Tess: “Hey you’re the one always going on about layin’ low.” Tess: “You know I was thinking… after we get back, we take it easy for a little while.”

He wound up loving Ellie so much, he would do anything to keep her alive and safe, even if it meant the eventual demise of mankind. In a beautiful way, her existence in his life sent him down a spiraling path of destruction. If he did love her, he would have never affirmed it, because it would be considered a weakness.Įllie was the first person to break Joel down. I believe Joel and Tess were romantically involved, but they (mostly Joel) treated the relationship as more of a partnership to stay alive. He's just trying to survive and trying not to have to feel that same emotional pain again. The theme that 'building emotional relationships with other people makes you soft and gets you killed' is conveyed through Joel's now cold, aloof behavior. So, Joel loses his daughter and then spends the next 20 years trying to survive in a horrible world. I think the dynamics of Joel relationships was brilliant.

The last of us tess