In episode one of The Last Of Us, there’s some graffiti scrawled on the post-apocalyptic cityscape: “When you’re lost in the darkness, look for the light.” Twee? On first glance, maybe. But this isn't the work of a group of toxic positivity Instagram influencers. This, it turns out, is the mark of the resistance.
As fans of the original Playstation game will already know, the tale of The Last Of Us picks up after a zombie plague has terrorised the planet, and now smuggler Joel (played by Pedro Pascal in the series) has been given the mission of ensuring an important-but-we-don’t-yet-know-why girl, Ellie (Bella Ramsey) is delivered to a gang on the other side of America. Joel, meanwhile, is looking for his missing brother Tommy, a task that’s made even more difficult thanks to the barrage of fungus-headed beasts that keep launching at him.
Remaining humans either live in quarantines behind a city wall, heavily patrolled by a military dictatorship, form their own settlements, or roam around the great nothingness of the mainland while on the run from the undead.
The FEDRA vs. the Fireflies
But there are factions existing within the totalitarian quarantine zones. The ruling group is FEDRA, AKA the Federal Disaster Response Agency, which the game tells us rose to power using martial law and evolved into a bureaucratic force. However, from this came the rebel groups fighting against their rule: the Fireflies.
The leader of the Fireflies is Marlene, and she encourages the public to join them and to riot against FEDRA in the hope of getting rid of the military occupation. And as anybody launching a campaign or movement knows: you need a good catchphrase, and the Fireflies’ is, “When you’re lost in the darkness, look for the light.”
While playing the game, or watching the Craig Mazin series, you’ll notice the “look for the light” slogan graffitied all around. It’s a call to arms for the public (and the gamer and the viewer) and to let them know there’s a group fighting back. It suggests there is always hope within desperate situations with the Fireflies setting themselves out as the “light” in this dark time.
In the series, the Fireflies also appear to use it as a greeting, or an affirmation that they’re fighting the same cause, as one man starts to say at one point to Joel. It also resonates with the name behind the group, fireflies, who are, of course, flies drawn to light.
It’s a theme that runs throughout the rest of the storyline, culminating in Ellie getting a tattoo of a moth (which resembles a firefly) on her arm in the game. Neil Druckmann, The Last Of Us co-director told The Washington Post: “There’s this idea of obsession and being drawn to a light and constantly pursuing this thing. And that’s how we got the idea.”
Handily enough, it’s also served as a tagline for the PR campaign for the Sky Atlantic series, from still shots from the set:
... to actual real life street marketing, as noted by one Twitter user:
Making this catchphrase now perhaps one of the most meta slogans in existence.
The Last Of Us begins on Sky Atlantic / NOW TV on January 16.
