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Jackson County where? There's a couple of them across the country. Do we know which one it is?

We agreed a while ago that this Jackson County is in Wyoming. And please sign your posts next time.  M67PattonZippo (talk) 20:32, November 8, 2014 (UTC)

Jackson vs. Jackson County[]

Over the course of the 2 games, as far as I'm aware, the term "Jackson County" is used exactly once (Ellie: "Jackson County... that means we're close to Jackson City, right?") After that, the settlement is always referred to simply as "Jackson".

I'd like to suggest the idea of possibly changing the name of this page from "Jackson County" to just "Jackson", along with all of the references to the town/community on other pages, as well. I believe this makes sense for multiple reasons: 1) "Jackson" is the name used by all the people who live there, so they are, arguably, the best source of all. 2) It brings the terminology of the wiki more in line with that of the games, hopefully reducing possible confusion ("Why do Ellie and Dina and the others keep calling it one thing, but the wiki calls it something else?"). And 3) It would be more consistent with how the wiki labels other locations in the games. All other cities and towns are referred to by the city/town name, not the county name. Bill, for example, is said to live in Lincoln, not Amherst County.

Perhaps a note could still be made on the Jackson page along the lines of "Jackson is a town located in Jackson County, Wyoming". Jackson County could also be mentioned in regards to nearby locations outside the town proper (the radio tower lookout, the grocery store, Eugene's library, the ski resort, etc.). The "Tommy's Dam" chapter, in particular, could be accurately described as taking place in Jackson County. Swedgin (talk) 21:52, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Bump. It's been 3 days and no one's raised an objection to this. Is it safe to say that there are none, and it's a change that can be implemented? Swedgin (talk) 23:15, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
I'd recommend keeping it as Jackson County or changing it to Jackson City, based on physical evidence found in-game (both the Jackson County sign during "Tommy's Dam" and the Jackson City sign in the epilogue). We can assume that everyone colloquially refers to it as simply Jackson, but for encyclopedic purposes, we should try and keep the official lengthened name.
I think we always used Jackson County so we could incorporate the dam - as it's located several miles away from the city - and other locations around the area. Seeing as we've recently been creating articles for significant minor locations and points of interest, I think changing it to Jackson City would be the best option. Like other locations in the area, we could also create a separate article for the dam; also up for debate. NinjaFatGuy (talk) 23:52, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
I made a very small, but very important mistake when I transcribed that Ellie quote. According to the subtitles, she didn't say "...we're close to Jackson City," she said "...we're close to Jackson city". 'City' is not capitalized, which means it's not part of the official name. She was speaking of a city called Jackson, not a place called Jackson City. So changing it to just "Jackson" would be the more correct option.
--edit-- Adding to that: At the beginning of Pt2, as Joel and Tommy ride back to town, right after the gas station is a tunnel with a sign in front of it that reads "City of Jackson, Gov. Smith issues mandatory evacuation order, Nov. 1 2013". Swedgin (talk) 00:13, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
During the epilogue when you play as Ellie, there's a sign that says "Jackson City" with a capital C. With that being said, we should always use official in-universe terms, rather than relying on subtitles which could easily contain mistakes/typos, etc. The term Jackson is very ambiguous, especially considering that we know there's a Jackson city within a Jackson county, along with other minor locations around the area that may not be within the limitations of Jackson City and/or Jackson County. We should avoid ambiguity as much as we can, and explicitly defining the differences between them would be the best route. If we can find more concrete evidence that suggests the city is officially called just Jackson, then it would be best to change it. However, at the moment, I would suggest Jackson City. NinjaFatGuy (talk) 00:54, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
I've either never noticed (or didn't remember) that sign, so you're right, in Pt1 the name was Jackson City. But the sign I mentioned from the beginning of Pt2 points to it just being called "Jackson". Even municipalities that have "City" in the name usually include that in their full "City of/Town of" title (e.g. "City of Kansas City", "City of Oklahoma City"). So the sign should read "City of Jackson City", but it doesn't; it says "City of Jackson". So that, along with the characters of Pt2 just referring to it as "Jackson", seems to me to argue that ND may have decided to retcon the name into that of the real-life town of Jackson, Wyoming.
Maybe there could be a compromise? Rename this page to "Jackson City", to reflect the full, official title, but use "Jackson" on most other pages and infoboxes? Maria lives in Jackson, Wyoming; Joel was a Jackson patrolman, etc.? Even if its the more informal name, there's precedent for that: "Abby" and "Manny" are used in most cases, rather than "Abigail" and "Emanuel". Swedgin (talk) 01:26, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
Indeed, which is why we need sufficient evidence to clarify this (I'm sure we could find some by taking a good look around all of Jackson in Part 2). At the moment, it would probably be best to assume that Jackson City is the full name and anything beyond that could be a colloquial reference, a mistake, etc.; after all—despite being the official standard in real life—saying "the City of x City" can sound awkward and could simply be something ND overlooked.
As for the proposed compromise, that is completely fine if Jackson City ends up being the consensus. I wouldn't recommend it for infoboxes (at least the Resides parameter or similar) and first instances on an article, but anything after that is fine. Rather than thinking of "Abby" or "Abigail", look at it as "Abby" or "Abby Anderson"—typically we should always include surnames in first instances on articles/infoboxes. However, I'd like to keep this discussion up for a few days and wait for a consensus/more evidence before making any changes. NinjaFatGuy (talk) 01:57, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
I've looked around thru all of the Jackson scenes and found a few more details worth showing. I don't think I've missed any (but I'd be happily proven wrong if anyone else wants to do some searching).
- https://imgur.com/99lpLmv Basic box truck with "Jackson Moving Company" on the side. Nothing special about it. On its own, doesn't prove that much.
- https://imgur.com/735dZKT Guitar Center--I mean, Music Center--with the town name on it. There's room there to fit "Jackson City" if they'd chosen to, but they didn't.
- https://imgur.com/HP1VFOF The evacuation notice I previously mentioned. That's true about the "City of X City" sounding awkward, but in that case it seems like they'd be more likely to drop the "City of" portion of it if the second City is an actual part of the place's name. If we were talking about Kansas City, for example, and "City of Kansas City" sounded odd, you wouldn't shorten it to City of Kansas, instead. Here, they could've opted for something like "Attn: Jackson City", but again, they didn't.
- https://imgur.com/KeanWE0 A highway sign on the tunnel above the previous sign. Like the Music Center one, there's plenty of room on there for "Jackson City", but it just says Jackson. And a highway sign wouldn't shorthand it; it would give the full name (like Teton Village beside it).
- https://imgur.com/K8mrR31 A fallen road sign that Joel and Tommy ride past, just before the gas station. The upper corner is covered in mud, and you could argue that it's very deliberately and strategically placed to cover where the word "City" would be. But the other 2 names are both 2 words, and judging by how close the V is to the N, and the C is to the R, we should be able to see at least a small part of the C in City, if it were there.
In the first game, ND plays pretty fast and loose with locations. Amherst County, Massachusetts and Jackson County, Wyoming don't actually exist. Neither do Jackson City, Wyoming or Silver Lake, Colorado. Even real places have some major liberties taken: there's no gazebo across the street from the Massachusetts state house. There's no road tunnel underneath Salt Lake City. The town of Lincoln, Mass., actually exists, but bears no resemblance to the in-game version. Basically ND made it up as they went along, creating environments that worked best for them and putting a handful of details from the real cities in to give them some sense of realism.
But in Pt2, they seem to have gone the extra mile to be as accurate to real-life as possible, down to the design of the individual buildings and even the street names (there really is a Constance Avenue in Santa Barbara). Teton Village and Beaver Creek, from that last screenshot, are actual towns in Wyoming, not far from Jackson. Apart from Hillcrest, I'm not aware of any names of neighborhoods, towns, or cities in Pt2 that are fictionalized.
Again, this is just my interpretation, but based on how faithful they tried to be to real-life locations in Pt2, I believe they did everything they could to retcon the fictional "Jackson City" into the actual "Jackson". From the signs, to just the general way the characters talk about it. It's definitely Jackson City in Pt1. But all the evidence (so far) seems to be that it's just simply Jackson in Pt2. Because Pt2 is the more recent version, and the town is called out by name (both on signs and in dialogue) much more often in Pt2, I think Jackson is the more accurate version. My vote would be to use "Jackson" on the wiki, and include a note in the trivia section mentioning that it's called Jackson City in Pt1.
But yeah, I hope others will chime in on this, too. Swedgin (talk) 09:02, 29 April 2021 (UTC)


Interesting. Could we call it Jackson, then break it down in the page into Jackson County and Jackson City? M67PattonZippo (talk) 11:16, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
Indeed, the road signs you provided seem to be credible enough to warrant the change, supported by the evac notice as well. So it's probably safe to assume that ND went with calling it just Jackson, thanks for that.
As for including both the city and county on the article, it might be best to just omit any further information on Jackson County. We have (or plan to have) articles on pretty much all the locations within the county, so we should just simply mention that all these places are in Jackson County on their respective articles/infoboxes. Similar to how we don't have articles or detailed sections on states. NinjaFatGuy (talk) 11:51, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
Hey. Dropping in to give my view. I pretty much agree with the proposal to change it. The name reference makes the most sense so I'm all for a full conversion to simply Jackson and remove the "County" part. A note on the signs though: some of them are burnt out, so that obscures the writing, hence it is possible "City" was included and the fire omitted. Further, real world information shouldn't affect naming conventions. Notably here, while it is common for the passive voice to refer to some cities that include city in their official name (hence following the "City of X City" format) as real world shouldn't really count, that preference shouldn't be the determinant as it is a real world point rather than objective, in-game justification.
Regardless, it is a yes from me. Snivy The coolest Pokemon ever 18:31, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Jackson patrolmen[]

Hey all. Opening up a discussion to propose creating a category for all of the Jackson patrolmen. Per recent additions, it is clear Jackson has several patrolmen. Notably we have: Astrid · Bonnie · Chad · Dina · Ellie Williams · Eric · Eugene Linden · Fred · Greg · Joel Miller · Jesse · Kristen · Mike · Rebecca · Steve · Tara · Tommy Miller · Tony · William and Willy

The above names are also characters either featured heavily in the main story or in a more minor, world building capacity in artifacts, dialogue and signs seen in the "Jackson" and "Seattle Day 2" chapters that are set in Jackson and their subsequent patrol route. There are also others whose names we don't know because they were NPCs in the opening section. There are also those who (at the time of writing) we as a community are debating deleting and just mentioning per their name's inclusion in environmental lore in the patrol area: Tammy, Scott, Steve, Khanh, Jonny, Joey, Cedric, Max, Katherine and Wendy.

Given we have categories for other groups in TLOU (even as small as two for the known cannibals) I propose it is worth us adding this substantial group of people into their own category as well. The category proposed name would be "Jackson patrolmen".

Thoughts? Snivy The coolest Pokemon ever 07:59, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

👍 Makes sense to me to have a category for them. RinasaurusRex (talk) 13:24, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
Definitely. In fact, there might even be enough known about the group and their activities to be worth creating an article for.Swedgin (talk) 01:59, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
That's a good point Swedgin and one I have been thinking about while researching TLOU's Jackson and expanding their content. Right now, we have the location page (this one) which currently contains: information on Jackson the location, information on Maria's community and information about the Jackson patrolmen subgroup. There certainly is a case to split this article into three - one for the location, one for Maria's community and one for the Jackson patrolmen. After all, every other group page is split in this way (ie: Seattle --> WLF + Scars / Silver Lake --> Cannibals/ Boston --> US Military + FEDRA etc).
I think the only thing stopping us is this apparent distinction between the 3 is never made super explicit in the game in the form of official names. After all, "Maria's community" and "Jackson patrolmen" are conjectural titles because the game never distinguishes them; they are all referred to as Jackson in some capacity. Therefore, we'd have to add a conjecture template to each article.
Given it seems safe to say adding the category seems to be a certainty as we currently all support it, we can widen this discussion to official consider splitting the Jackson page in three. Perhaps I'll test it by adapting my sandbox to display the three pages if we did split them as we can get an idea if it would properly work. Snivy The coolest Pokemon ever 08:35, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Indent reset I've gone and split the page into three distinct articles found at the following sandbox for those who wish to look: https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/User:Snivystorm/Sandbox1#Jackson_(patrolmen_sub-group)

So far, the patrolmen one is the most developed. I'm thinking the location article will end up shorter and the community page could house the majority of what is currently on this talk page's present article. Snivy The coolest Pokemon ever 16:09, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

I certainly don't think it's wise to split the article into both the community and patrolmen. The patrolmen are part of the community, so why would they need their own article? A category makes sense, but if we're gonna split the article at all, I don't see why just a "Jackson community" page (which includes patrol info) wouldn't suffice. NinjaFatGuy (talk) 22:25, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
I agree with NFG. A category is one thing and a good idea, but a separate page? Seems like a good way to unintentionally confuse readers and editors, especially new ones. M67PattonZippo (talk) 22:38, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
Regardless of whether the community page includes the patrolmen or not, I'd like to suggest simply naming it "Jackson (community)" rather than "Jackson (Maria's community)". We just dealt with the subject of Tommy's role, and one of the side-effects of some people elevating him to co-leader was that it diminished Maria's position. This feels like an over-correction to that. She IS the leader, yes, but making her such a focal point like that, to the point where we're essentially naming the community after her? That might be a little much. Swedgin (talk) 01:55, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
I'd like to add onto this and propose that we even remove the parentheses so it's just "Jackson community". NinjaFatGuy (talk) 02:50, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Okay, it has been over two weeks and nothing more has been added to this discussion. Therefore, the consensus stands as follows: the Jackson page will be split in two; one for the location and one for Maria's group. Second, a Jackson patrolmen category will also be created and the relevant articles will have it added to them. Snivy The coolest Pokemon ever 19:35, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

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