The Last of Us shares its theory of the spread, the origin of the virus, and the first bite
The Last of Us Episode 3 explains how cordyceps spread across the world through food and how society collapsed in a matter of two days.
How it all started?
In the award-winning episode 3 of The Last of Us, Ellie asks Joel the question that has been on our minds. “And it all went to shit in one day? I eat? Come on, there was no cordyceps infection.
The people were fine. Eating in restaurants, taking planes, and I don’t know, all of a sudden, how did it all start? Because if they have to bite you to infect you, who bit the first person?” asks the young woman. ”Would it be a monkey? Sure it was a monkey! In FEDRA (Federal Disaster Response Agency) schools they don’t teach how our shitty government screwed up with the pandemic”.
Joel chooses not to lie to the young woman and tells her the truth, terrifying as it is. “No one knows for sure, but it is believed that the cordyceps mutated and contaminated some food, some basic ingredients such as flour or sugar.
There were brands of food that were sold all over the country and all over the world. Bread, cereal, or some pancakes. If you ate enough you would get infected. The contaminated food arrived at all stores on Thursday at the same time.
It was sold and consumed that night, or in the morning. Hours later, people fell ill. Between afternoon and night, they got worse and began to bite. On Friday, September 26, 2003. On Monday there was nothing left.
The origin of the series is Indonesia, but in the games, Latin America
Joel’s explanation is in line with those shown in the prologue of episode 2 of The Last of Us. the series is located in Jakarta, the most populous city in Indonesia, the origin of the infection.
They told us that it all started in a flour factory on September 24, 2003. The showrunners did not choose this date randomly, but it is two days before the death of Sarah, Joel’s daughter, to expose the speed at which everything spread.
Joel says that the virus traveled from one point of the planet to another in a matter of hours.
That is one of the few details where the series disagrees with the game. Because in the latter, back in 2013, we were told that cordyceps mutated in South America, where it contaminated various crops through which it passed to humans.
That could be read in a copy of the Texas Herald that served as a collectible and that could be read in the prologue with Joel and Sarah.
“The Food and Drug Administration is still looking into suspected mold contamination in crops across the nation.
Initial lists distributed to sellers across the country warned against imported crops from South America, but now the scope has been expanded to include Central America and Mexico. Several companies have already voluntarily removed their food products from the shelves.
Do the game creators agree with the changes?
There will be those who also wonder if these changes (or other more striking ones, such as the fact that the infected now have a hive mind) are accepted by the creators of the original game.
The answer is that everything seems to indicate yes. What’s more, one of the fiction co-showrunners is Neil Druckmann, the creative director of Naughty Dog, precisely the studio that developed them.
Druckmann himself was in charge of directing the chapter that changed Latin America for Jakarta. Will the other person responsible for them, Bruce Straley, also agree, or is that why HBO has deleted him from the credits?
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