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"Mature Content Warning!" |
| NOTE: This page is only about the version of Joel from the games. His TV counterpart hasn't been approve Inconsistently Heinous, thus only info pertaining to his game counterpart may be added. |
| “ | If somehow the lord gave me a second chance... I would do it all over again. | „ |
| ~ Joel telling Ellie he doesn't regret his decision to save her from the fireflies even if it doomed humanity. |
Joel Miller is the main protagonist of the 2013 video game The Last of Us, a minor character in its 2014 prequel DLC expansion The Last of Us: Left Behind and the overarching protagonist of the 2020 sequel The Last of Us Part II.
He is a 55 year old survivor who has knowledge before the apocalypse that he decides to educate Ellie and others with so they can understand the world better. He also lost his daughter Sarah on the day the cordyceps infection hit the world, turning him into a misanthropic survivor who only lives for the sake of survival until he meets Ellie Williams.
He was voiced and motion captured by Troy Baker, who also voiced Sinestro in Injustice: Gods Amongs Us, and Two-Face and the Arkham Knight in the Batman: Arkham series.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
In General[]
- Joel is a rather brutal and violent person, who has no qualms with beating people to death or breaking their bones to torture them for information. And his methods of killing people can be overkill at times, and he is willing to kill anyone who gets in his way, regardless of if he is trespassing or not.
In the Game[]
- When he is informed by Tess that she knows where Robert is hiding, Joel kills all of Robert's henchmen on his way to him and tortures him by breaking his arm even after Tess already broke his leg with a pipe.
- When Joel and Ellie find the victims of the hunters after surviving an ambush from them, Ellie asks him how did he know about the ambush, and Joel says 'he's been on both sides' implying he did similar acts when he and Tommy were hunters.
- He brutally tortures two cannibals and after they give him the information he needs; he kills one by snapping his neck and the other by smashing his head in with a pipe. While they did try to kill him earlier, this was still overkill on Joel's part.
- He tortures a Firefly by smashing his face in with a gun then shooting him twice in the gut then killing him with a headshot after he gave him the information he needed.
- He massacres a lot of fireflies in Salt Lake City hospital, and this was not done in self defense since they gave Joel a chance to leave, but Joel decided to try and kill them all so he could get Ellie back.
- Among the surgeons he killed was Jerry Anderson, Abby's father, which would cause her to come seek revenge against Joel and eventually kill him which would then trigger another vendetta with Ellie going to avenge his death, making him arguably responsible for the events of Part II.
- By taking Ellie away from the Fireflies, Joel doomed all of humanity to a post apocalyptic world because of his desire to have a daughter again and he didn't regret this act since he told Ellie he would do it all over again if he had to.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- He has a tragic backstory that is played very sympathetically as his daughter Sarah being killed and dying in his arms was what caused him to become the misanthropic and brutal survivor that he was during the apocalypse and he was shown to still be deeply affected by it before he adopted Ellie.
- He held care for a lot of people:
- He was shown to care about Sarah in the prologue of the game, as he made sure to keep her safe from any threats, even taking bullets for her at one point and after she was killed, he broke down in tears and still couldn't let go of her even 20 years later until he met Ellie and even then, he never stopped caring about her.
- He was shown to care about Tess too, as he was concerned any time she was in danger and is devastated when she sacrifices herself to give him and Ellie time to escape and he also tells Ellie to not bring up Tess ever after they escape.
- He cared about Ellie deeply to the point where he rescued Ellie from the Fireflies and didn't regret it even if the world would be doomed to a post apocalyptic state because he cared about her which even Ellie realizes that Joel's intentions were good even if it was a selfish act and he also let her have space after she was angry at him for it instead of forcing her to forgive him.
- He fixed his relationship with Tommy after their relationship had drifted due to Sarah's death and assisted him with making a new civilization in Jackson so that other families could be safe too.
- He held care for Henry and Sam during their short time together, keeping Sam safe when they got separated from Henry and Ellie, telling Sam and Ellie to stay away from wild dogs so that they don't get hurt, bonding with Henry over their mutual love of motorcycles and he attempted to stop Henry from committing suicide after he accidentally kills Sam.
- He has standards as he hated the fact that the hunters killed a lot of innocent people with their ambushes in brutal ways. He is also against homophobia as he pushes Seth after he calls Ellie and Dina "dykes" and this was not pragmatic as Joel said he had no right and after Ellie tells him she doesn't need his help, Joel just accepts it and walks off.
- He is a grey zoned character since almost everyone in The Last of Us is portrayed as either well intentioned extremists or people who are just doing whatever it takes to survive and Joel is no exception.
Trivia[]
- Joel's actions in the Firefly massacre is one of the most controversial deeds in Video Game history, as even after the retcon on the audio tapes on how Ellie could cure humanity raised heated debated questions on if Jerry Anderson's method in resorting into what he claims to be the only option to save humanity is to cut into Ellie's brain was the more logical decision on the day he was researching her, that also could be at risk for failure, making everything what Joel and Ellie had to go through, be completely for nothing, if that was the case, this would make Joel to some extent a scapegoat, due to the possibility of the Fireflies actually ruining the chance to save humanity by not only killing Ellie but the cure as well.
- It is unknown if his HBO counterpart will also be Inconsistently Heinous, it all depends on his future actions.
External Links[]
- Joel Miller on the Villains Wiki
- Joel Miller on the Heroes Wiki
- Joel Miller on the The Last of Us Wiki
- Joel Miller on the Inconsistently Admirable Wiki