It was the leak heard around the world. Before The Last of Us Part II even hit shelves in 2020, a disgruntled uploader dumped footage onto the internet that changed gaming history. In a grainy, out-of-context clip, fans saw the unthinkable: Abby Anderson swinging a golf club. It wasn't a sports game. They killed Joel, the grizzled, surrogate father figure gamers had protected for seven years, and they did it in the most brutal, unceremonious way possible.
I remember the fallout. Social media turned into a digital war zone overnight. People weren't just sad; they were incandescent with rage. Even now, years later, the phrase "they killed Joel" is a lightning rod for debates about narrative subversion, fan service, and the "correct" way to handle a legacy character. It wasn't just a plot point. It was a cultural fracture.
The Brutality of the Golf Club Scene
Neil Druckmann and the team at Naughty Dog didn't just want Joel Miller to die; they wanted it to hurt. For the first hour of the sequel, players are lulled into a false sense of security. You’re playing as Ellie, then you’re playing as this new girl, Abby. When the paths cross, the trap snaps shut. Joel is cornered in a basement, his leg blown off by a shotgun, surrounded by strangers who clearly know exactly who he is.
What made it stick in people’s craw was the lack of dignity. Usually, when a hero dies, they get a "blaze of glory." They take down fifty guys. They say a poetic goodbye. Not here. Joel is panting on the floor, bleeding out, while Ellie is pinned down and forced to watch. It’s messy. It’s ugly. It’s fundamentally human in its unfairness.
When you think about the mechanics of the scene, it’s designed to incite a visceral reaction. The sound design is horrific—the wet thuds of the club against bone. Troy Baker’s performance as Joel in those final seconds is minimalist. He doesn’t beg. He just says, "Get this over with." That stoicism actually made the fans more upset because it felt like the game was discarding a legend like trash.
Why the Leak Made Everything Ten Times Worse
Context is everything in storytelling, and the leaks stripped it all away. If you just see a clip of a beloved character being murdered by a newcomer, you’re going to hate that newcomer. Period. Because the footage leaked months early, the community had months to stew in their anger before actually playing the game.
By the time the disc was in the tray, many players had already decided they hated Abby. They had already decided the game was "disrespectful" to the first title’s legacy. This created a massive disconnect between the critics—who mostly praised the game’s boldness—and a vocal segment of the player base who felt betrayed.
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The Moral Ambiguity of Joel’s Past
Let's be real for a second: Joel was a monster. We love him because we saw his soft side through Ellie, but the guy spent twenty years as a hunter, a smuggler, and a killer. In the final act of the first game, he murders an entire hospital full of Fireflies—people trying to save the world—to rescue one girl.
He lied to her. He killed Marlene in cold blood so she wouldn't "come after" them.
When people scream about how they killed Joel, they often overlook that Abby’s father was the surgeon Joel killed in that operating room. From Abby's perspective, Joel is the villain of a horror movie. He’s the boogeyman who murdered her dad and destroyed the world’s best chance at a cure. Naughty Dog’s biggest gamble was trying to force the player to see that perspective.
- Joel killed Jerry Anderson (Abby's dad).
- Abby spent years training to find the man who "ruined her life."
- The cycle of violence is the entire point of the franchise.
It’s easy to root for the guy you’ve controlled for fifteen hours. It’s a lot harder to admit that your "hero" deserved what he got from a certain point of view. Honestly, if you were Abby, you’d probably have swung that club too.
The "Joel Miller" Paradox in Modern Media
There is a specific trope where a male protagonist is sacrificed to jumpstart a female lead’s journey. Critics often call this "fridging," though that usually refers to female characters being killed for male development. Here, the roles were flipped. Some fans felt Joel was "nerfed"—that he became too soft or too trusting, which led to his death.
"Joel would never have given his name to strangers," was the common refrain on Reddit and ResetEra.
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The counter-argument? Joel had been living in Jackson for years. He was part of a community. He was helping people. He was getting older and, perhaps, a little less paranoid than the man we met in the Boston QZ. That’s the nuance of character growth that often gets lost in the "they killed Joel" discourse. People wanted the Terminator; they got a tired old man who finally ran out of luck.
Impact on Sales and Legacy
Despite the review bombing on Metacritic, The Last of Us Part II sold over 10 million copies by 2022. It swept the Game Awards. But the shadow of Joel’s death looms over everything Naughty Dog does now. It changed how developers think about "fan service." Usually, sequels give people exactly what they want. Naughty Dog gave people what they didn't want, and the fallout was a lesson in brand management.
You’ve got the HBO show now, too. When Pedro Pascal’s Joel eventually meets his fate in Season 2 (or Season 3, depending on how they split the story), the internet is going to melt down all over again. The show has spent even more time humanizing him. The blow will be even heavier for the "normies" who haven't played the games.
Examining the Fan Reaction
The reaction wasn't just about a character dying. It was about who did the killing. Abby’s physique and her role in the story became targets for a lot of toxic discourse, some of it valid criticism of the writing, much of it unfortunately rooted in bigotry or a refusal to engage with the game’s themes.
But if we look at the non-toxic side of the critique, it comes down to a feeling of wasted potential. Many players wanted a second "Joel and Ellie adventure." They wanted the road trip dynamic again. By killing him in the first act, the game pivots into a bleak, 25-hour meditation on misery. It’s an exhausting game. It’s supposed to be.
The Scientific Approach to Narrative Loss
Psychologically, players experience a form of "parasocial grief" when a character like Joel dies. Because video games are interactive, you didn't just watch Joel; you were Joel. You pushed the buttons to make him move. You managed his inventory. Your brain encodes those memories differently than it does for a movie character.
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This is why the outcry "they killed Joel" felt so personal. It felt like a personal loss. When Naughty Dog forced players to then play as his killer for ten hours, it created "cognitive dissonance." Your brain wants to hate Abby, but the game is forcing you to empathize with her. That friction is either brilliant art or a total failure of game design, depending on who you ask.
Actionable Takeaways for Engaging with the Series
If you’re still reeling from the events of the game or preparing for the TV show's adaptation, here is how to process the narrative:
- Replay the Prologue: Look at the environmental storytelling in Joel's house. The guitar strings, the woodshop—it shows a man who was finally finding peace, which makes the tragedy more poignant.
- Separate the Actor from the Character: Laura Bailey (Abby) received death threats for her performance. Remember that she’s an actress who did a phenomenal job bringing a complex, polarizing figure to life.
- Analyze the Museum Flashback: This is arguably the best sequence in the game. It reminds you why you loved the characters while underlining the tragedy of their fractured relationship before the end.
- Watch the "Grounded II" Documentary: Naughty Dog released a deep dive into the making of the sequel. It explains the creative decisions behind the death scene and shows the toll it took on the team.
The reality is that Joel’s death was the only way for Ellie to truly grow as a protagonist, even if that growth was paved with blood and trauma. Whether you think it was a masterpiece or a betrayal, we’re still talking about it years later. That’s the mark of a story that mattered.
To understand the full scope of the fallout, you have to look at how the game handles the ending. Ellie eventually finds Abby but chooses not to kill her. For many, this was the final insult—they killed Joel, and then they didn't even let us get revenge. But for others, it was the only way to break the cycle. It’s a story about the cost of hate, and unfortunately for us, Joel was the price that had to be paid.
Stop looking for a "good guy" in this world. There aren't any left. There's just people trying to survive the consequences of their own choices. Joel chose to save Ellie, and in doing so, he signed his own death warrant. It took years for the bill to come due, but it arrived in the form of a woman named Abby and a heavy club in a dark basement. That's the world of The Last of Us. It doesn't care about your feelings, and it certainly doesn't care about your favorite characters.
To move forward, players have to accept that Joel Miller was a man of his time—a violent man in a violent world. His end was predictable, even if it was heartbreaking. If you're looking to dive deeper into the lore, check out the official podcasts which break down the "cycle of violence" theme in much more clinical detail than the screaming matches you'll find on X or Reddit. It helps to see the clinical side of the writing to soften the emotional blow.