History Headscratchers / TheLastOfUs

* The suburbs are still considered their territory, albeit the frontier. That's why there's a sniper and several other hunters there, after all. As for why they keep chasing after them, well, given the sheer number of hunters Joel and Ellie kill everywhere they go (without even counting the hunters Henry, Sam, and/or any of the other "tourists" may have killed within the same timeframe; remember, there are other people running loose in the city besides just Ellie and Joel), it may not even be revenge so much as simple self-preservation, because in this case, the tourists aren't just trying to escape; they're slaughtering their way out.

** Tommy has only settled in Wyoming with Maria recently when Joel and Ellie find him. Presumably, he was traveling through Texas prior to that after leaving the Fireflies.

* Would a her of Giraffes really be able to survive for over a decade in north America? I know nature is reclaiming the city on all that, but I would have thought Giraffe's would require a more specialized diet.

** Because when they dies out in the open, their non infected, not insect and humanly intelligent counterpart goes ”Oh Hey, dude died out in the open, let us now collect his carcass and burn it to ash before it start growing spores and Murder us all.

* Why do those infected who are about to die seek out dark, enclosed places to, er, take root rather than high, open areas where their spores can spread more readily like their insect counterparts?

** In that particular case, it was Schrodinger's Childhood. [[spoiler:Henry was over-protective of Sam, he didn't want to let him have toys or, really, have fun if it put them at any risk. He treated him like a kid, not a partner, like Joel comes to do with Ellie. And as Tess shows, even people who know how to handle themselves can run out of road eventually.]]

** NaughtyDog's staff miraculously survived the apocalypse with all of the technology they needed to keep making games; unfortunately Nolan North didn't make it so they had to go with Justin Bieber. Or it's just RuleOfFunny and you shouldn't think about it too hard.

* There aren't many children around anymore, either killed for being seen as useless or died to Infected. But why are none of the kids given basic defense training or weapons? Not giving them guns makes sense: bullets and guns are scarce resources; guns are also loud and can easily attract Clickers and some weapons are difficult for children to handle because of weight or form. But why not give them knives or shivs? Ellie does fine with her knife as a weapon and shivs seem easy enough to create, so why not make defense training a standard? [[spoiler:It would have kept Sam safe.]]

*** We've seen in wartime that people will make whatever they need to, to get an advantage in a fight, so even if the brass decided, top-down not to make knives, it's just not realistic to think not a single person would feel insecure and make some sort of weapon. People in prison melt toothbrush handles to stick razor blades in them. In WW1, they sharpened shovels for use as chopping weapons in trench warfare. It's probably just entirely a gameplay thing that you never even find say, brass knuckles to make punching the majority of the infected population to death easier, or the one soldier who sharpened a railroad tie or tent stake.

* There aren't many children around anymore, usually implied to have been killed because they are seen as being defenseless in battle or dying from infected and similar. But exactly why has nobody bothered to teach the kids basic defense, at the very least? Not giving them guns could be understandable. Resources of bullets and guns are scarce and heavily guarded by the military; guns are loud, which can attract Clickers very easily and some weapons can be very difficult to hold by kids because of weight or its form. But why not give them knives or shivs? Ellie has a knife and it's certainly helped her survive up to now. If everyone was taught how to defend themselves, a lot more of humanity might still be around. [[spoiler:It certainly could have helped Sam a lot.]]

** One other possibility is that they only rely on that for their fighters / scavengers. [[spoiler: So they annibalize these people and eat their flesh to support the people who actively fight and scavenge, who would naturally expend lots of energy and need a high-calorie diet, while animal foods and crops are given to the women and children, maybe.]] It's not actually something sustainable long term and [[spoiler: cannibalism is known for causing all sorts of issues for your long-term health IIRC.]]

* So, Ellie was infected but did not die, which led to the assumption that she was immune. But the infection detector-gadget used by the military indicated that she was infected nevertheless, which would lead to the conclusion that her immune system can't fight the infection, only prevent the symptoms a la Typhoid Mary. With this conclusion, would it even make sense to think about making a vaccine out of her (though desperation could drive one to trying even if not)?

** It seems as though the hunters in Pittsburgh ''do'' try to hunt wildlife when they can, since one of them can be seen trying to shoot crows; ambushing tourists is probably a supplement. Farming in the suburbs doesn't seem to be particularly viable due to all the infected that seem to lurk outside the city boundaries, and a lot of the hunters probably wouldn't know how to farm anyway, if they had any inclination to. As for David's group, they're also perfectly willing to hunt, but there a lot of infected to contend with, and game really doesn't seem all that plentiful; Ellie herself only managed to find a rabbit and a deer that David and James were eager to get their hands on. Tommy's group has prime real estate on their side thanks to the presence of a hydroelectric dam and easily defendable patches of fertile land, as well as a general lack of infected in the area. Plus, they have good people on their side; the game explores how different people deal with the apocalypse, and Pittsburgh and David's settlement explore how assholes deal with it.

*** If cannibalism is not their primary food source, it's certainly a major one, as the meat ledger shows. That just doesn't seem practical in an age where humanity is almost gone. You say there aren't many animals to hunt, but why wouldn't there be? The game has shown nature is taking back over the world since humanity is almost gone. There aren't many humans to keep the animal population down. As such, you would think animals would be massively more common the humans, especially since the virus doesn't effect them. I feel the same way around the hunters as well. Is it really practical to make a living robbing people when there are hardly any humans left to rob?

* Does it make any sense at all for David's town to use cannibalism as their primary food source when humanity is almost extinct? That's supposed to be the main point of the game: Humanity is almost gone, hence the title. As such, you would think there would hardly be any humans to cannibalize. You gotta figure there would be entire months in which the town would not encounter any new humans. Not only that, but almost all the humans who are still alive by people like Joel: Rugged survivalists who would put up a tough fight. Because of this, it would seem that hunting humans is far less productive and more dangerous then hunting wildlife, which is more plentiful and doesn't have a sentient mind to aid them in resistance.