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    The Last of Us | Joel's gift of music to Ellie, Ellie's illustrations, and yet another reason why the ending is better than you think

    March 25, 2021

    The Last of Us | Joel's gift of music to Ellie, Ellie's illustrations, and yet another reason why the ending is better than you think

    Joel's gift of music to Ellie, Ellie's illustrations, and yet another reason why the ending is better than you think

    Posted: 24 Mar 2021 07:20 AM PDT

    Joel teaches Ellie to play guitar. It's beautiful, and the guitar becomes a key symbol of their connection and the themes of grief and loss in Part II. However, it seems common to interpret the ending of Part II - in which Ellie loses two fingers and can no longer effortlessly play guitar - as a tragedy because she is no longer able to connect with the gift of music that Joel shared with her. Some even see it as punishment for her inability to let go of her need for revenge. Music has become so intertwined with Ellie and Joel's relationship that it feels like an enduring loss for Ellie to walk away from it.

    While I agree that it's sad that she can no longer play guitar, I want to offer another interpretation of it. Playing guitar was Joel's way of expressing himself. But it was never Ellie's, and while there is tragedy in it, she hasn't lost anything integral by leaving the guitar behind.

    Ellie's preferred form of expression is illustration and painting. In the prologue she is shown drawing animals in her notebook. It's something she gravitated to of her own volition and that comes naturally to her. She is talented, capable of making beautiful pictures of loved ones and landscapes and memories. Her home with Dina is decked out in her paintings. She doesn't write songs for Dina and JJ, she draws them. She once gave a picture she drew of Joel to him as a gift (it's on his mantelpiece).

    When Ellie leaves the guitar behind in the farmhouse, she is symbolically laying Joel himself to rest. She has accepted his death and is now willing to move on from anger and hatred in order to live the kind of life he wanted for her. She literally can't play his songs or guitar anymore but more importantly, she doesn't need to. Future Days was Joel's song. Maybe that's why she couldn't finish playing it throughout the game; it was never really hers. At every step Ellie seeks to emulate Joel or what she thinks Joel would want her to do in order to avoid facing her pain. But unlike Joel, who really would have been destroyed if he lost her, Ellie doesn't have to lose herself because she lost him. By clinging to the song she is effectively clinging to Joel's memory in an unhealthy way. Her body, her heart, and the song itself have become ragged and broken as a result. That's why it's okay to let the music go. It's part of the healing.

    In her final journal entry Ellie, who had been unable to draw Joel's face since he died (she could only recall his face broken and bloodied at the moment of his death), finally completes a drawing of him playing guitar on his porch. That illustration tells us everything we need to know about Ellie's headspace in the epilogue. She is still drawing without impediment, and she can once again imagine Joel's face as it was in her best memories of him. She doesn't need to play the guitar and Future Days in order to express herself or be connected to Joel's love and memory. She already has all the tools she needs.

    Edit: /u/just--so wrote a comment about the guitar that I feel is a poignant addition to my post:

    It's a fraught symbol whenever it pops up, invoking a complicated mix of love, yes, but all tangled up in guilt and resentment and regret.

    The first time we see it is as Joel is creating it, putting the finishing touches on it as he tells Tommy what he did in Salt Lake. Joel poured love into that guitar, but also the weight of his sins. The last is when Ellie is finally able to lay that weight down and walk away.

    Some of you have said that it's not accurate to claim that music wasn't important to Ellie, citing her original songs and the Take On Me and Ecstasy scenes as counter-evidence. I neglected to state in my earlier thoughts that Ellie is clearly a devoted fan of music and enjoys playing guitar. My point is not that she doesn't value it or express herself through it; it's that it's not her creative 'first love' and that she hasn't lost everything by leaving it behind. It IS sad and regretful that she can't play guitar anymore but she can still draw, and the game shows us that drawing is just as important - maybe even more important - to her self-expression as guitar is.

    submitted by /u/ChildrenOfTheForce
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    Was watching my buddy do his first play through of TLOU2, and he caught something I never did in my 3 playthroughs...

    Posted: 24 Mar 2021 02:48 PM PDT

    When you encounter the Scars as Ellie they whistle various different sounds. If the subtitles are on they all appear as; **Strange Whistle** **High Pitched Whistle** Etc.

    Well we made it to the switch over to Abby last night (which completely blew his mind lol) and in the trainyard section on day one he said; "Wow that's cool! It tells you what the whistles are now!" I was confused but sure enough the next whistles we heard had subtitles that said; **Calling Whistle** ** Receiving Whistle** ** Danger Whistle** Etc.

    I never had caught that when going through one my playthroughs and was such a cool little attention to detail that shows Abby's training and hammers home in the idea that this is a war that they have been fighting for a long time. I'm sure I've read those subtitles a thousand times before, but it wasn't until my friend pointed out the fact that Ellie never knew what the whistles meant and Abby did that I really came to appreciate the little things like that Naughty Dog puts in their games.

    Edit* Grammar and Spelling

    submitted by /u/CasualCleverCow
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    Fireflies | Artwork by me [5000x2093px]

    Posted: 24 Mar 2021 04:39 AM PDT

    Sadly I’ve given up on the lego stop motion project, but I still decided to show you all the minute I was able to do. So here’s Joel and Ellie out in the woods.

    Posted: 24 Mar 2021 11:33 AM PDT

    After months and a lot of reworks, Joel's Part II is finished and working in Part I

    Posted: 24 Mar 2021 06:30 PM PDT

    Brand new tattoo��

    Posted: 24 Mar 2021 09:49 PM PDT

    I was able to feed 4 out of 5 rattlers to Anthony on GROUNDED

    Posted: 24 Mar 2021 04:17 PM PDT

    The Best Scene IMO @emantonblade

    Posted: 24 Mar 2021 10:09 AM PDT

    I got my TLOU tattoo before part 2 came out. While I don’t have Ellie’s tattoo that many wear beautifully. My subtle tattoo has only ever been noticed by real die hard fans and had actually helped me gain some really cool friends. I thought you guys might enjoy it. Endure and Survive ❤️

    Posted: 24 Mar 2021 05:37 AM PDT

    “Stop crying, it’s just a game”. The game:

    Posted: 24 Mar 2021 04:33 PM PDT

    I think this is one of my favourites videos about TLOU. I love the song, I love the game and the edit is 10/10, I really think it deserves a lot more views

    Posted: 24 Mar 2021 08:02 PM PDT

    Got my first ever PLATINUM trophy! Wanted to share the videocapture with you all :)

    Posted: 24 Mar 2021 05:32 PM PDT

    Explaining the big moment

    Posted: 24 Mar 2021 04:00 PM PDT

    Hi everyone, today I'm going to do something that I've been wanting to do for a while, and that is finally proving that Joel's death was well thought out and did not ruin his character in the process, there's loads of evidence in both part 2 and the first game that's relevant to his death and I'm going to show all of you all of it right here with this post. It's gonna be a pretty long one so get comfortable.

    Now, let's begin.

    Let's start with an iconic scene from the first game, the one that many people claim is the reason that Joel would never get caught in an ambush. Yes, I'm talking about the scene in Pittsburgh, where Joel seems to recognize an ambush by hunters as he and Ellie get off the highway and head into the city. Many people argue "see how Joel didn't trust that there was just an injured man that needed help."

    But upon closer examination, it's clear that Joel's reaction wasn't about trust, rather, it was the fact that he'd taken part in ambushes nearly identical to that as a hunter himself, and he'd already seen signs of it coming before he ever saw the man faking an injury. For example, he seemed to notice how the abandoned cars up on the main highway had been used as makeshift barricades to force him to drive the truck down the road where the ambush crew was waiting, he also saw how on the ambush road there were more cars blocking the sides of the road so there were no escape routes other than straight ahead, by the time he saw the fake injured man he knew for sure that it was what he thought it was, and even despite realizing it he still came within only a couple inches of have a huge piece of glass stabbed through his throat.

    However, when it came to Abbys group, they were using any of the hunter tactics that he could easily recognize, they seemed like helpful, non threatening people up until Tommy and Joel introduced themselves to them. They even literally saved Joel and Tommy's life from the horde of infected just moments before that. The only possible red flag was how well armed they were but then again, it's a quarter century into an apocalypse at this point, anyone who has made it that long would have to be armed, especially if they're a group on the move and not behind the walls of a secure established community like Abby's crew was, therefore, being well armed doesnt automatically mean they are there to kill Joel.

    Now let's discuss Joel's character from the first game to now.

    Many people believe that Joel was just a total hardened survivalist through out the first game, who never trusted anyone and never created any real bonds with anyone outside of Ellie,of course, and Tommy. However this is simply not the case, as he clearly had some level of a deeper relationship and trust in Tess, and even Bill, as they never would've pulled off all their dangerous smuggling runs together if they couldn't trust that they'd have each other's back in dangerous situations. Not only that, but Joel's cold hearted self began to soften up from the moment he met Ellie, despite his best attempts to not let it happen, he couldn't stop Ellie from awakening his loving fatherly caregiving aside that had been dead and buried for 20 years since Sarah's death. Obviously everyone knows how that development in the first game culminated in him saving Ellie because he couldn't lose another daughter, but now let's see how the next game continued to show how he was no longer the cold hearted survivalist from the first game.

    Before that though, I must mention something from the first game one more time.

    In the first game, Joel's cold hearted, be careful who you trust attitude was molded mainly due to his environment in the Boston QZ, where everyone was constantly stabbing each other in the back and even the soldiers that were supposed to protect them killed civilians basically for looking at them wrong, as one shoulder said. "Any straggler even looks at me the wrong way I put his ass down." Joel had no choice but to adopt that mindset to survive in a place like that.

    Now let's return back to the 2nd game.

    Jackson is the kind of community that shouldn't exist in TLOU universe, it's like a little piece of the world before the cordyceps fungus hit 25 years prior. They actually have electricity, and as a result many of the old luxuries and conveniences of life have returned.

    As a result of this, we see that Joel seemed to have quite a bit of free time in Jackson when not running his patrols with Tommy, and was able to actually do things a typical middle aged man would do, such as using his old world profession as a carpenter to create wood carvings and sculptures, as well as building his own guitars, writing music for them, and playing them, as well as reliving his younger days by watching cheesy action movies from the 80s, and even getting super addicted to coffee again, since he thought he'd never be able to find in the quantities that Jackson has it. This is all shown when Ellie visits his house after his death, and when her an Dina are on patrol and Ellie mentions watching a movie with him to Dina. To add on to that, Jackson has lots of younger kids running around that we see in a preschool as Ellie and during the snowball fight with her and Dina, so they no doubt only caused Joel to transition into even more of a fatherly, or even grandfatherly figure, than he would have if Ellie was the only kid he was around. It's also important to point out the huge amount of cards and flowers people left at his house after his death, which signifies that he must've been a well loved member who formed lots of meaningful bonds with the community, otherwise people wouldn't have bothered to show so much support to him.

    Finally, let's discuss the reasons why Jackson even does the patrols that Joel, Tommy, Ellie, Dina, and Jesse go on everyday.

    Reason number 1. Keep the population of infected that wander near Jackson under control by clearing them out when they're found.

    1. Look for any knew survivors who have traveled into the area and hopefully invite them to join Jackson's thriving community, or at the very least, trade with them if possible.

    The recruitment of survivors is something that is documented multiple times in the "patrol logs" found in each of the lookout checkpoints during the patrol route of Ellie and Dina. Many of the entries are from Joel and Tommy, as well as Jessie Dina and others, recording the fact that they found survivors while on patrol and brought them back to Jackson to join the group. This is also explained further in the second flashback with Joel and Ellie in the hotel, where there is a letter from a Jackson survivor trying to convince another survivor to come to Jackson for a tour and hopefully join them.

    All of this goes to show that meeting and recruiting new survivors that have come near Jackson is completely a routine thing for people like Joel and Tommy, and that explains why Tommy immediately turns on his recruitment speech as soon as they come into contact with Abby's group, as he is friendly to them and offers to let them at least restock before they leave again, which is also a very smart strategy for he an Joel's safety if you really think about it, because by saying that he was basically saying.

    "I'm worth a lot more to you alive than dead, if you bring me back to my community safely you'll be well compensated for it."

    Furthermore, Tommy and Joel had just seen how capable Abbys group was with weapons when they helped save them from the infected horde, so Tommy must've thought they could be quite an asset to his community if he were able to recruit them.

    With all that being said it's clear Joel's death was well thought out and not out of character for him at all, because well.....he was not the same man he once was in part one, he developed into a different person thanks to Ellie and effects of living in a community like Jackson where everyone is a good, trustworthy person for 5 years.

    If there's any info I missed or if anyone has evidence that goes against what I've shown here feel free to discuss with me

    Thanks for reading this whole huge essay lol

    submitted by /u/KingChairlesII
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    The Last of Us Part II in First Person

    Posted: 24 Mar 2021 06:25 PM PDT

    Playing as Joel in Seattle (MOD)

    Posted: 24 Mar 2021 11:17 PM PDT

    TIFU (actually, a few days ago) by…

    Posted: 24 Mar 2021 05:33 PM PDT

    …by starting my NG+ on Grounded with permadeath on. 😳

    Anyone else tried this? I get a bullet about every once a never and health kits even less. 😔

    submitted by /u/SpideyRules9974
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    Joel's Wife

    Posted: 24 Mar 2021 05:09 PM PDT

    Not sure if anyone has discussed this before, but does anyone know what happened to Joel's wife? Did she turn into one of the infected, would she be alive in Part 3 maybe? Maybe I missed something in the first game, but that question always popped up in my head. Or maybe I'm overthinking it and Naughty Dog thought she was not relevant to the story.

    Come to think of it, they also don't give much backstory to Ellie's mom too other than what is told in the Left Behind DLC, and Marlene's recorded messages in the hospital.

    submitted by /u/gearsleader
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    My simplistic TLOU cover

    Posted: 24 Mar 2021 02:13 AM PDT

    Is it possible that Ellie will to return to *that place* to collect some of her belongings and keepsakes?

    Posted: 24 Mar 2021 03:01 PM PDT

    The Farm - I've tried to leave the title as spoiler free as possible.

    After seeing the great post from /u/ChildrenOfTheForce about their interpretation of the ending and how Ellie laying the guitar down is symbolic of how she finally lays Joel to rest, it got me thinking. Is it possible that once Ellie has cleared her mind and found some stability in her life, she will return to the Farm to collect some of her possessions and keep sakes of Joel such as the guitar he gave her? I say this because surely she won't forget about Joel completely and there could be a possibility that she may want some things to remind her of him and the good times they had together, or does it seem like Ellie's done with all that? Again, this would be once she's cleared her mind and in a position to look back at their time together in a more positive light.

    submitted by /u/-MjP
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    Which Ellie do you like more?

    Posted: 24 Mar 2021 11:45 AM PDT

    I personally love TLOU2 Ellie more, but both are great

    View Poll

    submitted by /u/Andrini345
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    I decided to replay TLOU2 after chugging through Cyberpunk on my PC recently and wow...

    Posted: 24 Mar 2021 02:15 AM PDT

    I think regardless of whether the narrative and plot clicked with you or not, I hope we can all agree the production value is absolutely top notch from Naughty Dog, my brain got so used to the idea of the game glitching out on cyberpunk, that all missions felt like pure luck to complete. When i started playing TLOU2 the whole thing just felt soo much more smooth, everything from visuals to animation and the game not actually constantly breaking.

    Honestly can't wait to see what they'll do with PS5.

    submitted by /u/808adams
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    Will Trophy progress be affected if I change my PSN ID?

    Posted: 24 Mar 2021 09:42 PM PDT

    I'm planning to Plat TLOU Remastered. I have all offline trophies. I need the online trophies but before that I want to change my PSN name.

    submitted by /u/Primus09
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