There's something curious, maybe even unsettling, about how much we enjoy watching the world fall apart. From The Last of Us to The Walking Dead, audiences across the globe are captivated by stories of collapse.
These aren't just tales of survival; they're meditations on what it means to live, to love, and to be human when the world we know is gone. But why? Why are we drawn to post-apocalyptic narratives, especially at a time when reality itself can often feel on the brink? Existentialism offers some surprising insights. Let's take a deeper look.Post-Apocalyptic Stories as Thought Experiments
When the structures of modern society, laws, jobs, governments, and currencies are wiped out, what's left is something raw and brutally honest. Characters must reinvent themselves in real time. They are forced to choose, to act, and to take full responsibility for those choices. In other words, they are thrown into existential freedom.
In The Last of Us, Joel begins as a man emotionally shut down by grief. Ellie, in contrast, brings curiosity, courage, and a hunger for connection into a world defined by loss. Their journey isn't just about making it from Point A to Point B; it's about what they choose to live for when nothing is certain. As they move through the ruins of civilisation, the real stakes become emotional and moral, not logistical. That's existentialism in action.
Freedom, But at What Cost?
The philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre wrote that we are "condemned to be free." In other words, once the illusions of certainty and order are stripped away, we're faced with terrifying freedom, the burden of creating our own meaning in a meaningless world.
Post-apocalyptic shows like The Walking Dead echo this. Rick Grimes wakes from a coma to find the old world gone. No laws. No police. Just survival. Over time, he and his group create their own ethics: sometimes benevolent, sometimes brutal. But it's always their choice. With no higher authority to turn to, every decision weighs heavily.
This is a terrifying idea in real life. But in fiction, it's liberating. It allows us to fantasise about living on our own terms, away from the pressures and pretences of modern life. There's a strange comfort in imagining a world where the only thing that matters is your next step forward.
Death as a Constant Companion
Existential thinkers like Martin Heidegger believed that facing death is what allows us to live authentically. When we realise our time is finite, we begin to prioritise what truly matters. Post-apocalyptic stories do this naturally; death is everywhere. There's no escaping it, and the characters know it.
But in that awareness, something powerful happens. People begin to live. They say what they mean. They cherish connection. They stop wasting time. In The Last of Us, Joel and Ellie's relationship is forged not in safety but in danger. The fleeting nature of life makes every small moment sacred: shared laughter, a gaze, a joke, a lie that protects someone you love.
This is perhaps the most existential quality of all: the willingness to love and hope in the face of inevitable loss.
Shedding the False Self
Modern life often pressures us to perform, to wear social masks, adopt roles, and pursue goals that may not be ours. Careers, appearances, social media personas, and even friendships can be shaped by what we think we should be. Post-apocalyptic settings obliterate that pretence.
What happens when the world no longer expects anything from you? Who are you without your job title, your commute, your Instagram account? These stories give characters, and by extension, us, the chance to find out.
In The Walking Dead, Carol evolves from a meek housewife into a fierce, independent survivor. In The Last of Us, Joel lets go of being the "strong, silent type" and allows himself to become a protector, a father figure, even someone capable of making emotionally devastating choices in the name of love. These transformations are not just character arcs; they are existential awakenings.
Connection in the Void
One of the central tenets of existentialism is that we are ultimately alone, and yet we are also responsible for the way we relate to others. The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas argued that the face of the Other calls us to ethical responsibility. In a ruined world, that calling becomes louder, starker.
The apocalypse strips us bare, but what emerges is often a fierce commitment to others. Whether it's Joel carrying Ellie through a firestorm of violence or Rick risking everything for his son, these stories highlight the relational aspect of being human.
And viewers respond. We want to believe that, even if everything collapses, people will still find each other. That love still matters. That we are not lost as long as we are not alone.
Hope in the Rubble
Oddly, for stories filled with death, destruction and despair, post-apocalyptic fiction is also profoundly hopeful. When all systems collapse, something new can emerge. Not just survival but renewal.
In The Last of Us, we catch glimpses of this in moments of beauty: a giraffe wandering through a ruined city, Ellie finding a comic book, and a community growing crops and living peacefully behind a gate. These scenes remind us that nature endures, that people can rebuild, and that hope is a rebellious act.
Existentialism doesn't promise salvation, but it does suggest that meaning can be made, even in suffering. In fact, meaning must be made, precisely because there is no script. In the end, maybe the apocalypse is less about the end of the world and more about stripping life back to its essential questions: Who am I? What matters? What am I willing to fight for?
What These Stories Offer Us
Post-apocalyptic stories are modern myths. They offer us psychological rehearsal for crisis, but they also function as existential allegories. They allow us to explore what remains when everything is taken away.
We love these stories not because we want the world to end, but because we want to believe we could rise to the occasion. We want to believe we could find love, make hard choices, and still hold on to our humanity. In the chaos, we search for clarity.
In The Last of Us, the apocalypse is not just a backdrop; it is a crucible. It burns away the inessential. It forces the characters and us to confront the questions we often avoid. What do we value when everything else is gone?
Embracing the Existential Gaze
So why do we love the end of the world?
Because in the ruins, we recognise ourselves, not our outer lives, but our inner longings. Post-apocalyptic fiction strips away the scaffolding of society and leaves us with the naked truth of human existence. And in that rawness, there is something deeply moving, even beautiful.
Existentialism teaches us that we are the authors of our own lives, even when the world makes no sense. Post-apocalyptic stories show us what it means to write that story in the ashes. They challenge us to find meaning where there is none, to care in a world that no longer rewards caring, and to love when love seems futile.
Maybe the end of the world is the beginning of something more honest. Maybe that's what we're really tuning in for.
Sean Phelan is an existential psychotherapist in private practice. He works with individuals exploring questions of identity, purpose, anxiety, and becoming.
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