A Bad Gay Waiting for Vengeance

This article examines The Last of Us Part II (2020), a videogame with explicit queer representation that forefronts a queer main playable character—Ellie—that behaves in morally ambiguous, even villainous, ways. The aim of the article is to examine Ellie’s behavior and concretize what sort of queer representation she brings to popular culture, particularly because she is “bad.” The main question posed is if the game’s expressions of waiting—primarily Ellie’s intense waiting for vengeance after one of her loved ones is murdered—makes her antagonistic traits pronounced? Theoretically, the article draws on “deidealization” (Amin 2017), a concept that helps scholars to accept rather than redeem or critique imperfect, messy, and complex queer objects of study (historical and current), as well as theories of waiting (Heidegger 1959). The article concludes that although Ellie’s anger is relatable, her methods in the game (mainly her propensity for violence) are questionable. Still, studying Ellie constitutes an important lesson: if we allow ourselves to be blinded by hate for people we see as our enemies, we might, inadvertently, turn into villains.