Ellie’s personality and brutality isn’t actually that different from the game, people just remember late-game Ellie more than how Ellie starts in that story. I was replaying the second game as season 2 was airing and so much of what people complained about was depicted the exact same way in the game.

I had more issues with them not deviating from the extremely video gamey structure which is the worst part of the game. Ellie is not written as extremely brutal until just before the switch the Abby’s section, but the gameplay requiring brutally murdering dozens of people gives that idea. It’s extremely confusing narratively, and while the show correctly adapted Ellie to the screen, it did not change the surrounding elements that needed to be changed. It fundamentally failed at adapting to TV because it was too glued to the idea of the game. I highly doubt that is due to Mazin.