Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Season 1 of The Last of Us.With The Last of Us finale comes a resurgence of the “what should Joel (Pedro Pascal) have done?” debate. One of the most frequent and valid contenders is the argument to just let Ellie (Bella Ramsey) make the choice for herself. It’s her blood, her brain, her life on the line for the sake of humanity, so it should ultimately be up to her rather than Joel or Marlene (Merle Dandridge) to decide her fate. And while that argument is clearly one of the most moral outcomes, it ignores how the ending of Season 1 of The Last of Us is a depressingly fitting outcome for Ellie’s path. Ellie’s entire life has been defined by a lack of choice, and denying her this ultimate choice regarding her fate is a culmination of everything she’s experienced.
Ellie Has Been Denied Choices Since Birth in 'The Last of Us'
Most often, children have very little control over their lives, but that’s even more true for the children living in the post-apocalypse of The Last of Us. Quarantine Zones already have designated rations, jobs, and curfews that limit what its citizens can do, but for kids like Ellie at the FEDRA academy, there’s even more rules. Ellie’s held to a strict standard and lives a life dominated by rules for the majority of her early life. The only thing she really got to choose was her best friend Riley (Storm Reid), and by the whims of the Fireflies and then the cruel hands of fate, that’s taken away from her too. She didn’t choose to get bit any more than she chose to be infected at birth, or to be passed off to Marlene by her mother, or to be a FEDRA orphan, yet at each step her life is decided by people and things outside of her control. Though Marlene put Ellie with FEDRA to protect her and intends to take Ellie with her when the Fireflies leave the city, these are still choices made largely with the Fireflies in mind rather than simply for Ellie’s wellbeing.
She tries to choose to stay with Riley by convincing her to stay instead of joining the Fireflies, but that choice too is denied to her by their untimely infections. And after getting infected, Ellie again tries to choose. She chooses to go along with Riley’s plan to wait it out and lose their minds together. But she’s denied even that through her miraculous immunity.
Ellie Makes the Choice to Save Joel — But At What Cost?
When Ellie’s passed off to Joel, to her, it’s much the same as ever. Grown-ups have been telling her what to do, where to go, and how to act her whole life, and while she resents it and utilizes a healthy dose of teenage sarcasm, she still ultimately goes along with whatever she’s told to do. She tries to go against Joel and save Tess (Anna Torv), she tries to save Henry (Lamar Johnson) and Sam (Keivonn Woodard), and she even tries to cure Sam after he’s bit, but none of these attempts work out. Every choice Ellie tries to make early on in their journey is denied.
Still we slowly get to see her gain little bits of independence along their journey. When Joel trusts her with a gun, it’s a big moment for her. Not just because he’s trusting her but because now she’s literally more equipped to face the world.
It’s not until after Joel’s stabbed in Eastern Colorado that we get to see Ellie make the first truly substantial decision of her life. He tells her to leave him behind. His wound is infected, he’s been in and out of consciousness, and things aren’t looking good. But Ellie decides to stay. She decides she’s not going to lose someone else she cares about, so she takes on the responsibility of caring for Joel. And while she succeeds at her task, it also results in one of the most traumatic moments of her life. She saves herself from David (Scott Shepherd) not because she wants to but because she has to. It’s not a triumphant victory, it’s a desperate act for her survival. Any choices she makes while Joel’s out of commission are less out of autonomy and more out of pure necessity.
'The Last of Us' Season 1 Finale Is Symbolic of Ellie's Whole Life Without Choice
What goes down in Salt Lake City is something of a culmination of Ellie’s entire life — a microcosm of her denial of choice. When they first get to Salt Lake City, Ellie is quiet and nervous, but she eventually tells Joel that she wants to see this through because everything she’s done “can’t be for nothing.” Aside from her decision to stay with Joel during the winter, her telling Joel she’ll go wherever he wants after they meet the Fireflies is the only other real consequential choice she gets to make, and it's immediately subverted when the Fireflies gas them and drag Ellie away for surgery.
Ellie made the choice to go help the Fireflies to try and find a cure — she didn’t choose to have fatal brain surgery performed on her. Marlene tries to use Ellie’s feelings on the matter against Joel after he has nearly escaped with her. And based on what we know about her, it’s reasonable to assume she would agree to go through with the surgery. But that doesn’t really matter because Marlene never gave Ellie a choice in how this would all go down any more than Joel did. Ellie’s feelings on her death for the greater good is never taken into account even after everything she’s gone through to get there. It’s a rude awakening, it’s unfair, and it’s a reflection of the life Ellie’s lived thus far.
Ellie Will Be Forced to Make Difficult Choices in Season 2 of 'The Last of Us'
But in the aftermath of this, Ellie will, ironically, get her freedom for the first time. She’s no longer on a mission or obligated to anyone. She’ll be in Jackson, a safe community with other kids and plenty of things to try. And unlike Season 1 of The Last of Us, Season 2 will be dominated by Ellie’s decisions and her grappling with their repercussions much in the same way Joel does in Season 1. In a twisted way, this giant denial of her agency finally resulted in her ability to live freely. In many ways, Ellie’s personality and sense of justice was born from her own lack of agency. She’s spent her entire life dictated by others, but she’s learned to exert herself in other ways — through sarcasm and wit and a quick fist that work as armor against the world. Going forward, Ellie will have to grapple not only with this massive decision that was taken out of her hands but questions of her own will as well. What does she want to do? How does she feel about the choice Joel made? Will she allow herself to become someone like him? And how far would she be willing to go for someone she cares about? Based on what we know from The Last of Us Part II, Ellie will probably wrestle with all of this in Season 2 of The Last of Us, and she’ll come to learn that the choices she makes can be just as awful as not getting to make them at all.
