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Jul 21, 2020 · One of the biggest unanswered questions in The Last of Us franchise is what happened to Sarah’s mother. Although the figure of Joel’s daughter Sarah plays a big part in the games, despite being killed off so early, the same can’t be said for his wife.
Joel's a Millennial and was in his late 20s in 2013. He was a teen dad and Sarah was born in 2001, which means that Joel was likely born in the early to mid 80s to parents who were young then and in the 70s. There aren't enough bell bottoms or mullets in these pictures for them to be Joel's parents. 41. Reply.
- Overview
- Biography
- Appearance
- Personality
- Relationships
- Behind the scenes
- Quotes
- References
Joel Miller is a main character in HBO's The Last of Us. After losing his only daughter, Sarah, during the early stages of the Cordyceps brain infection outbreak, Joel became a hardened survivor in a post-apocalyptic America. He found his way as a black market smuggler in the Boston quarantine zone, before being tasked with the mission of smuggling...
Background and early life
Joel was born on September 26, 1967. He grew up with his younger brother, Tommy Miller, in Austin, Texas. During his childhood, Joel developed a passion for music and dreamed about becoming a famous singer though he eventually worked as a contractor together with Tommy after his brother left the United States military. When he was 21, Joel had a daughter, Sarah Miller. He raised her with his brother's help, working long hours to earn a living. At some point after Sarah was born, Joel helped put up a Christmas tree with her.
Joel is a well-built, tall man with dark graying hair and a short beard. His hair grew longer over his months long journey across America, with it growing unkempt by early 2024. He had a scar on his right abdomen from when Ellie stitched up his wound from a stabbing. He also had a scar on his right temple from when he attempted to shoot himself after Sarah's death and another on his neck from where a bullet from a Firefly soldier grazed him.
He wears an assortment of clothing, but predominantly wears buttoned shirts, jeans and hiking boots. He also wears a short sleeve dark green shirt that was Frank's. He also obtained a repaired watch from his daughter Sarah and still wears it by late 2023 though it is now broken again. When traveling, he also wears a brown jacket. Joel, when traveling, also uses a backpack. While initially he had a red one, he lost this while in Kansas City. After Henry's death, he obtains and uses his backpack instead.
Before the outbreak, Joel was a loving and caring father and brother, working long hours to provide for Sarah and ensure work was available for Tommy. Joel was selfless, wanting those around him to focus on themselves rather than him, detesting the idea of celebrating his birthday rather than prepare Sarah for school.
At Joel's heart he is a fatherly figure with an inherently protective nature over those he cares for and protects but he achieves it through dark and violent means. Joel personally believed his biggest purpose was to support those who relied on him, especially people he considered family.
When the outbreak began, Joel demonstrated his protective nature when leaving the safety of his house to help Tommy escape the chaos occurring in the city. He then returned to his home to save Sarah from their infected neighbors, making the difficult choice to use violence to protect those he loved. Joel consequently disliked relying on others, preferring instead to be the protector, instinctively telling Tommy what to do during their escape and personally protecting Sarah himself when trying to escape the city.
After losing Sarah, Joel saw his purpose for living (protecting her) as lost. He subsequently opted to take his own life. However, when the attempt failed, he decided he would go on living to protect Tommy, later stating he believed it was his duty to protect his family.
Over the years, Joel began to close off emotionally and distance himself from others. After meeting Ellie, however, Joel gradually became more emotionally open. While trying to keep a distance initially, Ellie's joy for life led Joel to risk opening up emotionally again, the man even allowing himself to laugh at her jokes and share history about his past. His protective nature became even more pronounced towards the girl, him trying his hardest to shield her from the horrors in the apocalypse and killing others to keep her safe. This connection even led Joel to feel a sense of guilt, first in his inability to save Tess. He also felt guilty in his failure to prevent Ellie having to kill others. Joel's guilt came from his belief that children should not have to experience violence, especially murdering another person, revealing a loss of his ability to connect with others stemmed from his experience with violence.
Joel's guilt culminated in an emotional confession to Tommy that he felt unworthy to protect Ellie, overcome by the fact she needed to save him and instilled in him a fear that he would be unable to save her if he kept trying to protect her. However, once he revealed this to Ellie, Joel became content and allowed himself to continue the journey with Ellie, embracing the chance to take care of her, teach her how to shoot with a rifle and also talk about his life pre-outbreak with her. Joel would even display humanity again in how he comforted Ellie after the trauma she encountered with David and sought out to protect her above all else. He even rediscovered a sense of humor he had lost through her, seeking to hear jokes that he once before disdained.
Ellie Williams
The first time Joel and Ellie interact, they are both hostile towards one another and neither enjoys the other's company. They reluctantly ally together at Marlene's insistence though Joel remains cold towards her, kicking her switchblade away from her out of spite and refusing to answer her questions at his apartment. While traveling to the State House, Joel refused to form a connection with her, with him deflecting questions she asked. Although, he was protective of her, saving her life from Lee in the outskirts and against two clickers in the museum. Tess' death left Joel even more withdrawn towards Ellie, refusing to let the girl talk about Tess by name and shutting down the topic where possible. However, as time passed, he became less abrasive, letting her mention Tess' name in conversation, but would not let her dwell on the topic. In time though, Joel began to connect with Ellie, secretly admiring her love for life and her attempts to make jokes towards him. Joel's urge to protect her also grew stronger, the man staying up all night guarding her while out in the woods and killing several resistance members in a gunfight to keep her safe. Joel tried to shield Ellie from the apocalypse's horrors, insisting she hide whenever he fought enemies and even felt guilty that she had to shoot a man to help him. Consequently, Joel taught her how to properly grip a pistol, understanding she needed to be prepared for the challenges they faced. However, when Henry drew indirect parallels between Ellie and Sarah, Joel would grow cold again, refusing to allow his bond with Ellie to mirror his deceased daughter. This only deepened during the winter of 2023, the man desiring to abandon Ellie on his brother Tommy. He admitted to his brother this came from his fear of failing to protect Ellie as he had done Sarah, the man believing himself too old and weak to care for her the way he could have when he was younger. This emotion would bottle into anger, the man sternly refusing to allow Ellie to compare herself to Sarah and insisting she wasn't his daughter. After this confession though, Joel changed his mind and did care for Ellie, deciding to take her to the Fireflies base in Colorado and even taught her how to shoot. Joel even found himself calling Ellie "baby girl" when comforting her as he had done Sarah, displaying he now saw her as equal to his own daughter. Joel's love for Ellie even helped him overcome his wound septis, the man finding the strength to get up and fight back against the cannibals because he was driven by a need to help Ellie, whom the group had captured. His resilience displays his immense loyalty to keeping Ellie safe despite the strain it placed on his body. Joel's closeness to Ellie climaxed when journeying with her through Salt Lake City. While initially lying about how he received his scar on his head months before, he finally revealed the truth to her about his battle with suicidal thoughts after losing Sarah and even admitted indirectly that he found a new purpose to live through her, displaying how much she mattered to him. Joel's desire for a life with Ellie was declared through his slaughter of the Fireflies in Saint Mary's hospital, the man killing any who stood in his way - including Marlene - to save her. This action demonstrated the extreme lengths Joel would use violence to keep her safe, even when it meant sacrificing humanity's chance at securing a cure for Cordyceps.
Sarah Miller
Joel loved his daughter Sarah, raising her as a single parent. He worked hard to provide for her with his construction business and insisted she prioritize school, wanting her to have a good education and to pursue her talent in soccer. Despite this, he did not expect her to repay him, dismissing her efforts to make him breakfast and her desire to have him celebrate his 36th birthday. However, when the Cordyceps brain infection outbreak occurred, Joel made it his priority to keep her safe. He was even willing to kill their infected neighbor to protect her, despite knowing how much seeing him commit acts of violence traumatized her. When Sarah injured her ankle, Joel carried her to safety despite it leaving him vulnerable to infected attacks. When Sarah was shot dead, the loss ruined Joel, the man attempting to kill himself the day after her death. When the attempt failed, Joel decided to carry on living but became a closed, isolated individual who avoided forming deep emotional connections again, despite this straining relationships with his brother Tommy and partner Tess. This avoidance of emotion came from Joel's sense of failure towards Sarah, the man having nightmares reminding him of his inability to protect Sarah that day even twenty years on from her death. Joel would also outright refuse to talk about Sarah, and coldly brushed off Ellie's attempts to mention her when she found out about her through Maria. However, by 2024, Joel felt comfortable talking to Ellie about Sarah, even his attempt to take his own life brought on by her death, displaying he had finally accepted her death.
Tommy Miller
Tommy is Joel's younger brother and the pair were close, growing up together in Austin, Texas. Joel loved his brother, letting Tommy work with him in his construction business and let him help raise his daughter, Sarah. Joel, however, viewed Tommy as dependent upon him to help him. Indeed, Joel found himself constantly having to support Tommy, from bailing him out of jail to protecting him during the apocalypse. Although, Tommy had the chance to also protect Joel, notably saving him from a soldier trying to shoot him during the outbreak. However, the brothers did not always get along and experienced conflict in their relationship. Unlike Tommy, Joel was fixated on protecting those close to him rather than trying to solve wider societal problems. This led him to part with Tommy when he joined the Fireflies. Despite this, the two kept in regular contact with one another, with Joel concerned when Tommy's radio messages stop in August 2023. Joel would remark this was another sign of Tommy's dependency on him, with Joel seeing it as his duty to leave Boston and go out and help him in Wyoming. When seeing reuniting with Tommy again in the winter of 2023, Joel was overcome with emotion and hugged his brother tightly. However, when left alone to privately drink together, Joel came to resent Tommy, jealous that Tommy had established a family for himself in Jackson - the very thing Joel had lost - causing him to storm off. Later on though, Joel would apologize to Tommy and confess everything that had happened to him since meeting Ellie, including her immunity, and revealed Tess's death to the man despite initially deflecting the question about her. This confession culminated in Joel openly admitting that Tommy was the man whom he could confide in and trusted most.
•Joel is portrayed by Chilean-American actor Pedro Pascal. Pascal became available for a new series following the release of the second season of The Mandalorian, attracting several offers for projects from large networks. He chose HBO's The Last of Us, partly to work with co-creator Craig Mazin, and The Mandalorian producers granted him permission to work on the series.
•Pascal reportedly earned $600,000 per episode, making him one of the highest-paid American television stars.
•Pascal was chosen for his ability to portray a tough, tortured, and vulnerable character who suppresses his emotions until necessary.
•Pascal, a non-gamer, watched his nephew play the beginning of the first game because he lacked the skill to play it himself. He found Joel to be "so impressive" but was concerned about imitating the games too closely. He instead chose to "create a healthy distance" and allow the showrunners to decide the characterization.
•Pascal based Joel's voice on his own experiences growing up in San Antonio, Texas, paring it back from the Southern accent used in the games.
•Unlike his counterpart from the video game series, Joel is more vulnerable in the television series; he is hard of hearing on one side due to a gunshot, his knees ache when he stands and he also suffers from nightmares and panic attacks. Co-creator Craig Mazin felt Joel should be "less resilient" than in the game to show the toll that living in the post-outbreak world has taken.
1.Andreeva, Nellie (February 10, 2021). "Pedro Pascal To Star As Joel In 'The Last Of Us' HBO Series Based On Video Game". Deadline. Retrieved January 15, 2023.
2.Kit, Borys; Shanley, Patrick (March 5, 2020). "'The Last of Us' Series in the Works at HBO From 'Chernobyl' Creator Craig Mazin, Neil Druckmann (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved March 5, 2020.
3.HBO's The Last of Us episode 1: "When You're Lost in the Darkness"
4.HBO's The Last of Us episode 6: "Kin"
5.HBO's The Last of Us episode 9: "Look for the Light"
6.HBO's The Last of Us episode 4: "Please Hold to My Hand"
In their house, there is only pictures of Sarah (with her friends), of Joel and Tommy. No woman (mother), no grand-parents. So we can assume that his wife left them. Joel was very young (and so certainly his wife) when they had Sarah, and they were living in Texas which is one of the most religious states in United States (11th).
If Joel thought to himself “Fuck Sarah, I have Ellie now. Time to be happy!”, then i will stop calling him the best mad character ever rn. He didn’t forget Sarah, Ellie managed to make him experience the father daughter relationship.
Neil Druckmann said in an AMA that Sarah’s mother left her and Joel when Sarah was very young. Notice that there's no pictures of her anywhere in Joel's house.
People also ask
What is Joel Miller's past?
Who is Joel Miller on 'the last of US'?
Did Joel's wife leave them?
What did Joel do for his daughter?
Did Joel ever find Sarah's mother?
Why did Joel keep a watch after Sarah died?
Mar 29, 2023 · Joel became a parent right after he came out of school, with his wife leaving soon after.
