heartbreaking prologue cements the core of the story. A father loses his daughter, Sarah, and due to the entire world being collectively traumatized, he cannot properly grieve. He numbs himself for twenty years, navigating his pain through survivalist rage where relationships rarely blossom because the moment he cares about someone is the moment he has something to lose. It’s no surprise, then, that Ellie triggers such an adverse reaction in Joel. She’s just ‘cargo’, he tells himself. But through nightmares, flashbacks, panic attacks, and his eagerness to both protect and abandon, it becomes obvious that Joel isn’t your stoic antihero, but a deeply broken man trying to stay broken in a world that destroys.

One complaint from viewers is that Joel is ‘weaker’ in the show. Both physically and emotionally, and I’ve even seen complaints that his lack of beard adds to his emasculation. I don’t need to tell you why this doesn’t hold much weight, but I think it’s important to recognize why this is a complaint, and what it indicates about how male trauma is perceived.

It’s true. Video game Joel is more ‘hardened’ than HBO Joel. Both harbour a softness fuelled by their pasts as fathers, but this is contrasted by their varied displays of trauma. Game Joel is unapologetically violent. He’s fuelled by anger, stemming from his helplessness in Sarah’s death, in order to keep pushing on. He softens after meeting Ellie, but violence is already ingrained in him. Aside from his brutality, nightmares, and emotional avoidance, however, rarely are other post-trauma symptoms depicted. There’s never a monumental ‘Joel-breakdown’ moment in the game aside from the intro, which isn’t a bad thing, but it offers a much colder approach in unveiling the hurt behind his grime and sweat. Again, this is likely due to the gaming format. Joel is a ruthless killer when the player single-handedly brutalizes armies of foes and suffers fatal wounds without consequence. It makes sense to make Joel emotionally colder to coexist with the mercilessness exhibited during gameplay. Imagine being constantly interrupted by aching-back-and-mental-breakdown mechanics!

However, the show and the player are separate. It’s able to explore the cracks in Joel’s armour where pain has never healed and grows the older he gets and the more he loses. To us onlookers — not players — he’s as pathetically human as anyone else. He’s prone to age and fear, and Mazin doesn’t shy away from this. His most effective inclusion is Joel’s tendency of flashbacks and panic attacks whenever he’s reminded of Sarah, or whenever he believes he cannot protect Ellie, thus risking another traumatic reminder of his greatest ‘failure’. While still mercilessly brutal, Joel is characterized more by fear than anger. He’s terrified of loving and ‘failing’ again, and it is so refreshing to see male trauma not dismissed in favour of looking ‘badass’ and is instead explored in a way where it’s clear that Joel’s violence exists precisely because of his debilitating pain.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the game and its ‘show-don’t-tell’ approach, but I think Mazin triumphs in dissecting mental health issues that aren’t always ‘acceptable’, ie., visible symptoms. Ultimately, people are allowed to dislike changes to a story they love — the show is nowhere near perfect. However, the concerning amount of Andrew-Tate-esque men I’ve seen push Oppressed Alpha Male ideas — that men are being emasculated by ‘wokeness’ — are ironically, and unsurprisingly, missing the point. The rhetoric of categorizing male trauma as ‘weak’ is exactly the plague that contributes to male suicide rates globally. It’s also a theme that The Last of Us explores through ruthless Joel who, due to his environment, suppresses his pain to survive the only way he knows how: avoidance and violence. Perhaps an extreme example, but it’s essentially the same coping mechanism pursued by these emotionally-repressed male-dominated niches. The distinct difference is that Joel realizes, through Ellie, that it’s okay to love and to ache and be vulnerable because to do so is to choose the path of healing. He no longer needs meaningless things to fill the void and while he now has something to lose, he also has something to live for. He’s achieved the hope necessary to pave his new future. All the gamer-bros upset about the addition of Joel’s PTSD may find benefit in asking why they associate weakness with healing.