The Last of Us

Given numerous accolades for their award-winning masterpiece, The Last of Us is one of my favorites of all times.

WARNING: An explosion of rants and pages of praise may be given.

Of course.

Hehe.

You know it.

Later tonight, might dig up my Tess rant. Only a mere one or two pages, but still..

Gonna post it on here?

Yes.

That shall be an interesting read.

Well... I'm posting it soon.

Whoop whoop! (As the juggalos would say.)

Behold... Viscid, vivid, Tess.

One name, and I'm given so much to describe, to detail, to dabble with. Tess is one of those characters of just the whole video game genre in general that you will never be able to forget. Just like Joel and Ellie, Tess, even though she didn't make it through the entirety of the game, has left a mark that runs deeper than the surface.

So where do we start with this inexorable, survivor woman? Tess, like most of the characters in The Last of Us, isn't tied down to a specific age. We can suspect, however, with her steady build and seemingly tireless stamina, that she can reside in her thirties to early fourties. Leaving her within the realm of knowing What Was, or How It Use To Be. Tess exacts her measure of power in the collective black market industry, settling for only the better deals she can get, and she rarely uses her gender as an alternative to get what she needs. Rarely only because when Tess, Joel and Ellie are caught by martial officers, she turns towards the male partner and mutters "I can make this worth your while." Yes, that was entailed in the rare instance. Other than that, Tess comes to expect a more or less plausible amount of respect and deference, otherwise seen to turn as a hostile individual, capable of taking the first and last shots in deadly shoot outs. Terrance, Malick and a couple of other members in the contraband province are known to falter at her appearance. Not to say that Joel hasn't picked up some promise in his own years of service to the smuggling community. Even outside, a recruited officer yields to Joel once they know who he is, one of the soldiers saying "Do you know who what is? That's Joel." It is evident that Joel has favor from the martial residence as well, something seldom seen throughout the course, as the military is just as vigorous as bandits in some cases in their rigid regulation.

There were two things in particular that immersed me the most in Tess's detail-oriented character traits. Firstly, and this has a coating of speculation behind it, Tess seems to be the only female character (besides Marlene) who is able to command and get homage from her bootlegger subordinates. Note that there was a female character you can hear talking in the background as Tess and Joel enter to find the wharf at which Robert hides. The female character is sitting close by a male, and seems to raise no aura or notice of her own. Secondly, was Tess in the central locality longer than Joel, or did particular actions benefit her throughout her lifestyle? As espied with Joel and Mallick, Malick does not know who Joel is, so bars his path, but once notices that Joel is "together" with Tess, he quickly sits back down.


I enjoyed her strong, domineering presence inside the game, along with her simple but winsome interactions, and so did Joel. There are instances where Joel seems happy to be led by the woman, which is interesting, considering that a man might not like taking orders from a woman. Joel does care for Tess in a partner-romantic questioning type of way. It was rough and frayed around the edge, but their personalities played off of each other so well, that how could they not help but like each other? There are parts of dialogue like:

Tess: Lady? You must be thinking of someone else.

Joel: It's all relative.

That make me feel firm and happy with the relationship Tess and Joel present. In many a video or a game, perhaps the characters rush too much into love. Perhaps the audience never builds a strong feeling towards the couple. In The Last of Us, though, I fell almost immediately for the ploy. There was a kindred desire of many to see survivor-hard Joel and survivor-tough Tess break down a little and kiss or hug or do something to say goodbye when Tess reveals her infected bite. And Naughty Dog teased us in such a way that made us hate it and love it all at once. They kept the characters in check at all times, which I appreciate it. And they did it till the very end.

~
Part 2: Antagonist or Protagonist?


Little know fact; a thrown out plot that could have totally modified the plot and story altogether was that Tess was going to be against Ellie and Joel. Quoting her bio from Naughty Dog's work: "Very early on in development, Tess was actually the main antagonist of the game before the final narrative had been established."

Very alluring, no? If we take all the elements of Tess' strong, character build, we can also see just how well she would have come into creation as this bellicose personality.

The original plot would have been more or less a prolonged chase seen across the stretch of the United States, I believe the main reason Tess went to chase Ellie and Joel was because of a past disagreement, and Joel abandoning her. At first, the thought of Tess trying to eradicate Joel made me think back to their heart-wrenching last moment together, and how I didn't want to picture Tess as this ravaging, vengeance-seeking soul. But the more I thought about it, the more it struck me that this was the beauty of The Last of Us creation.

The last scenes in the game originally set are very different from the final production that has been produced for the game. Tess has a knife to Joel's throat, as seen in a piece of concept art, and she is leaning over him, apparently furious. The end of the game was for the screen to go to dark mode, with the sound of a gun shot being set off, and you zoom back to Ellie, who is holding a gun. Originally, this was suppose to be Ellie's first human kill. Very impressive, to say the least. But Naughty Dog realized how they were holding Ellie back for this one moment that could lie on a thread of defeat. So it was changed, and the scene with Ellie picking up a gun and shooting it at someone and having the screen pan back to her holding the gun was moved to an earlier stage, in the Hotel section of the game.

Nevertheless, Tess has a good amount of cunning and vigor to make her an excellent adversary, but this was not the ultimate achievement of Naughty Dog. Knowing just how far they could push her, rendered her as an unforgettable character voiced and motion captured by Annie Wersching.

~
Part 3: Told No Lies

Tess's exterior creation lay at the hand of Naughty Dog's fine digital artist, whose skill proved to perfect this character. Tess, to me especially, is the great example of a female character in games. Not to say that there hasn't been some good female character before, but Tess certainly proves the reputation that a female character is more than just some petty tool or nerdy girl. She is the real stuff, and badassery at it's finest. She's honorable for the things that she's done that were not honorable.

She was able from many years till the present, and survived longer than most women I should think. With the combination of absolutely horrific upper arm strength and power, Tess makes for some tough sh*t.

Since her story opens on her later chapters, I really want to mix with her first files, seeing what I can do to try and simulate how Tess made her transition in such an apocalyptic world. If there is one name that I will never forget from The Last of Us (besides a hell of a lot of characters) it is... Tess.

*Sprays white trash soda all over you*
Great work!

Obitofangirl69 wrote:*Sprays white trash soda all over you*
Great work!

LOL.

Danke~

Bitte

Ich liebe TLOU. Es ist nicht gesund.

XD

The way I love Obito is almost toxic. At a certain point, my whole life revolved around him and it starting to become like that again... Not that I'm complaining.

Aww.
XD

Come to the chat box at the bottom of the "Home" page on this site. I had a dream last night...And let's just say-it had a lot to do of what I was watching the night before.

Wait, what were you watching? You mean IDKIWP? LOL

Obitofangirl69 wrote:Wait, what were you watching? You mean IDKIWP? LOL

Just come to the chat box on this site!