If I can make a comparison, we see Joel as a totally normal father in the beginning of the first game and then hard cut to him as a jaded, ruthless piece of shit, but he still feels like the same character. Might be because we saw what led to him becoming that way, might be because his mannerisms are still in there from when he was panicked and in "survival mode" trying to save his daughter, my point being the game gives us the information we need to understand that character "growth".
Contrast that with the prologue of Part 2, Joel is suddenly very trusting of complete strangers while out on patrol, giving his name, going back to their camp and willingly following them into a room in which he is outnumbered and surrounded by armed strangers. I've seen a lot of people argue that he let his guard down after so many years living in a safe community, but we never see any of that in the game beforehand (and later in flashbacks we see he hasn't cooled down at all, he gets hotheaded and picks a fight because someone was being a shit to Ellie and Dina, and complains to Jesse about Ellie's patrol routes being too rough). So to me he just seems like a different character in that moment, written to be stupider than he ever was because they needed him in that room with those people for the big shock moment and subsequent call to action (even worse is a character has a line of dialogue in that scene pointing out how this entire scenario was pure luck to begin with).
Also just as a side note for some extra funnin', here's an interview from 2013 with Druckmann talking about how Tess was going to be a villain in the first game, but they scrapped it because the idea of someone following a person cross-country for a year was thought to be too unrealistic and forced. It must have made more sense to have it happen twice in the sequel instead, I guess.
Log in to comment