Ellie (The Last of Us Part II)

"Ellie: You are such an a**hole. Joel: I was just- Ellie: I was supposed to die in that hospital. My life would've f**king mattered! But you took that from me!"

- Ellie's last conversation to Joel.

Ellie is the focal character in The Last of Us franchise. She serves as the deuteragonist of The Last of Us, the playable protagonist of The Last of Us Part II and The Last of Us: Left Behind, and the main character in The Last of Us: American Dreams. A nineteen-year-old survivor, Ellie is "mature beyond her years" as a result of the circumstances of her environment. Unfortunately, she was flanderized in The Last of Us Part II. This article will only focus on her character in The Last of Us Part II.

Why She Doesn't "Mature Beyond Her Years" Now

 * 1) Starting off with the elephant in the room is that she was flanderized from a devious, smart little girl, to a mean-spirited jerk.
 * 2) Her attitude worsens throughout the game that she ruined her relationship with both Joel and Dina, and presumably Tommy's.
 * 3) None of her actions made any sense at all. For the whole story, she beats and assaults anyone she comes across just for the sake of Joel's death.
 * 4) * She was able to cope with the death of Riley, making jokes, and being sarcastic, so her personality shifted into a psychopath just because Joel died and doesn't hold any water.
 * 5) Her dialogue is laughable as she will sometimes call people stupid names such as "bigots".
 * 6) When Joel tells her the truth about how and why he saved her from the Fireflies, she ends their friendship and never truly reconciles with him prior to his death, showing a complete lack of gratitude to the man who saved her life. It's understandable that she'd be angry over Joel lying to her for several years, but she takes her reaction way too far.
 * 7) Late in the game, after Tommy gives her news on Abby's whereabouts, she abandons her family.
 * 8) She is really selfish, as she puts her friends in danger during some parts of the story.
 * 9) She was the main reason why the ending was horrible, since she spared Abby despite her killing Joel which makes her whole journey pointless. Also, she decides to spare her after having a flashback while trying to drown her, which is so stupid.
 * 10) Like Abby, she also has an awful sex scene with Dina.
 * 11) Not only was her character assassinated, but her strength has dumbed-down from being strong and very driven in the first game, to weak and insignificant in this game.
 * She, along with Abby basically has given The Last of Us franchise a bad reputation.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) She still has a good character design.
 * 2) At least Ashley Johnson still does an excellent job at voicing her.
 * 3) If you lose as Abby during the final boss battle (mostly on purpose), Ellie will kill her, making her journey to seek revenge on Abby meaningful.
 * 4) She can have some heart-to-heart moments with other characters most notably Dina.
 * 5) She can come off as fairly sympathetic at times, mostly due to how hard she took Joel's death later on in the story and it is shown that she truly feels horrible for how she acted towards him.
 * 6) She was a much better character in the first game.
 * 7) The Last Of Us would still not be the same without her.

Trivia

 * Ellie's character in this sequel like Abby was met with tons of negative feedback from fans of TLOU franchise.
 * She became an internet meme.