The Last of Us show plays with Ellie’s journey by losing some of her complexity

In The Last of Us Season 2, one of the major critiques, especially from fans of the video game, is that the TV adaptation softens Ellie’s arc, diluting the complexity that made her journey so morally challenging in The Last of Us Part II game. In the game, Ellie's journey is brutal and emotionally raw. She is determined to get revenge after Abby kills Joel.

But in the show, Season 2 still depicts Ellie's grief and rage; it pulls back from haunting the viewers with her violent instincts, like the game did. Read on to know more about how The Last of Us plays with Ellie’s journey.

Here is how The Last of Us is playing with Ellie's journey by losing some of her complex nature

While she is fuming with revenge, she kills innocent people, loses friends, and becomes increasingly unrecognizable. In the game, the character is far more complex, as her grief and revenge have twisted the most sympathetic characters. The game doesn’t flinch from showing the consequences of her actions. Ellie is allowed to be deeply flawed, sometimes even unlikable, which is what makes her arc powerful.

On the other hand, the show pulls back from portraying the full emotional and moral weight of her choices. Her violent acts are present, but they no longer linger and haunt the viewers the way they did in the game. The show here is trying to protect the character's likability by making her actions easy to digest. But this also cuts a lot of her complexity, which is otherwise interesting to witness.

The Last of Us Part II is about the toll revenge takes on the soul. But now the show has not allowed Ellie to glide into the darkest of the paths; the show is flattening her moral arc. The narratives are now less risky and emotionally bold. The complexity of Ellie makes her loving and equally dangerous, which makes her unforgettable in the game. Therefore, this is something largely absent in The Last of Us.

Why did The Last of Us choose to keep Ellie this way?

In Season 1, Joel is shown as a loving, traumatised, protective father figure. Pedro Pascal's performance makes it deeply human as he is willing to go far for Ellie. He slaughters the Fireflies in the hospital and kills an unarmed doctor. He even lies to Ellie about what happened. These horrific actions seem justifiable to him, as he can't lose Ellie one more time. The show trusts the audience with Joel's character but not with Ellie.

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According to reports, there could be several reasons behind this. First and foremost, it could be to let the audience keep liking her character, as Ellie is central to the show. Secondly, TV storytelling often trims or reorders scenes for clarity or tone. But in doing so, they risk losing nuance, like Ellie’s flawed reaction to Dina’s pregnancy. In addition to this, audiences are more accepting of a male character's moral ambiguity than of a female's, such as Tony Soprano or Joel himself.

But the core problem with this is that Ellie's character objective fades away. The show is simply undermining the message that violence dehumanizes everyone, even the ones we love.

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