End of the first season of the series Last of us showed two faces of Joel Miller (Peter Pascal). While his duality was clear at the time of the HBO adaptation, his ability to make questionable decisions along with others that might be noted, that contrast was more pronounced this time around. One might even think that it was presented in a more compromising and controversial way.
Joel Miller, like most of the main characters Last of us, marked by his past. The death of his daughter added to a series of decisions and situations that changed him. This is the context of life or death. In most cases, Joel adapts pragmatically, in some of them ignoring ethics and morals.
However, something happens that changes the logic: his relationship with Ellie Williams (Bella Ramsey). This approach to Joel is a kind of passport to be able to move on and find his brother. But as the series progresses, his connection with Ellie ceases to be something bureaucratic, just another duty. It becomes a bond that allows him to redeem part of his past. Does this justify his behavior?
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Last of us:
dealing with past traumas
During the first episode Last of us, the HBO series lays down a key event in Joel’s character development: the death of his daughter. Together with their brother, all three try to avoid the beginning of the apocalypse. The death of a girl leaves Joel with a void in the family, which now consists only of his brother.
When the two must part, Joel has a need to find his brother again at some point. This opportunity opens up when he meets Ellie. Enjoy “free ride”. Under the pretext that he has taken the girl to a place where she can be tested to find a cure, he is able to move.. The protagonist is a stern creature, little interested in Ellie’s searches and curiosity. He could be recognized as an official who must complete the task, deliver the package.
After several events that bring Joel and Ellie emotionally closer, when he finds his brother, he is no longer the same character. He became warmer, and he had to return to his fears in order to begin to face them: the responsibility of the girl reminds him of the one he had with his daughter. Ellie gradually ceases to be someone else’s girl, acquaintance, friend. She becomes the one who fills the void in Joel’s life.
Without this transformation of his relationship with Ellie, it is impossible to explain his fear at the moment of taking her to unknown lands, to which no one is said to return. So, once Joel has found his brother and realizes that he has already rebuilt his life, he raises the possibility that he is the one to take her. The main character is more afraid not so much for himself as for the girl and the opportunity to see himself again, experiencing a heartbreaking loss.
The girl’s trust in him dispels all doubts: they are going to move on. No longer as two people accompanying each other, but as a small team that must complete the mission and intends to be united to the end. This is the moment when the bond between father and daughter that begins to emerge is unstable. Last of usthrough other characters and details makes it clear: this is a story in which different ways of love act as a driving force.
Lies and deceit:
Does the good of one justify the horror of all?
This connection is strengthened in the last two episodes. In them, Ellie has to take care of Joel, and then he has to go to her rescue. But everything is not so simple. She also transforms. In the chapters, he gradually lost his ingenuity, and his human side became polluted due to environmental damage. In contrast, Joel has been humanized to the point that those who only followed the HBO series (not watching video games) may never have thought.
Chapter 9 of Last of us, Joel and Ellie unexpectedly find the future they were looking for. Both are kidnapped and separated. Waking up after being hit on the head, Joel learns that the plan is to crack open her skull to find a cure. This is a high risk operation. It’s not explicitly stated, but is interpreted by Joel’s look when he hears the plan: the girl won’t survive.
Then Joel, who has already fully taken over the role of a father, finds himself again in a scenario in which he must lose his daughter. But between one moment and another, there is a distinctive detail: this time he can do something more and resist. This opens up another moral controversy in Last of us: Is the good of one higher than the human?
Ellie is one of the keys to a better future. But without her, Joel doesn’t want any of those days. Last of us told part of Ellie’s past, which Joel revealed little by little. Why is it relevant? The protagonist isn’t just connected to someone who fills a void. But She also thinks about her traumas, about the life Ellie never had and must now give up for the greater good..
Joel is at a personal and collective crossroads. One decision or the other is the difference between being a hero to humanity or a villain who puts personal desire, his self-esteem, and his relationship with Ellie above the greater good. On the other side, How can one not sympathize with this individual quest after the protagonist of the story went through so much pain and horror? This is especially so given that together they represent one of the few love relationships left in such a twisted environment.
The concept of a hero
Joel is betting on himself, not humanity, on his relationship with Ellie and the possibility that she is going through some issues that have yet to be figured out. Even in a corrupt post-apocalyptic context, this desire is fully justified. Last of us. However, if interpreted outside of the series, it makes the protagonist a villain.
Driven by his emotions, Joel crosses a border to which he will have to return sooner or later: he deceives Ellie, lies to her so as not to say that he killed a handful of people out of fear of losing her and that perhaps he is taking away the possibility of a cure for humanity. In this saga of hastily taken measures, with the speed of flying and flying bullets, she had neither a voice nor the ability to make decisions.
If you look at all of the above from the other side, Joel, in doing so, gives Ellie a choice.. Perhaps this was the only possible option for the future of the girl, and perhaps of humanity, to be in her hands, and not in the hands of adults who respond to different interests and have multiple traumas that determine their behavior. This makes it difficult to measure Joel’s role as the hero of the story. Save Ellie using methods that will boomerang back at him? Can he be credited as such, for having saved his reunion with his more human side? Is he a villain that he didn’t give the girl away to save the rest of the population?
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In this sea of questions to ask, his figure is that of an anti-hero, a guy who cares about his own interests, not the interests of the collective, without completely excluding them (the possibility of a cure is still on the table). Joel, while defending the idea of love as a father, also leaves the door open for future conflict: the one he will have with Ellie when he finds out what happened. Then later, in the next few seasons, this whole debate could turn against her. What will you do when you have to decide?
Source: Hiper Textual
