Ellie Williams is the central character of The Last of Us series. She serves as the protagonist of The Last of Us: American Dreams, the playable deuteragonist of The Last of Us Part I, the playable protagonist of The Last of Us: Left Behind, the playable dual protagonist of The Last of Us Part II, and a playable character in the No Return mode.
Ellie grew up as an orphan in the Boston quarantine zone and attended a military preparatory school, where she met and befriended Riley Abel. When Ellie was fourteen, the pair were both infected with the Cordyceps brain infection, where Ellie discovered she was immune. A friend of her mother's and the leader of the Fireflies, Marlene, believed that she was the key to reverse engineering a vaccine. Marlene tasked Joel Miller, a smuggler, with escorting Ellie outside of the QZ. The simple drop-off turned into a year-long journey across America, and the two eventually formed a close bond.
