The following contains spoilers for The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 1, «Future Days,» which premiered Sunday, April 13 on HBO.
Parenting never gets easier. People in the real world with such experience can attest to that, but it’s even harder in an apocalypse where loss is inevitable, and enemies have no care if someone is a child or a parent. Joel Miller learned that lesson the hard way in The Last of Us series premiere, when he lost his daughter, Sarah, in the initial outbreak. 25 years later, Joel is still learning.
The Last of Us is no stranger to the Badass and the Child trope, in which a short-tempered, experienced adult (more often a man) takes a young, green child under their wing. In Joel’s case, the trope informs how Joel unhealthily deals with grief, in that he really hasn’t. Joel fills the Sarah-shaped hole in his heart with Ellie, who is now 19-years-old and wants very little to do with Joel in The Last of Us Season 2. How does he fill his Ellie-shaped hole in his heart? Joel takes up a mentor role for Dina, Ellie’s best friend and love interest, but it brings to the surface a larger issue Joel has yet to accept about himself.
Joel Can't Be a Good Person on His Own
Fans of both the video games and the HBO series have long debated whether Joel is a good person. Prior to The Last of Us Season 1 finale, it could be reasonably argued that Joel was just a good person who did bad things to survive. But when he killed the majority of the Fireflies at the Salt Lake City hospital to stop a doctor from killing Ellie for a cure to save humankind, the line of his morality became blurrier. Maybe Joel is a worse person when he has a daughter to look after. But a case could be made that having a daughter grounds Joel.
Before Ellie, Joel was a smuggler who killed innocent people and was unwilling to help strangers in need. Ellie is naive, yet her kind heart rubbed off on him during their journey together. He’s now a man who builds homes for refugees and goes to therapy. He may still ask Maria to stop letting new people into Jackson and lie in therapy, but he’s a better person than who he was before Ellie. But with Ellie distancing herself from him, Joel finds himself without an anchor. That’s where Dina comes in, all doe-eyed and eager to learn from Joel because she likely doesn’t know about his past and what he’s done to save himself and Ellie. Joel purposefully hides the truth from her to be a better person, not only in a young person’s eyes, but in the mirror.
Ellie's Independence Makes Joel Uncomfortable
Joel is dealing with a form of self-esteem issue that he isn’t vulnerable enough to admit, let alone fix, without relying on a young woman’s validation of him. But there’s another component of this equation that is more understandable and relatable: Joel hates seeing Ellie grow up. There comes a time in every parent’s life where they have to let their child soar on their own, allow them to make their own decisions and stop being a cloud that hovers over their every move. Joel can’t bear the thought of Ellie being an adult because he’s only had her as a child for five years, most of which were probably spent with tension between them.
Joel admits to himself and his therapist, Gail, that no 19-year-old wants to hang out with their parent. Ellie wants to be independent, yes, but that’s not the full story. Joel and Ellie have unspoken baggage that hasn’t been unpacked. Whether it’s been said or not in those five unseen years, Ellie definitely knows that Joel lied to her about the Fireflies. Her heart tells her that there are holes in his story, and she’s too aware of Joel’s attachment to her and his grief towards Sarah that she can’t believe he’d let her die for a cure.
It’s a coming-of-age moment in a child’s life when they realize their parent isn’t as good of a person as they once thought. Not only did Joel betray the whole world, he betrayed Ellie. He took away the one thing that she believed would give her purpose. Worse off, him concealing the truth pretty much tells Ellie that he’s okay with lying to her if it means avoiding the heartbreak of losing another daughter.
The Last of Us Cleverly Takes a Stab at Its Own Trope
Joel and Ellie’s falling out is a clever way of The Last of Us revealing the ingrained flaws of the Badass and the Child, the very trope the story is founded on. Joel is not a terrible father by any means. He at least allowed Ellie to have her own space in the garage, but he also acts like he has some ownership over her. He speaks of her in therapy as if Ellie’s in the wrong, proudly showing off that he’s an interesting guy to talk to because Dina does so, almost as if he thinks Ellie should be the first to fix things with him. But people, like Tommy and Jesse, walk on eggshells when they’re associated with Ellie because they’re afraid of Joel retaliating out of jealousy or anger.
The Last of Us fully acknowledges that a savior complex comes with the territory of the Badass and the Child trope. The badass sees the child as a tool for their own growth. But The Last of Us isn’t afraid of criticizing Joel for relying on Ellie’s approval and running straight to Dina when he doesn’t get that. It’s heartbreaking for both Joel and Ellie. In fact, Joel grasping for validation shows that he’s never fully coped with losing Sarah. But Ellie also isn’t a replacement child who easily fits the mold of expectations Joel is looking for. That’s what makes him such a heartbreaking tragedy. No matter how old Joel gets and the number of relationships he builds, Joel will always be broken, just as long as he uses other people’s adoration of him to love himself.
New episodes of The Last of Us premiere every Sunday at 9 PM ET on HBO.
