10 The Last of Us moments that taught us survival comes before compassion

HBO’s zombie apocalyptic series, The Last of Us, is one of the most popular post-apocalyptic shows, which premiered in 2023 and is based on a hit computer game of the same name. With two seasons and fewer than 20 episodes, The Last of Us follows Ellie and Joel and their survival story.

It is also a story of humans—the good and the bad. It tells the story of a post-apocalyptic world where humans are the ones being affected by a fungus that has destroyed civilizations and also depicts how survival can sometimes even take away your humanity. There are several moments where we have seen a character making decisions with the sole purpose of survival and how this purpose sometimes stands above everything else, even compassion.

Here’s a list of 10 such moments from The Last of Us, which taught us that sometimes, in those tough times that the characters are in, survival ranks above compassion.

Disclaimer: This entire article is based on the writer's opinion. Reader's discretion is advised.

10 The Last of Us moments that taught us survival comes before compassion

10) Joel leaves his neighbors while fleeing with his family (Season 1, Episode 1)

Pedro Pascal in The Last of Us | Image via Sony Pictures Television

In the very first episode of The Last of Us, as things begin to get terrifying, Joel and his brother Tommy come back to their neighborhood to find their old neighbor, Mrs. Adler, trying to attack Sarah. As Tommy shooting at her did not kill her, Joel hits her head with a spanner and kills her.

Later, he asks his daughter to get in the truck as another of their neighbors, Denise, calls him. Although he advises her to get back to her house and lock the door, he flees with his family, depicting that his compassion is centered around a limited number of people. Sarah and Tommy’s survival comes before anyone else’s for Joel.

9) Joel kills a soldier (Season 1, Episode 1)

Episode 1 of The Last of Us had many moments where compassion and empathy often took the back seat as characters were fighting for their survival at every step. After agreeing to take Ellie to the Fireflies, Joel, Tess, and Ellie begin their journey and encounter a FEDRA soldier who asks to test them to see if they are infected or not.

The soldier finds that Ellie is infected and informs them before attempting to kill her. Joel didn’t waste a second before killing the soldier to ensure they survived and moved forward in their journey.

8) Infected people being killed before codyceps take control of them (Season 1, Episode 1)

Another one of the heartbreaking scenes from Episode 1 of The Last of Us is when a child arrives at the QZ in Boston. After they are tested and the result comes out positive, they are told that they will be given food and toys during their stay at QZ.

However, just after the scene, we cut to Joel, who is lifting the bodies of the infected and throwing them in the fire, depicting the deaths of the people who are killed after getting infected before they even turn. It's a survival choice that they had to make to ensure that the others are safe. A harsh decision, no doubt, but a crucial one for survival.

7) Henry betrays his community for his brother’s leukemia medicine (Season 1, Episode 5)

Lamar Johnson in The Last of Us | Image via Sony Pictures Television

In episode 4 of The Last of Us, Joel and Ellie meet Henry and Sam in Kansas City, two brothers who are on the run from Kathleen and her men. They came to a truce and decided to escape from the city together.

In episode 5, it is revealed in this episode that Kathleen is focused on her revenge from Henry, as he was the one who turned over her brother, the leader of the resistance, to FEDRA, which Henry is also part of. As Kathleen’s brother was a threat to their authority, they captured and executed him. Henry did this for his younger son, Sam, who needed his leukemia medicine to survive, and only FEDRA had that in their possession, forcing Henry to take this drastic step.

6) Ellie kills David (Season 1 Episode 8)

Scene from The Last of Us | Image via Sony Pictures Television

In their journey to meet the Fireflies, Ellie and Joel have met numerous types of people. Some helped them, and some just tested their compassion and humanity as they were forced to kill several human beings and not just the infected.

In episode 8 of The Last of Us Season 1, Ellie and Joel encounter the latter kind of men, who try to kill them. While their attempt to kill Joel is destroyed by Ellie, she finds herself in a greater threat from the leader of the cannibalistic group, who had attacked them and was killed by Joel and Ellie. David, the leader, captures Ellie and tries to s*xually assault her, forcing her to kill him with a meat cleaver. It depicted that surviving is not as easy as it seems, as the threat is not just the infected but also the uninfected.

5) The truth behind the mass graves (Season 1 Episode 3)

Since the pandemic occurred 20 years earlier, Ellie doesn’t know much about how everything ceased to exist in the world. While they drive to Bill and Frank in Episode 3 of The Last of Us Season 1, they encounter a mass grave with skeletons and clothes, depicting that the victims there also included young children.

Joel tells Ellie that survivors were told to go to QZs, but when these QZs were packed, the survivors were killed, which resulted in the formation of these mass graves. This scene indicated that for the government, survival was first and foremost, although it was not about the survival of everyone.

4) Ellie kills Mel and Owen (Season 2 Episode 7)

The finale of Season 2 of The Last of Us might have left us with a cliffhanger, but it still depicted so many crucial and heartbreaking moments, including Joel’s death. Although Joel died earlier, we have seen much of him through flashbacks and how Ellie and his relationship had changed in the years they had spent together in Jackson.

By being in a safe community, Ellie grew up to be compassionate, just like she was earlier, and living in Jackson provided her a safe home where she grew up a better human being in a harsh world. In the scene where she confronts Mel and Owen, asking about Abby’s whereabouts, Owen thinks that she would kill them anyway, but Ellie tells him she wouldn’t, as she is not like them.

However, he is still killed by Ellie, not because of her decision but because of her survival instincts when he picked up the gun. The result happened to be Mel’s death as well, which was heartbreaking to see.

3) Joel kills Eugene (Season 2, Episode 6)

How Eugene died was one of the most asked questions since the premiere of The Last of Us Season 2. In episode 6, it is finally revealed that Eugene was bitten and wanted to say goodbye to his wife before being killed. However, Joel didn’t wait until he reached Jackson and killed him away from the community.

It was one of the toughest decisions that Joel might have made, where survival ranked above compassion and was hated by Gail, Eugene’s wife, and also Ellie.

2) Ellie saves an injured Joel (Season 1, Episode 4)

Bella Ramsey in The Last of Us | Image via Sony Pictures Television

While they enter Kansas City in episode 4 of The Last of Us, they encounter more dangerous men who try to trick them into helping them, but their real plan is to ambush them. As Joel refuses to help a man asking for help, more of his friends attack them, gaining the upper hand over Joel and choking him.

This put Ellie in a weird position as she couldn’t decide how to help Joel. Fidgeting with her knife, she ultimately used the gun she took from Frank and Bill’s house, killing the man and saving Joel. This was the first time we saw Ellie kill a person, which resulted from her survival instincts and to save Joel. A moment earlier, she wanted Joel to help these men, and these incidents had a lasting impact on her, as we see Ellie go through several emotions after killing the man.

1) Joel killing the Fireflies (Season 1 Episode 9)

The biggest decision Joel had made in his life that further moved the story forward but also killed him in Season 2 of The Last of Us was killing the Fireflies to save Ellie. After finding out that the procedure that they would do on Ellie to procure a piece of her brain would result in her death, Joel, not wanting Ellie to be the sacrifice to save human life, killed many members of the Fireflies, including the doctor, who was Abby’s father.

For Joel, Ellie’s survival was more important than anyone else’s, and due to this, he took this drastic step, which he hid from Ellie for a long time. This decision of Joel killed him and began the enmity between Ellie and Abby.