***5/23 Update***
This update is very long overdue and decidedly smaller that the others, but I found myself with several unoccupied hours (a great rarity) and wanted to finish what I set out to do.
Left Behind is Ellie's chapter. Taking place at the turn of Winter, Ellie hauls an injured and incapacitated Joel to a shopping mall. Securing him behind a locked door, Ellie must survive alone for the first time since her journey with Joel began. As seen in the
Todd's Steakhouse update, Winter is the darkest part of the game. It is the segment that defines Ellie's character for the duration of the narrative, and
Left Behind benefits that definition by allowing the player to explore Ellie outside the context of Joel.
This is Ellie as the individual.
Part One of Three: The Hunter and the Statue
Almost as soon as the player gains control of Ellie in
Left Behind, she comes face to face with an enormous statue of a Native American wielding a bow. This statue is the important one. This isn't actually the first statue Ellie encounters, though. The first one she sees is a Native American riding a horse. But before we start
Left Behind, let's go back to the main game.
In Lincoln, Massachusetts, also known as Bill's Town, Joel finds one of Bill's bows. The following conversation occurs:
ELLIE: Let me use that, I'm a pretty good shot with that thing.
JOEL: How 'bout we just leave this kind of stuff to me.
ELLIE: Well, we could both be armed. Cover each other.
JOEL: I don't think so.
At this point in the main game, Joel is still trying to protect Ellie. He doesn't want her armed, he doubts her own survival capabilities, and doesn't want Ellie to be responsible for killing. This is a very naive stance for Joel to take, as Ellie is a survivor and has had to lethally defend herself before. When Ellie claims to be a good shot with the bow, Joel is unmoved. Perhaps Joel thinks she has only practiced on targets, which would not translate to practical skill in the field. Perhaps Joel still doesn't think Ellie has ever killed somebody and doesn't want play agent to her first kill. Maybe he doesn't want Ellie armed because he somehow feels she is safer when he is in absolute control. Whatever the reason, when Joel acquires the bow, he doesn't think Ellie is fit to wield it. Unmoving and with bow in hand, he is not looking at what's right in front of him.
In this way, the statue is Joel.
The bow hunter is one of the first (actually the second) things the player sees when they assume control of Ellie in
Left Behind. The figure is decidedly male, decidedly skilled, and completely inert. Like the statue, Joel is now paralyzed with injury and must stay behind. As Ellie seeks some sort of supplies to return him to action, the statue is a towering manifestation of the weight on her conscience. But the statue is not literally Joel, of course, and its symbolism extends beyond him. Because in other ways the statue is also Ellie.
In the original hard cut to winter, our first scene is an arrow piercing a rabbit. The player does not see who fired the arrow immediately, but suspicions it is Ellie and not Joel are quickly confirmed. The first time the player experiences this scene, they don't know how much time has passed. They don't know if Joel is alive or dead. But what they do know, as of that moment, Ellie is now the hunter. In the following sequence, Ellie's skill as a hunter is tested when she must quietly hunt a buck. She is the autonomous provider, and with the appearance of David, the autonomous bargainer and trader as well.
The appearance of the statue, as the first set piece Ellie encounters in
Left Behind, becomes the new first sequence after Joel is injured and Ellie is on her own. She ascends a stationary escalator and the figure appears before her. The symbolism here is clear: Ellie has ascended, and she is now the hunter. During
Left Behind, Ellie acquires her own bow, and her status as a bowed woman (a common trope, invoking Artemis, the goddess of the hunt) is achieved.
The statue is big, bold, but also ambiguous. Its symbolism is abstract, but meaningful.
But, again, the first statue Ellie sees (separated from the statue of the hunter by an escalator and a few short seconds) is a horsebound figure wielding a spear. While less meaningful overall, Ellie has been established as a horsebound figure multiple times. She is preoccupied with one of Tommy's horses, where she explains she has ridden one before. She names Callus, the horse she and Joel take to Colorado. She later rides Callus as a means of conveyance and ultimately distraction, where the horse is killed. This statue, preluding the archer, is another symbol of Ellie.
The name Ellie gives her horse, Callus, is a Scottish surname which means "son of warrior chief."
Part Two of Three: Feminine Imagery
Perhaps not unlike real shopping malls, which makes the location ideal for the story
Left Behind explored, the Liberty Garden and the Colorado Mountain Plaza are covered with feminine images and locations. There are masculine images as well, of course, but they are far fewer and less frequently encountered. To understand the importance of the feminine set dressing, it helps to explain what
Left Behind is actually about.
Left Behind is Ellie's sexual awakening. It is not grand or sensational, as the term "sexual awakening" is sometimes used, but rather quite subdued and thoughtful. Ellie and her best friend Riley love each other, and their feelings towards one another are confusing to them. The attraction is present, the love is clear, but what these feelings mean to the two girls is unestablished. Riley doesn't know why she brought Ellie to the mall. Ellie surprises herself when she kisses Riley, spontaneously, as if she finally could not express herself any other way. "Sorry," she says. "For what?" Riley replies.
With this in mind, the bouquet of feminine imagery is an expression of Ellie being on the pubescent cusp. Ellie's kiss with Riley is a sexual realization and an admission of sexuality and identity. All of
Left Behind is a small exercise in puberty and all of the confusing, conflicting feelings that come with sexual development. In the context of the shopping mall, the young and mature feminine imagery does not clash. In this space, and the space Ellie is in personally, these identities coexist. Young enough to play with dolls (American Princess), but old enough to ask Skeleseer about her developing breasts.
One of the images that occurs repeatedly in the Liberty Garden mall is the Panda Safari poster, which depicts a young girl on an exploratory adventure. The placement of this in the Boston mall, with Riley, is meaningful. Here, skewing younger, Ellie is a girl exploring her relationship with her friend.
Another image, which is actually two images, is seen in the Colorado mall. On the left is a running female athlete, and on the right is a girl in a striped shirt. The imagery here is subtle, but aids in the interpretation of the two malls being complexes of Ellie's own mind. In the other mall, when the player first gains control of Ellie, the two have just finished running to evade detection from military posts. Riley says: "You were pretty quick out there, I'm impressed." Ellie's shirt is also striped.
In the Colorado mall, where Ellie skews older, there is imagery of sexualized older women. Taking place after her sexual awakening, where Ellie is more mature, this imagery is not misplaced either. The beautiful, sexually assertive women are a feminine fantasy, something Ellie at least considers when asking Skeleseer about her body and briefly embodies to have the confidence to kiss Riley.
But it is worth noting that these images are fragmented. They are missing pieces, or they are damaged, and the picture is not perfectly clear. This gives a very "girl interrupted" feel to the images, as Ellie's sexual identity is not fully formed. Before she could complete her exploration with Riley, the experience is cut short. It is even traumatizing. This would only get worse with her encounter with David, who attempts to sexually assault her. Ellie's picture of sexuality has been damaged by sex being continually out of her own control. This is actually my favorite part of the set dressing in
Left Behind.
Locations like the snowed in nail salon, seen below, fit this same interpretation. The nail salon is snowed in, but still somewhat intact. The portraits on the wall are undamaged, the sign still hangs, and most hauntingly, the nail polish sits mostly undisturbed on the shelf. This gendered altar is frozen, with no way to carry out the intent of its construction, and so it remains in stasis. It still stands, but it has been interrupted in a way that makes its use difficult.
Stores like American Princess and Goldfish Kids, both in Colorado, are indicative of Ellie's actual age. Ellie is very young, but no semblance of a child. In another world, she might have still had dolls or shopped at preteen clothing stores only a few years before. These stores coexisting in the fabric of the Colorado Mall alongside the sexually defined images of older women shows how Ellie straddles the line between girlhood and womanhood. Neither have true influence yet, she is both and neither. Fourteen is a confusing age.
To finish off, here is the sign that stands at the entrance of the Liberty Garden mall. The fact that it only depicts women establishes the malls as feminine zones that serve as a foundation for feminine interaction. This isn't literal, this isn't to say shopping malls are actually feminine spaces in the real world and only women shop, but in the literary context of the story, the malls serve this purpose. In these spaces, we explore a story about the live's of women. Women with baggage.
Part Three of Three: The Giraffes
As I mentioned last year when I wrote the initial study for this thread,
Left Behind has a few of its own giraffes to add to the overall compendium of the motifs. They are centralized in the arcade, where Ellie and Riley share an emotional moment regarding the imminent end to their brief reunion. Riley is leaving again, to another city, and she came in hopes of Ellie asking her to stay.
The giraffes are well placed here, foreshadowing not only the loss of Riley as she moves to a new city, but the emotional moment which follows this scene. Ellie tells Riley not to leave (at Riley's insistence), and Riley agrees to stay. Riley and Ellie play with water guns, dance to some music, and kiss. For a moment, everything is perfect. Everything is going to be okay.
But the tragedy is known to the player, and this moment is very bittersweet. Ellie and Riley are attacked by infected, who bite them both. Riley and Ellie agree to die together ("lose their minds together"), but Ellie discovers she is immune. Ellie as an individual, as the only known human immune to the infection, is awakened. Ellie's burdensome individuality has comes at the expense of her best friend, and Ellie continues on in emotional solitude.
There is also, as a bonus, a Savage Starlight poster here. Endure and survive.