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 central 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" Anymore

 * 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 and cold-blood murderer who ignores her friend's advice and well-being just to satisfy her need for revenge.
 * 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, assaults and kills anyone she comes across just for the sake of Joel's death, mostly Abby's friends, while showing no remorse for any of them.
 * 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) *When Joel shoved Seth for insulting Ellie and Dina, she angrily berated him further, stating she doesn't need his help, which leaves him dejected.
 * 8) *When Ellie confronted Joel about what had happened, she curses him for having stolen her chance to redeem humanity through sacrificing herself, despite the fact that she was not actually given a choice. Joel affirmed that he would do the same thing again if he got a second chance.
 * 9) You are forced to fight against her as Abby instead of the other way around.
 * 10) Late in the game, after Tommy gives her news on Abby's whereabouts, she abandons her family.
 * 11) She is really selfish, as she puts her friends in danger during some parts of the story without any regards for their safety.
 * 12) 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.
 * 13) Like Abby, she also has an awful sex scene with Dina.
 * 14) 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.
 * 15) At the end, her quest for revenge proved to be in vain as she couldn't bring herself to kill Abby when she finally has her at her mercy, failing to avenged Joel. Her revenge quest also gets Jesse killed and Tommy severely injured. Even worse, Dina leaves her, along with JJ, and the fight cost her two of her fingers, preventing her from playing the guitar anymore, the only link to Joel she has left.
 * She, along with Abby, basically has given The Last of Us franchise a bad reputation.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) She was a much better character in the first game.
 * 2) She still has a good character design.
 * 3) At least Ashley Johnson still does an excellent job at voicing her.
 * 4) If you lose as Abby during the boss battle against Ellie (mostly on purpose), Ellie will kill her, making her journey to seek revenge on Abby meaningful.
 * 5) She can have some heart-to-heart moments with other characters most notably Dina.
 * 6) 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.
 * 7) She did show remorse for some people she killed, like with Mel after finding out she was pregnant, she instantly regretted it and threw up. She realizes what her single-minded pursuit of revenge upon Abby has done to her and decides to give up revenge, before Abby ambushes her.
 * 8) 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.