Joel

> "*No matter what, you keep... finding something to fight for.*"
> ― Joel to Ellie, after she tells him about Riley's death.
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Jackson Community

Unnamed Ex-wife *(Unknown)*

Ellie - Surrogate Daughter

Jackson, Wyoming

**Joel** is a major character in Last of The Walking Dead. Joel is a survivor in a post-apocalyptic America that has been ravaged by the cordyceps brain infection and the walker virus, which has wiped out over sixty percent of mankind globally. After losing his daughter, Sarah, in the outbreak, Joel became a ruthless and cynical smuggler, eventually tasked with smuggling and protecting Ellie, a young girl who is the key to mankind's survival.

## Biography

### Background and Early Life

Joel was born on December 4, 1983, and grew up in Texas alongside his younger brother Tommy. Joel raised Tommy through their childhood, to which the pair heavily struggled with.

Not much is known regarding Joel's early childhood other than he noted that, during his youth, he initially aspired to become a singer. Later however, Joel had a daughter named Sarah and was married to her mother for a short period of time. Saddled early in life with the responsibilities that come with being a father, he never had the opportunity to attend college.

No mention is given as to the fate or whereabouts of Joel's wife. However it is later revealed, through a conversation between him and Ellie, that the subject of whatever happened is very painful for Joel to talk about. As a result, he raised their daughter as a single parent for the majority of his life. The two lived together in a typical two story single-family home somewhere in or around Austin, Texas located in Travis County through Texas State Highway 71.

In his adult years, Joel worked in construction as a carpenter. During a phone conversation with Tommy, he mentioned desperately needing to keep his job with a contractor. Building plans laid on his bedside table and several copies of a book called "*Construction Regionalism"*  were seen on top of his bookshelf. He appeared to possess ambitions of starting his own business, with a copy of "*Everything You Need to Know About Creating a Startup"* also on a table next to his bed. His job kept him fit, and he also owned a treadmill (seen in his bedroom).

Despite his long working hours he still spent quality time with Sarah, as seen in photographs displayed throughout their home showing the two on a cruise, at a carnival with Tommy, and at one of Sarah's soccer matches. Additionally, the two often went on several hikes together.

In the hours leading up to the outbreak, Sarah gives him a new watch as a birthday gift to replace the one he had broken months before. This becomes a cherished memento he manages to keep in the turbulent years ahead.

### 2011

Joel arrives home late from work, putting Sarah to bed after watching television together. During the early hours of September 27th, 2011, Joel's struggle to raise a child on his own is interrupted when the infection breaks out and Joel is forced to take his daughter out of town, just hours after his birthday. He is forced to shoot his neighbor dead in self-defense. After calming Sarah, he is joined by his brother Tommy in the evacuation.

After driving towards the highway and trying to make sense of the situation, the group finds the road blocked and are forced to take another route, only for their car to collide with an oncoming vehicle. Once he comes to, Joel kicks the windshield out so he and Sarah can continue on foot. After running through the city, Tommy stays to hold off the infected so Joel and Sarah can flee.

The pair makes it to the highway but encounters a soldier. The soldier is ordered by his commanding officer over the radio to kill the two, reluctantly opening fire. Joel tries to shield Sarah from the shots, but she still takes a fatal hit. Just before the soldier can execute Joel, Tommy arrives, gunning down the soldier, but he and Joel cannot do anything to stop Sarah's bleeding. The opening ends with Joel sobbing over his daughter's body, his world torn from under him.

### 2011 - 2025

Shortly after Sarah's death, Joel found himself in a triage clinic after making it to the highway. He witnessed how families had been torn apart and how much chaos had erupted in the world. While there, he considered committing suicide but was unable to, finding something to fight for. However, what he found was worth fighting for was something his brother, Tommy, greatly disliked.

Over the years, the pair survived by descending into a sinister way of life, hurting innocent people; going so far as killing them; all to survive. It's heavily implied that Joel tortured, deceived and killed several people, becoming a hunter. He adopted tactics such as tricking passerby into thinking he was hurt so he, Tommy, and likely others could ambush them when they let their guard down.

The pair eventually reached the city of Boston, smuggling themselves into the city. Tommy finally had enough of Joel's philosophy on how to survive, abandoning his brother to join a growing militia group known as the Fireflies after being persuaded by the leader, Marlene. The two argued furiously over this, Tommy finishing with "I don't ever wanna see your goddamned face again!" Tommy eventually left the Fireflies as well but did not return to Joel, leaving Boston to go to Wyoming.

### Spring, 2025: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

After

Tess' passing, Joel and Ellie go to Bill's Town in search of a vehicle that could get them to Wyoming. After getting a car from Bill, Joel drives them west detouring into the city of Pittsburgh where they are ambushed by a pair of hunters. Although they crash, they manage to escape, but are shortly caught by another group of hunters. While Joel is forced to kill a couple of them, Ellie manages to shoot one in order to save Joel, the bandit having Joel's head underwater. Joel confronts her about the use of the pistol, stating that she shouldn't have done that. Ellie retorts, thinking that using the weapon had been her only choice.

They eventually make their way to an overturned semi-truck that's blocking their path, and Joel boosts Ellie to the top. On the other side, she finds a pile of burned bones, and warns Joel, who tells her to just get him the ladder. Once on the other side, the two continue down the road until a truck with a machine gun turret appears in the street ahead of them, gunning down two survivors that had ran into the street seconds before. To avoid the truck, they hide in the sewer system beneath the city, where they run into a stalker, and Ellie tells Joel a pun she came up with about Clickers.

Before returning to the surface, Joel gives her the pistol he took from her back at the convenience store, telling her that it *was* either him or Joel, referring to the bandit that Ellie had shot. He takes a second to teach her how to use the weapon, before boosting her to the retracted ladder beneath the half-open manhole. Once outside, the machine turret truck reappears, and they are forced to take shelter in a nearby Starbucks until it passes by.

However, the Starbucks isn't abandoned, and the two are forced into a fight with another pair of survivors, Lee and Clementine. Although the fight eventually breaks up, with Joel aiming his revolver at an injured Lee, everyone eventually calms down and realizes that the other party wasn't the hunters outside. Lee offers to take them to their hideout on top of the roof, where they plan out how they are going to get past the guards preventing them from passing the Fort Duquesne bridge. Joel and Lee decide to wait until dark before attempting to sneak through.

When night falls, they prepare to leave. They quickly cross the city to the bridge, Joel and Lee killing a couple of bandits that were hanging around a trashcan fire and using one of their bodies to place against the horn of a car nearby to divert attention away from the bridge. However, when meeting at the gate, they are almost immediately found out, the machine gun turret from earlier returning and spotting them. Forcing their way through the door separating them from the street heading to the bridge, they are met with a truck blocking off the road. Joel helps boost Lee to the roof of the truck, before helping Ellie and finally Clementine to the top, the ladder on the side of the truck falling off after the young girl made it to the roof. Lee decides to leave Joel behind, and Ellie jumps down to reunite with Joel. Together, they duck through a side building and emerge onto the street beyond, heading straight for the bridge. Before they could make it there, however, the turret truck crashed through the gate, firing straight at them. They are forced to run for their lives, and when they realize that the bridge was destroyed in the middle, Ellie decides that their only choice is to jump into the river, and that Joel could keep her afloat. Joel jumps in after her, and the two are later rescued by Lee, who had already found out the bridge was destroyed, and had instead gone down to the beach below.

Joel aims his pistol towards Lee when he awakens, and is talked down by Ellie and Clementine, the latter having her own weapon trained on the man. With tensions high, they explore the beach, where Ellie explores a beached boat at the far end with Joel. When she asks Joel if everyone had boats before, he replies with a snarky comment, saying that he used to have a fifty-foot yacht, and says that he really didn't when she inquires about it.

### The Sewers

Joel and the group are later forced to push on through the sewers, their only way of progressing into the suburbs outside of Pittsburgh. Though they're met with obstacles such as large pools of water and packs of Clickers, the group is able to continue to a small refuge. Soon after, the group is separated after Clementine and Ellie fall into a current of sewage, Joel and Lee diving behind them.

### The Suburbs

Separated from the girls, the two begin their search for Ellie, Clementine and the radio tower they had arranged to meet them at. Lee and Joel eventually find the girls in an abandoned house in the suburbs, Ellie revealing that Clementine had learned of her immunity, and that they should tell Lee as well. After reaching the tower, Joel learns that Clementine's parents had died years ago, Lee choosing to share the fact with him. Joel and the group fix up an abandoned car, which they use to finally leave the city behind and head to Jackson, where Tommy resided.

### Plattsburg, Missouri

They come to a stop in the small city of Plattsburg, where after being surrounded by infected, they are saved by Dwight, who informs them that he is willing to share supplies with them if they're willing to follow him to a safe-zone named Paradise Outpost. Desperate and uncertain, the group reaches a stalemate that is only solved when Lee proposes to go alone. Keeping in touch with him via a walkie-talkie, Clementine, Joel and Ellie await Lee's return in an abandoned hardware store. Ellie shows Clementine her joke book in an effort to cheer her up, and Clem responds by opening up about Sarah, Jane and the rest of her old group, all of them long gone by then.

When Lee returns, it is discovered that three strangers: Tara, Ben and Troy, had hidden themselves inside the van he drove in, in an attempt to escape from the Saviors and the Paradise Outpost. In the middle of the confusion, Troy drives off with the van with Clementine still aboard. Though she is able to force Troy to turn around, the van hits a walker during a moment of distraction.

### Jackson County, Wyoming

Fall arrives as Joel, Ellie and their group reach Jackson County in Wyoming, where Joel believes his younger brother Tommy can show them the Firefly's location. They reach a dam and try to cross through. While opening the gate, a woman and two men hold them at gunpoint. As Joel tries to get the group to let them pass through, someone on the inside begins opening the door - the man is revealed to be Tommy. To Joel's surprise, his brother hugs him and briefly remark to each other about their age. Tommy introduces him to Andrea, the settlement's co-leader. Andrea takes note of Ellie and the kids, and invites them to eat. The group enters the settlement, amazed to find such a place. They see horses, Joel learning that Ellie also knows how to ride one. They learn the group is trying to restore the electricity. Tommy and Joel go while the rest of the group eat. Before they do, Tommy gives Joel a picture of Sarah he found back when he returned to Texas

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## Killed Victims

This list shows the victims Joel has killed:

* Sarah *(Zombified)*
* Johnny
* Jerry
* Tobias *(Caused)*
* Freddy
* Reggie (Savior)
* Numerous counts of unnamed Hunters
* Numerous counts of infected and unnamed people

## Relationships

### Ellie

> "*You're right... You're not my daughter. And I sure as hell ain't your dad.*"
> ― Joel to Ellie
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> "*It struck him then; it wasn't important what he wanted. It wasn't important what any of them wanted. What was important was Ellie, and Joel was the best bet at getting her to the Fireflies; the best man for the occasion. He didn't like it, practically leaving two of his most well known companions behind... but Ellie was bigger than any of them ever were.*"
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Joel's relationship with Ellie started off on sour terms. Both Joel and Ellie were against Marlene's idea for Joel to watch over Ellie, while she and Tess went to check out the weapons that their former associate, Robert, sold to Marlene. Joel couldn't even look at her in the eye until much later after their initial meeting. Joel viewed himself as someone who had to escort her rather than develop a relationship with her. Their relationship grew even more unstable after the death of Tess, who made Joel promise to get Ellie to Tommy for his assistance on finding the Fireflies. He now viewed Ellie as someone he had to protect but still keep himself detached from to save his spirit, not wanting to lose someone close to him again. He was reluctant to let her use a gun and refused to admit that she saved his life, even chastising her for doing so. However, he eventually gives in when they are leaving the sewers and gives her his pistol.

Joel is very conflicted about Ellie; he attempts to get rid of her by asking Tommy to take her to the Fireflies, as she reminds him too much of his deceased daughter Sarah. They do seem to be on good terms, and Joel even shows guilt for trying to send her with Tommy.

### Sarah

> "*Here. You kept complaining about your broken watch, so I figured you know. Do you like it?*"
> ― Sarah upon gifting Joel a new watch.
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Sarah was Joel's 12 year old daughter who died early in the morning, the day after his birthday at the start of the initial Cordyceps/Walker outbreak, having been shot by a soldier following orders. The two had a very close father-daughter relationship, being that Joel was a single parent. They were so close that Sarah gave him a watch for his birthday that he still wears 14 years later, though it is cracked, to remind him of his losses. The loss of Sarah hurt Joel greatly, turning him cynical enough that he became a Hunter, murdering many innocent people and even lost touch with his brother Tommy because of this. He is incredibly sensitive about Sarah, and refuses to talk about her.

### Tommy

> "*T-Tommy, no. Nuh, nuh, no! Goddammit Tommy! Shoot **me!***"
> ― Joel, begging Negan to kill him instead of Tommy
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> "*He was frozen in time, staring at Tommy. Clementine would have no other choice if it came down to it. He had accepted that. It was to protect him, to protect Ellie, to protect herself, to protect Lee, that's all that there was to it.*"
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Joel and his younger brother Tommy are close, despite their different views on life. Tommy cared about Joel enough that he covered him and Joel's daughter Sarah with his revolver during the initial outbreak and spent the majority of the post-apocalyptic years together, looking out for one another. The older brother established himself as the leader of the two, guiding and protecting Tommy throughout the majority of the post-apocalyptic years. However, their different views of the world led to conflict between them, and when Tommy joins the Fireflies, the brothers lost contact with each other, their relationship completely breaking down; the last thing Tommy said to Joel was that he did not want to see him again. Despite this, when the brothers meet up again in Jackson County, Tommy was very glad to see Joel, embracing him and joking about his age despite Joel's doubts Tommy would forgive him. Regardless, the two soon argue about Ellie's custody, Joel greatly angered.

Tommy does not accept Ellie in an effort to get Joel to stay. However, Joel eventually leaves with Ellie without saying goodbye to Tommy, much to Tommy's dismay and anger.

When Tommy is killed during the Savior attack, Joel reacts with sadness and rage, wishing it could have been him instead.