The Last of Us 2's Ellie is a Character Defined by Others
If there's one thing that Naughty Dog is able to excel at above other developers, it would be the cinematic storytelling and narrative that drives titles like The Last of Us 2 and the Uncharted series. As such, it's no surprise that, in world of The Last of Us 2, characters grow and change sometimes in an odd fashion.
While it's true that the narrative of The Last of Us 2 does show Ellie go through her own arc, complete with a revelation at the end about the damaging cycles of revenge, many of her actions are driven by others. She does make the choice to chase after Abby, but even then, this is more of a reaction to what the opposing protagonist did than a conscious choice made by Ellie to chase down a previously established want or need. Ellie becomes a character who, intentionally or otherwise, becomes dependent upon others for character and for growth.
It's difficult to say that there was much room for a continuation of The Last of Us' story without Abby and her own search for revenge, fueled on by the ending of the original. However, this new character perhaps define Ellie more so than anything else. The start of the game puts Ellie on this path of vengeance, while Abby is blissfully unaware for a good portion of her part. She's got other fish to fry, and it isn't unheard of for a villain to have such a large focus. But with Ellie essentially on the hunt, and Ellie being one step behind Tommy for the majority of the game, Abby just sort of stumbles around on events as they happen. The same can be said for Ellie in many ways.
The first real decision that Ellie makes during her hunt for Abby comes when she finally catches Nora, a member of the group that hunted down and killed Joel in the opening. Before the troubling scene when Ellie tortures Nora for information, she spends much of the game simply following a trail of clues, many of which left by Tommy, all while using skills she picked up from Joel. Her reliance on Joel, as well as the story delivered in the flashbacks of their separation and reconciliation, is also consistent theme throughout The Last of Us 2 that influences Ellie's character.
Having Joel influence The Last of Us 2 as a looming figure is no surprise, considering the impact the character had as the protagonist of the first game. However, after his sudden death in the prologue, Joel doesn't remain as just a memory or a motivation for Ellie, instead becoming her guiding light from beyond the grave. This has a result, good or ill, of making a lot of Ellie's victories in The Last of Us 2 more of a retroactive victory for Joel, showing the ways that he taught her to survive and how it paid off.
Adding new characters to the party doesn't even manage to fix this problem, as neither Dina nor Jesse are able to overtake Ellie's survival skills that she had picked up from Joel. It may not have been as distracting, if The Last of Us 2's narrative didn't rely on explaining her expertise through flashbacks of Joel or mentioning him in the same breath that she figures out a way forward. However, that isn't to say that characters like Dina don't have their own impact on Ellie, often providing the more "humane" side to contradict Joel's realism.
There are moments in The Last of Us 2's narrative where Ellie seems to show some level of reluctance or regret for what she's doing to the Wolves, many of which are innocent in the killing of Joel. However, many of these moments don't quite seem to come from her organically, instead being projected on her by Dina, who by the end moves from joining the hunt for Abby to attempting to call Ellie off. In fact, the ending seems to imply that if it weren't for Dina and JJ, Ellie would have had no hesitation for heading out to Santa Barbara to finish the fight for good.
This whole concept of consequences in The Last of Us 2, attempting to break the ludonarrative dissonance by implying that every NPC killed in the game is a named character with a full backstory, is most clear with Dina. The pregnancy arc paralleled with Mel causes Ellie to doubt her quest for revenge thanks to the connection to Dina's own similar situation, which then gets retroactively attached to Abby as she is happy to kill the pregnant woman. While it's true that these conflicting motivations due lead to a satisfying story, the conflict with Ellie never seems to be internal, but is instead displayed externally through the characters that bicker and fight around her.
Few of The Last of Us 2's conflicts define Ellie as a character quite the same way that Tommy's visit to the farm does, leading up to the final chapter of the game. This story-heavy segment goes through a lot of trouble to establish that Ellie still isn't over the death of Joel, even having PTSD fueled hallucinations of how powerless she was to keep him from dying. So, it just comes off odd to have Tommy completely flip from not wanting Ellie involved in the hunt for Abby to sending her out alone to investigate a rumor that might lead to tracking the secondary protagonist down. His influence on her is the same but takes a completely different approach.
In this moment, Naughty Dog already had everything set up for Ellie to have her own reasons, defined by her own feelings to go chasing after Abby again. However, Tommy's pleading includes add a secondary level of motivation, highlighting just how much of a "people person" Ellie actually was, and ultimately, it's up to fans whether that's a good thing or not.
The Last of Us 2 is available now for PS4.
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