The Hero's Journey

I wrote this Twine game because I find that stories are a good mnemonic. 

However, it's important to remember that this is not a rule book anyone should dogmatically follow. Like the Pirate's Code, it's more what you'd call 'guidelines' than actual rules.

It can be helpful to think of ideas like these as a structure to refer to when lost, or a set of conventions that can be manipulated and subverted for a more powerful effect. 

A good example of this subversion can be seen in The Last of Us Part 2.

**The Last of Us Part 2 spoilers ahead**

The Last of Us Part 2 begins as a traditional hero's journey: 

1. The Ordinary World

Ellie and her newfound friends in Jackson perform routine checks of the local area. There is a sense of normality and a comfortable cadence to life in the settlement.

2. Call to Adventure 

Ellie embarks on a quest after an inciting incident creates a problem that cannot be fixed from the comfort of home: Joel is murdered. However, complicated and troubled their relationship, he will always be a father figure to her.

This much follows the structure laid out by the Hero's Journey.

However, before the end of the game we switch characters and discover that from an alternative point of view, Abby is the hero of the story.  

The protagonist we identified with in the Last of Us is, from another point of view, the villain who murdered Abby's father and deprived mankind of its one last hope for survival against the infection.

The final challenge of Abby's journey (Step 8 - Ordeal) turns out to be Ellie, the apparent protagonist of the game. 

Abby spares Ellie and Dina at Lev's request - the second time she has spared Ellie. In sparing a pregnant woman (when Ellie did not), she shows that she is the true hero of the story and worthy of our respect. 

Her love for Lev now outweighs her hate for Ellie. She has ascended and can begin the journey home. Abby's reward (Step 9 - Reward) is freedom from hate.

Abby's journey home (Step 10 - The Road Back) includes her hardest test. On the brink of death, she is eventually rescued by Ellie and is resurrected (Step 11 - Resurrection). Mentally and physically, she is no longer the same Abby. 

She is no longer driven by the need for revenge. She refuses to fight Ellie and is dedicated to saving Lev. She is now driven by her love for Lev, not her hatred of Ellie (Step 12 - Return with the Elixir). 

Naughty Dog is able to show that each hero is the villain to the other, yet each is a protagonist that people love. This is an incredibly difficult writing challenge to undertake and the team deserves full credit for making it work. 

The Last of Us Part 2 is a landmark game in many respects. 

It is also worth noting that in both parts of The Last of Us, Naughty Dog has attempted to tell stories that are dependent on the medium of games.  The success of these stories is made possible because video games are interactive. 

Interactive media have a unique capacity to put us in the shoes of a character, which can result in an empathetic bond being built over time. 

Both games rely on this phenomenon to foster empathy in the player despite evidence that the protagonist's actions are highly questionable when viewed from other perspectives. 

In #TLOU, the player walks the Earth with Ellie, learning about her, relying on her, rescuing her, and bonding with her. When it comes time to choose between saving the world and saving our surrogate daughter, the choice isn't an easy one. 

In The Last of Us - Part 2, the player is asked to walk a mile in Abby's shoes. Despite that fact that she brutally murdered the protagonist of the first game, we eventually come to empathise with Abby, and see the situation from her point of view. 

In the end, the player controls by far the less heroic of the two characters - a staggeringly original and challenging notion for a mainstream audience. 

In doing so, we see that there are two sides to any conflict, and that hero/villain narratives are overly-simplistic constructs that will ultimately lead to an endless chain of violence, resulting in tragedy and ruin.

It's a powerful, important message - and one that moves the medium of video games forward in important ways. It's also a near-impossible narrative trick to pull off, and it's made possible because the writers adopt and then subvert the Hero's Journey. 

The enemy that Ellie overcomes is not Abby, but her own hatred. Her own obsession with revenge.

So, if you're looking for ways to subvert the Hero's Journey as a narrative tool, look to Naughty Dog for some advanced ideas.