I don't think any of this is an issue personally. All games like this require suspension of disbelief. Unless a game like this we're to constantly shift between a tonne of protagonists as each one dies in a believable way, it's going to feel inconsistent at some point due to the simple nature of it being a video game.
This also doesn't really have much to do with the specific points I brought up above.
Now, a game that actually does shift between say a dozen protagonists as each one dies in a variety of ways from heroic deaths to freak accidents could be really cool.
Other games aren't trying to be realistic(at least to the same extent) though and Last of Us is explicitly trying to not be like other games, especially when it comes to violence.
When you stab someone-if you watch reference videos, which we have, it's gross and it's messy it's not sanitized like you see in most movies and games. And we wanted to get the player to feel that.
We definitely wanted this game to feel as grounded as possible," Gross told GamesRadar. "So a lot of research was done by every department, you know, the animators, the art directors, we wanted the violence to feel real so that the trauma could feel authentic.
Even if it wasn't though. Outside of maybe Lev and Ellie being Robin Hood jrs, It's not really a game thing. The stuff I'm talking about is just what the story is and comes from their penchant for violence and general edgy aesthetic tastes. Like I mentioned, we have the show and it still has this over the top stuff in it. Even with them specifically trying to address the videogameeness, especially the action and violence.
But that doesn't exist in a passive medium. One of the things that I loved hearing from [co-creator Craig Mazin] and HBO very early on was, 'Let's take out all the violence except for the very essential.'
They had 2 opportunities to tone down what Joel did at the end of the first with Part 2 and the show and they didn't. This is just what they want the series to be. Which is totally fine(it's a series with mushroom zombies, it can be a little fantastical), but that's not what it's supposed to be.
Why this is relevant to what you said is because the audience wouldn't treat Joel like he's John Wick if the games didn't themselves. Nobody watching Walking Dead goes "bullshit,
Glenn wouldn't have been gotten like that" because the series treats them like a normal person. Where Daryl probably would because he, similarly to Joel, exists in heightened reality. Joel even in the games is mythologized. Look at what Tommy does in Part 2 and even he says he has nightmares about what Joel used to do. Pretty much everybody that knows Joel besides Tess allude to his reputation. He's able to find Ellie after she gets abducted by David in like 20 minutes because he's torture Sherlock.
Neil's description of Abby and her friends feeling's in the scene with Joel is they think he's literally the devil and all just stand and stare at him when he says his name because they're frozen with fear. Because of course they would, he left hallways filled with bodies and blood. You can't jump from that to he's just a silly guitar playing old man who's lost his edge from domestic living and be surprised people wont immediately buy into that. Especially when it doesn't come across.
The moment happens just 2 minutes after Joel does the action movie thing of racing into the World War Z zombie horde on horseback to rescue Abby.
Like imagine if we got the trailer version of the game where Joel and Ellie go out for one last adventure to get revenge on whomever and Joel is just as much of a murder machine as the first. Would your immediate reaction be thinking it's unrealistic and there's no way Joel could still be this good? If not, then you can't expect others to feel the opposite , right?
Don't get me wrong , a lot people would still whine about it. Largely for stupid and misogynistic reasons. But there wouldn't be as much, "Joel would never" if they showed a bit more restraint.
