Joel & Ellie

The Last of Us is a post-apocalyptic adventure video game narrating the incredible relation between Joel and Ellie. Joel is a former father who lost his daughter 20 years earlier in the first chaotic days of spreading the virus and Ellie is a 14-year-old immune girl, who has lost her family and friends.

[Warning: Spoilers ahead]

Joel’s daughter is being killed by a military soldier while they were escaping from a bunch of infected people. After twenty years of being alone, living in a quarantine zone, he starts a journey with his partner Tess to take back their weapons from a gang leader, Robert. They catch Robert and kill him after he says he’s sold their weapons to fireflies. Fireflies are a group of freelance fighters in contrast with the military, trying to find a cure for the disease and performing attacks on military bases. Joel and Tess meet Marlene, the firefly quin who offers a deal: To smuggle a cargo out of the city and receive their weapons. And the cargo is Ellie.

Joel and Ellie both are against this. Joel argues with Tess about how hard and dangerous it would be to smuggle a girl while Ellie argues with Marlene, telling her she can’t trust Joel and Tess. But the decision is made and Marlene has no other option than trusting Joel and Tess and they have no alternative either.

This is the beginning of a long journey. Joel, Tess, and Ellie are on the road, facing so many dangerous situations including various infected people, military units, and hunters. On their first night of the journey, Tess and Joel learn the horrifying truth about Ellie, that she is infected. Ellie claims that she is immune to the virus and she has been beaten three weeks ago while the others turn in two days. Joel freaks out, He knew something was wrong and now he feels being betrayed by Marlene. He has no idea what is this hell they’ve walked into.

I’ve struggled a long time with survivin’, but no matter what you have to find something to fight for.
-Joel

Joel takes a leap of faith and they continue, Tess gets beat and dies and now there’s only two left behind: Joel and Ellie. These two will have a long journey ahead, the path that makes them care for each other and become something more than family. Joel takes care of Ellie all the time, she is safe with him. After a while, Ellie starts to take care of Joel. She starts to kill people, she starts to change. Soon they become a great team.

What I wanted to write about is the ending of the story. When Joel finds out the only way to create a vaccine is to kill Ellie, he has to save her. He kills almost every firefly (innocent people who are digging for a cure) to save only one life. Why does he do that? It doesn’t make sense, or maybe for us. The fact is that Joel can’t lose another daughter. Ellie has become the most important thing in his world. There’s no other thing to fight for. Joel is selfish and on the edge of a big decision. He chooses to be selfish in a world that human beings are self-righteous. He prefers to save the life of a girl who has filled in the place of his daughter rather than the life of a race who demands to kill their fellow innocent young citizens (like what happened to Sarah, Joel’s daughter). He puts his faith in the innocence of Ellie which is somehow a paradox as we saw her swearing and killing throughout the story. Despite all, Joel can stand at the end, look at Ellie’s eyes, and lie to her only to protect her.