I will warn you the following article contains spoilers and major details from the Last of Us and if you haven’t played the game I suggest avoiding this article until you do.
Following my game of the week segment I do regularly I decided that I can do a further look into a game, but instead picking a character I feel deserves attention for a special reason, occasionally these can be main characters in a game but as a matter of preference I think it could be better to look at small characters. By small though I don’t mean see them once and never see then again, I mean side characters who are important but don’t always get the attention they deserve or leave us to early. Sure on occasion I will look at more major characters like Tails from Sonic, or Riku from Kingdom Hearts for examples but for this month I think I want to focus on a character that met a terrible fate (Majora’s Mask reference not intentional). So who is this months special character? Well it is Henry from the Last of Us.
So you may be asking why I would pick Henry as my character of the month? Why is it this character is so special? Well I will tell you. The easiest way to start this is really to mention the Last of Us and its story, as many of you who have played the game are aware the game is all about survival following a bad event which crumbled society and leaving those who remain as survivors in a dystopian world. Across the course of the game you hear about several survivors or at least potential survivors who have tried to make it through the harsh conditions of the game, most of these people are merely referenced through notes found in the world and although we begin to feel and care for each of these people they still don’t actually appear. As it goes outside of Joel and Ellie there is but one pair of people you meet that you honestly can care for and these people are Henry and his brother Sam.
Henry is a tough character who has been forced to be strong by situation by the world and is forced like the games main protagonist Joel has to do with Ellie, Henry has to do what is necessary to protect his brother. This has forced him to think carefully about necessities, do what he thinks is best to help them survive even if it does not always make him the favorite person with his brother. Henry is quick to state that his number one rule is only take what is necessary to survive and this does not make things easy for his brother Sam who is still a kid and as such wants certain things.
It is the harsh realities of such a world as that which is present within the Last of Us but you have to respect Henry and him only trying to do what is necessary, he isn’t out as part of a group of murderous bandits, he isn’t trying to hurt everyone he meets, he just wants to make his way through the world and get his brother to safety and often help him be safe by any means. It becomes sad and even tear educing to think about how his tale ends, and it is just sadder because he is only trying to do the right thing. For those of you who have played the game you will know that Henry ends up taking his own life and this is all after having to kill his own brother when he is infected and trying to kill Ellie. He feels so bad for what he was forced to do that he pulls the gun on himself and ends it all. I feel bad for Henry in this moment but it is a quick thought about what exactly he has done and the sadness he feels. This is why Henry is my character of the month, he was just trying to survive the world and things happened that filled him with so much guilt, Henry deserves to be remembered in that game as a guy trying to do the right thing and that moment in which Henry leaves the world is easily one of the most emotionally affecting moments of the game.
