Nathan and Elena: where Uncharted takes them

Nathan and Elena: where Uncharted takes them Heavy spoilers for all four numbered games, including the ending of A Thief's End. One of the things I liked about Uncharted was Nathan and Elena. I liked their dynamic, and I really liked that the games eventually let them build a family together. You get to see where their relationship goes instead of just watching them get together at the end and never finding out anything else. There are a lot of things happening around them in these games. Treasure hunts, people trying to kill them, entire places coming apart while they're still standing in them. But when you go back through the series, their relationship changes along with all of that. Drake's Fortune Elena starts out documenting Nathan's expedition. She's a journalist, and she has a reason to be there that doesn't begin and end with him. Nathan wants the discovery, but he isn't always interested in having somebody else know everything he's doing. That gives them something to work through right from the beginning. They can enjoy each other's company and still have completely different ideas about how this expedition should work. Elena also gets pulled directly into the danger. She sees what Nathan is like when things go wrong, and he gets to see that she can handle far more than he initially gives her credit for. By the end, the relationship has somewhere to go. The later games have a foundation to build on because these two have already been through something together. Among Thieves Elena is in this one too. She and Nathan aren't together when they meet again, and Chloe is already part of Nathan's life. That changes the dynamic. There is history between Nathan and Elena now, including the part that didn't work out between games. Elena is following her own story with Jeff. She hasn't spent the time between adventures just waiting for Nathan to return. When their paths cross, both of them have reasons for being there. The situation with Jeff is an important part of how the characters differ. Getting away would be easier without somebody injured slowing them down, but Elena isn't willing to just abandon him. Nathan gets pulled into that decision too. You see what matters to people when there isn't a clean way out of the situation. By the end, Nathan and Elena find their way back to each other. But getting back together doesn't automatically resolve the way Nathan lives. The third game has more to say about that. Drake's Deception This one spends a lot of time on Nathan and Sully, and that relationship deserves its own discussion. But Elena is still important to where Nathan ends up. When they meet in Yemen, things between them are strained. There is already a commitment here, and there is also a reason they've drifted apart. The game doesn't need to give you a long explanation of every argument they had offscreen to show that something isn't right. Elena still helps. That doesn't mean everything has been forgotten. You can care about somebody and still be tired of the situations they keep putting themselves in. Nathan's need to keep going also puts Sully at risk. That makes the question bigger than whether Nathan can survive another adventure himself. There are people around him who keep following him into these situations. At some point, what he is trying to prove has a cost for them too. The ending brings Nathan and Elena back together again, with the ring making that commitment visible. But the fourth game is where they have to deal with what living that commitment actually looks like. A Thief's End Now they have a home and a life together. You see the ordinary parts of that life before the adventure takes over. That matters because there is finally something concrete for Nathan to lose beyond whatever treasure he happens to be chasing. Sam comes back, and Nathan thinks his brother needs him. That gives him a reason to get pulled back in. But Elena already knows who Nathan is. She's been through all of these things with him. Hiding the trip from her doesn't protect the relationship. It leaves her outside a huge part of his life while he tells himself he has a good reason for doing it. When she finds out, the problem isn't just that he went on another dangerous trip. It's that he lied to her. Knowing that difference makes the scenes between them mean a lot more than another argument about whether he should go treasure hunting. Elena comes back to help, but helping him doesn't erase what happened. They have to spend time together, talk, and work their way through it. There is still affection there, and there is still hurt. Both can be true at the same time. And I really like where the game leaves them. Their future still has adventure in it, but they find a way to share that life instead of Nathan repeatedly leaving one life behind to chase the other. Then you get Cassie. You see the family they built, and the old adventures become something they can finally tell their daughter about. After spending all that time with these characters, I liked seeing them get that future. That's the direction I was talking about when I said I liked what Uncharted did with their relationship. It takes more than one game to get there. There are separations, things they don't tell each other, and decisions that don't work out. By the time the series reaches that family, you've watched a lot of what it took for them to get there.