At first glance, these posters just seem to be minimalist pictures of the main characters, but there are a lot of little details. Joel is walking on the broken watch his daughter Sarah gave him, Ellie is walking on the guitar Joel will teach her how to play, and Abby is walking on the Firefly pendant that ties her to her late father. The tagline, “Every path has a price,” applies to everyone’s stories: Ellie and Abby’s concurrent paths to vengeance will yield devastating personal costs, while Joel’s path of saving Ellie and preventing the cure will cost him everything.
Pedro Pascal's The Last Of Us Season 2 Poster Hints At Joel's Tragic Fate
Ellie & Abby Are Both Looking Forward, But Joel Is Looking Back
The key difference between Joel’s poster and Ellie and Abby’s posters is his perspective. While Ellie and Abby are looking forward, Joel is looking back. This hints at his story; while Ellie and Abby are marching into the future, Joel is haunted by his past. Ellie is looking forward to finding Abby in Seattle and exacting revenge. Abby is looking forward to achieving redemption and inner peace after her own quest for revenge didn’t make her feel any better.
But Joel is looking over his shoulder. Ever since he massacred the Fireflies, he’s known that his days were numbered. He knew that one day, someone connected to the Fireflies — or any of the other enemies he made over the past 20 years — would track him down and kill him. The fact that Joel is looking back while Ellie and Abby look forward is a subtle but unmistakable hint that he’ll die early on in the season.
How The Last Of Us Season 2's New Posters Reveal Each Main Character's Motivation
The Path Each Character Is Walking On Highlights Their Motivation
The path that each character is walking on in the new posters for The Last of Us season 2 hints at their motivation. The broken watch on Joel’s poster suggests that his primary motivation is to keep his daughter safe. The guitar on Ellie’s poster suggests that her motivation is to do right by Joel (although she spends most of the story chasing the wrong way to go about it). The Firefly pendant on Abby’s poster suggests that she’s motivated by avenging her father, and later by living up to her father’s legacy.