Instead, The Rattlers are there as a mechanical antagonist for Naughty Dog's final act, though a couple of lines of dialogue and collectable artefacts do offer more insight about the history of this brutal group from the golden coast.īased out of Santa Barbara, the Rattlers are a mercenary force who capture wandering survivors and enslave them as human labour. Who are the Rattlers?Īfter going to great lengths to characterise and carefully colour in the backstories for The Last of Us 2's main warring factions, the Seraphites and the WLF, it seems odd for the game to introduce a third group at the last minute, present for just a few hours before the end credits roll. It's fair to say that The Last of Us 2 rolls credits with a more resolute ending than the sinister ambiguity left by the close of the first game, then, but there's still a few, niggling questions you might have that I'll try to address below. To me, the final shot of her walking out across the fields is exactly that of Ellie moving on. Having made that decision, bringing meaning to Joel's death through mercy rather than violence, she's finally able to move on from this sorry chapter of her life. That if she's able to forgive Joel for committing one of the most unforgivable acts in human history, then she can forgive the woman who killed him.Įllie's last act of clemency thus breaks the cycle of violence that Naughty Dog has stated runs at the heart of The Last of Us 2. That she can honor her friend's memory by being better than him.
That memory of Joel that appears as she's drowning Abby? It reminds her that she's capable of mercy. Which brings us back to the present day, where Ellie has another difficult choice to make. Just as the hope for a restored relationship with Joel came back into her life, Abby snuffed it out with one, unrepentant swing of a golf club. Instead, Ellie made a choice to begin the process of forgiving Joel, but Abby and the WLF robbed her of that opportunity, which suddenly gives us a much better understanding of our heroine's hatred towards them. On the contrary, that final, crucial flashback scene on the porch reveals that Joel didn't die thinking that he had lost Ellie forever. Deep down, she's really angry at herself for not patching things up with the only father figure in her life before it was too late. As far as we know at this point, Ellie never forgave Joel for his actions in the first game, which explains why she's so consumed by a need to exact revenge on Abby. Throughout the game, players were led to believe that Ellie's final interaction with Joel before his death was one of confrontation, in which she publicly derides him for refusing to accept that their friendship is over. So, what does it all mean? Well, you can read the end of Ellie's story in a number of different ways, but here's my two cents. "I don't think I can ever forgive you for that", she admits, letting an uncomfortable pause set in, before adding, "But I'd like to try." An awkward goodbye ends their final conversation together, and it's back to the present day, where we see Ellie put down the guitar, the camera panning out to the window as we watch her walk back out into the wilderness.
"If somehow the Lord gave me a second chance at that moment, I would do it all over again," replies Joel, refusing to express any remorse or regret for robbing Ellie of her chance to save humanity. On the night before his death, she had visited Joel's home, confronting him for continuing to interfere in her life long after she cut him out of it after discovering what really went down with the Fireflies all those years ago.
She picks up the guitar, starts playing (as best she can without the two fingers she lost fighting Abby), and recalls the memory that flashed before her eyes while she had Joel's killer in her clutches. Ellie returns to Wyoming to find her farmstead home vacated, aside from her studio of music and paintings.
THE LAST OF US PART 2 ELLIE SERIES
The Last of Us HBO series (opens in new tab) : Everything we know so farĮventually, Ellie gets the upper hand, and begins to drown Abby underwater, but another memory of Joel apparently triggers one final act of mercy, and she lets her escape with Lev by boat.
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