Those who are familiar with the Naughty dog video games You will have noticed that the Episode 5 of “The Last of Us” had some changes. Apart from that Pittsburgh was replaced by Kansas City As a setting, the HBO Max series also featured Sam as a deaf character and younger than the original.
On Friday February 10th Chapter titled “Persevere and Survive”which takes its name from the line in the comic Ellie and Sam read in the underground nursery.
This week was full of very intense moments because of the different action scenes that the protagonists had to go through, but also because of the tragic ending Brothers Henry and Sam.
In the original video games is the teenager almost as old as Ellie and does not have the same hearing impairment as the series. But the creators of the series Craig Mazin and Neil Druckman You’ve decided it’s important to make this change, and we’ll explain why below.
Before proceeding, take a look here Trailer for episode 5 of “The Last of Us”.
WHY IS SAM DEAF IN THE LAST OF US SERIES?
Recently the creators of the series spoke about the reason for changing the character of Sam, played by the young actor Keivonn Montreal Woodard. All this It was Craig Mazin’s idea as he wanted to change the dynamic between Henry and Samso it’s not too similar to Joel and Ellie.
“It started with a small concern I had. There was some kind of communication between Joel and Ellie I didn’t want it to be repeated between Henry and Sam‘ Craig Mazin explained in the Official podcast of the series. “In the game you never spend time alone with Henry and Sam. But if they’re alone and we knew we wanted to do that, how do those arguments sound? And they could very easily fall into the trap of the desperate father figure and the worried and curious child figure. We wanted to change this way of communicating“.
But why make the change specifically for a deaf person? According to the showrunner, the factor is that The idea was planted in his head for watching the Sundance TV series This Close, in which the protagonists are deaf people.
“It’s about two best friends navigating the world and what it’s like when they’re both trying to find love in their own lives, but also how they navigate it as deaf people. When they’re dealing with other people who aren’t deaf,” he added, and that was clearly evident in the interactions Sam’s character had.
In episode 5 of The Last of Us, Sam used his slate to communicate with people who didn’t know sign language (Picture: HBO)
Also, the fact that Sam was deaf made him much more dependent on Henry, which put more pressure on the older brother to protect him. When I raised this alternative with Neil Druckmann, who was also behind the development of the original video game, he had a very funny reaction.
“I said to him, ‘What if Sam is deaf? It automatically gives these scenes a sense of intimacy because they are silent. Ellie talks a lot and it’s interesting to see what it would be like if he were a little calmer and put Sam and Henry in this bubble that would have to expand to include Joel and Ellie. And Neil told me fuck you‘ he admitted and they both burst out laughing. Well, the showrunner’s comment continued, “I wish I’d thought of that.”
WHY IS SAM YOUNGER IN THE SERIES THAN IN THE LAST OF US VIDEO GAMES?
Likewise, the fact that Sam was younger than his age in the video games isn’t coincidental either (nothing is coincidental in a script written by Craig Mazin). The idea of making the character younger was like that The dynamic of heroism that Ellie and Joel had was repeated a bit.
“We also talked about making Sam younger because we liked the idea of Ellie having someone who looks up to her like she looks up to Joel,” he added.