The Last of Us

No, but we know what Marlene said. "She'd want this! ... And you know that." I don't think she was lying.

We can be pretty sure that Ellie's into girls, but that doesn't preclude her from being bi or pan.

Well, Ellie did seem pretty disinterested in the gay men porn magazine in that one scene, but that could just mean she's not interested in porn or not interested in yaoi, or maybe the men just weren't her type. It's pretty ambiguous right now.

Yes, but if I could redirect your attention back to "She's been confirmed as 19" for a moment... Honestly that's my bigger issue with the Ellie has a Baby theory, though her only demonstrated interest in canon being in Riley and possibly her adoration of Angel Knives doesn't help.

Not to mention it would be stupidly cliche to make Ellie's story about her being a mom out for revenge, like the only story you could tell with any young woman/older teen is one involving her baby making bits. :/

(And the total and complete lack of anything that implies baby even slightly in the whole trailer.)

I know there was nothing implying the presence of a baby in the trailer - hence the WMG tags on my part. That's pretty much the purpose of WMG. And it would indeed be a well-worn trope to be exploring, but The Last of Us has never particularly shied away from heavy use of tropes in the past.

As for Ellie being a teenager, I would point out that even by modern USA standards, 19 is old enough to have a baby with no grossness involved. But I want to make it clear that I'm not somehow endorsing the real-life concept of teenage pregnancy (let alone underage pregnancy) - I'm simply suggesting it as a theoretical direction in which the narrative could go.

If the story was taken in that direction, I personally would find it incredibly disappointing. :P

And that's perfectly fair. I would have pretty mixed feelings on it myself - but I will say that it would at least be in keeping with the first game's themes of parenthood and loss.

But then again, they've confirmed that this game will be dealing with different themes. That doesn't preclude the possibility of overlap, but it's not a point in its favor either.

What about a baby that she didn't give birth to but became a surrogate mother towards?

Not saying I want to see it happen, but there are other possibilities out there.

I don't really think of Ellie as the surrogate mother type. Surrogate badass aunt, absolutely. XD

I will admit that I think it would be kind of fun to see Ellie become part of another Badass and Child Duo, but this time as the badass instead of the child.

For the record, the whole "pregnant Ellie" idea comes from this easter egg from Uncharted 4.◊

edited 5th Dec '16 12:40:41 PM by thebandragoness

That's probably what put the idea in people's heads, yeah. Although it's pretty safe to say that that easter egg was teasing a comic, not a game, since it has the Dark Horse logo in the corner.

Wouldn't it... make more sense for that to be about Ellie's mom, since something weird happened during the pregnancy to make Ellie immune? And because the last "American" comic was backstory? I really don't see it being Ellie for the reasons Oda mentioned.

Yeah, I don't think so either, I'm just saying that's probably where the "pregnant Ellie" idea came from in the first place.

It being Ellie's mom I can get behind. Maybe she was bitten while she was pregnant and they got Ellie out before she turned. Ellie seemed fine, but has actually been hosting the fungus for her entire life.

... Which would have made its use as a vaccine very, VERY limited. If not outright impossible to replicate on anything but newborns or foetuses.

edited 5th Dec '16 3:09:46 PM by odafangirl

I wonder where the story could possibly go. Part 1 was pretty all encompassing as far world building goes.

Rebuilding society, the gun runners we saw in the first leg of the game and never again, those quarantined cities, and there have to be more immune survivors than just Ellie.

It's weird how conflicted I am about this game getting a sequel. Really want to know where it will go, but did it need a sequel?

From what I've been seeing, that's a pretty common sentiment. "We all want more Last of Us...but at the same time, did we really need more Last of Us?" I confess I have pretty mixed feelings on it myself.

A lot of people have said that they would have preferred another game set in the same world, but about different characters. Leave Joel and Ellie where we left them - their story if finished. I'll say this, though - if the quality of writing remains the same, then we'll probably be fine.

Also, someone has pointed out that Ellie is dressed just like Riley in the trailer.

The Last of Us, Part 2.

Kind of odd there's going to be a sequel given the utterly definite ending of the original game, but whatevs? Naughty Dog want more post-Uncharted phat lewt, y'all.

I'm not sold on the Joel is dead theory, because they said Joel and Ellie are the heart of the story and that they can't see the game without them at the panel they did when they revealed the game. So I can't see them killing Joel off that early on. I can see it being at the end if they wanted to close out the series for good.

Plus if they kill him off, there's less they could do to explore drama between Ellie and Joel, in the event she finds out he lied. Or him feeling guilty and wondering whether or not he should tell her the truth to get her to stop her rampage of revenge. So this is one of the few cases, where I think Rule of Drama will keep a character alive.

edited 6th Dec '16 6:24:33 PM by xanderiskander

gushing random mumbling:

• It dawns on me how in the first trailer Joel and Ellie were careful about making noise because of the Clickers. Yet in the sequel's trailer Ellie is just playing a guitar in the middle of a room with a corpse in it. Weird.
• "And I fear no evil cause I'm blind to it all ... Because I know I'll kill my enemies when they come."
  • o_o Ellie
• She's gonna kill who exactly?
• Why did they hide Joel's face?
• Were those bodies there before or after Ellie and Joel got there?
• If Ellie's 19 then Joel's what age... is this going to be Old Snake all over again, muscle cramping, bengay-applying old man third-person stealth gameplay but with more country music?

If Ellie's 19 then I guess Joel would be approximately 55. I don't remember anyone ever saying how old Joel is, but he mentions having Sarah when he was pretty young (I guess 16-18), and I've got it in my head that she was about 12 in the prologue, though I dunno where I got that number from. That puts Joel at around 30 in the prologue, then the game takes place twenty years later, so yeah.

It just occurred to me that one or both of them probably had birthdays during the course of the game (excluding the prologue).

I'm not up to speed here; do we know which character we'll be playing this time? I want it to be Ellie. Like everyone else, I don't think The Last Of Us needed a sequel, but I'm okay with it getting one, and while I also would have liked it to be new characters, playing as Ellie would make it different enough to be fresh, I think, while also keeping things familiar.

edited 1st May '17 2:04:13 AM by artfulscruff

Actually Joel was in his late 40s during the first game according to his official character bio. Ellie was 14 at the start of the game and since a whole year passes she's probably 15 by the end. II takes place four years later. In that case Assuming by "late 40s" they mean older than 45 but less than 50 then Joel would be between 51 (If he was 46 at the start of the first game but turned 47 during it.) and 54 (If he was 49 at the start of the original but turned 50 by the end.) during the new one.

Also Joel's daughter was 12 when he was in his late 20s so Jeol had to have gotten her mom pregnant as early as age 14 with 17 being the latest he could have become a father.

edited 1st May '17 10:35:48 AM by Chariot

Ah.

(2) I don't think they've clarified just yet but I think it'd be pretty wasteful not to have Ellie as the main character. Albeit she and Joel kind of shared that role.

-more random mumbling-

So supposedly the theme of the first game was "love" and the theme of the sequel is "hate."

I just feel like it'd be too much of the same thing again if we play as Joel. Yeah, both characters were important and shared the spotlight pretty evenly, but really it was Joel's story, and I don't think there's really anywhere else to go with the character. Ellie, on the other hand, has possibilities.

I wonder if she's learned to swim.