‘The Last of Us’ showrunners unpack Ellie’s infatuation with guns

The Last of Us showrunner Neil Druckmann has opened up about Ellie’s attraction to guns. 

In an interview with Troy Baker on The Last Of Us Podcast, Druckmann explained why Ellie (Bella Ramsey) is captivated by firearms:

“I think it’s power. She looks to the people who are survivors, the ones who are capable in this world, and they have the power to kill.”

He describes how Ellie probes Joel (Pedro Pascal) for information about how it feels to operate a firearm and to take someone’s life as a form of preparation. At the same time, he says Ellie is determined not to depend on anyone else in the face of danger. She wants to be autonomous. She believes she can achieve this by owning a gun, while Druckmann notes that Ellie is not motivated by fear, but by ambition.

“She’s not obsessed with owning a gun because she’s afraid for her life. She’s obsessed with it because she wants to walk the path of power.”

Ellie sees the power she seeks embodied in Joel. Druckmann says that while she was horrified by watching Joel take someone’s life, she also coveted that kind of power and desired to obtain it. He hinted that Ellie became infected through an act of violence, and her fixation with firearms reflects her wish to be able to defend herself, and never again be vulnerable to that kind of aggression.

The show is set 20 years after a global pandemic. It follows the journey of Joel, a smuggler escorting a teenage girl, Ellie, across a post-apocalyptic America in search of a cure for the Cordyceps fungus.