#tlou marlene

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

Some more changes in “The Last of Us” TV show that I thought were improvements on the game:

1) Tommy calls Joel to bail him out of jail. It’s a small scene but it does help establish that Joel is the older, more responsible brother while Tommy is the younger, more reckless brother. It gives more dimension to Joel’s line of “I bring you the cure for mankind and you wanna play the pissy little brother”.

2) Joel possibly being a Desert Storm veteran. Because if he was, then his line “you have no idea what loss is” becomes even more tragic since it’s not clear which part of his life he’s talking about. Is he talking about Sarah, surviving the post-apocalypse, or the horrors of the Gulf War? Technically speaking, he could be talking about all three events, which is just incredibly sad.

3) As an add-on for point 2, either Joel or Tommy being a Desert Storm veteran works better for the story since it makes it more believable that the Miller brothers were able to survive for 20 years in the zombie apocalypse.

4) “Che Guevara of Boston”. It’s one line, but it tells you all you need to know about Marlene and the Fireflies. Honestly, I got a better understanding of Marlene through that one line than the explanation in the original game.

5) Tess telling Joel to calm down and that going after Robert will make him go into hiding. I know that might seem trivial but the show is subtly telling us that Joel is incredibly dangerous. In the game, this was established by going into combat as Joel. The show can’t just rely on action scenes since that would screw up the pacing and tone, so the next best way to establish Joel’s badassery is through dialogue. “Robert is scared of you because you’re a dangerous motherfucker, that’s why I need you to chill”, that’s basically what Tess said.

6) Joel beats the guard to death in order to protect Ellie. In this one scene, Joel has already bonded Ellie to his memory of Sarah and Ellie was introduced to Joel’s savagery, which is pretty impressive considering that it’s a scene with no dialogue (for at least that section).

[softavasilva]

ELLIE WILLIAMS and MARLENE in HBO: THE LAST OF US | 1.01 When You're Lost in the Darkness

[mdawgswizzleinthehizzle]

the way that joel went from being so untrusting in part 1…

… to being so unguarded in part 2 that he willingly walked into a closed room with a large group of strangers AND introduced himself. the energy shift in the room when joel says his name is eerie as hell…

he knew the dangers of his reputation and ultimately… his ability to allow a sort of trust and conscience to help strangers in part 2 is ultimately his demise.

[ch-4-eri]

Me and my mother’s relationship is fine i definitely don’t have a crush on them okay

[abbystanaccount]

TLOU Ladies Arms Comparison

Dina, Ellie and Abby

Dina, Ellie, Abby, Nora, Mel, Marlene

Abby's younger, Seattle, and Pillars arms. Her Santa Barbara arms are the same size as her Seattle ones.

Here's that again but giving Abby's last arms a texture edit I did of them healed with scars.

Ellie's Santa Barbara arms vs her Jackson ones

[mariatesstruther]

ellie coming out to marlene and marlene being like girl me too and ellie coming out to tommy and tommy being like girl me too and ellie coming out to maria and maria being like girl me too and ellie coming out to tess and tess being like girl me too—

[thundergrace]

Guess I'm officially the president of the Marlene Defense Squad. Y'all be having defense squads for beloved characters and don't ever even have to block people. Weak. Imma actually have to fight.

[lunalivvy]

when riley asked marlene if ellie could join the fireflies and she said no, i didn’t think anything of it, but i just remembered that she knows ellie and i realized that the reason she said no was bc she promised anna ellie would be safe

[dolche-tejada]

Since the show put this eternal debate about the validity of Joel's decision back on track, I wanted to talk about it and explain why Joel was right. Note that I'm not talking about Joel's reasons so don't tell me "yes, but Joel wasn't thinking about that so...", that's not the issue. The issue is his decision in itself.

Btw, I specify here that I talk about the show but considering its fidelity to the games, my arguments also work concerning them.

So... let's take a look at Ellie. Firstly, she was unconscious at the time. There's just no way to justify that. Marlene or the fans who defend the Fireflies can speculate all they want about what Ellie would have wanted, the truth is that we fucking don't know. We know for sure that she wanted to help produce a cure, but at the time, no one knew that this would require opening her head and killing her.

If Marlene was so sure of what she's claiming here, she would have woken up Ellie to give her the choice. But she didn't because she knows it's bullshit she's saying to convince both Joel and herself.

I'm sure I'll be objected that in TLOU 2, Ellie blamed Joel for preventing her from dying on the operating table and that given the fidelity of the series to the games, this will surely be the case in the next season. Yeah but that's irrelevant too, it's not the same Ellie. In a few years, especially during adolescence, we change a lot.

Then, since we're talking about Ellie's consent, I would like to remind you that regardless of whether she was conscious or not, she's a 14 year old girl. I have the impression that too many people tend to forget that, no one at that age can make the decision to sacrifice their life with full knowledge of what they're giving up and with the maturity to think about it properly. Especially when the 14 year old girl in question is victim of survivor's guilt after having seen several of her close ones die.

For those who have trouble visualizing what I'm saying, I'll make an analogy : If an adult slept with a 14 year old and the latter justified herself to you by saying that she was consenting and that it was her choice, would you find this relevant ? Of course not, because almost everyone knows that there are decisions that children/teenagers can't consent to !

Now that was just about Ellie, but what about the cure ? Because in spite of all the utilitarian debates about whether or not Ellie needs to be killed for the greater good, we're forgetting one essential point : What proves that the Fireflies could have made a cure ? Because whether it's in the games or in the show, there's no real evidence of that. Even the Fireflies don't know anything about it, Marlene and the others directly assume that they will be able to create a vaccine from Ellie's Cordyceps even though they barely had time to do some tests on her while she was unconscious.

Hey you know what ? Even Marlene implicitly admits that they don't know about it : "Our doctor… he thinks that the Cordyceps in Ellie has grown with her since birth (…) He thinks it could be a cure, Joel."

They literally had no plan or certainties, they didn't even take the time to conduct any in-depth study of Ellie, of her blood for example to find a way to produce a vaccine without killing her. They just chose the easiest solution out of impulsivity without worrying for a single minute about the opinion and safety of the concerned one.

Whether it was for the greater good or not, all of Marlene's justifications are based on biased assumptions and intellectual dishonesty. Joel hurt many people and was wrong about a lot of things but certainly not about stopping reckless morons from butchering his 14 year old daughter.

[hotxcheeto]

Sometimes I like to think about the fact that Ellie’s mom, Anna, trusted Marlene so much.

With her life, she even says it in the note to Ellie that Marlene is probably the only person she trusts.

That Marlene would take care of Ellie.

And then Marlene tries to kill her for a cure that might not have even worked with the way the fireflies went about it.

Without even a second thought.

Marlene cared more for about the cure than Ellie or Anna and she justified it by saying they could save the world. They didn’t even run their ‘tests’ they were just going to do what they wanted.

Ellie trusted her, and Marlene betrayed her.

But she also betrayed Anna, whose dying, written words to her infant daughter were that Marlene could be trusted and that she’d take care of her.

Anna believed her daughter was gonna be okay.

[lands-of-fantasy]

The Last of Us

Character Posters

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

So, remember how Neil Druckmann said the first TLOU was a game about love? Well, if we’re to apply that to the show:

1) Episode 1: Father-daughter love (from a blood-related angle)

2) Episode 2: Best friends/partners love (potentially romantic but also works from a platonic perspective)

3) Episode 3: Romantic love from beginning to end

4) Episode 4: Father-daughter love (from an adopted angle)

5) Episode 5: Brotherly/sibling love

6) Episode 6: How we show love to the people close to us, even if it causes conflict (Joel tries to leave Ellie to protect her, Ellie refuses to leave Joel because she feels safe with him)

7) Episode 7: Romantic love that is tragically cut short / friendship that grows into something more

8) Episode 8: How love can be twisted into something horrible (manipulation, sadism, abuse, etc)

9) Episode 9: The lengths we’ll go to protect our loved ones

[softavasilva]

what was the song? he kept sayin’, like, “Wake me up before you go-go”? shit.

HBO: The Last Of Us (2023-) 1.01 | When You're Lost in the Darkness

[0aurelion-sol0]

[meltingangels]

Marlene: "He tries anything, shoot him."

Joel:

[abbystanaccount]

Who else here is believing in the Fireflies