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mariatesstruther · 8 months

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I honestly don't get why Maria was so anti-Joel oh he's a horrible person he's done horrible things he can't be around us, but accepted Tommy fully to the point he's the father of her child when both did the same things, ran with the same people and all of that.

I mean I love the character, but that confuses the hell out of me. Why's Tommy accepted but Joel damned?

okay, so… this response took me like half hour to write. my wrists hurt, my jaw is clenched, my brain is hot. i love u anon thank u very much for this chance to vent about just why my girl maria has been so misunderstood. let’s go

i personally think this is where many people fundamentally misunderstand maria’s perception of joel. she’s not cautious of him primarily because of tommy or anything tommy has said, in my personal opinion—she’s cautious of him for and because of ellie

ive said this on my blog a few times and i think so have @steeb-stn and @clickergossip (and maybe @liveandletcry23 and @bumblepony i have a shit memory so tagging just in case) so im gonna tag them to credit their words and ideas about maria as well, but the FIRST time maria sees joel, he’s with this rando twelve year old girl who he is seemingly so protective over that she cant even be sniffed by dogs who are just trying to detect infection, which would be good for ANYBODY. that’s his first strike for untrustworthyness, because why the fuck wouldn’t he let this girl be tested???—we know why, of course, but maria doesnt. shes working on the very limited info about joel/ellie’s relationship that she has from just her own observations, and i think we need to remember that as we go through analyzing why she moves how she moves

shes knows from tommy at this point is that joel had a daughter, but it is definitely not this little girl. so why the fuck are they so close. what have they gone through. are they okay. is ellie okay. is their relationship safe for her??? THAT’s what she’s thinking about, in my opinion, while shes staring joel down at that dinner table. she’s reasonbly suspicious, and i can’t blame her for it.

i had to cut this it’s literally maybe my longest post ever so. heres the cut

ALSO, it’s not like she’s a straight up bitch to joel like some of y’all seem to make it out to be??? she never says or implies that “they can’t be around” or anything like that. she offers them clothes and food and supplies. she sets them up in a house. before dinner, she gives them a personal tour (which, to be fair, she did because she was probably trying to keep an eye on them and figure out more about whether or not ellie is safe, but who wouldnt???? i know tess would! and yall would love her for it!). tommy literally says to joel before they leave that there will always be a place for him and ellie in jackson—you cannot tell me you believe he said so without already have maria’s green light for joel and ellie to stay

ALSO, i wanna consider some other things that i haven’t seen many ppl talk about. on that walk she takes with tommy and joel and ellie, she makes it sound like tommy has been with them for at least years AND she maintains the confidence to say that residents in jackson stay off the radio—i could totally be wrong, but it seems to me from the look tommy and joel share right after that it’s obvious tommy has been talking to joel BEHIND MARIA’S BACK???? did no one else catch that??? am i misinterpreting big time??? id assume because theyre married and from the way tommy talks about jackson that he’s been in jackson for at least 3 years maybe, and we know that he only stopped radioing joel a couple months before the show’s main plotline starts, so timeline wise there had to be some overlap of tommy still radioing joel from/around jackson. idk if anyone of my mutuals has thoughts on this but i personally think it’s important to point out, because it establishes that maria likely doesn’t know or think tommy and joel kept in contact, at least not as recently as up to some months ago. she knows that tommy and joel are close, but at the same time, she doesn’t think tommy really knows or talks to joel anymore, either. so how is she supposed to extend him any trust as tommy’s brother????? how and why would she give this man any benefit of the doubt???? it wouldn’t make any sense. she’s more practical and discerning than she is naive and kind, and y’all can think what y’al want about that but i love her for it. it’s very necessary for a woman like her to be the way she is

okay, so back to your question. back to why joel is “damned” and tommy is “accepted.” let’s talk about joel for a sec

y’all like to babygirl and idolize the absolute fuck out of this man

we know that not only was he a smuggler, but he killed and tricked and took advantage of people, shamelessly and brutally. we know that tommy did so too. maria knows that tommy has done the same things. maria also knows that tommy left that life because he couldnt do it anymore, and joel continued because he could

point blank period!!!!! yall can argue with me all u want but tommy left that murder life and joel did not. im not saying this makes either brother good or bad or better than the other, i love joel sm and i think both of them have an undisputed capability to do unspeakable things in order to survive. but tommy got to a point where he hit a limit, whereas joel doesn’t seem to have one. this is at least my personal interpretation of their conversations in the game and the show

tommy DID join the fireflies, which we all know now is not any fucking better than whatever the fuck joel was doing—the difference is the reasoning, though, and considering tlou is all about reasoning and the why, we need to consider the reasoning behind tommy’s decision: he wanted to do something better, something good, something he thought had a purpose. we all know now that the fireflies are bullshit, their purpose is bullshit, and they’re willingness to kill a child for the sake of the “cure” is it’s own entire paradox of bullshit. but they were a rebel organization fighting fedra, who fucking suck, and probably had somewhat of a better reputation back when tommy was interested in joining—or maybe they didn’t, to be fair, i don’t know! the point is, tommy went to them seeking some sort of better purpose, some type of redeption; in joel’s own fucking words, “tommy’s what we used to call a joiner. had dreams of becoming a hero... wants to save the world.”

tommy is idealistic. he’s romantic. he’s optimistic, almost to the point of being fucking naive. thats why he enlisted in the army, thats why he enlisted in the fireflies—he wanted to feel good about himself and the world he was living in. he needed it to have some light at the end of the tunnel for all the bullshit to make sense. and yeah, he was wrong both times in joining up. we know that, joel knew that while it was happening, and tommy knows that in retrospect, too. i think jackson is the first place he really found true, real purpose—not the kind that is propagandized to you and goes up in smoke, but the kind that is well and truly earned. that’s why he is so loyal to jackson and to maria—they finally gave him was he desperately spent his life searching for

and im just saying, from maria’s perspective, she’s someone who lives for purpose. she lives for jackson and for it’s people and for it’s future, and she has to maintain some sense of idealism in the face of all that fucking ugliness to be able to mentally live im and run a place like jackson, to believe that it’ll work. i think that idealism she has, she sees reflected in tommy’s desperation to be a better person who’s fighting for a better life. she sees that need for redemption and goodness in him, that need for things to be fucking worth it, and hears she hears it in his story. she gets to relate to him with this in a way she doesnt GET TO RELATE with joel YET (we STILL HAVE TIME PEOPLE. WE HOLDIN OUT STRONG FOR THE JOEL AND MARIA BEST FRIEND AGENDA)

but to continue, THEN maria spends YEARS with tommy, getting to know him, getting to know his guilt. just like tess with joel, she’s sees the worst and the best of him and gets to fall in love with all of it. so of course there’s gonna be a bit of a bias and a blindspot, towards him—just like any of are other characters have weak spots for the people THEY fucking love

so that’s i guess why i think tommy is “accepted” by her, i guess, and there’s honestly way more them and their romance that i could make a whole separate post about but i’ll leave it there for now. back to joel and why he’s “damned,” which i don’t think he is

again, from what maria knows, he made an active CHOICE to stay in the lifestyle of smuggling and murdering and QZ bullshit, even after tommy chose to leave—and idk what y’all imagine joel and tess to be doing in those many years on their own, but it’s not fuckin picking flowers, for me. they’re dangerous, dangerous people—more dangerous that fedra, and more dangerous than the fireflies, if we’re being fucking real about it. and we LOVE tess and joel for this, or at least i do

but jackson is not a place where people get by with smuggling or backstreet deals or threats. it’s not supposed to be that place. we all LOVE jackson in fics and hcs and aus because it’s literally a place where joel and ellie finally get to breathe and not worry about their safety/survival first. and you know who keeps jackson that way????? MARIA. AND HE BEING FUCKING PICKING ABOUT WHO JACKSON LETS THE FUCK INSIDE

so yall just expect her to by YIPPY SKIPPY when joel, THE JOEL THE SUPER SMUGGLER MURDER COWBOY, strolls into town????? WITHOUT TESS, WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE MORE PERSONABLE AND REASONABLE ONE???? what????? she’d be crazy not to at least try to be a little intimidating, to make it clear to joel that he will not get away with any of that qz bullshit here. she’d be naive not to, and maria is anything but naive

and i know most people don’t like her for that “a bad reputation doesn’t mean you’re bad” “not always, at least” line, but i actually think it really fits so well in establishing that she’s not afraid of joel, not afraid of challenging him or making him own up to things he’s done. it’s just so so cool to me, i just can’t hate her for that????? she’s establishing with him that she knows what tommy knows about his time in the QZ, and she’s letting him know if that joel shows up here in jackson, there will be fucking problems for him. which i think is a completely fair warning????

so let’s continue. let’s talk about The Scene, the one with her and ellie, the one with the “tommy was following joel” line. ONE thing i’d like to point out about this scene—MARIA IS THE ONE TO TELL ELLIE ABOUT SARAH, NOT JOEL. AND THAT IS A BIG BIG BIG REASON FOR WHY SHE WARNS ELLIE NOT TO TRUST JOEL COMPLETELY

we know what joel and ellie have gone through, at this point, but maria has barely any idea. she sees that ellie has this fierce protectiveness and lots of secrets when it comes to her and joel, which like—can we all be fucking objective here for a second. this can SO easily and SO reasonably be interpreted as something sketchy going on between joel and ellie that maria should be concerned about.

(slight tw about older men-younger woman relationships bc im gonna be personal for a sec, its quick) we don’t know maria’s past or what she has seen or been through, but personally as someone who has been in a situation where an older man has taken advantage of my naivety in the past, i am now extremely hyper vigilant when it comes to young girls around older men in my personal life today. ellie and joel’s situation and how it looks would raise MJAOR red flags for me personally, if i was in maria’s position. that’s just a personal perspective have that really affects the way i view this scene (end tw)

and so maria finds out that joel has kept the fact that HE HAD A WHOLE ASS DAUGHTER from ellie?????? WOULD THAT NOT BE SUS AT ALL TO YALL???? i mean we know why joel doesn’t tell ellie, as gameplayers and watchers of the show, but again. maria is operating on the info she has right in front of her, which is that joel has been omitting maybe the biggest fact of his life from this young girl who is willing to defend and trust him with her entire life, even after she finds out she’s being lied to. this is alarming

so at this point, she’s questioning joel’s intentions with ellie, and in my opinion, it’s not at all unreasonable for her to do so. she then continues to press, because the red flags are flying and she wants ellie to be crystal clear on the kind of man she’s traveling with (“there are CLEARLY things you don’t know about joel” — “so then you understand my concerns”)

AND THEN ELLIE. BLESSED SMART AMAZING ELLIE COMES IN WITH THE DEFENSE—“and tommy did it too, are you worried about him?”—which like, i love this line. i love this moment. i think because i go so hard for maria a lot of y’all think i’m blind to when ellie is making points, but i 100% cheered her on when i first watched this scene, like i’m sure y’all did—because it’s true! it’s fair! if maria is going to judge joel for those things, she needs to extend the same judgement to tommy

the thing is, it’s still fucking true that, as i said earlier, tommy left that life. both the smuggling, and the fireflies—he chose to stop, while joel didn’t—he was smuggling literally up until the day him and tess found ellie, so. there’s that. she continues to judge joel and not tommy because she knows for sure that tommy has changed. she doesn’t know joel enough yet to see that he has changed, too

so then, the dreaded line: “tommy was following joel.” let’s talk about it.

i don’t love this line either, tbh! i think it’s a weak defense on maria’s part, and a weak line on the tlou hbo writers part—probably my least favorite line of maria’s overall. but i do get why she says it, and i kind of think i get the purpose??? i think????

it reminds me a lot of joel’s line, earlier, about tommy being a “joiner,” and i think it’s funny that, as opposite as joel and maria like to think they both are to each other, the way they describe tommy is pretty much the same. tommy is a “joiner” to joel and a “follower” to maria, and in all respects they both love and hate him for it. idk where i’m going with that exactly, just something interesting to think about in terms of the joel and maria best friend agenda

but i also think this line get’s taken out of context a lot, because the full line is “tommy was following joel, the way you are now.” maria says this line to lead into her main point, the really fucking important line in this scene: “be careful who you put your faith in. the only ones who can betray us, are the one’s we trust.”

WHICH IS TRUE. IT IS THE POINT. AND WHEN JOEL LIES TO ELLIE, HIDES SOMETHING FROM HER YET AGAIN at the end of the season/game, IT BECOMES A THEMATIC CLIMAX POINT THAT CONNECTS BOTH OF THE GAMES

maria is not saying this to “damn” joel—and i personally don’t think she is “damning” joel in the way you imply here, as there’s definitely potential for them to develop a relationship in s2 once she has more information about the truth of how he thinks of ellie. i think she’s warning ellie not to trust joel, because she doesn’t trust joel, at the end of the fucking day—and that’s about it. she trusts tommy in a way that she can’t quite trust joel yet, and why would she, at this point? it would make no sense for her to

so y’all can blame her and hate her for her distrust all you guys want (btw not necessarily talking to you, anon, ive just gotten some very nasty asks about maria from others so im talking to them rn!!!!!!!), but i’m sorry—you can’t tell me that it doesn’t at least make sense. she’s MARIA. she’s MADE OF SENSE

#WHEW #DO MY THUMBS HURT #i cant even be bothered to tag this fr #maria miller #asked and answered #joel and maria best friend agenda #tommy miller #joel miller #tess servopoulos

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