Joel Miller

Joel Miller is a main character in the first and second seasons of 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.[4] He found his way as a black market smuggler in the Boston quarantine zone, before being tasked with the mission of smuggling and protecting girl named Ellie Williams, the apparent key to creating a vaccine. Over their journey, he gradually formed a parental bond with her and eventually settled in Jackson with her after massacring Marlene's group of Fireflies to save her life in St. Mary's Hospital.

Joel was born on September 26, 1967. He grew up with his younger brother, Tommy, in Austin, Texas His father, Javier, was a police officer who used physical punishment on his sons when they misbehaved. When he was around sixteen in 1983, Joel witnessed Tommy buying weed from a teenager. Upon realizing what was happening, Joel attacked the weed seller, and the police found out about the situation. At home, Joel had a confrontation with his father about this. Although Joel tried to lie about the situation to cover for Tommy, Javier realized Joel was lying, prompting Joel to be honest and say he will not condone Tommy being hit again. Javier told Joel about how when he was 10, his father (Joel's grandfather) broke his jaw over a stolen candy bar and how it humiliated him. Joel questioned why he would want his own sons to suffer the same way, Javier retorting that he knows no better but is certain how he treats Joel and Tommy is a lot better than how his father treated him. Before he left, Javier told Joel he hoped he would be better father than he was. As he grew up, 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 named Sarah. He raised her with his brother's help, working long hours to earn a living. Joel helped put up a Christmas tree with Sarah.

Described as 6 ft tall and considered handsome by some, Joel is a well-built man with dark graying hair and a short beard. His hair grows longer over his months-long journey across America, with it becoming unkempt by early 2024. By 2028, he had combed the hair back into a tidier style. He has a scar on his right abdomen from when Ellie stitched up his wound from a stabbing. He also has 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. To defend himself, Joel carries an assortment of weapons. While initially only using a wrench, he acquires a hunting knife before 2023. His signature firearm is a revolver, which he carries during his time in Boston and beyond. Along with his sidearm, Joel obtains and uses numerous long guns during his journey, including an assault rifle, a semi-automatic rifle and several bolt-action rifles. He also uses a flashlight and occasionally a pistol. He also carried a radio and a scoped rifle when on patrol in Jackson and still used his signature revolver in 2029.

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 preparing Sarah for school.[5]

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.[8] This protective nature came out as a result of growing up in a a tough household, with a father who physically abused him and Tommy, and, despite this mistreatment, advised him to do it a little better than him when he became a father and raise his children with love instead of violence.[6] For this reason, Joel raised his daughter filled with love, always trying to be there for her and being an attentive father.[5] This deep love also extended to Ellie, the man hoping that he could raise her to be a little better than him.[6]

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.[5]

After losing Sarah, Joel saw his purpose for living (protecting her) as lost. He subsequently opted to take his own life.[3] 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.[8]

Over the years, Joel began to become closed off emotionally and tried to distance himself from others.[10] Tommy remarked that every loss Joel suffered broke him down more and more.[15] After meeting Ellie, however, Joel gradually became more emotionally open. While trying to keep a distance initially,[10] 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 of 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 and in his failure to prevent Ellie from having to kill others.[11] 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.[8] Despite his lack of care for others, he still showed compassion towards children, giving the eight-year old Sam his food rations to eat as a gesture of care.[11]

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 pre-outbreak life with her.[7] 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.[13] He even rediscovered a sense of humor he had lost through her, seeking to hear jokes that he once before disdained.[3] He could also play make-believe with Benji.[1]

However, Joel's goodness and desire to protect others meant he was capable of an intense darkness manifested through violence. Violence was a longstanding trait of Joel's, with him beating up other teenagers during his youth to protect Tommy.[6] After Sarah's death, Joel became withdrawn, callous and immoral. He focused on surviving above all else, committing horrid acts against innocent people in the name of survival and to protect Tommy.[8] His trauma at losing Sarah could cause him to behave erratically and illogically, the man notably beating Lee to death in cold blood when reminded of how a soldier had killed Sarah years before.[5]

By 2023, Joel would refuse to even talk about those he lost, including people he cared for like Tess and especially Sarah.[9] He also became paranoid about connecting with others, purposefully avoiding close relationships with others beyond a partnership he established with Tess and only cautiously traded with Bill and Frank.[9] Joel believed these actions necessary, willingly separating from Tommy to further his own survival.[8] Even by 2028, Joel remained xenophobic towards strangers, believing the Jackson community should stop taking refugees in and prioritise their own people, even though he ironically was a refugee when he first joined.[1]

Joel's hardened exterior made him a feared man, with people living in the Boston zone afraid to cross him or even talk to him,[5] with Ellie commenting he had developed "an asshole voice".[11] David would personally characterize him as "crazy" based on how he killed people.[13] His sheer ferocity when storming Saint Mary's hospital caused Fireflies to cower before and flee from him.[3] Tess also outright states she and Joel "were not good people".[10] Joel even inferred Maria was wary of him and deemed him "the wrong sort of people" based on his morally grey choices[7] and referred to himself as a "hard ass".[1] Although, it also brought him admiration, with numerous people viewing him a capable fighter and protector[9][5][11] even if Joel didn't personally believe this.[7]

Joel's acceptance of Ellie as family heightened his ability to protect her but consequently enhanced his dissociative and dark demeanor. Notably, when David and his group captured Ellie, this spurred Joel on and reinvigorated him to fight on and live, deeming it his purpose to save and protect Ellie now at all costs. This renewed sense of purpose also meant he used his violent means such as torture and killing again, but this time using violence to help save others, rather than solely to ensure his own survival.[13] He would even save strangers when on patrol, fighting off runners to save Abby at Copper Mine while on patrol.[14]

Despite that, his dissociated and apathetic attitude towards others remained, Joel killing the cannibals he encountered with a blood lust and disregard for their life.[13] Furthermore, when Marlene revealed her intentions to have Ellie killed to create a vaccine,[3] this caused Joel to mercilessly kill nineteen Fireflies[14] at Saint Mary's Hospital to save Ellie. He even executed the surgeon and Marlene without a second thought, revealing his cold-blooded nature was instinctively at its strongest when committed to save those he truly loved.[3]

By 2028, Joel kept his protective nature with Ellie, however, with a growing feeling of guilt due to lying to her about the truth of what happened five years ago, going to therapy sessions, but still having a hard time admitting his true feelings, and justified himself by saying that he saved Ellie.[1] His guilt also made him prone to act more overprotective with Ellie, keeping her on the safest routes during patrols.[6] and ordering Jesse to hold back in training her. Dedicating himself to keep Ellie safe became his new life's purpose.[1] When Abby was about to torture him, Joel accepted his fate, showing no fear over losing his life. He also did not attempt to justify the massacre he committed in the hospital years before, letting Abby satisfy her thirst for revenge.

Having been a contractor before the outbreak,[5] he was knowledgeable on many materials, able to tell that Frank and Bill's defenses would wear out if not replaced with titanium.[9] Joel was well suited to being a foreman. He took on the role in Jackson after joining, leading construction projects on houses, the wall and pipelines. He was also adept at fixing circuits.[1] His years as a smuggler in Boston also made him a perceptive individual able to notice things others often overlooked and find supplies, items or belongings in places that others could not.[6]

Before the apocalypse, Joel was fond of coffee. Despite Sarah wanting him to have orange juice, he would make and have coffee with his breakfast.[5] He would regularly go to Starbucks for the drink and was delighted at having gained some from Bill's settlement to have on his road trip to Wyoming.

Regarding his passion, while initially claiming his dream was to live alone on a ranch and herd sheep, Joel confessed that, since childhood, he had always dreamed about becoming a singer. Joel's passion for music was evident in how he owned numerous CDs from various musicians, such as The Clash, and was a musician himself, owning an acoustic guitar.[5] He also liked Linda Ronstadt's song, Long Long Time,[9] and Hank Williams' Alone and Forsaken.[8] While having lost his passion for playing guitar during much of the outbreak, he remarked in the spring of 2024 a desire to take it up again and teach it to Ellie.[3] He went on to do so,[1] including showing the skill to make her a guitar entirely from scratch himself.[6] Joel was also a fan of the Curtis & Viper film series, something he shared with Sarah[5] and Dina.[1]