This is Joel, a smuggler destined to become one of the most memorable video game protagonists.
The adventure we lived in The Last of Us conquered us at the end of the seventh generation. An adventure of which they mark and transform in equal parts, and that we would not have lived in the same way had it not been for its protagonists: Joel and Ellie. Because if we want to talk about Joel, we have to do it also about Ellie, a character that completely transforms our protagonist, as complex and changing as human beings whom, although we try to portray here, we will never be able to fully know. In the absence of the information that The Last of Us Part II can provide us starting on June 19, today we are trying to pay tribute to this character who, from the first moment we met him, conquered our hearts.
Joel’s emotional journey
That The Last of Us, a Naughty Dog video game released in 2013 for PS3, is so beloved and included in most, if not all, the lists of the best video games of recent years, is, mainly, by its protagonists. The studio’s ability to create two characters as human and credible, that evolve as their relationship develops, just as any of us would do in real life, caused a real sensation, leaving a mark on our lives as players.
The process to achieve this was not easy. In fact, the development of both characters began years before the video game did, while Neil Druckmann, director of The Last of Us, was a university student. Back then, it was a protagonist couple made up of a man who had to protect a girl in a post-apocalyptic world. In one way or another, the essence of his idea remained in the game, but it was all the conversations with the rest of the team, as well as the interpretations of the actors who gave them life, Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker, that managed to Joel and Ellie are the characters that they finally are.
Focusing on the character at hand, each and every one of the people who participated in the development of The Last of Us contributed something to his conception, starting with Neil Druckmann himself: “Being a father during the development of The Last of Us reinforced my ideas of what I thought about family. I grew up with this close-knit family that constantly teaches you that you don’t choose your family, but you do whatever it takes to help. It is something that has been recorded in me. But it is very different when it comes to your own child and you have that human life that you somehow created and realize that you would do anything for him. At the end of the story, in this game, you see that Joel does pretty horrible things to protect this person that he now sees as his own daughter, ”he explained to the SPRC radio.
In The Last of Us, Joel goes on both a physical and emotional journey that completely changes him. Twenty years earlier, during the outbreak of the Cordyceps outbreak, he suffered the loss of his only daughter, Sarah, which was the character’s first major change. Of being honest; family, because he had a close relationship with both his brother and daughter; and worrying about not losing his job in the construction sector, he becomes a closed person, who does not want to talk about the past, capable of doing anything to survive in the world that has left the infection. A person who, according to Neil Druckmann, “no longer has many lines to cross.” So much so that, for example, when the time comes, he agrees, albeit reluctantly, to smuggle a girl: Ellie.
At the start of the journey, which takes them from Boston to Utah, to the other side of the country, Joel and Ellie detest each other. They do not stop answering each other in bad ways. However, it is the adversities that overcome and the innocence, as a teenager, of Ellie that are slowly eroding the barriers that Joel had built to maintain his emotional state. As they move forward, the two characters share more about each other and get to know each other better, unraveling in Druckmann’s perspective on family, which causes Joel and Ellie’s relationship to be a rather parent-child one, leading them to protect each other. Even to Joel crossing a last line: not allowing Ellie to die, even if that means breaking her word, giving her up to do a cure, and ending all those who try to stop her.
However, it is all the complexity hidden in Joel as a character that takes him there. The death of her daughter Sarah, the most important thing in her life, makes her lose faith in humanity, since it was a soldier who killed her, not an infected one, and the little hope that remained since then only in Tess. In the game, it is not very clear how far they went with their relationship, but as Troy Baker saw it, Joel felt such loneliness that he had to take care of her. The suggestion was picked up by Druckmann and implemented into the character, thus molding the actor to Joel as well. She was the final motive that led Joel to continue his journey with Ellie after his death halfway. Tess was all she had until then, because with her brother Tommy, although he was still alive, he had a conflict that separated them.
But it was not only its history, its complexity and the team’s suggestions that made Joel so human and credible, but also the small details, dotted here and there in the gameplay of The Last of Us, such as aggressiveness and violence employed in each confrontation, for everything she had experienced; or the weight of the passage of the years in his little ability to run, because he walks fast whenever he can; among many others also hidden in the conversations he has with Ellie and that reveal more information about his tastes such as that he loves coffee or that he wanted so much to be a singer that he learned to play the guitar.
What role has Joel really played in The Last of Us?
Although there are numerous times that Joel has been analyzed as a character since the launch of the game, the truth is that it is still not clear what role he has. At first, he can be identified as a hero, since his adventure in The Last of Us fits perfectly with The Hero’s Journey, a simplified scheme that Joseph Campbell exposes in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces to explain that any well-built character You can identify yourself as a hero if you go through twelve stages.
Stages like the ordinary world, presented at the beginning of the game; the call to adventure, when Marlene orders Joel and Tess to take Ellie to the other end of the country; meeting with the teacher, fixed at the moment that Bill teaches him; tests, allies and friends, those who make along the way as Henry and Sam; or the resurrection, when he recovers after having been seriously injured just before winter began. These and the rest of the stages fit perfectly with Joel’s adventure, making him a sort of hero from The Last of Us story. However, if the greatness of Naughty Dog’s work is characterized by anything, it is its ability to humanize its characters, especially its protagonists. For this reason, Joel can also be seen as an antihero.
As the ISTMO magazine collects on the concept of antihero, this type of character is easily confused with that of hero, since they share some characteristics, such as having the same purposes, consistent with those of their society, or not forgetting the common good . However, the antihero has human traits, which allow us to sympathize with them, such as focusing also on the particular good, questioning both rules and values, or assuming that reality exceeds the social norm and acting accordingly.
Although protecting Ellie throughout the journey is the highlight of Joel’s adventure, as it aims to create a cure that saves humanity from the infection caused by Cordyceps, which is, therefore, for the common good, it hides a personal interest, at least at first: having Marlene give Tess and him back their weapons. To make Ellie survive, she is capable of absolutely everything as an antihero as far as exceeding all lawful means is concerned, such as killing not only the infected but also people, whether or not they want to harm you explicitly.
For much of the game, we as players control Joel, so we have no choice but to kill any enemy that gets in our way, even if we’re against it in real life. As with everything that has to do with how to do it. However, the reason why we do it, the same as that of our protagonist, we understand and accept, even sympathizing with him. Everything is for the sake of recovering weapons, a particular good, and for Ellie, who goes from being a common good to a particular good as well.
But, in addition to hero and antihero, Joel can be seen as a villain. “[En The Last of Us] you assume Joel is the hero and David the villain, but everyone is the hero of their own story. ” David is doing what is best for his people, so he is also a hero in the eyes of the people he protects. […] If I had to lean to one side, I think Joel would see himself as a villain, so he can say he’s been on both sides. The character tries to survive and is not there to save anyone, but neither is it to disrupt other people’s plans. He’s just trying to survive, ”said Troy Baker at the 2019 Manchester Comic Con. In fact, it’s the evolution of the relationship between Joel and Ellie that can make him look that way.
As we said before, at the end of the game, both characters have achieved a kind of parent-child relationship, which pushes Joel to save Ellie from the final danger: death. To perform the cure, doctors have to access the girl’s brain, which would lead to her death. So, Joel acts selfishly preventing them from killing her, doing what any villain would do at that time, as ISTMO magazine also collects: attacking the system and the values of the community, in this case the Fireflies, destroying the common good He cures her, to satisfy her own, that Ellie does not die. Thus leaving society with almost no chance of finding a cure, as it is more than likely that there are not many more immune people like it.
Therefore, The Last of Us is capable of giving up to three different roles to Joel. A character who, in the end, as a survivor, only does his best to survive in the post-apocalyptic world that has touched him. A person on foot, with daily problems and father of a daughter who tragically loses during the outbreak, a fact that corrupts him, making him shut himself up and adapt to the world that remains afterwards. A world that makes him become a smuggler, losing faith in everything, until Ellie arrives, who transforms his own.
The journey will continue in The Last of Us Part 2
Naughty Dog has not shared much information about what we can expect from Joel in The Last of Us Part 2, although Neil Druckmann has assured that it will continue to be important: “The relationship [entre Ellie y Joel] it’s tense in part because teens will always be teens, but also because of their history. ” To which he added: “I would say that Joel plays a great role in this title.” For his part, Troy Baker has also suggested that “he will have a leading role. […] I want people to be open with the story and allow Joel and Ellie to tell their story, not the story that people think should be told. “
