fueled only by women and emotional pain

Just take the picture, show it to him in person, then.

The King of Kings shall be granted the power to banish the darkness, but the blood price must be paid. To cast out the usurper and usher in dawn’s light will cost the life of the Chosen. 

Many sacrificed all for the King, so must the King sacrifice himself for all.

Kiiara - Numb [feat. DeathbyRomy & PVRIS] (Official Visualizer)

(major tlou2 spoilers) 

of course!! i totally understand not knowing how to feel about that scene. this is how i read it, sorry if i ramble 

water in literature(/media in general) is hugely symbolic. if there’s water in a scene, it is a cue that you need to Pay Attention. it has many different meanings, but the two that i think are most important for this scene are rebirth and washing of sins (or - baptism &  “out damn spot”)

for abby, the water is her rebirth 

in the scene we see her in previously, she’s definitely grown closer with lev, she seems pretty okay and happy, but she’s still stuck in her old patterns. she wants to find the fireflies. with her demeanor trying to call on the radio, we see this is vastly important to her. she wants a larger purpose, she wants the security of the organization over her, and for all she’s grown over the course of the game, this hasn’t changed. she’s very much stuck in a rut. and then they get captured 

the game does a tricky little thing when ellie gets to the beach. there’s a character who you THINK is abby, because she has the braid. you don’t even see abby at first because the rattlers have cut her hair. hair is also very symbolic. cutting it means a death of the old self. so that’s our first clue this is going to be a rebith for abby. then, instead of fighting ellie, she merely tells her where the boats are, and gets lev. this isn’t the same person who told ellie she better not see her again 

once they’re in the water, abby doesn’t want to fight. yes, she’s tired, she’s weak, but she is now a person who is out of her old bad habits. the old abby solved her problems with violence. now all she wants is to leave and be safe. this process is slower throughout the game, but the key moment here is when she picks lev up and has him in her arms. remember where we’ve seen that before? at the end of the first game, joel carrying ellie out of the hospital. it’s not ellie who’s taken up his mantle - it’s abby. she’s taken on this child, and all she wants is to see him safe. she doesn’t want to kill to do that, but she is willing to, if she has to. ellie is the one who threatens lev. and now abby is joel at the beginning of game one - i want to protect this child, and i will kill to see that through. she doesn’t want to, though. this is her rebirth. an impossible choice that she knows the answer to. a new hero in the mantle 

for ellie, the water is the washing of sins 

ellie has a lot of negative character development throughout the game. and that’s very understandable! between this game and the last, we see that her life has lost meaning. she wanted it to mean something, she wanted to have value, and ... joel took that away from her. he also lied to her, for a long time. she’s unmoored and untethered. she doesn’t know who she’s supposed to be. the one person who was supposed to take care of her, who was supposed to understand and love her, made, in her mind, a very selfish decision. one that cost everything. did it save her life? yes, technically. but now she’s alive and she doesn’t know why. she doesn’t see what the point is. call it depression, but that’s a lot of feelings for a teenager to handle 

but, finally, they talk it out. she’s not ready to forgive him, but she wants to try. this is, in a way, the only thing she can salvage 

and then he dies. he dies before she can forgive him 

to me, this is ellie’s driving character motivation through the game. she’s not avenging joel, she’s avenging his memory. she’s fighting because she held herself at a distance from him and now they’ll never bridge that gap. she’s angry for all the years they could have been together that were stolen away, and she’s angry that she didn’t take advantage of the ones that they had. she never forgave him. and that haunts her 

so, she “avenges” him. she kills for him. that’s what joel did, right? ellie has, in some very big ways, despite what she might say, grown up to be very much like joel. the guitar is a key item that links them, but she’s very reserved and not good at talking about her feelings. and she’s very willing to kill for what she thinks is right 

except the game makes it very clear that ... this revenge isn’t right. it wasn’t right of abby to do it, and it’s not right of ellie to reciprocate. it’s ruining lives, but it’s ruining ellie, too. her fragile mental health is rapidly declining, and her relationships are suffering for it as well. the kicker to this is that she didn’t agree with joel’s decision, and it’s the same decision that got him killed. but she’s still so angry with him, and now it’s like ... well, for what? was it all just wasted time? 

the final flashback we get with joel, ellie tells him she wants to forgive him. i think the whole game is her trying. and i think, right there, holding abby under the water, is when she does. this is the washing of sins. not ellie’s, but joel’s. because ellie gets it now. she’s killed so many people, she’s ruined her life, at trying to preserve his memory. joel killed to preserve her life. i think this is when she understands him. understands that she would’ve made the same choice. and i think, even though it takes her a little while to catch on, this is when she understands abby 

in the end, she can’t kill her. maybe she still wants to, maybe she doesn’t. but she doesn’t kill her. very little passes between them here. it’s just ellie sitting in the water as the boat drives away, just her and empty space. because there really is nothing left to say. this is her apotheosis. this is when she makes peace with joel. this is, i think, the first time she accepts that this is her future now, whether she likes it or not. killing abby isn’t going to bring joel back 

the next time we see her, she goes home, picks up her guitar, and plays joel’s song 

Photos by ohheycarolyn