I think this episode did a good job showing how joel sheltered ellie sometimes too much and imo re-contextualizes current ellie’s weaknesses. in the 16th bday flashback he tells her he doesn’t want her going on patrols yet so that she can enjoy being a kid. we see on her 17th birthday that he struggles with the idea if her growing up (and growing away from him) and ellie is becoming fed up with his overprotectiveness. she even tells him: you don’t own this house, you don’t own anything (including her). he didn’t let her go on patrol until she was 19. up until a year ago, she basically was just living a normal life in jackson (or as close to normal as can be). not dealing with infected or outside threats at all. even when shes on patrol with joel and they hear about eugene, joel tells her to go back. I think this perfectly ties into ellie maybe seeming “incompetent” at times in seattle. she seems out of her element because she IS out of her element. joel did not want her to have to deal with these dangers and as a result shes not fully equipped to deal with the level of threats her and dina are facing
I was just thinking about this yesterday, anon!!
In the games, Ellie is already on patrols at 16. Jesse even talks to Joel to tell him how he thinks she's ready to graduate from group to partner patrols. And though Joel thinks she's still a bit young, he recognises that this is what she wants and lets her do it under the condition that she stick to shorter routes.
Ellie has only been doing patrols for 9 months before Joel dies in the show. He waits until she is 19 to let her go on any patrols at all.
It's an interesting change. One that, like you said, makes her seem like she doesn't know what she's doing all the time in Seattle. It also makes the reasons for Jesse's anger much clearer, and really hilights the recklessness of what Ellie is doing-- because she doesn't have years of patrol experience like the others. She's not incapable of fighting or holding her own, but it's not a skill of hers that she's been allowed to refine in real life circumstances.
She can shoot infected from miles away with Tommy and fight Caleb in the barn as much as she likes, but that's not the same as hundrends of soldiers with guns, seraphites with an elaborate and dangerous communication system, and infected that she's never seen before in her entire life.
Joel's over-protectiveness has done a lot of harm to his relationship with Ellie, and also her preparedness for things that will inevitably happen to her.
He says that he won't let her go on patrols because he wants her to enjoy being a kid, but seems to have forgotten that even though they're in a community that mimics the times before, being a kid nowadays is a completely different experience to how it was in 2003.
Kids in Jackson are getting put on patrol as young as 16. They're being taught safety drills for if raiders or infected infiltrate the town. Some of these kids, like Dina, have had guns in their hands and experienced unimaginable loss all before they were 10 years old.
Being a kid doesn't mean what it did before the outbreak, and it certainly doesn't mean that to Ellie Williams of all people.
She had the weight of the world put on her shoulders at 14. She's been alone her entire life. Everyone she has loved has either died or left her.
Being a kid sucked for Ellie. The 'good old days' that Joel talks about were unbelievably traumatic for her. And now she's in Jackson where yes, it's safe for her here and she is living in an abundance of things she's never had before-- but that doesn't mean that the last 15 years of her life never happened.
And as much as Joel wants to play house, wants to have a normal father-daughter relationship with Ellie, he forgets that this is not his kid. They love eachother as if she is, but she's not. I'm sure there's some form of guardianship system in Jackson, but that is nowhere near the same as a legal adoption or something pre-outbreak. The foundation of their relationship is built on trust and trauma, and it cracks every time Joel messes up and lies to her.
To Joel, daughters have an expiry. He never got to see Sarah grow up, and the moment he broke down his walls and let Ellie in, she was going to be murdered. It makes sense that he would be protective, that he would shelter Ellie, want her to be safe. He misses when he was her protector, and the older she gets and surpasses Sarah in age, the more scared he probably is that he'll lose her.
But in his attempts at trying to keep her around, he just ended up doing the opposite.
And now Ellie is stuck with the consequences of that.
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