Abstract: This article analyzes the narrative of the phenomenally successful PlayStation series The Last of Us ( TLoU ) and The Last of Us Part II ( TLoU2 ) using intersectional feminist/queer theory. I show that the series' two female protagonists, Ellie ( TLoU, TLoU2 ) and Abby ( TLoU2 ), challenge the heteronormative family through their desire for queer kinship. I connect the TLoU series' exploration of queer relationality to scholarly discussions of paranoid versus reparative reading; I claim that the series combines these two reading methods with feminist versus queer analyses of the heteronormative family, respectively. Whereas Ellie's narrative in both TLoU and TLoU2 advances a feminist/paranoid critique of the hetero-family as the embodiment of the repetitive nature of hetero-violence, Abby's reparative queer narrative in TLoU2 centers around Abby's successful queering of the hetero-family via her queer kinship with her adoptive trans son Lev. I argue that TLoU2 displays a feminist sensibility in striving to balance a reparative queer desire to flourish in the present with a feminist critique of that very present. This striving is evident in how TLoU2 urges audiences to envision a future that transcends the heteronormative, anti-Black foundations of Abby and Lev's queer kinship.
JiHae Koo (Thu,) studied this question.