After episode seven of the hit HBO video game adaptation aired on Sunday, February 26, 2023, some people are wondering if Ellie is gay in The Last of Us and how her romantic interests might differ from the video game.
The Last of Us is set 20 years after a devastating pandemic that wiped out most of humankind. The disease, a parasitic fungus known as Cordyceps, quickly overtakes the host’s body and mind. Horribly mutated and aggressive, they become what’s known as “the infected”. Joel (Pedro Pascal), a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal and heartbreaking journey as they both must traverse the US and depend on each other for survival. Ellie, born after the pandemic, knows no other world—and what happens between her and Riley in episode seven is a big influence on her.
Is Ellie gay in The Last of Us?
Is Ellie gay in The Last of Us? Ellie has always been LGBTQ+. Her sexuality is never stated in so many words, but Ellie has two same-sex love interests over the course of The Last of Us: Left Behind, which is a 2014 DLC (downloadable content) for the original game, and the sequel, The Last of Us Part II, released in 2020.
Riley, Ellie, The Last of Us. Courtesy of HBO Max
In episode seven of HBO’s hit show, and indeed the DLC on which the episode is based, shows Ellie having what we assume to be her first kiss with Riley—a fellow student at a FEDRA-operated military school. They’re both orphans. Riley explains that she actually watched her parents perish. Her father became infected; attacked and killed her mother while their daughter watched on. Riley was forced to kill her father to save her own life as a result.
Ellie, an orphan herself, forms a bond with Riley and they take huge risks by exploring the world outside the Boston quarantine zone (QZ). As an objector to the authoritarian rule of FEDRA (Federal Disaster Response Agency), which is one of the last remnants of the pre-outbreak United States government, Riley joins the Fireflies, an underground resistance movement.
In one final rendezvous outside the QZ, Riley tells Ellie she’s been assigned to a different QZ by the Fireflies and that night would be their last together. They play arcade games in an abandoned mall, goof around in a photo booth and dance around to Etta James’ “I Got You Babe”, which is an almost shot-for-shot in the video game and show. They share their first kiss and, in the game, Riley agrees to stay with Ellie rather than join the Fireflies.
Unfortunately, their love is short-lived. A runner—a human in the first stage of infection—attacks. They try to fight him off but ultimately both Ellie and Riley are bitten which will, in turn, take over their minds within a matter of days (we don’t yet know that Ellie is immune to infection). “The way I see it, we got two options,” Riley takes out her gun. “Option one. We take the easy way out. It’s quick and painless. I’m not a fan of option one,” she puts the gun down. “Two. We fight.” Ellie responds: “Fight for what? We’re gonna turn into one of those things.”
In a speech almost word for word from the game, Riley says: “There’s a million ways we should’ve died before today. And a million ways we can die before tomorrow. But we fight… for every second we get to spend with each other. Whether it’s two minutes. Or two days. We don’t give that up… I don’t want to give that up. My vote. Let’s just wait it out. You know, we can…be all poetic and just lose our minds together.” As Bloody Disgusting notes, it’s a really faithful adaptation of the Left Behind DLC.
In an interview with Gay Gamer (via The Last of Us Wiki), The Last of Us creator Neil Druckmann explained: “Now when I was writing it, I was writing it with the idea that Ellie is gay, and when the actresses were working they were definitely working with the idea that they’re both attracted to each other. That was the subtext and intention that they were playing with from the opening cinematic when they’re holding each other’s hands for too long, or when Riley bites her on the neck; there’s that chemistry there from the get-go that was important for us so that we earned that moment when they kissed each other. So that it wasn’t just out of the blue but also wasn’t so overt that you’re like, ‘Oh of course. Just get on with it’.”
Ellie, Dina, The Last of Us Part II. Courtesy of Naughty Dog/PlayStation
In The Last of Us Part II, Ellie, who has settled in Tommy’s township of Jackson, has a relationship with fellow settler, Dina. Her character, originally from New Mexico, has relatives that survived the Spanish Inquisition and the Holocaust and like Ellie, she’s also an orphan. They share their first kiss in the opening moments of the game and are later assigned patrol together.
Druckmann told Forward it was important to him for Dina to be Jewish, but also that she’s conflicted at times when it comes to her faith. “In fleshing out Dina we started thinking about her background. I know the joy I get from seeing people that mirror me in some ways in games, which is why one of the reasons we have an initiative within Naughty Dog to create a diverse cast that better reflects our players and the world that we live in,” he said. “It felt like a great opportunity to, part of Dina’s backstory, to talk about her Judaism, her spirituality and her relationship with her family and how that informs her and motivates her going forward.”
The Last of Us is available to stream on HBO Max. New episodes are released Sundays at 9 p.m. ET. Here’s how to watch it for free
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