This is legit just Rant don't expect this to be structured or smth 

If u have no clue on what The Last of Us even is then thisll probably make no sense to you lol

Potential spoilers for season 2 and a lot of cursing sorry

So since The Last of Us season 1 came out, the adaptation of the very popular video game “The last of us” for anyone who doesn't know, people have been discussing the casting of the characters in Season 2, which adapted the second The Last of Us Video game and the first episode came out like a week ago or so. 

Now, why is this casting so controversial? So for anyone who knows how Bella Ramsey looks like (maybe i'll add a picture idfc look her up) you'll know she looks VERY youthful, kinda has that whole baby face thing going on, kinda like Tom Holland, even though she's 21. Of course, none of that is her fault or in any way hinders her from being a great actress but her casting was already heavily chewed over in The Last of Us season 1 so i'll talk about that first. In my opinion, Bella Ramsey did an amazing job playing Ellie in The first season, she totally nailed her mannerisms and speech and overall really hammered down her performance as Eliie ( as do most Actors playing their assigned Rolls, seriously the acting and performances are great in that season) BUT that was not the main reason why people were about about her casting as Ellie because she apparently “doesn’t look the part”. ?????????. Now, i understand that as a fan of a very popular video game you of course want your characters to look the way they do in the video game, i could maybe get behind people being a little bit upset that Sarah was race-swapped BUT she doesnt appear that often in game or in the show and literally who gives a flying shit about race-swapping??? People who are genuinely upset with characters being race-swapped when their ethnicity or the topic of “race” isn’t the core theme of the overarching story/plot or a titular part of their character need to get a fucking grip. Who tf gives a shit if Sarah is white or non white, it literally changes NOTHING about her character or the role she plays in the story. Just like nobody should care that Pedro Pascal plays Joel because once again, race-swapping a character like Joel, Sarah etc doesn't change anything about their character in the story and did in no way keep them from delivering a convincing and captivating performance. Now all that aside, Ellie was not race-swapped in the adaptation but people were still mad about her being portrayed by Bella Ramsey and for what reason? She wasn’t “accurate enough” or she wasn't “pretty enough”. ????????????.First of all, I have to preface for the people being mad, like gen9nley UPSET, that a FICTIONAL 14 YEAR OLD isn't hot enough in your live action adaptation need their harddrives checked because that is borderline fucking pedophilic to say. Second of all, of course the actors don't look like the face models in the game, they aren't the same goddamn actor. Do people seriously expect someone to find an actor who looks exactly like the character in game and also happens to be a good actor because sorry, you can't compare cosplayers to actual actors. In my opinion, an actor’s performance, their ability to embody a character through speech, mannerisms, and overall acting skill, matters more than simply resembling the character physically. Yeah you could have someone who looks 1 to 1 like the character from the book, video game, etc but if their acting is shit, then the performance overall is shit, portraying a character doesn't just mean looking the part, but also being able to encapsulate the character personality wise. What's even more frustrating is that Bella Ramsey as Ellie in season 1 looks legitimately so much like Eliie from the video game, I would even say that she is one of the best casted on physical basis, which makes it even more upsetting because clearly people are being nitpicky. 

So in conclusion to Ellie in season 1, people are nitpicky, she did a great job portraying Ellie looks wise as well as personality wise, u can't expect a real human being to look like a video game character, my case is closed.

Now, Ellie in season 2 however, is a different story. There is a time skip between the two games and therefore the two seasons, in the first season Ellie is 14 and in the second season she is now 19, which is a big 5 year time skip. I have only watched the first episode of the second season and I must say, Bella Ramsey still has to fully convince me with her portrayal as 19 year old Ellie. Since i mentioned she does have a very youthful face wich makes her look fairly younger than her actual age, it is hard for me to believe that the character she is portraying in season 2 is supposed to be 19 years old, personally i could buy her being 16-17 in the second season by Bella Ramsay's physical appearance but any age over that i find hard to believe. Especially because she still has that kind of teen-voice that she used for Ellie in the first season, she basically sounds almost the same to 14 year old Ellie, I feel she could have maybe tried to put in the effort to maybe deepen her voice or make it less teenagery sounding. But in a few small scenes she does look older like in the party scene near the end of episode 1 where her muscles when she rolled up her sleeves and her tied back hair makes her look older, but still her overall appearance doesn't convince me that the character she is portraying is at the age of 19. Of course it is easier to age up a video game character than an actual person and if they recast an older Ellie as somebody different that could be weird because it's not the same actor as the previous season which could make her aging look even more inconsistent. They maybe could have made Bella look a bit older with makeup but that is also hard to do.

Secondly, people have the issue that Bella Ramsey might not be fitting for Ellie in the second season because she won't be able to look menacing enough. I do think the fact that she looks so young may hinder her being able to portray the vicious and rampaging Ellie we know from the second game, but since many have only seen the first episode of the second season, since i think only one episode is out yet maybe the second is out, we can't be sure of that yet. I’m still giving Bella Ramsey a fair chance to convince me of her portrayal of Ellie in season 2 as they both differ a lot from each other in the video game. Maybe I'll get used to her over the next episodes but we've only seen so much yet. I am assuming, since I haven't watched the second episode and Joel's Death hasn’t occurred in the show yet and we haven't seen much of Abby, that the next episode will be more about Abby and maybe Joel's death will be at the end of the second episode or in the third episode, which will let us see how Abby looks like after the time skip and depending on if they portray her accurately or not i will probably talk about that as well because if they don't give Abby the same physique that she has in the video game, which DOES play an important part of her backstory and character as well as effects the story, i will have something to say😾