they really delivered on tragedy
which (i hope this makes sense!) i feel like joel deserves?? it was so well done. it wasnt cliché “he died saving his loved one” or lame random death that feels too low for him. it was horribly poetic that he came across and saved the life of the person who came all this way to find and kill him. that sure now he’s doing all these good guy things, but joel has a pasts - and the effects of our pasts don’t leave us just because we move on from them. I stress, @thejollywriter that i still dont know who abby is or why she was after joel, so please remember that and keep me spoilers free! 😁
but it’s funny -just a couple days before i started playing the game, my sister told me that she saw someone call joel a bad guy (context - someone asked “whos a villain you known is bad but love anyway?” and someone said “joel miller”) and that she thought that was really unfair. i was like, bro, he makes it really clear that he’s done some awful things through the first game - the biggest that stands out in memory is that he used to be a part of a road ambush gang, and then of course his talks with tommy and the end of the game where he murders a bunch of people because he doesn’t want to lose ellie. (she was like “yeah i guess you’re right, id forgotten a lot of that but i still love him” and i was like “bitch me too the fuck”) Anyway, point is, id had no idea that this second game would focus so much on (or i guess be triggered by) his past!! and i think it’s really cool that they’re bringing it back up because it’s so legit.
it reminds me of this (surprisingly good) western movie i saw a few weeks ago with my grandpa- there was this guy (let’s call him Main) who killed like 7 people when he was younger - was in prison for a few years, and came out a truly changed man - peaceful and kind, trying to make an honest living and move on from his past. but this one guy Main worked with really hated him and whenever another person was like “omg youre that murderer!!!!” the coworker would try to convince them to kill Main/make him fight back and get rearrested. so through this whole movie, Main is talking people down from fights, trying to calm the coworker and get him to back off, meets and marries a lovely woman, leaves his job and works with her on her farm….. and so finally the movie’s wrapped up, everyone’s happy, Main’s away from the angry creeps. and this guy in a nice suit rides up to their farm and is like “hey nice to meet you ive been looking for you for a long time” and just fucking shoots him dead. he explains to Main’s wife that he’s the son of one of the men Main killed like 15 years ago.
and hed just been waiting patiently to grow up and track him down. Westerns and post-apocalypse fictions are often similar because they both deal with such relative law and wishy-washy enforcement. it’s often that the strongest and smartest make up the law. looking at you, negan.
anyway, i really liked that movie, and it’s fun to run into what looks like the same kind of story here for Joel. neither Joel or Main saw it coming
i love that right after seeing these hateful people, we see Joel’s house - with all those flowers and notes. he was so well loved by these people he had lived with for years, worked with, protected. he was out patrolling and saw a woman absolutely swarmed by zombies, and ran in and helped her.
Joel wasn’t evil, and he had a great last couple of years of showing how great he can be when supported by civilization. I’m going to miss him.
