#tysm anon appreciate the convo!!!! appreciate the way you laid this out

[mariatesstruther]

That's because Maria is filmed as an antagonist. In the game she isn't but in the show she's set up to be direct opposition.

In the game you show up in a gun fight, kick ass, gain her admiration and everything goes smoothly.

In the show you show up, she threatens Joel and Ellie with death, has a reputation for killing people and leaving their bodies out to rot, takes their weapons from them, mean mugs Joel, is implied to be the reason Tommy stopped talking to Joel panicking his only living relative, and directly makes implications to Ellie that Joel is a bad person out to cause her direct harm.

She's set up to look like a bad guy deliberately trying to drive a wedge between Joel and his loved ones. Tommy COULD have talked to Joel but Maria says they don't use the radio for outsiders. Tommy COULD help Joel but Maria wouldn't want him leaving etc etc.

I don't know why they filmed it that way, especially compared to the game, but she's set up to look like the bad guy compared to Joel, the one they can pin 'well I would but I can't' Tommy on.

i do think this is a fair assessment anon—besides a few things:

“threatens joel and ellie with death” - the entirety of that jackson patrol was testing joel/ellie to see if they were infected or otherwise a threat to their community. i highly doubt they wouldve just straight up deaded them for no reason 😭

“has a reputation for killing people and leaving their bodies out to rot” - tommy literally explained in the show that they only do that to people that try them aka likely caused trouble for jackson or whatever patrol group. again, they make it clear that maria and the people of jackson aren’t killing people for no reason

“takes their weapons from them” THIS IS A SAFETY THING THAT THTEY DO FOR ALL STRANGERS COMING IN AND IT IN INCREDIBLY REASONABLEEE. sorry for going all caps but like im so tired of hearing this 😭😭😭 they got all their weapons back except for one rifle like 30 mins later

“mean mugs joel” im not even gonna touch that tbh. god forbid a woman glares 😭😭😭 joel will be fine yall i promise he could take it

“is implied to be the reason tommy stopped talking to joel” you know what? fair. i do think joel line about “your wife wont let you” implied that. from what tommy responds with, we know its a jackson-wide rule, but tbh i find it hard to believe maria was just hunky-dory with tommy talking to joel. i hope this is expanded upon in s2 tho because i think joel/fandom placing the blame on maria completely is JUST as ridiculous as maria blaming joel for tommy being a raider

we’ve talked about how i think maria telling ellie to watch her back with a 60+ year old strong man that she isnt related to and is clearly closely attached to her is completely 100% justified and reasonable so im just not gonna rehash it here, but tdlr: from maria’s perspective, she has EVERY reason to warn this 12 year old girl to be careful

also just going back to the “has a reputation for killing people” thing: are we forgetting that JOEL AND TESS BOTH LITERALLY HAVE A REPUTATION FOR FUCKING PEOPLE UP AND/OR KILLING THEM?????? JOEL WAS LITERALLY A RAIDER OR WHATEVER THAT FUCK KILLING BITCHES FOR CANS OF BEANS PROBABLY

the conflicting way they characterize her is one reason im kinda annoyed/confused at the writer’s intentions for maria bc on one hand they seem to set her up as an antagonist (in her tone/stance towards joel, our main character) but also make her preggo with tommy’s baby AND prove her right in the end???? like what she says about the people we trust most betraying us COMES TRUE for ellie by the end. i hope in s2 they have a longer conversation and rutina wesley gets a chance to show a fleshed out performance of maria, whether she ends up as an antag or protagonist. im rootin for her either way tbh