taylor

i don’t think it’s talked about enough how awful joel’s death was for tommy too.

…like that was his big brother who basically raised him alongside sarah. tommy is like 4 or 5 years younger than joel so i can only imagine how much he just adored his big brother as a kid.

tommy, when he was younger, would do things like this…

little tommy fr sent a letter back home to joel when he was away at camp just because he missed him. he looked up to joel so much as a brother, a mentor and a best friend.

even after they came back together at jackson, they goofed around as brothers…

after joel’s death, and by the end of the game, tommy literally lost an eye after getting shot in the head, could barely walk right and split with maria.

not to mention, he probably carries a ton of guilt about joel’s death like ellie does. he was literally with joel when they were attacked. i’m sure he feels like he should have been able to do more and save him.

i know a lot of people get mad at tommy when he goes to ellie and dina’s ranch to talk about abby. admittedly, he does push ellie, guilt tripping her a bit. realistically, he shouldn’t have pushed ellie like that… but he’s grieving just as much as ellie, if not more so, since that was literally his brother of 50 years. he’s bound to do rash things like that.

joel was absolutely tommy’s best friend, and even if they had that separation for those 20 some years, joel was always his big brother, no matter what. they never stopped loving each other.