bighorns | TODAY'S TOM SAWYER, MEAN, MEAN PRIDE.

Character Name: Joel
Series: The Last of Us
Timeline: Post-Game
Canon Resource Link: ❝ no matter what, you just keep finding something to fight for. ❞

Personality:

spoilers for the last of us

TESS: We’re shitty people, Joel. It’s been that way for a long time. JOEL: No, we are survivors!

If Joel were not the protagonist of this story, chances are that we might find him to be the villain more than anything else. The Last of Us portrays a dog eat dog world - it’s truly the survival of the fittest, where only the strong and the ruthless survive. Labels like “heroes” and “villains” matter less when the demarcation of them only depends on where you stand. Characters act selfishly, out of fear and desperation, crossing moral lines in the process - and Joel is no exception.

But perhaps it’s better to start out at the beginning, before circumstance made him who he is today. Before the cordyceps infection marked the end of civilization as it was, Joel was raising his twelve year old daughter on his own. He implies that he had Sarah at a young age, and that’s the reason why he never had the opportunity to go to school. But he doesn’t seem to regret it - despite the fact that he worked all the time, he was a doting father. His home was covered in pictures of them together, and although the narrative only shows us glimpses of their relationship, it’s a comfortable and loving one. When the outbreak hits, desperate times lead him to take desperate measures. On the road, he ignores a family as they beg for help - despite his brother’s protests. ( “They have a kid!” “So do we. Keep driving” ). Protecting his daughter was all that mattered to him, but Sarah was shot by a soldier on orders from his superiors, and died within minutes in Joel’s arms.

Twenty years after the death of his daughter, and Joel is a smuggler operating in Boston, moving contraband drugs and weapons in and out of the city under the watchful eye of the military. But before that, it was implied that he was a hunter - people who operate in groups, killing and looting for supplies. When he and Ellie stumble upon an ambush, he sees through it instantly. She asks him how he knew, and he replies that he’s “been on both sides”. His brother Tommy tells him that everything they did to survive in the past wasn’t worth it, that he still has nightmares about those days. Tommy joined the Fireflies, the radical militia group that promised hope above all else. Joel, made cynical from the things he’d seen, chose not to believe.

BILL: You know, as bad as those things are, at least they're predictable. It's the normal people that scare me. You of all people should know about that. ELLIE: What does that mean? JOEL: Nothing.

He doesn’t particularly believe in grand notions of altruism or even that the world can be changed for the better. Bill mentions that it’s “normal people” that scare him the most, and that Joel should know what he means - Sarah was shot by a soldier, not killed by an Infected. She was shot by someone working for the government, the very people who were meant to protect them. Joel’s suspicion and flat-out rejection of authority figures and melioristic ideology likely stems from that moment, and all the brutal corruption he’s seen over the past two decades. He only agrees to take Ellie across the country because Tess asked him to as her dying wish, and he cared for her enough that he agreed. Later, he continues on his journey because he begins to care for Ellie, and he wants to keep her safe. Joel is motivated by people, not ideas - or at least, the very few people that manage to sneak past his mistrustful instincts.

So it should be said right off the bat that Joel can be an incredibly brutal man. He’s a man capable of horrific acts, that stand alone as atrocities no matter what the intentions behind them might be. Over the course of the game, he kills scores of people with various weapons and his bare hands. At the end of the game, he kills the doctors who are working for the Fireflies, looking for a vaccine. One of them calls him a fucking animal, and perhaps that’s an accurate label for him at that moment, reinforcing the idea that Joel is not a good person. And also, perhaps, that it’s a bad idea to get in between this man and what he wants. He tortures people for information three times over the course of the series without thinking twice about it or showing any sort of guilt or remorse. In fact, he rarely shows remorse for the things he’s done, even if he’s more than capable of empathy, because the ends justify the means. Tess tells him that they’re both shitty people, but Joel corrects her - they’re survivors. And to him, that makes a tangible difference.

Something else that goes hand-in-hand with the brutality that he sometimes exhibits is Joel’s temper. He’s quick to rage at the right trigger, which is probably best exemplified by the way he pulls a gun on Henry after he left him for dead. In fact, the only reason why he doesn’t shoot them is because Ellie asks him not to, mentioning that he saved her from drowning. He shoves his brother Tommy around after he refuses to take Ellie off his hands - Joel responds to his anger with physical violence and threats and sometimes forgets rationality. Often, it’s Ellie that has to bring him down from it.

Joel is not a healthy man. He does not let himself grieve, or dwell on the past. It’s obvious that he cared a great deal for Tess - who, upon realizing that she was already infected, decided to make a last stand against the military in order to buy Joel and Ellie time to get away. The bite on her neck was already a death sentence, but he still refused to leave until she pushed him away. Once they’re out of the building, Ellie attempts to give her condolences for Tess’ death, but he refuses to accept it, telling her to never mention it again. Later, just the mention of Joel’s daughter Sarah sparks considerable anger and a sharp rebuke. Instead of facing his grief, he chooses silence and the relentless press of movement.

ELLIE: Hey, look, um...about Tess... I don't even know what to-- JOEL: Here's how this thing's gonna play out. You don't bring up Tess -- ever. Matter of fact, we can just keep our histories to ourselves.

It’s only afterwards, near the end of the game, that Joel finally accepts a photograph of himself and Sarah that Ellie had saved for him, and ultimately realizes that outrunning his past was never something that he could achieve, no matter how hard he tried.

To say that his relationship with Ellie brought out the best in Joel is the understatement - but in some ways, it also brought out the worst in him. Either way, their relationship is the focus of the story, and it develops heavily over the course of the year that they spend together. Joel was initially against taking Ellie on as cargo. Throughout the beginning of the game, he treats her brusquely, insisting that she follow his directives. He’s a man of few words, who rebuffs most of her attempts to bond with him ( telling him cheesy jokes, asking him questions, etc. ) She’s a task that he has to undertake because Tess asked him to. He also refuses to give her a gun, or to let her protect him, and ultimately attempts to leave her in Tommy’s care. By allowing himself to care for Ellie, Joel is essentially afraid of losing another daughter figure in his life, to the point where he rejects this notion in anger.

JOEL: You're not my daughter, and I sure as hell ain't your dad. And we are going our separate ways.

Eventually, he genuinely begins to care about Ellie, and it changes the way he acts around her. The turning point is at the end of the “Winter” chapter, when she has just killed David with his own machete. Joel cradles her and calls her “baby girl”, the exact same name he used to call his daughter Sarah - symbolizing the fact that he does truly think of her as a daughter of sorts.

Joel has a subtle, dry sense of humor that is rarely ever seen given the serious situations he often finds himself in. This is a side that he only ever reveals to the people that he’s comfortable with - he was seen joking around with Tess earlier, he bonded with Henry over a shared love of motorcycles. With Ellie, he begins to collect the comic books that she loves so much whenever he finds them. He explains football to her and promises to teach her how to play the guitar after everything’s done. In Ellie, we see Joel’s finest traits - the gentle protectiveness, an amicable demeanor.

Unfortunately, that protectiveness comes with a darker side. It was mentioned earlier that Joel cares about individual people, instead of ideas. When faced with the decision of possibly doing something for the good of mankind, and sacrificing Ellie, he chooses to save her instead. Without her, there is likely no chance that a vaccine for the cordyceps infection could ever be discovered - she’s the only person with immunity that has ever been found. But Joel has found a reason to continue living because of Ellie, and he selfishly doesn’t want to give that up - even if sacrificing herself to find a cure was something she wanted all along. He attacks the Firefly compound and kills everyone inside before carrying her off in his arms. Marlene, the leader of the Fireflies, asks him to do the right thing. But to Joel, there’s nothing right about sacrificing this one little girl, even if it means saving everyone else.

He’s not a hero. This is a man who would rather let the whole world burn rather than give up someone he loves, and he should never be mistaken for one.

□ Age: Canon doesn’t give us anything more specific than “late forties”. I’m going to pin him down at 49.
□ Gender: cisgender male
□ Appearance:

Joel is a tall man with broad shoulders, and despite the fact that he’s in very good shape for his age (consistent fighting to survive will help with that), he hasn’t escaped the trappings of it. He’s developed fine wrinkles, especially under his brown eyes and his forehead. His hair is dark, but fairly streaked with grey, as is his beard. Like everyone in his canon, he dresses for comfort and not for style, usually in flannel button up shirts and jeans.

Abilities/Special Powers: Joel is a regular human, with no supernatural abilities. Despite that, he has a lot of skills that have helped him survive the last twenty years in post-apocalyptic America, as well as with his background as a smuggler. These include:

- Firearms proficiency with a number of different types of weapons, including revolvers, hunting rifles, shotguns, and a recurve bow.
- Brute strength + hand to hand combat skills.
- Crafting skills: making shivs, molotov cocktails, and nail bombs out of foraged scraps