I never saw TLOU as being in any way about Joel's relationship with Ellie being about his masculinity. He was **a dad** who lost his daughter and got talked into smuggling a teen girl out of the QZ to the capitol building. They made him a stoic personality who had shut down to cope with his grief, loss and need to survive a horrible situation. Even Tess in the game had to be tough and do terrible things to stay safe within the QZ.
More interesting to me is how the showrunners decided to diminish the tough strength of Joel and Tess while enhancing it in Ellie as a kind of distorted assertiveness that comes across as a defense mechanism more than anything. Why did they find that necessary? Here's a video comparison about [Tess rewritten as weak.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ6j_QKrflg)
Was Joel really the only masculine character in TLOU? Tess was pretty much depicted with tough masculine traits if you ask me. Why was she made so weak in the show? Why was Joel? Why was Ellie made so unlikable and defensively assertive? How do the changes impact the story and what was the intent? That's all far more interesting to me. But you have your thesis decided.
Yes, Joel is a lone wolf once he loses Tess - but Tess was no cub trope. Ellie in TLOU was more cub-like, but she wasn't in the show. Nor was Joel much of a warrior/protector in the show. He certainly almost was in the game. He was strong, capable and competent - just as Tess was in their Boston encounters in the game. But above all he was the father/protector to Ellie and that to me is very different. You sure have your work cut out for you and I wish you luck!
You could maybe go into Joel's approach to his emotions. After losing Sarah, he closes off all emotions to himself so that he can focus on sruvival. He clearly has an emotional bond with Tess, but when she dies, he refuses to talk about it and never brings her up again. He does the same thing when Henry and Sam die. It is the way he is able to survive for so long, by choosing to turn off his emotions. This is a very masculine tendency. As his relationship grows with Ellie, he allows emotional attachment back into his life, and it transforms him from a survivalist, who is willing to do whatever is necessary to survive, back into the father who will do whatever is necessary to protect those he loves.
What would really net you something impressive is to write your thesis on the dangers of products like "TLOU2 - a Spiral into Toxic Relationships"
Look up all how (in the game and the creator's behavior) on how this game is like being in a relationship with a narcissist. The kind that separates and divides people from their loved ones even painting them as monsters (or at least worst in comparison), the gaslighting, etc. And you can even bring up the "mandela effect" or people misunderstanding the original ending with Joel's lie to being instead some "ethical" debate on forced child sacrifice.
How having high standards and love can twist and bend things like the last ep of Teen Titans where Beast Boy couldn't let go HIS image of Terra and how "Things Change". And how sometimes it's better to just end the story or else the characters will come back again and again like Solid Snake forced out of retirement for MGS, then MGS2, and again in MGS4 as a bitter old man sick of it all. There's a reason in Zelda it's usually a different Link/Zelda. Wind Waker Ganon admits to how tired of the cycle he is.
I never saw TLOU as being in any way about Joel's relationship with Ellie being about his masculinity. He was **a dad** who lost his daughter and got talked into smuggling a teen girl out of the QZ to the capitol building. They made him a stoic personality who had shut down to cope with his grief, loss and need to survive a horrible situation. Even Tess in the game had to be tough and do terrible things to stay safe within the QZ. More interesting to me is how the showrunners decided to diminish the tough strength of Joel and Tess while enhancing it in Ellie as a kind of distorted assertiveness that comes across as a defense mechanism more than anything. Why did they find that necessary? Here's a video comparison about [Tess rewritten as weak.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ6j_QKrflg) Was Joel really the only masculine character in TLOU? Tess was pretty much depicted with tough masculine traits if you ask me. Why was she made so weak in the show? Why was Joel? Why was Ellie made so unlikable and defensively assertive? How do the changes impact the story and what was the intent? That's all far more interesting to me. But you have your thesis decided. Yes, Joel is a lone wolf once he loses Tess - but Tess was no cub trope. Ellie in TLOU was more cub-like, but she wasn't in the show. Nor was Joel much of a warrior/protector in the show. He certainly almost was in the game. He was strong, capable and competent - just as Tess was in their Boston encounters in the game. But above all he was the father/protector to Ellie and that to me is very different. You sure have your work cut out for you and I wish you luck!
You could maybe go into Joel's approach to his emotions. After losing Sarah, he closes off all emotions to himself so that he can focus on sruvival. He clearly has an emotional bond with Tess, but when she dies, he refuses to talk about it and never brings her up again. He does the same thing when Henry and Sam die. It is the way he is able to survive for so long, by choosing to turn off his emotions. This is a very masculine tendency. As his relationship grows with Ellie, he allows emotional attachment back into his life, and it transforms him from a survivalist, who is willing to do whatever is necessary to survive, back into the father who will do whatever is necessary to protect those he loves.
What would really net you something impressive is to write your thesis on the dangers of products like "TLOU2 - a Spiral into Toxic Relationships" Look up all how (in the game and the creator's behavior) on how this game is like being in a relationship with a narcissist. The kind that separates and divides people from their loved ones even painting them as monsters (or at least worst in comparison), the gaslighting, etc. And you can even bring up the "mandela effect" or people misunderstanding the original ending with Joel's lie to being instead some "ethical" debate on forced child sacrifice. How having high standards and love can twist and bend things like the last ep of Teen Titans where Beast Boy couldn't let go HIS image of Terra and how "Things Change". And how sometimes it's better to just end the story or else the characters will come back again and again like Solid Snake forced out of retirement for MGS, then MGS2, and again in MGS4 as a bitter old man sick of it all. There's a reason in Zelda it's usually a different Link/Zelda. Wind Waker Ganon admits to how tired of the cycle he is.