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INFO β DIADEM
JOEL MILLER
The Last of Us (HBO)
Height
6'0
Build
Lean, sinewy
Hair
Chestnut brown with dashes of salt and pepper
Eyes
Brown
Age
56
Canon Point
Following the events of Season 1, after returning to Jackson, Wyoming with Ellie but not long enough to see her 15th, 16th, or 17th birthdays and their respective transitions.
Markings
Described as having a noticeable amount of scars. The most easily visible is a scar above his right eyebrow. He has a scar on his left shoulder and his right abdomen, as well as on his neck, and it has been mentioned that he has scarring on his arms that is visible when he wears short sleeves.
Vehicle
Character Information
β Resourceful: Before the cordyceps he was a contractor and had after the outbreak a smuggler. He knows how to sneak around, and how to use situations, people, and what's available to him to his advantage. Split-second decisions like driving through a laundromat for cover instead of straight into a hail of bullets come second nature to him. This think-out-of-the-box attitude has helped him produce weapons on the fly, avoid ambush, and devise ways around violence and the infected. It's represented often in his decision-making, but not overtly, and is an underlying factor in every choice he makes and all the things he's involved in. Small choices like developing a code through music from different decades may seem small in the grand scheme of things but keep him going and able to protect himself and the people that he's aligned with. This skill and trait is interchangeable in that it can help him not only avoid conflict but also in the midst of conflict. This ingenuity is applied to not only the situation but also the interpersonal as he uses the same ideology to avoid the truth or discussions he doesn't want to be involved in and employs the method to get his way on occasion.
β Loyal: When Joel decides to trust it's a gesture that might as well mean, "I love you," something he just doesn't say. His loyalty is dogged, and the lengths he's willing to go to to help or defend those who have earned it are unparalleled. He makes choices that go against his own better judgment time and time again to appease Ellie, things like working alongside Henry and Sam when Ellie beseeched him to follow through instead of parting ways when things go from bad to worse. A choice that ultimately ended poorly, but was made anyway to keep her happy. Even detours, like taking a moment to feed the giraffes, a thought he never would have had prior all for the sake of taking in something as small as a smile. Initially, these choices were reserved for Tess, like in their dealings with Bill and Frank. Joel goes the extra mile for the things he believes in and the people he loves, a double-edged sword in some cases.
β Dedicated: True to his Texas roots when Joel says he's going to do something, he does it. He's a man of his word and that integrity runs blood deep, even in the rare moments where he betrays it. He promised Tess that he would follow through with getting Ellie to the Atlanta QZ and heed her dying wish despite the odds being weighed against their success. At that point, with no direct ties to Ellie, his choice to give himself over to that task completely was borne out of loyalty to her and nothing else. Joel has a tendency to give himself over to his tasks and the people that he cares about completely, and is frustrated not only with himself but in general when those goals aren't met or when he falls short. Joel is a man that finishes what he starts whether it be a project or a fight.
β Callous: After losing Sarah, and at the beginning of the end of life as he knew it, Joel didn't want to endure anymore and put a gun to his head he failed to follow through and missed, and as a direct result his hearing isn't great on one side of his head. His connections to others, and ties to his "community," disappeared after his daughter was killed and to put it simply, he doesn't like anybody and sees no reason to hide it. Ellie called it an "asshole voice," and David went so far as to say that he was "crazy," for his willingness to kill.
After his daughter Sarah, died in his arms, Joel distanced himself from emotion and from other people to cope. He got by with his brother Tommy doing whatever possible to survive, something that inevitably led to Tommy joining the Fireflies instead of participating in the violence and hostility that Joel had become accustomed to living with. He had his own reputation in the Boston quarantine zone and most of the others living there including the FEDRA soldiers were aware to some degree of how dangerous he could be and his indifference to death, the toils of the disease, and his lack of empathy where outsiders concerned earned him a wide berth from everyone but Tess and their chosen associates.
Joel doesn't offer more of himself up to others than he has to, isn't a man of many words, and sees no reason to bother with niceties when they aren't necessary. Joel tells it like it is and doesn't waste time with things like feelings, or empathy when it comes to others. He's got a soft spot for kids, but even with them, he's gruff. He's colder than the cold environment he'll be finding himself in. Direct and to the point hasn't failed him so far, especially when it comes to surviving. He'll justify murder, theft, and mayhem if it comes down to it and if his own needs are met as evidenced by the slaughter at the St. Francis hospital to save Ellie from being killed for the cure.
β Stubborn:
Set in his ways is putting it gently, just like the longhorn state he's from Joel is bull-headed. He views things a certain way and getting him to come around to other ways of thinking is like pulling teeth. It's his way or the highway, and whatever cultivated plan he has is the only course of action until he inevitably has to wing it. Joel doesn't do anything he doesn't have to or doesn't want to unless he has no choice.
Tess was the only reason he decided to transport Ellie, and Ellie was what made him follow through with Tess's plan. He struggled with his own failures there and along the way still refused to budge on certain aspects of survival he knew to be true. He doesn't talk about Sarah, rule number one, rule number two he doesn't care for guns and won't use them unless he has to. Rule number three, he doesn't trust easily, and people usually have to prove their mettle before he'll even consider it. He's a shark that has to keep moving or he'll die, and too much time idle isn't healthy for him.
Even between himself and Tommy, he refused to apologize for the ideology behind killing innocent people to survive. He held that grudge when he left, and struggled with the new passive side of Tommy when he found him in Jackson City.
β Deceitful:
Able to flip on a dime if things don't go as planned, Joel's integrity is sometimes outweighed by his desire to protect others and to keep going himself. Rationalizing it has been a crutch he came to rely on after Tommy left with the Fireflies. By any means necessary was a credo he adopted and fully utilized in his life as a smuggler and in his journey to carry out Tess's final wish.
Lying was part of survival, and surviving was the only option. He's used to weeding through other people's lies and peppering on his own simultaneously. He will cheat, he will steal, whatever it takes to get what he needs be it medicine or something else. He can even play nice, like when Tess decides to strike a deal with Frank and Bill.
Sometimes these manipulations are calm, collected, a thinly veiled part of life after total devastation. Other times, they're violent and damaging feats of absolute vengeance. Bill killed an entire army of people at the St. Francis hospital when he realized that creating a cure sourced from Ellie's invulnerability amounted to also killing her. He then lied to Ellie about there being other survivors to keep her with him and unaware of the truth. Then doubled down when she made him promise that it was true. In a life fighting an infection that had culled the majority of the population being dishonest is as natural as breathing.
Appearance
Described as handsome by some Joel is a well-built man with dark graying hair and a short beard. His eyes are described as intense and he has been said to have a "piercing gaze." His physical acuity is referred to as rugged, weathered, and seasoned. Depending on who you speak to he's either charming or an asshole, and leans toward more practical clothing like jeans, jackets, and boots. He touts a brown canvas backpack and is always wearing this watch.
Skills & Abilities
Survival Skills: Due to his time as a hunter and smuggler Joel has become a master survivalist.
Stealth Skills: He is skilled with chokeholds and stealth, being able to creep up on a human and Infected without them noticing.
Expert Crafting Skills: Joel is also a skilled craftsman and can augment his own weapons. He is also able to craft Shivs, Smoke Bombs, Nail Bombs, and Molotovs.
Interrogation Skills: He is experienced with torture, an example is when he broke Robert's arm while Tess was trying to discover what happened to the weapons he was supposed to deliver to them, when he interrogated two cannibals with a knife to discover the location of Ellie and shooting Ethan in the stomach while trying to find out where Ellie's surgery was happening.
Weapons Master: Joel is also very skilled with guns and bow and arrows.
Master Combatant: He possesses tremendous fighting skills, Miller is a ferocious fighter, being able to overpower enemies much younger and faster than he is. Heβs able to overpower Ethan, a Firefly despite the fact he was being held at gunpoint and he was obviously more military experienced. He was also able to overpower two cannibals despite the fact that he was still recovering from his life-threatening wound.
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