Joel and Ellie share a beautiful relationship in The Last of Us series. The duo became incredibly famous among video game fans, and then their chemistry became more mainstream through HBO’s live-action adaptation. Joel’s origin story was heartbreaking, as the man lost his young daughter to the fungus outbreak while she was in his arms. However, Joel gets a second chance at life through Ellie, who becomes his adoptive daughter. But their father-daughter relationship wasn’t a bed of roses, as they went through several rough patches throughout their journey together.
Spoiler Warning: This post includes major spoilers for The Last of Us video game and TV series, so proceed with caution.
Joel Was Forced To Take Care of Ellie at the Start
After losing Sarah, Joel lost all will to live, but he had to keep on living in the post-apocalyptic world where no one cared about each other. Joel became a smuggler for his survival, and that was working well for him. But things changed for Joel when he stumbled upon Ellie, a young girl who needed to be escorted (read smuggled) to a different corner of the country.
At first, Ellie was just another person who had to be escorted to the Fireflies safely, but Joel later learned that the girl could be the most important person to escort in his entire life. She was immune to the Cordyceps brain infection and possibly carried the cure for the infection in her bloodstream. This made her the most significant person alive on the planet.
So, even without any emotional connection with Ellie, Joel had to take care of her and protect her from any harm. However, slowly and surely, Joel grows past the “necessity” part and starts seeing his own daughter in Ellie.
Joel never forgot Sarah; in a sense, he never moved on from what happened to his daughter. He always felt guilty for not being able to protect his daughter. But now, he has found Ellie, who has no family, and she is out in this dangerous world all alone. She desperately needs a fatherly figure who can love and protect her, and Joel is fully equipped to fill that void in Ellie’s life. At the same time, Joel can move past his guilt by protecting this young girl. Ellie not only gives Joel a second chance at life, but she also gives him a bigger purpose to live.
Ellie lost everyone she loved to the infected, including her mother, so she didn’t know how to love. However, somehow, she was able to see Joel’s sensitive side and sense all the pain the man was hiding deep in his heart. Ellie realizes that Joel is no longer protecting her for the sake of humanity; instead, he starts considering her his daughter. In this God-forsaken world, selfless love is rare to find, and due to some bizarre turn of events, both Joel and Ellie find that love through each other.
The Unfortunate Turn In Joel And Ellie’s Relationship
Even though Ellie found Joel on her journey, she still wanted to serve the bigger purpose — to save humanity. The sad part about all this was that Ellie wouldn’t have survived the surgery. She would have been okay with it, but Joel wasn’t. He had already lost one daughter; he couldn’t lose another.
Joel not only killed the only person who was capable of performing the surgery on Ellie and making a cure for the infection, but he also lied to Ellie about everything. The lie holds for some time, but it comes out in the open after a few years.
Ellie couldn’t accept the fact that Joel did such a heinous act and lied about it. Ellie stayed angry with Joel for a long time, for the right reasons, of course. Joel doesn’t let Ellie fulfill her destiny and commit a crime against humanity, but she soon learns that the man would have done it all over again if given another chance. She finally starts to see what Joel means to her, and even though she can’t forgive him, Ellie is ready to give him another chance.
But guess what? Just like Joel robbed Ellie of her destiny, Abby robbed Ellie of her second chance with Joel. Ellie wasn’t angry because Abby killed Joel for the wrong reasons. She knew that Abby was out for revenge; in fact, Ellie herself was angry with the man for killing those people. Instead, Ellie wanted to kill Abby because she didn’t let her forgive Joel. Joel was killed before Ellie could forgive him, and that became the root cause of Ellie’s anger.
Joel and Ellie’s relationship was complex yet beautiful. Of course, Joel couldn’t live a happy life with Ellie and see her grow up or get married, which seems incomplete. But that’s life, isn’t it? We don’t get to experience life how we want to. Life takes its own course, and we can’t do anything about it.
The silver lining in Joel and Ellie’s story is that, unlike Sarah, Joel is able to save Ellie. And he died knowing that Ellie was ready to give him another chance, and maybe that was enough for him to say goodbye to this world and meet Sarah in the afterlife.
