In The Last of Us, Captain Kwong convinces Ellie to choose the right path by giving her two life choices that will determine her future. Terry Chen plays Captain Kwong.
Back when Ellie was in the Boston QZ, she was not much different. She always found a way to get into trouble. Her attitude often pushed her into fights with everyone. The FEDRA officers then had no option but to throw her into a place they like to call ‘the hole’.
Things got worse when her only friend, Riley, went missing. All on her own, Ellie struggled to spend days at the QZ. When she got into another fight with a girl named Bethany, one of the supervisors in FEDRA, Captain Kwong, got fed up with her.
While Ellie ended up with a black eye, she gave Bethany 15 stitches. Kwong admits that Ellie has never been one of those well-behaved teenagers, but for the past few weeks, she has been acting worse.
When Ellie asks to be put in the hole, Kwong reminds her that he has already done that three times, and it doesn’t work. Therefore, he is going to try something new. He tells her the truth about FEDRA.
The two paths for Ellie
Kwong says there are two paths ahead for Ellie here in FEDRA. He puts a cup in front of her, which is the first path. It is to keep acting like a grunt. If she continues to do that, she will get a life of a grunt.
Ellie will have to wake up early at dawn and patrol the streets and the walls. On top of that, she will be given the worst food, the worst jobs, and ridiculous orders from her patrol leader, who could probably be Bethany. This is what Ellie will be doing for the rest of her life, at least, until she dies.
For the second path, he puts his keys in front of her. The second path is where she will have to swallow her pride, follow the rules, and become an officer.
This way, she will have her own room and a comfortable bed. She will eat well and won’t go on patrol. Most importantly, once she becomes an officer, she will get to show all the Bethanys in the world their place.
Ellie questions why Kwong cares about this so much. According to Kwong, FEDRA holds this place together no matter what others say. If FEDRA goes down, the people in the zone will starve or murder each other.
Kwong believes there is a leader in Ellie. One day she might be running this place. It’s up to her to decide which path she takes. Kwong’s words leave an impact on Ellie. She really starts believing that with FEDRA, she can make a change. Therefore, she chooses the second path, the keys.
Later on, Ellie attempts to convince Riley of the same when they argue about who is making a difference: FEDRA or the Fireflies. Ellie takes back everything Kwong said when she learns that Kwong has assigned sewage duty to Riley.
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