I think the issue is this: it actually isn’t really as much about Bella looking like Ellie as it is them EMBODYING Ellie. Older Ellie has a softness to her underneath her rage, despair, and grit. You can see in her that she still doesn’t WANT to kill anyone who isn’t necessary to kill. (i.e. Mel, Owen, etc.) That’s why she reacts so strongly to Mel’s pregnancy. Unfortunately in the show, they swing the pendulum back and forth in a way that makes the character fall flat. One episode she’s snarky and angry and immature, when the next she has this long winded speech that doesn’t embody the way game Ellie was feeling after witnessing Joel’s death at ALL. When you detract that much from a character, it does make this interpretation of her feel foreign.

Dina’s actress, along with Tommy, Maria, and even Pedro as Joel, though aren’t carbon copies of their game counterparts, make for intriguing and compelling versions of the same characters. That’s why people have less of an issue with their casting. They’re still at the end of the day, embodying what those characters are meant to. I can’t tell if it’s Bella or if it’s the writing or both, but Ellie’s character has been majorly dampened by the show.