► There's a third possibility, which is that Ellie knows Joel is lying, but doesn't know what exactly he or the Fireflies did.
Woh!
Not only "Yup, that's a third possibility", but "Yup, I'm pretty sure that's what happened." Thanx, Brainw. And it provides a broader context to understand stuff in the trailer. Other possibilities put distressingly restrictive constraints on Ellie's overwhelming hate-motivation in 2.
But we still don't know what that motivation is.
► For all we know she might think Marlene is still alive.
Ellie HAS to think Marlene is alive. See below.
► Marlene was her mum's close friend, after all.
Yes, and her protector. But Marlene's death cannot be her motivation, for all kinda reasons:
- It's too weak to engender that kind of hate. In her whole life, she only saw Marlene intermittently. Frankly, I don't even think Joel's murder would do it—not that obsessive, evil, murder-everyone hate. The last time I saw that kind of mindless, genocidal revenge killing was when the sand people killed Annikin's mother.
- A vendetta to avenge Marline—a peripherial character— would not be enough to drive a whole game for us fans. She doesn't have our emotional investiment like Ellie and Joel. Marlene tried to kill Ellie, and then kill Joel when he tried to stop her. Frankly, I was glad to see her die. It would definitely not be a wortthy successor to part 1.
- If Ellie is avenging Marlene, who is she vowing to exterminate?
- I hate to sound like an AI inference engine, but if Ellie is on a revenge rampage to avenge Marlene, then she must know Marlene is dead. But she cannot know that because it is implausable for her to find out she's dead without also finding out that Joel killed her. However, if she knows Joel killed Marlene, Ellie has no reason for an avenging revenging rampage.
► I'm not sure the Fireflies will be the main villains in the game.
"Woh!" again. That hadn't occurred to me, and it would be a reeealy good misdirection by Naughty Dog. They imply it's a firefly house, we waste 18 months and 10,000 fan-years trying to figure out why she's in it, and then they hit us with something we totally don't expect.
Yeah, that sounds about right!
Plus, the way Naughty Dog fucks with our sense of right and wrong, Ellie herself may be the villian in part 2.
► the people she killed could just be hunters or cannibals or other survivors.
Yes. But we're already intimately familiar with the fireflies. I can't see how introducing a new David-like "gang" would do anything but dilute the story. On the other hand, Marlene was Queen of the Fireflies and Riley was one. I can't see her vowing to kill them all.
I'm usually good at seeing what willl happen because most TV and movies are made for stupid people. But with this trailer, Naughty Dog sure 'nuff managed to come up with a real motherfuckah.
✍Lux