The Last of Us: Why Joel's watch is so important
Why one change between the TV show and the game makes Joel's loss even more impactful
By this point, the prologue of The Last of Us is as synonymous with the game as the horrifying clickers or spooky mushrooms. It was a watershed moment for many gamers and non-gamers that proved the narrative potential the video game format truly possessed. You could talk about anything from that prologue and spin it out into a book-length essay. There's the decision to have you start off playing as Joel's daughter Sarah, seeing the world end through her eyes. There's the horrifying escalation of events that lead up to the car crash, all burning buildings and rabid neighbours.
And then there's the moment Joel, holding an injured Sarah, is held at gunpoint by a gas-masked soldier. The moment that Sarah is killed, dying in your arms as she gasps for a breath we know will never come. I don't want to talk about these moments. I'd like to go back a few minutes earlier to Sarah gifting Joel a watch for his birthday. The game and the TV show differ slightly in the context they give the watch so I'll talk about how both mediums carry the symbol in different ways, starting with the game.
Stuck in the past
To say that Joel is stuck in the past at the start of the game, still living in the moment of his daughter’s death, is like saying Pedro Pascal is an attractive man. It's just obvious, right? What I love about the symbol of the watch is how it functions in multiple ways, as all good symbols within stories should.
For those who don't remember, the night that the shit hits the fan just happens to be Joel's birthday (I know, right). He's late home from work, as per, and so his daughter had to wait to give him his gift. It's a watch. Joel jokes about how the watch is broken, and Sarah laughs. She cracks wise about "selling drugs, hardcore drugs" to pay for it. It's a wholesome moment. One made even more critical by the fact that, somewhere in the mess leading to Sarah's death, the watch does, in fact, stop.
The watch is Joel's connection to his daughter, the fact that it is frozen at the moment of her death shows that he hasn't moved on from that night. From the guilt and grief of losing Sarah.
Enter, Ellie. This rambunctious, bad joke telling teen, is immune and in need of someone to take her across the country to the folks than can synthesise a cure. Through a pretty bloody chain of events, Joel is stuck with the task. And he can't think of anything worse than being saddled with a young girl of around the same age as Sarah.
They go back to Joel's apartment to wait for nightfall where Ellie, ever the smartass, comments that Joel's watch is broken. He doesn't comment on it, he just lays on the sofa having another dream about the loss of his daughter. It’s fitting that this girl, his soon-to-be surrogate daughter, immediately notices this symbol Joel wears around his wrist. She immediately knows he's living frozen in his grief even if she doesn't know its cause just yet.
The watch also calls into question our need for time as it exists in the modern world. If we aren't scheduling stuff or working specific hours because, you know, everything's gone to hell, then why do we need clocks? After all, they didn't have clocks back during the ice age, they just woke with the sun.
The watch, aside from being Joel's connection to Sarah, is also a link to the world of the past. The memory of the old world, a world Ellie never saw, living with him every minute of every day. Time ended in 2003 when the virus began to spread. The world became frozen in the chaos of that night. Buildings left as they were, houses stuck in time, just like Joel.
Time for change
That brings me to the TV show. The prologue follows much the same path as the game with a few notable differences. The first is, you guessed it, Joel's watch. The show makes the brilliant choice of having Joel already own the watch. Instead of buying something new for her father, TV show Sarah is getting his old watch repaired for him as a gift. Using his own money, no less.
We still get that powerful moment of connection between Joel and his daughter but now we have the added weight of wondering where the watch came from originally, why it was in need of repair, why Joel kept it hidden in a drawer and why Joel hadn't gotten it fixed before that fateful birthday?
We don't get answers to these questions in the text but we can infer a few things. Sure, it could all be down to Joel just not having the time to get an old watch fixed but something tells me that the show wants us to imagine the watch’s original origins.
Neither in the TV show nor in the game is Sarah's mother in the picture. My theory is that the watch was originally a gift from her before she either died or left them. Now, that symbol represents everything he's ever loved and everything he's ever lost. Joel, just like his watch, is frozen in his grief. Frozen in place just like the world around him.
Great game, great show, and great post. Cheers!