You see Joel in TLOU1 has a pretty complete character arc that fully encompasses the 20 years between Sarah's death and meeting Ellie. He was a dad, he brutally lost his way, he becomes a dad again. Joel needs to be a static character for those 20 years in order for TLOU1's character arc to be meaningful.
To set the scene, at the end of TLOU, Joel and Ellie does reach the Fireflies’ lab, located in the St. Mary’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. There, as Ellie prepares for surgery, falling into deep sleep, Joel learns that the only way the Fireflies could even find a cure was if they cut open Ellie, killing her.
After years of solitude, Frank arrives, begging him for food and shelter. The two fall in love, and live together peacefully for years, occasionally hosting Joel and Tess and fending off intruders
Thanks for your detailed post. I've always been under the impression that the gruesomeness of Joel's injury should not be taken literally. All it meant for me at least was that Joel had been incapacitated and would remain so for quite some time and we would be playing Ellie on her own now and, through this, see also how determined, strong-willed and brave she was.
When we first saw Joel and Ellie out on the highway, Joel was waving a can of Chef Boyardee’s Beefaroni and trying to engage Ellie in a spot of Boggle – board games and out-of-date tinned food
While it seems like Ellie believes this story at first, the final scene of The Last of Us hints that Ellie isn’t accepting “the truth” but allowing Joel to lie to her. Years later, in The
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does joel survive in the last of us
