Entry Six

Images courtesy of Naughty Dog, Inc. (2013)

Ellie’s been holding her own, learning how to shoot. She’s gotten pretty damn good with it, too. Even helping me with Clickers and Stalkers that come our way. She’s getting’ good, that girl. Makes me feel pretty proud. We found Tommy and his crew in Jackson, Missouri. They had nice little compound—power, crops, livestock…families. Tommy said that Firefly lab is at the University of Eastern Colorado, in the Science Building. Gave us a horse to get there. Ha, I was trying to teach Ellie how football works. The kid caught on pretty quick. This is her first time at a University. Had trouble understanding that people just lived there and studied. She said that if she could have gone to college, could’ve been anything, she would’ve been an Astronaut. I made the mistake of tellin’ her I wanted to be a singer. Now she wants me to sing for her. Ha, that’s not happening anytime soon. The damn Science Building was harder to find that Tommy had said. The whole campus was crawling with infected…more than I expected, anyways. No Fireflies, neither. We found a recording device left by a Firefly corpse. It said everyone left for Saint Mary’s Hospital in Salt Lake City. We already came all the way from Boston…now we’ve gotta go even further West. Fucking bandits ambushed us when we were trying to leave. I got most of ‘em, but one blindsided me…pushed me off a balcony…I fell…onto a metal rod. Through my kidney…I guess. This ain’t good…Shit, I can barely walk. It’s getting harder to see…everything is blurry…I’m trying so damn hard to stay conscious…I fell to the floor, there’s four more guys comin’ for Ellie…I raise my gun from the floor and fire at one, but they keep coming…Ellie got ‘em…She got ‘em all…Stopped ‘em from shootin’ us…and from taking our horse…Ellie…I’ve gotta protect her…We have to get to Salt Lake City…Ellie…

This entry illustrates the transition in character development from “innocence” to “experienced.” Ellie didn’t know how to use weapons well, and Joel refused to teach her for a very long time. By teaching Ellie and allowing her to defend herself, Joel facilitated Ellie’s transition from innocence to experienced. This is furthered when we see that Joel failed this particular quest. He got hurt and became unable to lead and protect Ellie, so she took the reins and pushed forward. This is reminiscent of “The Story of the Grail (Perceval)” by Chretien de Troyes, wherein Perceval begins his quest as a bumbling child, referred to as a “boy.” After he’s had a few encounters and gained some experience, he is referred to as a “youth.” It isn’t until the end if the work that Perceval is referred to as a “knight.” This demonstrates his development from a novice to an experienced man. We can see this directly in Joel’s own references to Ellie; at the beginning, he typically refers to her as “girl” or “kid,” but later in the narrative, after she’s became more experienced with the world outside the QZ, Joel refers to her by name, “Ellie.” This is a matter of respect in that he sees her identity as her own—something that she has gained by actively participating in learning experiences, taking chances to try new things, and understanding Joel as a person who can teach her useful and legitimate things. I wanted to use this entry to identify the extreme travel present throughout this work, so I had Joel explicitly state that they have travelled from the Boston QZ to the University in Colorado, with their next stop set for Salt Lake City, Utah. I wanted to emphasize the physical distance that Joel and Ellie have traveled, which aligns nicely with Medieval works about pilgrimages. This is a cross-country physical quest, as many Medieval pilgrimages were, and there has clearly been several dangers with taking up a quest such as this. Joel and Ellie repeatedly run into bandits who are scavenging the landscape as well as travellers. Every encounter with bandits turns into a fight. Throughout Medieval pilgrimage texts, the danger of other travellers with ill-intent is frequently present, likely due to it being a very real danger in reality; this is why people undertook pilgrimages in groups. With fewer numbers, the chances are higher that a group of bandits can sneak up on you, rob you, and potentially kill you. In The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man (originally by the French writer Guillaume de Deguileville around 1330 CE, translated by Eugene Clasby 1992 CE), the Pilgrim comes upon many monstrous beings that are allegorical representations of Avarice (greed), Penitence (shame), and others. Avarice has six arms, two bloody stumps coming from her shoulders, an obscenely long tongue, sores and infected wounds all over her body, and a demonic-looking idol on her head. The Pilgrim is so frightened by her that he eagerly leaves, and thinks to himself that he does not want to become so greedy and materialist that he turns into a creature such as that. This wasn’t a physical battle like so many of Joel and Ellie’s, but it was a spiritual battle, and dangerous and frightening all the same. 
Quest Expectations/Terms: Innocence vs. Experience; Travel; Adventure; Recursivity