The first episode of The Last of Us, published by HBO Max, once again proved why the series (and Last of Us games) is so successful. In the first episode, which takes just over an hour, we meet layered characters on their personal journeys, witness a horrific zombie epidemic, tear our hearts apart by the death of a young girl, and understand the complex nature of the series’ post-apocalyptic world.
It’s no exaggeration to say that the first episode of The Last of Us accomplished more in a single episode than most shows in an entire season. But there is another reason why The Last of Us is such an exciting series. While most zombie outbreak stories focus on a fast-spreading virus like the flu or COVID, The Last of Us blames the apocalypse on fungi, more specifically cordyceps (cordyceps), and the realistic introduction of these fungi makes them more frightening than a mysterious and unseen virus. .
What is Cordyceps?
Cordyceps is a genus of fungi that includes more than 600 species. What most of these species have in common is that they are parasites that live inside a host’s body and grow until they eventually cause their death. All the stories you’ve heard about zombie ants being eaten from the inside out by fungi are actually true, and they originate from Cordyceps mushrooms. In other words, these fungi can already do to insects like ants in real life what they did to humans in The Last of Us.
Cordyceps mushroomA cordyceps often attaches itself to another creature and gradually replaces its tissues, altering its victim’s neurological behavior. For example, when cordyceps infects insects, they take over their bodies and persuade them to seek higher places where they can spread their spores and infect more insects. This is part of the biological imperative that drives all living things to reproduce and maintain their genetic pools.
But when it comes to cordyceps, the result can be pretty daunting. Acknowledging this disturbing fact of the cordyceps strain, The Last of Us addresses a story that questions the consequences of a human infection by these parasitic fungi.
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Does Last of Us’ fungus affect humans?
Since these fungi cannot live in the bodies of warm-blooded creatures, humanity has not had to worry about a cordyceps infection until now. Because the human body is too hot for fungi to survive, cordyceps fungi prefer insects as targets.
However, as we see much more rapidly with viruses, species slowly change their existence over time, undergoing mutations and adaptations that allow them to better adapt to their environment. Survival of members with these mutations becomes easier, and over time, a much larger part of the species will carry this mutation.
An ant possessed by the Cordyceps fungus.The rising average temperature of our planet allows mutations that make species more heat resistant to survive more adaptively to the environment. So, The Last of Us is considering the possibility that global warming may actually cause the emergence of cordyceps strains that can infect humans.
In ordinary zombie invasions, a virus wipes out the human mind and turns it into a savage beast. In The Last of Us, human neurology also appears to have been altered to make the host more aggressive and more likely to spread the fungus to new victims by biting. But as cordyceps is gradually replacing human tissue and eating people from the inside out, the process that ensues is even more frightening. So it’s not surprising that we saw so many amputees in the Boston quarantine zone in episode 1 of The Last of Us, as people probably choose to amputate some limbs to stop the fungus from spreading inside them.
While The Last of Us offers a laudable story with its human drama, cordyceps mushrooms help the series stand out from other horror productions focusing on zombies.
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