Ok so I’ve been thinking about this crazy amazing game and its ending for a long long time and now with the news there might be a sequel I’ve become obsessed with it again. So much like most other people I’ve gone back to going whishy-washy on my stand on what the ending meant so I’m just gonna post it here so I can look back later and remind myself lol.
So basically I know that a lot of people thought the okay at the end was Ellie consciously accepting the lie and choosing to stay with Joel, but according to Neil Druckmann it was THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE with it actually being Ellie “waking up” on the fact that she can no longer count on Joel and her both loving and hating Joel for the bond they’ve formed and robbing her of a choice on the cure. Not only that but Druckmann even goes so far as to say that Ellie now knows she needs to leave Joel… which as you can guess absolutely KILLED ME like after both of them going so far both for each other and their selves….idk I never want them to split up! But Druckmann goes on to explain that (imo) Joel is at the end of his story/character arc, while Ellie is at the beginning of hers. Basically Joels arc was to start off emotionally closed off and unable/unwilling to form relationships and end of with him forming that father-daughter bond with Ellie and learning to rely/care for another person….. while Ellies arc was once AGAIN A COMPLETE OPPOSITE. Ellies arc was to start off needy and dependent with her greatest fear being left alone in this terrifying world, and it ends with her (in druckmanns words) realizing she needs to be independent to..idk ‘find herself????’ I really dont know and at first I absolutely hated that I wasn’t until I realized why that I accepted his version, and that was cause ellie and joel would be parting on bad terms, with a giant lie hanging between them and ellie’s consequent coldness towards him, and that hurt.
But as some of you might know there was a one night only live performance of the last of us, and it included a post-credits scene exclusion to those who saw it live and from what I’ve read here’s what happens:
Ellie’s pretty cold towards Joel and he’s trying to talk to her (set week(s) after the game) and he’s playing the guitar and he plays her a pearl jam song symbolizing their journey/relationship and ends off the jam session with pun, at which Ellie laughs. He then passes the guitar to her and walks off and she strums one lonely note and it ends.
What a lot of people took from this is that she forgave him (obviously they had more details to base this on), and you know wat? that’s good enough for me, even though it was explicitly said that this was never even written for the game plot.
So yeah im basically saying that IMHO, Ellie DOES leave Joel to finish her story arc of indEPENDENCE, but she does still forgive him, and that whatever quest she’s on in the second game (fingers crossed on her being there and for the game itself) or wherever Ellie finds herself she knows that she’s not alone, that she has family out there, and that with joel she will always have a home to come back to.
theartofmadeline
amandla
turnnoffyourmind
titsay
yousharknotpass
