Another Look into The Last of Us Part II

A series of notes about different aspects of Naughty Dog’s latest production — The Last of Us Part II.

Part 2 — Control I should probably start by admitting that I’m an enormous control-freak and this has no doubt influenced the way I interpret the story of The Last of Us Part II and the fact that it makes so much sense to me personally.

This part will be about Ellie.

Ellie’s story in The Last of Us Part II centers around two main conflicts. One is with Joel and it revolves around the decisions he made in the Firefly hospital at the end of the first game. The second one is with Abby and her group. Both of these conflicts can be looked at through the idea of losing control. Or rather as events in which Ellie feels robbed of control over her own life.

We are never explicitly told whether Ellie’s anger with Joel’s actions has to do with the decision he made or the fact that he made it for her. In their last conversation, she says: “I was supposed to die in that hospital! My life would have fucking mattered …”. It may seem at first that her anger is primary with the decision. But I don’t think it’s that simple. Ellie is not the most cheerful person you’ll meet, but she has never been suicidal either. Of course, there’s a difference between believing you had to sacrifice yourself for the greater good and simply having no wish to live. Yet I’d argue that the former is as much of evidence of anger with Joel’s decision as it is of anger with the fact that he made it without consulting her. Ellie is definitely dealing with survivor’s guilt due to all the deaths that she witnessed and partially caused. Yet she’s not a passive survivor. Survival didn’t just happen to her. Ellie’s a fighter. And she has actively fought to stay alive. That’s why it makes no sense to me to think that she was angry with Joel simply because he didn’t let her die.

I feel it was primarily because he took the choice from her. She says it herself in the very next line in that same conversation: “… But you took that from me”. Earlier the same evening, when Joel tried to defend her at the dance, in response to his “He had no right”, she burst open: “And you do?” This is also why she was so enraged with him controlling her patrol routes and giving Jesse a hard time whenever she was about to go out. Joel made the decision for her and it made her feel helpless and angry. For the longest time, she held him at a distance not only out of anger but because she couldn't feel safe around him anymore even if she continued to care for him deeply. Not physically safe, but emotionally. Being on her own on the other hand gave her a sense of control she so desperately needed. But without confronting Joel it was only an illusion. She took the first real step in that final evening when she decided to try to forgive him.

But then Abby happened. When Abby killed Joel, Ellie’s illusion of having control over her life was shattered completely. She was on the verge of letting go, of forgiving Joel, of finally making a decision that was completely her own initiative rather than a reaction to others. And then it was all brutally taken from her before she could actually go through with it. In response, she did the only thing that felt like regaining control at the moment — went after the person who took it from her — Abby.

In my playthrough, I remember feeling like there’s something off with Ellie in the first days after Joel’s death. If revenge was what drove her at that moment, wasn’t she supposed to be bursting with anger and pain, desperate to act? Ellie I saw seemed disconnected and numb, acting as if in auto-pilot. She needed to do something… anything because that was the only way to keep the illusion of staying in control and the only way not to feel pain and guilt. I don’t believe Ellie was actively invested in the idea of revenge until the episode with Nora. She only went along with what she thought she needed to do. Before Nora, all her kills were to some degree in self-defense. But Nora made it personal by openly insulting Joel. At this moment the game forced the player to push the square button in order to torture Nora and proceed further with the story. At first, I thought it was only about making us feel complicit and responsible. But looking back at Ellie’s story, I’d stay it also marks the point where the actual revenge arc begins.

From this point on Ellie begins to spiral out of control, only to have a harsh wake-up call after realizing that in her quest for revenge she just killed a pregnant woman. Ellie is deeply shocked, probably scared and disgusted by herself, so it makes sense that it is at this point when she is able to hear reason in Tommy’s words about the need to let go and return home before something even worse happens. I’ve heard a lot of criticism about the next part. People say that it makes no sense that it’s the opposite case when we see Ellie and Tommy again at the ranch after some time has passed. Tommy now argues for revenge and Ellie, though initially reluctant, eventually recognizes the sense in that. But it seems that people forget that a couple of important things happened that evening at the theater — one would argue, just as significant for everyone involved as Joel’s death was — Jesse is shot dead, Tommy crippled and Dina almost killed. Wouldn’t that change the math behind “whether we should let Abby go”? That evening Abby once again crushed Ellie’s fragile sense of having control. The one Ellie was finally on the verge of regaining by deciding to return to Jackson. But it was destroyed by Abby and only worsened by her decision to spare Ellie’s and Dina’s lives. Now Ellie was in a way in debt to the person she needed to hate.

The first thing I noticed when the Farm chapter began, was how skinny Ellie looked. She felt like a literal manifestation of pain. I keep hearing complaints that Ellie’s decision to leave her family made no sense. But she hardly had any choice — it was obvious from her looks that she was not okay. Far from it. It was heart-wrenching even before the panic attack scene. Her trauma had taken complete control over her. She was a time-bomb.

Now, the ending is all about finally regaining control. There are two aspects to it. One is getting the upper hand on Abby at last. If we decide to look at Ellie’s quest to find Abby not as a primary revenge-driven but as the means to take back control from the person who took it from her, it makes sense that Ellie doesn’t kill Abby. She doesn’t need to. What she needs is to know and to feel that she could have if she wanted to — to know that she won that physical battle. The other aspect has to do with Joel and the flashback of him on the porch. I want to dive deeper into this in the next part of my notes. There are a number of ways to look at this flashback. Forgiveness is the most common interpretation. I like to think it is more about accepting one’s own guilt and letting it go. Or rather it’s about both at the same time. Forgiveness and guilt are two sides of one and the same coin. Accepting guilt feels more about having control than forgiveness though because it usually comes first. Ellie remembers Joel — their final conversation, his conviction that her life can matter without her being dead. This is when she finally lets the guilt burst in — for what she has become, for betraying Joel’s vision of her, for not forgiving him when they still had time. This combined with the feeling of having enough strength in her hands to kill the person she sought for such a long time — together it finally gives her the inner strength to stop being powerless and controlled by her emotions. To recognize that she actually had the necessary power all along.

The concepts of having control and letting go may seem contradictory. But they aren’t. Our emotional state is something we can’t control but only accept. But through the acceptance, we gain control over our attitude towards this emotional state we’re in. Thus attaining control by letting go. Just another kind of control. You will inevitably feel anger when you’re wronged by someone. Just like Ellie did. And you will just as inevitably feel guilt when you had wronged someone. Just like Ellie did. It’s what you do with this feeling that’s important. We tend to fear guilt because it’s ugly and painful. Because it makes us bad. We rarely recognize the hidden meaning behind guilt though. The feeling of guilt manifests our power, the control we have over the world. If you had no power, you wouldn’t be able to hurt and thus there would be no reason to feel guilt. If you feel guilty, you are not powerless. Realizing and facing your guilt can be paralyzing, so it’s not that surprising that Ellie stops choking Abby. And guilt is closely interlinked with power, so it is only logical that Ellie comes to this realization at the moment when she feels the strongest physically.

There’s also another level in which the concept of having control works throughout The Last of Us Part II. It’s the control the player has over what is happening in the game. It’s not the fact that Joel died that made people so frustrated, it’s how it happened. I felt it wasn’t fair too. It was harsh and brutal. And kinda small. But the more I think about it, the more I like it. I could have written a heroic death for him in my head without there ever being a second game. The sequel could have told a simpler story — more straightforward, more of what we all wanted. But don’t we say that we want stories to challenge us? I definitely do.

The Last of Us Part II was one of the most challenging things I ever experienced. It took control away for me not only by making me do certain actions or play for certain characters but also narratively. I wanted my beloved character to have a huge death. The truth is though that it would have given me nothing more than a brief sense of satisfaction, a reassurance that I was right. And no real impact. What I got with The Last of Us Part II was a reality check. An emotional response that felt the closest you can probably get from a fictional work to an actual feeling of the loss of a loved one. It’s not huge and it’s not heroic. It’s just sheer helplessness. Now, the player is in the same emotional state Ellie is. You are filled with anger and feel helpless. It’s what you do with these feelings that’s important. Do you avoid them? Protest them? Ignore them? Or do you accept and deal with them? The choice is yours.