Henry & Sam

Henry

Gender	Male
Race	Human
Age	25[1]
Known Relatives	Sam (brother) †
Status	Deceased
Location	Hartford(Formerly) Pittsburgh

Sam

Gender	Male
Race	Human
Age	13[1]
Known Relatives	Henry (brother) †
Status	Deceased
Location	Hartford(Formerly) Pittsburgh

When I started playing Naughty Dog’s “The Last of Us”, I had no idea that it would have any African-American characters, let alone three. Given the post apocalyptic them, I believed the only [living] characters in the entire game would be the two central characters Joel and Ellie. With a title like; “Last of Us”, You would think that to be true.  Turns out, there are tons of others. The game is full of Humans that you will get to meet; good and bad(mostly bad though).  The atmosphere of the game puts you in the mind of television’s “The Walking Dead”; mankind’s moral compass has gone to hell and there are things out there that like to feed on humans. However,  Clickers are a lot faster and stronger than Walkers(these things literally fights back). Towards the end of the game(mid-Summer season), Joel and Ellie cross paths with the Big Brother-Younger Brother duo, Henry and Sam.

To consider these brothers minor characters is a bit much.  They are only a part of the game for one chapter. Even though they appear just for a short time, Henry and Sam are some of the best portrayal of  African-Americans in video games I have seen in a while.  Some developers and writers have a difficult time making minority characters seem…..well…. authentic.  They are either not ethnic enough or too stereotypical (We get it Square! Barret and Sazh are BLACK!). That’s not the case for these two, in fact, they break a lot of stereotypes. Though little is known about them, Henry, 25, comes off as someone who has had a proper upbringing. He talks about his family’s BBQs and showcases a non-ruthless behavior. Which is rare considering the state of the world the game takes place in. He even showcases more of a moral code than both Ellie and Joel by forbidden his brother to “steal” from abandoned buildings and dead bodies.

The characters, though originally intended to be white, appear to be modeled off of the voice actors;                                                  Brandon Scott(Henry) and Nadji Jeter(Sam)

Can't really find any Cosplay of them, but found a cool drawing

[SPOILER ALERT:] Only negative thing I will say about them is the way they exist the game. It's like they were brought into the game just to die. Unlike the other [good] characters our protagonist  meet during their adventure, the brothers provide nothing to the story-line, other than heart-breaking endings. The death of Henry&Sam would have cracked my top 5 Saddest Videogame deaths had they showed more. As soon as Henry drops dead, the screen goes black and then the time is forwarded to the Winter season.