I think one small and perhaps overlooked moment of foreshadowing that tells you who Joel is at his core is when the pandemic first breaks out, and he, Sarah, and Tommy are in the car, and they have a choice as to whether to stop for the family with the baby. And Joel immediately says no. Tommy says, “They have a kid!” And Joel says, “We have a kid too.” That’s it. No hesitation. No questioning. He has defaulted to protecting the unit in the car. His daughter and his brother. He will not risk their lives. His compassion for strangers, for “doing the right thing”, cannot be appealed to. He’s not torn. He makes the choice of a survivor, and he needs his family to survive because they are his reason for being. This aspect of him follows him everywhere, right down to the very end in the hospital. He couldn’t give two shits about saving humanity/strangers, not in comparison to how much he loves Ellie. “He has a kid too.” And why his kid over anyone else’s?
In the hospital, he gets driven to a more severe degree of remorselessness because he had lost his kid, and he will never, ever let it happen again. He has made it clear: losing a kid means there is no point in living. If he lost a child for a second time, I’m willing to bet he wouldn’t flinch.
A nearly complete 1st century BCE carnyx found in 2004 at Tintignac, France (the one in the left picture, with a reconstruction in the right). Fashioned as a snarling boar, the carnyx was a war horn used by the Iron Age Celts between c. 200 BCE and c. 200 CE
dam…….. that website “you feel like shit” (it’s like a questionnaire / troubleshooting guide for when you feel like shit) really works………………….. im not even all the way thru it and i even half-assed a lot of the suggestions and i already feel loads better
we need more concerning women in media. I want to be watching a TV show and to go "oh that woman has problems." I want to watch a woman constantly make the worst decisions in the world with no sign of stopping
all the best badass male fantasy heroes aren't cool bc they have a magic sword and an cool backstory btw. aragorn and geralt of rivia would be nothing if they weren't also, fundamentally, horse girls