8 Video Game Characters Who Desperately Need Therapy
2. Ellie - The Last of Us
The Last of Us' Ellie is one of the most complex and impressively well-wrought characters in video game history, and a fascinating one to examine from a psychoanalytic perspective.
First and foremost she's been traumatised since birth, having grown up in a post-apocalyptic Earth with danger lurking around every corner.
With respect to the period of the games themselves, her relationship with Joel is clearly one of unhealthy co-dependence, and when Joel is killed early on in the second game, Ellie is left struggling with intense survivor's guilt.
By the time we reach the final chapter of the story, Ellie is suffering through crushing PTSD to the extent that it strains her relationship with Dina.
With The Last of Us Part III assumed to be in development as we speak, it's safe to say that Ellie's story is far from finished.
It's just a shame that trauma counsellors are evidently few and far between thanks to that mutated Cordyceps fungus.