Characters / The Last of Us: Ellie

Main Character Index | Joel | Ellie | The Fireflies | Residents of Jackson, Wyoming | Washington Liberation Front (WLF) a.k.a. the Wolves

Ellie Williams

Endure and survive.

^{Click here to see Ellie as she appears in the The Last of Us: Part II.}

Voiced by: Ashley Johnson (English)^note Other languages: Megumi Han (Japanese), Mariela Centurión (Latin American Spanish), María Blanco (European Spanish), Eliza Martirosova (Russian), Anna Cieślak (Polish), Adeline Chetail (French)

Year of birth: 2019

"Everyone I have cared for has either died or left me. Everyone - fucking except for you! So don't tell me I would be safer with somebody else, because the truth is I would just be more scared."

Having been born after the fungal infection had already collapsed modern civilization as we know it, Ellie doesn't know a life aside from the high walls of the quarantine zone. She was raised in perpetual fear. This, of course, sparks within her an obsession with relics from the past culture, such as books and music. This, too, leads to troublesome times at the boarding house she resides in. As it turns out, she's actually immune to the fungus and the Fireflies want her to make a vaccine. She is openly lesbian.

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A-I

• Action Girl: At only fourteen with no real fighting experience, she has to start the game as an Action Survivor instead. Part of her development is Joel trusting her to protect the two of them with real firearms and combat. She graduates into this trope during the Winter level, where she is the only playable character at the start and end of it, as well as getting a one-on-one boss fight with David. Word of God is that Ellie's character arc is basically the origin story of an Action Hero.
• Action Mom: In Part II, she becomes a second mom to JJ, Dina and Jesse's biological child. Santa Barbara chapter proves she can still kick ass.
• Affectionate Nickname: Joel calls her "baby girl", which was the nickname he used to call his daughter Sarah, showcasing he's come to consider Ellie like his daughter.
• All for Nothing:
  • At the end of the first game, Joel takes her from the Fireflies, murdering the only person who knew how to create a cure for Cordyceps in the process, thus destroying what is probably the last chance of humanity being saved and making their whole trip ultimately pointless, which is exactly what Ellie didn't want. Downplayed in that at least Ellie and Joel got their surrogate father-daughter relationship out of it.
  • At the end of Part II, her quest for revenge yields nothing as she can't even bring herself to kill Abby when she finally has her at her mercy. Her revenge quest also gets Jesse killed and Tommy severely injured. What's more, Dina leaves her, along with JJ, and the fight cost her two of her fingers, preventing her from playing the guitar anymore, the only link to Joel she has left.
• Amazonian Beauty: Not nearly as buff as Abby but Ellie is ripped as seen at the beginning of Day 3. She may be slim but her body is all muscle, not surprising due to her daily "cardio from hell" as a patrolwoman.
• Ambiguously Absent Parent: While Ellie's mother is explicitly deceased, her father isn't so much as mentioned, though Ellie guesses that he's likely dead as well. It's highly probable that he wasn't around at all after her conception.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: Ellie is playable for most of Winter, when Joel is seriously wounded and she does the fighting all by herself.
• And Your Little Dog, Too!: Literally. She ends up killing nearly all of Abby's friends and dog on the warpath to Abby herself.
• Animal Motifs: Part II gives her a motif in the silk moth, seen in her tattoo, on her guitar, and several times in her sketchbook. Her quest for revenge can be seen as a moth towards a flame, being inexorably drawn to it even while it hurts her.
• Anti-Hero: Goes from pragmatic to unscrupulous during the story.
• Badass Adorable: She may look like an absolutely cute girl turned to a beautiful woman in Part II, but it doesn't mean she can't fight on her own.
• Badass and Child Duo: The child to Joel's badass, though she's not entirely helpless and slowly grows into an Action Girl over the course of the first game.
• Badass Boast:
  • "Ellie is the little girl that broke your fucking finger!"
  • In the DLC: "If anyone's still alive, don't even think about surprising me! You'll end up like your friends, you hear me!? Yeah!?"
  • From the Part II trailer: "I'm gonna find, and I'm gonna kill, every last one of them."
• Badass Bookworm: She likes to read books and comics and can hold her own in a fight.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Despite her filthy vocabulary and hard-headed nature, she has a stronger moral compass than Joel. She's also very sweet to those she cares about. What she doesn't have is any illusion about how well a fourteen-year-old would do in a fair fight against desperate, hardened adult survivalists. So she never fights fair. And her switchblade isn't for show.
• Bisexual Love Triangle: She was in one-half of one with her love interest Dina and Dina's ex Jesse. Though the feeling was mutual.
• Blessed with Suck: Anyone she's gotten close to usually is bitten and either turns or dies. Since her body has been able to counter the fungal infection, she has had to watch people she's cared about tragically lose their lives to their bites.
• Blood-Splattered Innocents: Happens to her quite a bit, especially when hacking David up.
• Book Dumb: While she loves reading comics and apparently stories in general (see below), her voice actor, Ashley Johnson, imagines that Ellie's the type of kid who wouldn't do well in school. Per the trope's description, however, she makes up for it with the 'street smarts' she eventually develops.
• Bookworm: She is obsessed with relics from the past culture and she states that she reads all the time.
• Born After the End: Ellie was born in 2019, six years after the outbreak began. This is reflected on her obsession with knowing how was the world before the end, such as its literature, comic book and video game industries.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Starts out as a bit of one, especially in regards to Bill in the Lincoln chapter. She gets better over the course of the game, though. She also serves as this for Riley in American Dreams.
• Break the Cutie: Courtesy of David, who attempts to kill her, then molests her once he has the chance. In Part II, there's the murder of Joel by the WLF, which sends her in a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
• Broken Bird: By Part II, loses all of her innocence especially following Joel's murder, sending her into a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. By the end she's lost almost everything, failing to even avenge Joel.
• Bring My Brown Pants: Ellie mentions soiling herself in an early encounter with a Clicker.
• Bullying a Dragon: Towards David. Despite her being behind bars and knowing that he isn't right in the head and/or is a cannibal, she breaks his finger and taunts him about it. As a result, David decides to kill her after all and it's only by luck that she momentarily distracts him from doing so by telling him she's infected.
• Butch Lesbian: Downplayed in the sequel. Her hair is tied into a bun behind her head and her clothes are loose and maybe a bit too big for her. However, the whole Zombie Apocalypse thing means that getting haircuts and new, fitting clothes isn't necessarily easy and definitely not a priority, and she's still far from the stereotypical butch. Albeit she does have her hair short and wears a tight-sitting masculine T-Shirt towards the final moments of Part II, which makes her look closer to the typical examples of the trope.
• Catchphrase: Might as well be the various expletives she lets out while watching Joel at work. Also Endure and survive, which she got from a comic book. She also says "Oh, man!" and "Whoa Nelly!" a lot. In Part II, she frequently asks "Where's Abby"?
• Characterization Marches On: Originally, Ellie was going to be more of a normal, fragile 14-year old, (possibly to have her be more similar to Sarah), but as the game developed the writers figured her character would need to be more badass and capable of handling herself, lest she'd end up becoming a frequent Damsel in Distress. Ashley Johnson specifically helped in on this decision when discussing combat scenes with the creators where Ellie would originally be either easily caught or just stay in the background, pointing out that if it was her she would try to do something.
• Character Development:
  • In Part I, Ellie starts off as brash and inexperienced to the outside world. By the end, she's become self-sufficient and capable enough to protect herself and Joel.
  • In Part II, towards the "character gets worse over time" spectrum. It started off proper when Joel finally reveals that he lied to her about the circumstances with her rescue in the last game. She was a spunky girl with an optimistic outlook, but afterwards Joel's reveal, it's indicated that she no longer thought her life was meaningful and became somewhat jaded. Joel's death emotionally wrecks her, and she becomes a hardened murderer who ignored her friend's advice and well-being just to satisfy her need for revenge. That said, there are some peeks of her old personality that surface throughout; she is rocked by killing Nora and Mel and she spares Abby after she gains the upper hand in their fight. Despite losing everything in the end, it appears that her true self is starting to shine through again.
• Character Tic: Whistling and making sounds as though jamming on a guitar.
• Chastity Dagger: It's implied that David was trying to rape her towards the end of their fight. Too bad for him that his machete was within reach of Ellie's hand.
• Climax Boss: She's the last opponent in Seattle and the last major fight the player has while controlling Abby.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Ellie is noticeably uncomfortable at how close Dina and Jesse act towards each other when Jesse joins the two of them in Seattle. Ellie's confidence isn't helped by the fact that Dina is pregnant with Jesse's child and the night before the two of them had a fight.
• Cluster F-Bomb: All the time, mostly out of surprise. Exhibit A: Warning, contains minor spoilers
• Combat Pragmatist: And how! A petite teenage girl needs every advantage she can get when fighting hardened soldiers, and Ellie will use every dirty trick in the book to get the upper hand. When fighting her as Abby, she has an "Instant Death" Radius due to this.
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: In the first game, Ellie is clearly based on Elliot Page (who was not pleased given he was doing an actual role in another game). This is downplayed in the sequel to make Ellie look more like her voice actress (see Ink-Suit Actor below).
• Coming of Age Story: She's introduced as a plucky kid (albeit one who already has some serious trauma and cynicism under her belt), and ends the game on the cusp of womanhood. Compare her trying-too-hard toughness when she first meets Joel to how she interacts with him in the final cutscene.
• Conveniently an Orphan: Though given the setting, it's hardly a surprise. Ellie herself implies that orphaned children are more common than not.
• The Cutie: She's not sweet exactly, but is very lovable and produces most of the comic relief in the story. Downplayed in Part II as she goes through multiple tough scenarios but still maintains her cute looks.
• Daddy's Girl: Develops a close relationship with Joel, whom she definitely sees as the father she never had.
• Damsel out of Distress: She's briefly captive by the cannibals during Winter, but manages to free herself before Joel can arrive in time to rescue her, though it results in a pretty heavy case of Break the Cutie.
• Deadpan Snarker: Has a pretty sharp tongue, which annoys Joel when he needs to do the talking.
  Bill: Yeah, sure Joel, go ahead, take my car. Take all my food too while you're at it.
  Ellie: By the looks of it, you could lose some of that food.
• Death of a Child: Just 14 years old, but if you fail to protect her, the game's not afraid to show her being ripped to shreds by Infected, shot, stabbed, or beat to death by enemies - no different from Joel.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Ellie's mother Anna is described as having been a very loving woman who had enough foresight to write a letter to Ellie before her death. Ellie keeps it in her backpack, and expresses a desire to make her proud.
• Defiant Captive: She takes none of David's Faux Affably Evil kind demeanor when he has her locked in a cage, and uses a moment of distraction to break his finger and later taunts him about it.
• Defiant to the End:
  • When she finds herself at David's mercy, he tells her that she can try and beg. She replies with "Fuck you."
  • When Jordan interrogates her on how she found the WLF, she replies that she asked about a dude with a "bitch scar" across his face.
  • When gravely wounded after getting caught in a Rattler trap, she laughs at one of her captors and calls him a bitch for "shitting his pants" at nearly getting bitten by a strung-up Clicker. Of course, this was also probably to goad him into getting close enough for her to get the drop on him.
• Decoy Protagonist: Part II advertises her as the main protagonist but she ends up being overshadowed by Abby in the second half of the game… and then it’s Subverted at the last chapter of the game where it’s made clear everything that happened was still Ellie’s story not Abby’s
• Dented Iron: In Part II, the Rattlers and their violent snare traps slammed her body into a spike, and she's delirious from blood loss and in a great deal of pain by the time they finally come in to try to capture her. Doesn't stop her from killing the entire faction afterwards, and it only begins to slow her down in the final fight with a similarly-weakened Abby - where she'd still barely have won had she not spared her at that point.
• Determinator: Even more so than Joel himself, and she's fourteen. In her battle with David, she's struggling to crawl to her knife even as he taunts her.
  David: [Kicks her] It's okay to give up, you know. There ain't no shame in it. [Ellie continues crawling] Heh. I guess not. Just not your style, is it? [Kicks her again]
• Deuteragonist: She and Joel are the two main characters of the game. Word of God is that by the end of the game, she's taken Joel's role as the protagonist. She returns in The Last of Us Part II as the main Player Character, sharing top billing with Abby.
• Did Not Get the Girl: Despite Dina being supportive and helping Ellie for most of the game when Ellie decides to avenge Joel after failing once, Dina leaves their home with JJ without leaving a note. That being said, there are hints that suggest that she did, in fact, get the girl.
• Disappeared Dad: Her mother is told to have died not too long after giving birth to her, but nothing is known about Ellie's birth father. This is probably the main reason why she got so attached to Joel, as she grew up without ever having a father figure.
• Disney Death: A brief example. Towards the end when Joel carries her out of the hospital he's confronted by Marlene, who tells him that Ellie would have wanted this (sacrificing herself for a vaccine) and he can "still do the right thing." Joel appears to be hesitating, and it then cuts to him driving on the road, making the player wonder for a moment if he let the Fireflies take Ellie after all. Then you hear her waking up in the backseat...
• The Dreaded: When she starts killing off Abby's crew, they all start to realize how terrifying she can be.
• Dude, She's A Lesbian: Joel speculates that Jesse and her have feelings for one another, not knowing that Ellie is into girls.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Part II reveals she was not happy with Joel when she learned what he did to the Fireflies to protect her. She cuts him out of her life for the next two years, and only offers a tentative olive branch just before the story proper starts.
• Exploited Immunity: In the second game, she exploits her immunity to the Cordyceps by throwing herself and Nora into a spore-infested area, infecting the latter and using it to her advantage by promising a quick death in exchange for Abby's location.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: During her time with Dina and JJ in the farm in Part II, Ellie has her hair much shorter. This comes after an (unfinished) journey of hatred, vengeance and traumas, which still persist until the end of the game.
• Extreme Mêlée Revenge: When she gets the drop on David, she makes damn sure he won't be getting up again; the impression is that she would have kept on stabbing until she exhausted herself completely if not for Joel's interruption.
• Fan of the Past: Loves old comic books and laments never having played a video game.
• Fatal Flaw: Impulsiveness; as a young teenager she would mouth off to adults a lot, despite Joel's warnings, and she continued to antagonize David, who was already unstable. The second game gives her another flaw; her tendency to hold grudges.
• Fiery Redhead: She's a feisty, foul-mouthed girl with auburn hair.
• Final Boss: While Abby does have a single gameplay section after this, Ellie is the final tough enemy that Abby faces in her part of the campaign.
• Fingore: In Part II, she loses her left hand's ring finger and pinkie after Abby bit them in their last fight. What's worse, Abby only bit off one finger, meaning Ellie had to amputate the other herself.
• Flipping the Bird: Gives one to Bill when he tells her not to touch his stuff.
• Follow the White Rabbit: A non-magic example. The beginning of Winter sees her hunting a deer, to which she's led straight to the leader of the cannibal group she and Joel encountered during Fall.
• Force and Finesse: In Part II, she is the Finesse to Abby's Force. Ellie's skill tree focuses primarily on stealth, she gets an infinite-use switchblade for silently killing Clickers, and her Infinity +1 Sword is a silenced SMG, while Abby's skill tree focuses primarily on health and direct combat, she gets more consistent ammo drops throughout her story, and her Infinity +1 Sword is a flamethrower.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: Averted. Left Behind explores just how much her best friend Riley meant to her, but seeing as the DLC was created some time after the main campaign, it explains why she practically never mentions or mourns Riley while traveling with Joel.
• Gamer Chick: Implied in Part II as she has a Playstation 3 with a bunch of games for it in her house.
  • In Left Behind she's rather disappointed when she finds out that the arcade machines are broken.
• Good Girl Gone Bad: In Part II. In the first game she was a tough but friendly and good-humored fourteen year old girl; even though her horrific experiences during the Zombie Apocalypse have hardened her, five years later she's still a mostly well-meaning young woman who looks out for her loved ones. Then she watches Joel, her Parental Substitute, brutally beaten to death in front of her and she goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, maiming and killing dozens of people in an increasingly vicious and callous manner, unwilling to let anyone or anything stand between her and vengeance. By the end, she does give up on the idea of getting revenge, realizing it doesn't solve anything and only perpetuates more violence, but by this point she has a lot of blood on her hands and her life is in ruins.
• Good Is Not Soft: Being an idealistic teenager doesn't prevent Ellie from stabbing people to death with her switchblade, or cause her to hesitate in shooting people to save Joel. The "good", however, erodes away in Part II when she makes increasingly dubious decisions for in her pursuit of revenge.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: She has a scratch bisecting her right eyebrow, as well as bite marks from Infected on her right arm.
• Hates Being Alone: She admits to Sam that this is her worst fear. And by the end of Part II, she does end up alone. Maybe.
• He Who Fights Monsters: By Part II, she becomes almost as bad as the ones she hunts down in her Roaring Rampage of Revenge. Barely stops herself on the brink of the Moral Event Horizon at the end when she spares Abby.
• Heel Realization: She realizes what her single-minded pursuit of revenge upon Abby has done to her after she kills Owen and Mel - and that Owen's suspicious behavior was trying to protect his pregnant lover, Mel. Notably, it's after this that Ellie eventually gives up on revenge.
• Heroes Love Dogs:
  • Implied to be a dog lover. Early concept art reveals the idea of her having a dog at some point in the game, and she briefly gets excited actually meeting some in the final game (when walking through the abandoned neighborhood with Joel, Henry and Sam). In contrast, the DLC has her reacting negatively to cats (though it's up for debate whether she just reacted to being scared, or to the cat as well.)
  • Downplayed in the sequel. Ellie becomes more of an Anti-Hero as the story goes on and, while coming across a group called "WLF" in Seattle who use guard dogs against intruders, Ellie can be forced to, or willingly, kill and maim said guard dogs in order to escape a fight or just stealth through an area. The prologue shows that when they aren’t threatening her life she still loves dogs.
• Hero Antagonist: Downplayed in Abby's section of the game. Ellie is the antagonist from Abby's perspective While Ellie isn’t exactly a hero, Abby at that point of the game is a Villain Protagonist.
• Heroic BSoD: Has one after killing David. It takes some time for her to recover. In Part II, the various traumatic situations Ellie undergoes catch up to her and she writes about her PTSD symptoms in her journal.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: A 14-year old girl traveling with a grizzled man in his late 40s/early 50s.
• Hypocritical Humor: Makes fun of Bill for talking to himself when she essentially does the same to calm herself down.
• I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship: In Part II, her journal outright states that Ellie was too scared to act on her feelings for Dina in fear of messing up their friendship.
• The Immune: As Joel finds out the hard way, so to speak. When she runs ahead into a spore-heavy area that Joel needs a gas mask to get through, she's able to breathe without any problems.
• Ink-Suit Actor: In the second game, Ellie bears a greater resemblance to her motion-capture and voice actress, Ashley Johnson, only with red hair and green eyes.

J-Z

• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While in Part II she does become more cynical and amoral, her interactions with Dina and Jesse show that she’s still the same Ellie at heart and deeply cares about her friends.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: Ellie steals constantly throughout the game from people they meet, perhaps most notably the picture of Joel and Sarah. It's not necessarily endearing, but she makes up for it with exasperating frankness.
• Kubrick Stare: It's even the cover of Part II◊. It's an indicator her mental state is not well during it.
• Lady Swears-a-Lot: Ellie's dialogue contains the most common use of harsh swearing in the game compared to the other characters, who are more prone to having a single Precision F-Strike, if even that.
• Lean and Mean: Has a very lean physique (borderline emaciated in the Santa Barbara chapter) and is still capable of killing swarms of WLF soldiers and infected alike. During the theater fight with Abby, Ellie is terrifyingly nimble and any attempts to fight her head-on will result in her dodging your attack and killing you with a machete.
• Little Miss Badass: To wit, she goes One Girl Army on the Cannibals during the Winter level.
• Little Miss Snarker: With no functioning society in which to grow up, Ellie tends to act and make jokes of things girls her age don't stereotypically do...
• Man Bites Man: During her first confrontation with Abby she bites into her arm to escape being grappled by her. Abby repays this later on by biting two of Ellie's fingers, fully removing one and damaging the other so badly that Ellie amputates it offscreen.
• Meaningful Name: "Noble" or "shining light". Bonus for the Fireflies' motto being "follow the light", and Ellie becomes Joel's new light in his life.
• Mercy Kill: Offers one to Nora in Part II as Nora had already breathed in spores and would've had to endure the slow painful process of becoming an infected and being stuck in a living hell (until someone else killed her). So Ellie promises to make her death quick in exchange for telling her where Abby is. When Nora refuses, Ellie interrogates her the hard way.
• Messianic Archetype: The method that would be used to make a cure from her would end up killing her. Subverted when Joel decides to doom humanity just to save her.
• Mistaken for Gay: Inverted. Some comedy is wrung out of the fact that Joel thinks she has a crush on Jesse. This is... not the case.
• Morality Pet: To Joel, who eventually sees her as a surrogate daughter.
• Mundane Luxury: Ellie loves to read old comic books, which are a rare find back in the quarantine zone.
• My God, What Have I Done?: In Part II
  • She's extremely shaken when she returns to the her and Dina's hideout after she delivers a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on Nora to make her reveal Abbey's location.
  • Later, she has a freak out when she realizes that Mel, the woman she just killed, was pregnant.
• My Greatest Failure: Letting Joel die, the day after they had begun to reconcile after not speaking for two years.
• Naïve Newcomer: Having grown up in a dystopian world means Ellie has no concept of things like a job or money. Joel and other adults have to explain a lot of things to her.
• Nice Girl: Throughout most of the first game. Not so much during the second game.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: After killing Mel and Owen, she drops the map she was using to get around Seattle that she had marked during her journey. Abby would later find it after escaping from Haven with Lev and use that to track Ellie's group back to the theatre they were hiding out in, which results in the death of Jesse, Tommy and Dina almost dying and herself and Dina brutally beaten. If Ellie had thought to pick it up, her group would've went back to Jackson that morning without incident and Jesse would still be alive.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Her early design shared a very close resemblance to Elliot Page. In fact, the design was changed due to Page's accusations for "ripping-off [his] likeness". As of Part II she looks more like her actress, Ashley Johnson.
• No Man Left Behind: In the Pittsburgh chapter, after Henry leaves Joel to die since they can't help him up onto a truck after the ladder breaks off, with the scavengers on their heels in a truck mounted with a machine gun. She jumps back down to him because "We stick together!"
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Pretty much all of the days (weeks?) she spends taking care of Joel while the latter is badly injured. This includes stitching his wound, making a makeshift sleigh hooked onto Callus to transport him with, riding through a snowstorm in search for a place to stay, moving him to the cellar of a cabin where she finds him a mattress and blanket, spending their time there hunting for food in the woods with a bow etc. You really have to remind yourself sometimes that she's 14 years old.
• Oh, Crap!: She has this moment when David reveals that he is the leader of the scavenger group that she and Joel had previously fought at the university.
• Older Than They Look: Joel makes an off-hand guess if Ellie's twelve when he meets her, to which she corrects him on being fourteen.
• One of the Boys: To the point where the guys talk to her about their girl problems, knowing that she can relate.
• One-Woman Army: No, seriously. Whether it's against men or infected, when she has no choice but to fend for herself, she uses a multitude of stealthy tactics, tricks, and weapons to mow them down one after the other.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: At the end of Part II Ellie saves Abby from the Rattlers because Ellie is determined to be the one to kill Abby to avenge Joel.
• Pink Is Feminine: She's seen wearing pink on some occasions, such as her coat in the Fall chapter or her striped pink shirt in the DLC.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: Basically says this to Joel when she finds out he plans to leave her with Tommy. In the past, she also silently pleaded with her best friend Riley not to leave with the Fireflies.
• Plucky Girl: Although she gradually becomes more cynical, especially after her experiences with David in the Lakeside Resort chapter.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Justified, in that the infection preceded her birth by six years, and downplayed. She has a smattering of knowledge on the old world comics and even video-game characters but doesn't know what a pizza, ice-cream truck or Bobby Fisher is. The scene with the cassette player also suggests she understandably can't connect music genres to their respective decades. Also, the scene at the university where Joel is explaining the rules of football to her. In Part II, although Ellie is lesbian and Dina is bi, neither of them understand the LGBT connotation of rainbows upon seeing a few of them in Seattle, including the pride flag itself inside a gay and lesbian bookstore.
• Promoted to Playable: Ellie becomes a playable character in the Winter chapter. She's also the only playable character in the Left Behind DLC, and she returns as the main Player Character in The Last of Us Part II.
• Queer Establishing Moment: Ellie gets one in the "Left Behind" story expansion with her friend Riley; the game subtly teases a possible romantic connection between the two girls in the midst of them hanging out and having fun. But then Ellie plants a kiss on Riley's lips and Riley doesn't mind at all. In the sequel to the game, Ellie is an out lesbian.
• Rebuilt Pedestal: Despite losing almost everything in her pursuit of revenge against Abby, Ellie is at least able to forgive herself for her guilt, and at very least understand Joel's perspective on why he saved her from the Fireflies. It's with that when she's finally able to metaphorically put him to rest.
• Revenge Before Reason: Her main motivation in Part II. After seeing Joel beaten to death by Abby, she sets out to find her and return the favor, risking life, limb and her morality to do so. After failing to kill Abby, Ellie tries to settle down with Dina and Dina's son JJ as a farmer. She realizes she can't settle into a domestic life, so she tries to find Abby again against Dina's wishes.
• Save the Villain: A rather complicated example, somewhat veering into Villainous Rescue depending on how you see her side in the story compared to Abby's. But at the end of the game, after making her way through the Rattlers base, she was pointed to where Abby and Lev are who were earlier captured and strung up on pillar by the beach, left to die of hunger and dehydration. By the time Ellie reaches them, they're barely hanging in there. Ellie does cut them down but only because she wants to personally kill Abby herself. After they battle, Ellie ultimately can't bring herself to do so and lets Lev and her go.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: In Part II, Ellie develops debilitating episodes of PTSD when she returns from Seattle. This comes from the traumatic experience of seeing Abby killing Joel, and memories of these intense moments were shown to haunt her when she tried rounding up sheep into the pen with Dina's son JJ in her arms.
• Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: Her significance lies in being The Immune in a Zombie Apocalypse. It's what makes her the Deuteragonist.
• Skewed Priorities: Late in Part II, Ellie faces what should be a simple choice: stay with her girlfriend and child and the peaceful life they built, or set out once more to hunt down the woman that killed her surrogate father but already suffered traumatic losses during their previous encounter. Consumed with hate and still driven by revenge, she chooses the latter, fails to kill her quarry and loses her family in the process, ending up with absolutely nothing.
• Small Girl, Big Gun: Ellie is tiny, and the rifle she carries for most of the Winter chapter is almost as long as she is tall (although she handles it well otherwise). If she manages to acquire the revolver in David's town, it's even worse; the gun isn't that big, but she aims it awkwardly, and the recoil will throw her off balance.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: With Bill in the Lincoln chapter.
  Ellie: We're here because you owe Joel some favors, and you can start by taking these off! [referring to handcuffs dangling from her wrist]
  Bill: I owe Joel some favors... is this some kind of joke?
  Joel: I'll cut to the chase: I need a car.
  Bill: Well, it is a joke. Joel needs a car! Well, if I had one that works, which I sure as hell don't, what makes you think I'd just give it to you? Huh? "Yeah sure, Joel, go ahead, take my car! Take all my food too, while you're at it!"
  Ellie: By the looks of it, you could lose some of that food.
  Bill: [points knife at her] You listen to me, you little shit -
  Ellie: No, fuck you! You handcuffed me -
  Joel: [pulls Ellie aside] I need you to shut up.
  • When Bill asks what was Joel's job:
    Bill: What are ya deliverin', that little brat?
    Ellie: Ha ha. Fuck you too.
    Bill: [suddenly cracks up]
  • While Bill, Joel, and Ellie look for a car to fix:
    Ellie: So...why don't you fix one of these cars? [referring to the mass of broken down cars]
    Bill: Oh my God, you're a genius. I mean the whole time, why on earth hadn't I thought about fixin' one of these cars?
    Ellie: Okay, don't be a dick...
    Bill: The tires are rotten and the batteries are dead.
• Straight Gay: In the first game, she didn't look stereotypically LGBT+.
• Super Drowning Skills: Ellie can't swim, so there are a number of puzzles that involve trying to get her across areas with water too deep to wade through. In Part II, Ellie is now an able swimmer, thanks to Joel's teaching.
• Survivor Guilt: Kicks in during the ending - she mentions feeling guilty for all her companions who died during the story. In Part II, she discovers the truth about Joel saving her from the Saint Mary Hospital and has a heavy falling out with him, telling him at one point that her life would have mattered if he let the Fireflies try to develop a vaccine.
• Tagalong Kid: Joel and Tess treat her like this at first, thinking that all they needed to do was deliver her to the fireflies and be done with her.
• Talk to the Fist: When David is giving her a lecture, trying to make Ellie sympathize with him, she breaks his finger.
• Tank-Top Tomboy: Her outfit when chasing Abby for the last time in Part II is a tight tank top. Coupled with her now short hair, it makes her look more tomboyish than she already is.
• Tattoo as Character Type: Combined with Tattoo Conceals Scars: In Part II, Ellie now has a sports a tattoo of a tree branch with a moth across it. This helps covers her bitten (now chemically burned) forearm. Neil Druckmann explained its significance as relating to her obsession with revenge, as well her connection to Joel:
  "There’s this idea of obsession and being drawn to a light and constantly pursuing this thing,” he explained. “And that’s how we got the idea as well for the loading screen, which is just moths being drawn to a light, which kind of looked like the spores [on the loading screen] in the first game. So, it felt like a sister image.” Druckmann added that the moth is a “constant reminder” of Joel for Ellie, and represents “this relationship she has with Joel to her old life.”
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Once she gets her hand on David's machete, she makes damn sure he's really dead and won't hurt her again by stabbing his head over and over again, each slice more violent than the next. Who knows how long she would've gone on if Joel didn't stop her...
• Tomboyish Ponytail: She styles her hair in a ponytail and happens to be on the more tomboyish side.
• Took a Level in Badass: Several during the story. Then there's the Winter chapter... Definitely shows in Part II, as five years went by an now Ellie is a taller and tougher grown woman who can handle her own against adults, contrary to when she was a small 14 year old.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Ellie exponentially becomes more violent and cold throughout Part II after witnessing Joel's death. She leaves enemies without any mercy, even if she's doing it for self-defense or not. Her quest for revenge certainly changes her for the worse until the very last minute when she almost drowns Abby to death.
• Tragic Hero: In Part II Ellie's need for revenge on Abby and her friends for killing Joel, which is implied to be an extention of her guilt for not forgiving Joel for killing the Fireflies in the first game before it was too late, costs her everything. After the initial revenge mission to Seattle fails to kill Abby and leads to Jesse's death and Tommy receiving brain damage from being shot in the head, Ellie still can't let go of her obsession, driving her girlfriend Dina to leave with Dina's son JJ, whom they had been raising together, as well as costing her her trusted switchblade and two fingers, and in the end, she can't go through with killing Abby anyway. The game ends with Ellie returning to her and Dina's farm to find it abandoned, and attempting to play the guitar Joel left her, only to find she can no longer do so thanks to her missing fingers.
• Tragic Keepsake: In Part II, she is shown keeping Sam's Robot Toy in an prominent possition in her home.
• Twofer Token Minority: In a cast full of mostly straight males (with the exception of Bill, who is gay), Ellie is female, confirmed to be a lesbian in the Left Behind DLC, and apparently an atheist/agnostic based on her final conversation with Sam. Then again, Henry and David seem to be the only religious characters in the game, but she and Sam are the only ones to outright say they disbelieve in religion.
• Tragic Keepsake: Several. Anna's knife, a letter from her mother given to her by Marlene when they first met, Riley's dog tag and book of puns, a toy Sam wanted to take with him. A photo of Joel and Sarah for a while.
• Typhoid Mary: Subverted. The cordyceps around her brain isn't harmful to her or anyone else via her saliva for example. She's not afraid of using the misconception that she might be to her advantage however, as she does to frighten David and his second in command.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: By Part II, the sweet Ellie from the first game who goofs around and makes puns is definitely gone, as over the course of five years, Ellie became a rough, stoic, and violent survivor who ruthlessly kills anyone who gets in her way.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: At the end of Part II, she ultimately decides to spare Abby's life, realizing that she wasn't going to feel any better taking revenge for the death of Joel. Glimpses of it can be foreshadowed with her freak-outs whenever she murdered other WLF members during her quest- such as Nora and Mel.
• Weak, but Skilled: Ellie doesn't have the physical strength of Joel nor his stamina, but by making good use of stealth, she can be as much as a One-Man Army as him. Her unbreakable knife makes her much more effective against clickers. ^note While the way her knife kills can expose you when used against stalkers and human targets (if not timed properly so Ellie doesn't expose herself), it's much more silent than it looks, and it basically means Ellie can go around shanking clickers without alerting any infected via sound. As long as you aren't careless, you can essentially kill clickers repeatedly without having to worry about the knife breaking.
• Weapon Specialization:
  • Always has her trusty switchblade on her.
  • To a lesser extent, the Beretta Model 70 Joel gives her. It's the only weapon she uses when AI-controlled that isn't her switchblade, with the exception of bricks.
  • In Part II she's replaced the Model 70 with the more ubiquitous, full-size 92 Inox.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Gets this a couple of times in the second game during her quest for revenge. The biggest coming from Dina when Ellie decides to follow up Tommy's lead to Abby and the latter doesn't want her to go, as it was the cause of Jesse's death and fearing she will die and never return.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: She really hates water, since she can't swim. She has conquered this after learning how to swim in Part II, though.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: She acts very mature for a 14 year old, though it's pretty justified seeing as she's been raised in a post-apocalyptic world.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • An inadvertent example in Part II, with Ellie being profoundly horrified once she realizes Mel was heavily pregnant after sticking her switchblade through her neck.
  • An actual example in the same game is when Ellie threatens to stab Lev, a thirteen year old boy, at his throat when Abby refuses to fight her one more time.
• You Don't Want to Catch This: When she's caught by David and about to be killed, she tells them that she was bitten and eating her will infect them in turn. She eggs them on to roll up her sleeve and see the bite mark, and she uses this as a distraction to grab a butcher's knife David left next to her.
• You Killed My Father: What kickstarts her character arc in Part II is her desire for revenge against Abby and the WLF for killing Joel, who she has fully come to see as a father to her.
• Youthful Freckles: She has lots of energy for a kid who grew up in a hellhole, and would be considered a misfit in the old world.

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"I don't think I can ever forgive you for that. But I would like to try."