ELLIE WILLIAMS | The Last Of Us Pt. II (2020)

TLOU meme dump: Joel edition

If you cannot hold me in your arms, then hold my memory in high regard

I can imagine people thinking I hate the game based on how incredibly critical I am of it in my essays and that couldn't be further from the truth. I love this game to pieces. It has been on my mind nearly every day since it came out, it fascinates me, inspires me and has like nothing else that has been released in the past year made me think about my own craft and skills, I have never been this productive and this thrilled about storytelling before. And if I'm being honest, I could write just as many, just as long essays gushing about certain aspects of the game, I just don't think that'd be an interesting read and/or give reason to have interesting conversations. No piece of art is perfect, so me being critical of it is not necessarily a reflection of my overall stance. Again, this game and its story mean the world to me.

joel in p1: experienced survivor, emotionally unavailable, doesn't break easy, smart enough to predict an ambush, hot dilf.

joel in p2: dumbass who saves random people, doesn't even keep his bag or gun on him when doing so, exposes his name to strangers knowing what he did in the past, uwu soft teddy bear who cant remember his 20+ years of knowledge on survival, died as a hot dilf.

Joel did not doom humanity (no matter how much the second game wants you to believe that)

To demonize Joel’s decision at the end of the first game (saving his surrogate daughter’s life) you need to bend over backwards and ignore any and all context the first game gave us with regards to who the Fireflies truly are. Because the truth of the matter is: a) they knocked Joel unconscious while he was trying to revive a young girl b) they drugged Ellie immediately to tear her body apart for their needs c) THEY DID NOT ASK ELLIE FOR PERMISSION to give her life for their cause, they didn’t even tell her she would have to die (Ellie was making plans with Joel after the giraffe scene, “Once we're done, we'll go wherever you want. Okay?”, clearly indicating she had no idea she would have to die) d) they did not let Ellie and Joel see each other to say their goodbyes e) they were about to walk Joel out into the wilderness without any of his gear/resources, which during the zombie apocalypse is a certain death sentence f) they didn’t hold up their end of the bargain (remember how Marlene promised Joel guns in return for delivering Ellie?) So even if you show them as much goodwill as possible, the Fireflies are still a bunch of assholes. If the exact opposite had happened, they let Joel go all on good terms and then he suddenly decided to turn around and murder everyone I would have called him a terrible person, but that is not what happened. As it stands, the Fireflies are shady and questionable at best. But it actually gets worse:

a) the procedure that would 100% kill Ellie had an incredibly low success rate (the doctor mentioned in his recording that every previous operation with other test subjects had failed) b) the same recording mentions cerebrospinal fluid having been extracted, meaning they were capable of performing a non-lethal spinal tab, but they’re unable to perform a non-lethal biopsy or craniotomy on Ellie? (this may seem like nit-picking, but actually further solidifies my point about how incompetent the Fireflies/Abby’s dad were/was) c) to add to their immense incompetence, mere hours after receiving Ellie they decide to IMMEDIATELY KILL THE ONLY PERSON KNOWN TO BE IMMUNE as oppose to keeping her alive for as long as possible to run every single test in existence on her. But let's paint a picture of the best case scenario, which is Jerry, the absolute legend that he is, actually manages to get a vaccine out of Ellie, what happens then? a) How are the Fireflies, who are nearly extinct at this point, supposed to MASS PRODUCE and NATIONWIDE DISTRIBUTE a vaccine? That is logistically impossible. b) More than likely, they would use the vaccine as a bargaining chip against FEDRA (granted, this is more a guess than a fact, but to believe they wouldn’t take advantage of the vaccine in the fight for political power against the government they’ve been fighting for years is beyond naïve). But let’s be even more generous: turns out the Fireflies are the most altruistic resistance group to have ever existed, they actually manage to produce and distribute the vaccine into every last corner of the country, everyone is immune. What now? a) You might be immune to spores and bites, but your immunity doesn’t help you when a clicker rips your throat out or a bloater crushes you to death, the infected can still kill you in numerous other ways. b) The faction wars going on are not gonna disappear overnight. WLF and Seraphites will continue to kill each other by the dozens every day, one could even argue that introducing a vaccine into the conflict would only cause things to escalate further. c) Numerous cannibals, hunters and bandits still roam the country, they will not abandon their practices overnight and they are arguably a much bigger threat than the infected to begin with. Just because everyone is immune does not mean that the world returns to sunshine, rainbows, and flowers. To imply that it would, means being simplistic and naive beyond reason. It should be obvious by now that Ellie’s death WOULD NOT HAVE IMPROVED ANYTHING. The chances of actually getting a vaccine are slim to none, the chances of vaccinating everyone are even more dour, and even then the overall situation would not improve much. With such bad prospects I wouldn't be willing to sacrifice my child either. (I am aware that an argument can be made that none of these factors had an impact on Joel’s decision to save Ellie, yet they’re still crucial when making a judgement about the Fireflies/Abby’s dad). To summarize: a) Abby’s dad was incompetent and a horrible person (his conversation with Abby in the second game tells us that he would not be willing to sacrifice his own child, but if it’s someone else’s it’s a-okay for him). b) The Fireflies were a malicious and incompetent terrorist group with messed up morals. c) No, Joel did not doom humanity. Subsequently, Abby’s quest for revenge was not justified because the Fireflies and her dad were never justified in their actions to begin with. And this is only solidified by the second game having to retcon the hell out of all these arguments I just painstakingly illustrated and explained in order to even attempt to have Abby’s motivation be seen as justified. Only one example being how it was clearly established in the first game that they had MULTIPLE doctors in Salt Lake City (Marlene: “The doctors tell me that the cordyceps, the growth inside her, has somehow mutated.”; Ellie: “She said that they have their own little quarantine zone. With doctors there still trying to find a cure.”). Yet in the second game we are told by

Abby that actually no, turns out her dad was the only doctor that could have developed vaccine. And it doesn't take mental gymnastics to see why the second game takes it upon itself to alter most of the context of the first one: to (retroactively!) condemn Joel. HOWEVER, a sequel doesn’t get to pick and choose which established facts from the first entry it builds upon or what it gets to retroactively declare as non-canon only to have it fit their preferred narrative. Quite frankly, that’s bad writing. A sequel, in order to be considered well-written, has to not only be a natural continuation of the events, but has to stay consistent with the characters and the world that were previously set up. And if you have to alter much of the context to make it look like Joel condemned the world, isn't that the most obvious sign that he never actually did? And all of this effort for just one goal: to justify Abby’s quest for revenge and yet it still wasn’t and here’s why: Joel killed her dad in order to PREVENT HIM FROM KILLING HIS DAUGHTER. Abby on the other hand WILFULLY SLOW TORTURED Joel for what appears to be hours, prolonging his death for as long as possible, all for her own gratification (and we won't mention how she went through with it despite Ellie's crying and pleading). And don’t even try to make the argument about Abby wanting “justice”, Joel didn’t torture her dad out of revenge or for his own gratification - this is not justice, this is simply sadistic. A man killing someone who is about to murder their child in semi-self-defense cannot be compared to someone wilfully slow torturing someone to death for their own gratification, like Jesus, I didn’t think I’d have to spell that one out. I am aware that the second game tries to do whatever it can, including retconning their own original story, to paint Ellie and (especially!) Joel as evil. And for a considerable amount of the player base this actually worked, and while I cannot find it in me to condemn them (we all experience stories differently after all), I reserve the right to reject arguments in defense of Abby such as “all people are forced to do bad things during the apocalypse” and “does context even matter?”. If the only way you can defend/justify Abby's actions is to remove all context and nuance, then your reasoning is built on quicksand.

what if 🤔 you defeated me in battle 😔 and when you tilted my head up with your blade beneath my chin 🗡️ we accidentally kissed 💋😳

Ted bundy isn't ugly, you're just a lesbian

Congratulations, this is the worst ask I’ve ever gotten

Ellie + Seattle day 2 outfit

I’m replaying “Left Behind” and not getting emotional about it at ALL 😭😭😭

actually. Come 2 think of it. like. humor me for a moment, o followers of mine who are here solely because i post about gillian’s p*rtofino pictures. what seattle day 1 on ellie’s end needs is a tess. LET ME EXPLAIN. having dina there doesn’t work because dina’s character has to do a lot of storybuilding jobs. you have to understand as a player why ellie loves dina, you have to start loving dina yourself, and you have to understand why dina would join you on this revenge mission. and the first felt more out of convenience than anything else (it was a longtime crush but there’s nothing substantial beyond like. paper crowns), the second had me thinking dina was just very bland as a character and thus could be substituted out easily, and the third was just…convenience again. but with tess in the beginning of part 1 like you dont know who robert is but you know robert’s guys beat tess up and now it’s time to fuck robert up. like her anger just fits so well with the narrative that you dont question it at all. and the other thing is like. two young women going on a revenge quest like. Like i get that they both are worldly but they still feel wildly underprepared imo. so if it had been like…ellie and tommy instead for instance. like he has a history, you know there’s anger there, and there’s that unending depression and rage because this was not the world that had been promised to him. and also joel couldn’t occupy that spot because his emotions, though big and overwhelming, oftentimes get pushed down, so it would be a new experience and a bunch of great opportunities for characterization. i would much prefer swapping genuine war stories over dina talking about a farmhouse or making a dumb joke. tonally i think it would fit way better