The series The Last Of Us features survivors of an epidemic linked to a fungus, named cordyceps. Does it really exist and can it infect humans in reality? Warning, spoilers.
Warning, spoilers. It is advisable to have seen the first two episodes of The Last Of Us before continuing to read this article.
Adaptation of the famous video game by Neil Druckmann (creator of the video game franchise) and Craig Mazin (Chernobyl), The Last Of Us is the event series for the start of 2023.
Broadcast weekly on HBO in the United States and on Amazon Prime Video in France, The Last Of Us tells the journey of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), two survivors of a pandemic, who cross a post- apocalyptic and ravaged by a virus originating from a fungus and infecting humans.
And from the first episode, fans, but especially the uninitiated, wondered about the realism of the infection portrayed in the series. And the introductory sequence of the second episode comes to add a layer. So does Cordyceps really exist and can the infection on humans really happen?
Could the infection in The Last Of Us actually happen?
In the video game, Cordyceps is the source of the infection that has infected all humans, who have become extremely aggressive hosts. The fungus grows in the brain and acts on the limbic system like a cancer. It also transforms humans by blooming from their heads.
The transition from video games to series has brought about some narrative changes. Thus Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin have modified the way Cordyceps infection develops.
In the game, it spread to humans through infected agricultural products, and it then spreads through spores in the air. This gave rise to a few sequences with masked characters in the video game work.
HBO
In the series, there is no trace of spores since the infection spreads through fungal tendrils that become an “interconnected” network.
“We wanted to base this series on a plausible scientific basis. Cordyceps is a fascinating concept and it’s absolutely real. We wanted to pull as close to reality as possible, because the more real it is, the more we identify with the characters in play”thus explained Craig Mazin to Collider.
For the sake of realism, the first episode of The Last Of Us therefore begins with a debate on viral pandemics on a talk show in 1968. An epidemiologist, named Dr. Neuman, explains that many species of fungi are dangerous.
And that in the future, with global warming affecting the world, fungi may well adapt to these rising temperatures and attack and control other living species besides insects, namely humans.
In the opening sequence of the second episode, we discover Ibu Ratna, a professor of Indonesian mycology, who is ordered by the government to study an infected body. And she explains that it is due to an ophiocordyceps and that no vaccine or medicine can put an end to it.
This contextualization makes it possible to increase the tension and the fear in the spectator but also to explain that a danger which seems impossible to us can turn out to be a reality, and this, more quickly than we think, even if it is a fiction.
Screenshot / HBO
Ophiocordyceps exists and it is a genus of entomopathogenic fungi that infects insects and spiders by killing their neurons and controlling them. And the plot of The Last Of Us is pretty realistic according to Dr. Ilan Schwartz, an infectious disease specialist at Duke University School of Medicine, as he explained to vulnerability :
“The argument that global warming has increased a fungus’ thermal tolerance is far from bizarre. It hasn’t been proven. It’s a hypothesis, and it’s happening on a fairly slow scale. But it’s possible”.
That being said, cordyceps cannot currently attack humans and experts believe that this evolution is unlikely to happen.
Pennsylvania State University entomologist David Hughes says The Last Of Us case shouldn’t happen, even though fungi can be a danger to humans, as 1.3 million people die every year due to fungal diseases.
But that’s not about ophiocordyceps. That this mushroom “jumps from ants to humans, then [à d’autres personnes]…it probably requires too many circumstances [improbables] for this to happen”.
The Last Of Us series is broadcast in US+24 on Amazon Prime Video in France.