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Tess Tlou - Blog Posts

vicstuf

2 years ago

The Last Of Us series is just straight up amazing.

I love almost every decision they've made in producing this adaptation.

I love this kind of details, every time Ellie is introduced to us in a new chapter, it's in this kind of angelic light.

In the first episode, she's sitting right in front of the window, the only illuminated place in the room.

Man I love this silly little things.

I just love how they crafted Joel's and Tess's relationship. In the videogame we don't get a deep analysis of it, it's just hinted that they're friends and maybe something more, so when she dies, we don't feel as bad as we do in yhe series.

But in the series there's a much deeper implication, tanks to the amazing actors, that with just a few lines make you able to see right through them.

In this interview, we get Tess's actress's insight.

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"You have to be true to the characters... There's no part of Joel that's touchy-feely. There's no part of Tess that's gonna be like, 'Let's have a deeper, meaningful [conversation] about where we're at.' There's no option to kind of show that, it would do a disservice to the game."

"So you kind of steal your minutes," she continued. "I mean, the first time you see them, Tess has been beat up, Joel's knocked himself out. She comes in and crawls into bed and he rolls over and she puts her arm around him and I think you kind of don't really need any more. That sort of just says it all, who they are to each other, in just that little gesture."

At the end of the chapter, Tess says:

“I never ask you for anything, not to feel the way I felt.”

Joel was never able to get involved in deep emotional relationships, not with Tess, not with anyone. I believe that Tess and him were best friends, partners for life, they had a raw type of trust with each other, Joel trusted her with the decisions about the batteries and where to go, if taking one way or the other, knowing she would make a good decision.

And Tess felt about Joel how he couldn't feel about her, the desperation needed in the apocalypse to have any real connection with anyone. But she already had it, just not in the way she craved for.

And that's what hurts the most about this scene.

I believe this change was intended with a more profound meaning than her death in the videogame.

It's a last kiss. One that could've been with Joel, but it wasn't.

It's a final kiss.

She's terrified, she knows this is her last breath, that could've been with the person she trusted the most, but instead was with her guillotine. She knows she's not getting out of this one.

She lets the infection expand trough his body, go into her lungs and become her, just to blow everything up right after.