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The Fireflies
In General
"Look for the light."
- Ambiguously Evil: What lands them in this category is that only Marlene and Jerry are seen as good people at best, Anti-Villain at worst: the rest of the Fireflies seen are either civilians like medical workers, or straight up murderously violent and fighting to overthrow FEDRA by any means possible. For what little exposure they get across the game's story, it's entirely possible Marlene is overlooking the Bomb-Throwing Anarchists part in favor of thinking they're the good guys.
- Exhaustion-Induced Idiocy: The reason why The Fireflies have made so many poorly calculated decisions in the world, was due to the dire straits of their group's situation. Mostly from the state of the world as it is and FEDRA knocking at their doorsteps. Plus the limited resources like food and clean water would also make many of the active members to become desperate, these members would then make irrational and hasty decisions that would only bring irreversibly damage their cause. This is hammered home when the members encountered at The Fireflies' base are in a very sorry state at the end of the game; they're on the losing side of a war against FEDRA, their best members and leaders are dropping like flies, the induction of younger members is not replacing their numbers quick enough, their bombing attacks on FEDRA has backfired immensely and lost them nearly all of their former support, and to make matters worse they almost destroyed the world's hope of a vaccine/cure.
- Foil: To the Residents of Jackson, Wyoming. The Fireflies just can't seem to grasp that society has effectively changed beyond all repair and that nothing they do can fix it. They hold onto this mad nostalgia-induced idea that the world can be put back to the way it was before the cordyceps, and every decision they make is fueled by that delusion; they attack FEDRA in an attempt to free the citizenry of their authoritarian rule, but that just makes the citizens vulnerable to infected and bandits; they try to make a vaccine for the Cordyceps by sacrificing Ellie, not fully comprehending that vaccines are only useful as a preventative measure to keep society functioning when it's clear that society has already completely crumbled to dust. Meanwhile, Tommy's group in Jackson shows people who are essentially restarting civilization step by step and adapting to the new world, accepting that the infected are now just a part of life they have to get used to. The community in Jackson ends up being far more successful of the two.
- Laser-Guided Karma: In the grand scheme of things, Ethan was about to shoot Joel in the back of the head while escorting him out simply for not walking like he was being forced to, and the sheer hostility and clear intent to execute him were it not for Marlene only ends up being a triggering catalyst for him to wipe them out in return to save Ellie. What the player sees over the course of the game as the result of their actions only solidifies that on some level, at least part of this was inevitable.
- Missing Steps Plan: Even if you take away the immorality of executing an innocent girl without her consent, their plan to develop a cure has far too many holes in it to work out as it should. 1. They have lost most of their manpower and have no way of distributing the cure on a massive scale. 2. They have already made too many enemies after their bombing attacks on FEDRA backfired on them. 3. Humanity is heavily divided are constantly fighting each other. The prospect of a cure would just make them attack the Fireflies to steal the Cure for themselves. It is highly probable that Ellie would have died for nothing even if she consented.
- Necessarily Evil: They have claimed responsibility for a couple of bombings. They can also prove to be as deadly as the Hunters.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Fireflies's attempts to overthrow FEDRA and restore democracy has led to several human holdouts to fall to the infected and bandits.
- The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: They will undertake any action no matter how extreme to return power to the people, even if it means killing innocents both directly and indirectly by their actions. Their attacks on FEDRA also cause cities to become defenseless against bandit gangs and hordes of infected.
- Saving the World: The Fireflies are dedicated to restoring humanity and democratic rule, staging attacks on FEDRA as well as researching into a vaccine against the spores. They need Ellie for that. Unfortunately, this means dissecting her..
- We ARE Struggling Together: Despite having the same goal of protecting what is left of the human race, the Fireflies concentrate most of their efforts on overthrowing FEDRA and reinstating democracy as the last holdouts of humanity are under strict martial law, causing several cities to be lost to the infected and bandits in the crossfire.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: They're the only people wanting to save the human race and study the Cordyceps infection. They even tested the infection on monkeys and a few died as a result. They are perfectly willing to fight the soldiers and sacrifice a teenage girl's life for the sake of creating a cure.
- Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: Unlike FEDRA, who are simply trying to maintain control and destroy threats, the Fireflies want to "rise from the ashes" and restore civilization to what it once was.
Marlene
Marlene
"There is no other choice here."
Voiced and played by: Merle Dandridge (English)note
Leader of the Fireflies. She enlists Joel and Tess's help in smuggling Ellie out of Boston.
- Action Girl: Downplayed. As the leader of the Fireflies, she presumably has lots of combat experience, but the player only gets to see small glimpses of her prowess during the beginning of the game, as she teams up with Joel and Tess to sneak past the military. At the end of the game, she holds Joel at gun point, but is quickly taken down through a cheap shot from the protagonist.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: When at his mercy, she pleads with Joel to let her live. It doesn't work.
- Anti-Villain: Of the well-intentioned kind. Finding a vaccine for humanity trumps Ellie's life - although she's not at all happy about the fact that Ellie has to die.
- Armor-Piercing Question: She asks Jerry whether he'd be willing to sacrifice someone's life to find a cure for Cordyceps if that person is his daughter. Jerry doesn't change his mind, but seems to be shaken by the question.
- Boom, Headshot!: At the end of the game, Marlene is wounded by Joel as he escapes from the hospital. She begs him to let her live, but he responds by executing her with a shot to the head.
- The Cameo: In Part II, discussing Ellie's operation with Jerry.
- Determinator: She is willing to do anything to find the cure that would save humanity. Even if it means having to kill her surrogate daughter in order to extract it.
- Didn't Think This Through: By the time Joel and Ellie finally make it to the Fireflies' Salt Lake chapter, he's already bonded quite closely with her as a surrogate daughter figure, something Marlene had to have figured what would happen given she herself was something of a Parental Substitute herself for the girl. So telling Joel the Awful Truth about the job she gave him, and then sparing his life in an attempt to have some semblance of moral standards gets all of them killed by his very hands to save Ellie. Some amount of it might be the guilt eating away at her, but Joel becomes one massive blind spot she repeatedly underestimates the audacity of.
- Everyone Has Standards: She knows what will happen to Ellie and that Joel is considered a loose end and a witness to their plans, but still tries to be noble about her intentions and spare his life with a full explanation of what their intents are. It helps that she sees Ellie as a surrogate daughter, and that Joel saved her life at the beginning of the game. Unfortunately for her, these standards are contrasted to Joel's, who is willing to murder the entirety of the Fireflies and Marlene regardless of their intentions to save Ellie.
- Hero Antagonist: Her goal at of the story is to find a cure for the Cordyceps infection. Unfortunately that means the death of Ellie, which Joel finds out, and is having none of that.
- Humans Are Flawed: She understands the cruelties humans are capable of and has even lost many of her men to humans, prior to Joel and Ellie finding her, but this she is still determined to find the cure to save humanity because there are still good humans still worth saving. This comes into conflict with Joel when the cure involves killing Ellie, the latter of which has a far less positive view on humanity.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Her attitude towards Ellie's surgery, but she's not without her fair share of guilt over it.
- Like a Daughter to Me: Like Joel, she thinks of Ellie as a daughter, but doesn't let her feelings prevent her from sacrificing Ellie's life in order to obtain a cure for humanity.
- The Needs of the Many: Once her team of doctors tell her that they can reverse-engineer a Cordyceps vaccine by dissecting Ellie's brain, she decides, with great difficulty, that Ellie has to be sacrificed so humanity can have a chance to go back to normal. When she finds Joel after he's killed what's left of her men, she tries to peacefully reason with him, making it clear that Ellie would want to sacrifice herself to find the cure for the illness that's taken away everyone she's ever loved.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
- She could have just killed Joel after separating him from Ellie, as he'd been knocked out and was in no position to fight back. However, she decides to take the honorable course of action and not only spares his life, but honestly explains to him that Ellie will have to die if a cure for the infection is to be made. She feels that Joel is the only other person who might be able to understand the weight of her decision, and even after he refuses to listen to her, she'd rather have him escorted out instead of outright killed. However, Joel decides to violently rebel against her decision, and ends up effectively annihilating the Fireflies, herself included, as a result, and dooming all of humanity to never finding a cure.
- During her final confrontation with Joel, despite his rampage against the Fireflies, she's still reluctant to kill him, and she even lays down her weapon and tries to convince him to peacefully return Ellie to her. This ends up getting her killed.
- Parental Substitute: She promised Ellie's mom that she would take care of her, and the comics reveal that she's been watching over Ellie from the shadows since she was a baby, keeping her safe and not out on the streets.
- Rebel Leader: Marlene is the leader of the Fireflies, a militia that rebelled against the government's oppressive control of the quarantine zones.
- Revision: In Part II, it is revealed that she was extremely hesitant to kill Ellie to make a potential vaccine, and had to be convinced by Jerry Anderson All the while, she was asking him what he would have chosen to do if it was his daughter at risk.
- Took a Level in Cynic: In the first game, it's heavily implied that the decision to make Ellie be dissected was not one she made personally, with a log stating that she got in a bit of a shouting match and that the people down in the medical labs were so insistent that they effectively forced her hand to agree as a mere formality, inclining dissent in the ranks for what her people thought was the right thing. In Part II, we're retroactively shown this "argument" which just seems more like she's only debating the necessity of it with Jerry, before she hits him with an Armor-Piercing Question and then backs off as she gives permission, retroactively making her feel more like she agreed entirely on her own volition rather than being pressured into it.
- Tragic Villain: Her actions during the last level are heavily implied to be out of desperation after losing nearly all her men in the fight to find the cure.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Her decision to tell Joel about what they intend to do with Ellie kicks off a devastating cascade of events, starting with the near-complete annihilation of the Fireflies' Salt Lake chapter and culminating in the entirety of the events of The Last of Us Part II. If she'd listened to her staff's advice, the lives of countless people across the US, maybe even the whole world, might’ve turned out radically different.
- Villain Has a Point: She tells Joel that Ellie would want to sacrifice herself if it meant saving humanity. She's later proven right when Ellie admits to having survivor's guilt over the deaths of the people they met along the way and breaks off her relationship with Joel upon learning that he prevented her sacrifice to become a cure for the Cordyceps.
- Voice of the Resistance: She can be heard making radio broadcasts in the game's intro, encouraging survivors to join the Fireflies and reminding them to "look for the light".
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: She is willing to sacrifice one girl's life to save the remnants of mankind from a lethal parasite, even if said girl is her surrogate daughter, whom she had sworn to protect at all costs.
- Wild Hair: Even in the post apocalyptic environs, she has noticeably less-kempt hair than the other characters. It does a lot to communicate the stress she's under.
Ethan
Ethan
Voiced by: Robin Atkin Downes (English)note
A Firefly in Salt Lake City, one of Marlene's right-hand men.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: When Joel manages to disarm him of his gun, Ethan gets subjected to two hard shots into his unarmored gut and left in so much agonizing pain that he blurts out where Ellie's surgery was going to happen, and then gets summarily executed.
- Flat Character: His only trait is being a Jerkass to Joel to help send him over the edge in regards to saving Ellie.
- Jerkass: Knocks Joel out while he was trying to save Ellie (it's heavily implied that the only reason he or the other Firefly saved her is because they realized it was her, and would have left Joel behind if not for Marlene's interference). Then for extra measure, he shows nothing but open hostility and an open willingness to murder Joel just to tie up loose ends, even after Marlene tries to spare the latter's life.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Joel may have been contemplating doing something crazy to save Ellie, but it's Ethan shoving him around and threatening to shoot him if he acts up whatsoever at the worst possible time that causes the man to snap back violently, and this leads to Joel wiping out the Fireflies singlehandedly.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Sticks around for about five minutes.
Riley
Riley Abel
"Come on, when have we ever gotten into trouble?"
Voiced by: Yaani King (English)note
Ellie's best friend seen in The Last of Us: American Dreams who later appears in the "Left Behind" DLC.
- Big Damn Heroes: Her introduction in American Dreams is through saving Ellie from bullies trying to take her walkman... only to steal it from her herself. She gives it back when Ellie confronts her about it though.
- Bully Hunter: She first got to know Ellie when stopping a bunch of bullies from beating her up.
- Child Soldiers: She joins the Fireflies at age 15. She doesn't consider it soldier work though, as she tells Ellie that she refuses to become a soldier for the military.
- Deuteragonist: In American dreams and and the prequel sections of Left Behind.
- Death by Origin Story: While her actual fate isn't made clear, it's clear that she isn't around by the time of the main game.
- Fan of the Past: Video games, music and vampires are mentioned among other things.
- First Love: To Ellie.
- Meaningful Name: Riley means "courageous".
- Older Than They Look: She's sixteen in Left Behind, but looks closer to twelve or thirteen.
- Together in Death: Attempts to invoke this trope with Ellie when faced with their imminent infection. Ellie ends up unexpectedly living.Riley: Let's just wait it out. You know, we can... be all poetic and just lose our minds together.
- Tomboyish Name: Though technically unisex, Riley is commonly a boy's name.
- Twofer Token Minority: She's black, female and gay.
- The Lost Lenore: After her demise, Ellie would mourn her in The Last Of Us after the the events in the Left Behind DLC.
- The Unreveal: Her eventual fate as to whether she was killed by Ellie or remained as a Runner is never explained.
Jerry
Jerry Anderson
"This is our future. Think of all the lives we'll save."
Voiced by: Derek Phillips (English)note
A Firefly stationed at Salt Lake City and the lead doctor in charge of synthesizing a cure.
- Ascended Extra: In the first game, he's a nameless generic NPC acquainted with Joel for about three seconds. In the second, he's a major figure in the backstory.
- Final Boss: Unless you decide to murder his two colleagues afterwards out of spite, he is the final enemy to be directly confronted by the player in Part I (for what little struggle an untrained civilian with a scalpel can provide).
- Hero Antagonist: Depends on how you look at it. In the first game, he was trying to operate on Ellie, as in cutting her head open and extracting her brain, killing her on the uncertain grounds of developing a cure from her immunity. If Joel tries to move past him, he'll pull out a scalpel and kill him in a Non-Standard Game Over. Since he canonically never has the chance to do this, because the operation on Ellie is shrouded in some murky morality, and now due to his much more sympathetic backstory being unveiled, an objective description of his character is purely up to your interpretation.
- Inconvenient Hippocratic Oath: Despite being a doctor, he’s not super perturbed about sacrificing a non-consenting fourteen-year-old (who doesn’t have the emotional maturity to fully comprehend the decision, even if she was given a choice) for the greater good.
- Nice Guy: He's a playful, loving father to his daughter and just overall a very sweet guy. His Establishing Character Moment in Part II is of him rescuing a zebra trapped in some barbed wire.
- Plot-Triggering Death: His death at Joel's hands kickstarts Abby's character arc in Part II and, by extension, Ellie's after Joel gets murdered by her and the WLF.
- Posthumous Character: He's long dead by the events of Part II, having been killed by Joel five years ago.
- Retcon: His race is changed between games, as he was presented using a generic model in the first game.
- Small Role, Big Impact: He only was in a single scene in the original game, but his death motivates Abby to execute Joel, and by extension fuels the entirety of the main narrative of Part II. Furthermore, he was the one who convinced Marlene that they would have to kill Ellie, thereby dooming the Fireflies as a whole.
- Too Dumb to Live: Pointing a scalpel at a heavily armed man who just slaughtered your colleagues isn’t the smartest idea.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His hasty and reckless decision to kill Ellie in some vague hope of making a cure of any sort is what utterly sets Joel off in annihilating the Fireflies and killing him - and accidentally tipping over a set of disaster dominos for the consequences of it for the sequel.
- Walking Spoiler: Explaining who he is beyond "a doctor with the Fireflies" gives away the final conflict of the original game and the main impetus for Part II.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: He was the one who realized that they had to kill Ellie to make a vaccine, though he wasn’t happy about it.
- What You Are in the Dark: Marlene pushes this on him by asking if he would be so willing to kill a teenaged girl if it were his daughter. His lack of a response seemingly tells her all she needs to know, although he doesn't seem to be entirely sure of it.
- Would Hurt a Child: He's perfectly willing to kill a 14-year-old if it means a shot at developing a vaccine.
- You Don't Look Like You: He's the doctor that Joel killed at the end of the first game, despite being visibly different from his model designed in the original game. This is Averted in the Part I remake, which uses his model from Part II, as well as Derek Phillips' lines.
