#okay. okayyyyy. that's quite a soapbox

[hearts-hunger]

the thing about tlou hbo's portrayal of joel and ellie is that it feels very much like a way to retcon their characters to make tlou2/the second season of the show seem even remotely believable.

you have to have ellie be snarky and aggressive and bitchy from the get go for it to make sense that she becomes cold and distant and hateful in the second game/season. because an innocent eager child who loves and trusts very easily is not realistically going to become a closed off loner spree killer. so you change her character and try to show that she was always angry and violent and closed off from affection and hope and kindness. she was never vulnerable and childlike. she was never obedient to adults or eager to please. she was never scared and wanting a hand to hold. she was always aloof, never cared about making people like her. she was always domineering, rude, vengeful, and mean-spirited.

you have to nerf joel's character too, because ellie can't be subject to a disciplined, stoic, consistent, trustworthy authority figure. because it makes no sense for her to be a feral little freak if she has a guardian who takes care of her, praises her efforts to please and obey him, is one hundred percent of the time a dependable and stable and competent adult. so you make him someone ellie would be weak and stupid to love, someone who is emotionally volatile, subject to intense mood swings of aggression, panic, grief, someone who is impulsive and shown from the first moment to be led by the people around him. you make joel into a needy, guts-spilling-out kind of person who parentifies this oddly girlboss child who knows better than him, fights better than him, and seems to not really need him. you make joel a crumbling mess who can’t really protect ellie because he's too busy crying or beating someone to death in a haze of the emotion that rules him. you make him into someone who isn't strong enough to be her safe place, who can't rescue her, who can't be a father to her.

the dynamic of tlou1 only works with a kind, gruff, adult who actually does know better than the eager, genuine kid who wiggles her way into the adult's heart. when it's a little girl softening the heart of a father who's forgotten how to love and hope but just needs a reminder. when it's a man who does right by this child because he knows what's in her best interest and has the strength of will to do it.

it doesn't work if it's a miserable, unwieldy adult who needs to learn some life skills from the prickly, aggressive kid who somehow gets the adult to use his emotional volatility to kill for her. when it's a match and a fuse just waiting to be lit. when it's some all-wise teenage punk and a weepy grownup with no ability to make the right decision because he's too in his own head. when the kid knows best and the adult screws it up so bad that the foolproof plan to save the world goes completely to hell.

now, tlou2 works with that dynamic — the whole narrative of the second game blames joel for his selfishness and weakness and nails ellie to the wall for her violence and coldness. joel fucked everything up because he was a blubbering, uncontrollable, panic-ridden idiot who wasn't strong enough to make the necessary sacrifice. ellie should have died on that operating table like she knew she needed to, because the world would be a better place, because the only thing she's capable of in life is revenge, hatred, betrayal, sarcasm, iciness, anger, sharpness of tongue and sharpness of blade. she is not hopeful or good or loving or trusting or open hearted. she deserved to die for everyone else, and now that she didn't, we all get to suffer and so does she. she's a shitty person who doesn't want to be better, even as a kid, and there's no changing her. too bad she missed her one chance to make a positive impact on the world because of some selfish moron who can barely function because of his emotional distress.

the problem is that the dynamic needed for the second game’s message to work is just not present in the first game. joel is a man's man, a good father, a strong person mentally and physically. ellie is a kindhearted child, one who strives to please joel and make him like her, a spunky and likeable little girl. but the creators of the first game hate that now, apparently, or look down on it as naive and unrealistic. even though they made it. and i think their solution is to retcon the first game's story with the show, and just straight up attempt to gaslight audiences into thinking that's all the first game ever was. all the things you liked about the first game? they suck and so do you. fuck you for liking them and wanting them reflected in the show. truly.