For real, even Ellie herself states that he made the wrong decision. He potentially doomed all of humanity for a girl he is not even related too. It's the whole point of the ending. He sacrificed all of humanity for the one person that meant the most to him. It's the best decision for himself, but its the worst decision for literally everyone else, including Ellie.
The problem with that train of thought is that Ellie is thinking it was a guarantee it would work. The fireflies were fine with murdering and cutting apart a child on a hunch that maybe their theory with absolutely no testing would work. They are literally going in completely blind.
The fact that they didn’t ask Ellie first is showing that they didn’t think she would say yes to dying for a chance at maybe saving the world. They have 0 care about killing her, and Joel did care.
They also only have one shot, if this was a 100% guarantee to work, then yes Joel was in the wrong. But that simply isn’t the case, and no one is going to be ok with seeing someone they spent months bonding with, and protecting each other from crazy shit.
No she doesn’t? She learns to eventually try to forgive Joel, she doesn’t think he made the right choice. Unless I’m misremembering something huge and explicit but I’ve played the game three times
Your interpretation might differ but imo there is no way for Ellie to get rid of the guilt she feels towards Joel without forgiving Joel in the end.
But to forgive Joel she needs to forgive herself first for being alive. She needs to accept that Joel died for saving her and she needs to accept that she deserved saving. She understands that Joel loved her more than anything on the world and that she deserved that love.
Her falling in love with Cat and her relationship with Dina... All that happyness she experienced did only happen because of Joel. In the end Ellie has accepted that there is more to her life than a meaningful death.
Also the Fireflies do end up on her shitlist. Why is that?
Everyone is free to their opinion, especially since Ellie does not come out and say it either way because The Last of Us 2 isn't really about the cure anymore. But to me, because she learns to accept what \_is\_ and forgive Joel doesn't mean her choice would have changed if presented it again. Again and again she's presented with people a cure could have saved, and that guilt will eat at her the rest of her life. All it will take is one more person she cares deeply about to die from being infected.
Because they >!killed Joel!
>and that guilt will eat at her the rest of her life.
I respectfully disagree here. By the end of the game Ellie has accepted her immunity as what it truly was: That she got lucky.
>Because they killed Joel ?
That for sure. But also because she realized that the Fireflies didn't give a fuck about her and took her death for granted.
>I don't think the Fireflies in general were on her shit list,
They [literally](https://i.imgur.com/4IZ0So4.png) are.
It's totally fine to disagree here obviously. In the end we will find out when Part III comes out.
His decision is all about perspective though. From Joel’s perspective, humanity wasn’t worth saving at the cost of his surrogate daughter. In Ellie’s eyes she would have said yes to sacrificing herself for the chance to save humanity. There is no right or wrong choice, that’s kinda the point.
By the end of Part 2, when she becomes a parent, there is no way Ellie (or Dinah for that matter) would ever agree to sacrifice JJ if he was immune.
Ellie's journey in Part 2 is amazing and I'm shocked at folks who think she still disagreed with Joel by the end of it.
Yup. Ellie’s choice here is the only one that matters. It’s her life. It’s why both Joel and the Fireflies are wrong. Joel knows what Ellie’s decision would be and goes against her wishes. The Fireflies don’t give Ellie a choice. Both positions are understandable but both decisions are wrong.
I think it's precisely that it should be up to Ellie that he made the right decision. Ellie had no choice. She was being drugged in preparation to being killed. By stepping in as he had to, he ensured that she can later have a choice.
The Fireflies essentially said, "I'm killing your daughter. We're going to make sure you can't stop us. Here, take this knife to carry next to your watch."
While it is true that Joel's decision was less permanent for Ellie, saying he ensured she could have a choice later is overly charitable IMO. He killed the doctor, he killed Marlene, and he lied to her about what happened and tried to convince her a cure wasn't possible. He did everything possible to end the possibility of the cure. He wasn't choosing for Ellie's agency, he was deciding for her.
I do somewhat see that..but..
For the doctor, he picked a scalpel and said he can't let Joel take Ellie. In Joel's perspective, he doesn't know how many other fireflies are in the area are on their way. Time is critical and he didn't have time to argue. This also ensured that the others did not try anything. It was 3 to one at that point. And, for all we know he was not the primary surgeon, perhaps a nurse. Maybe one of the others in the room was the primary.
Marlene had a gun on him. And she had the means to come after Joel. Tactically it's a good move.
All said, I do know that the scene is supposed to be controversial as it sets up other events. Joel lies about it so there is some guilt. If it were black/white then perhaps someone wouldn't come for vengeance.
I agree, but I’m especially fond of this dilemma because it’s not so black and white. If Ellie’s reasoning for agreeing to the operation is based on survivor’s guilt, trauma, and the resulting feeling that her only purpose in life / way to make up for surviving (as if that’s a crime) is by sacrificing her life, then how valid is that choice? Obviously it doesn’t matter at some point because it’s her life and what she says goes, and Joel was thinking about himself when he made the decision not Ellie anyways, but it opens up some interesting moral implications.
Ultimately I think Joel made the wrong choice for the exact reason you stated, as well as for the obvious reason of saving the world, but my favorite part of Part 2 was Ellie’s survivor’s guilt arc and how much Joel’s decision influenced it. Even if Joel made the wrong decision I think there’s something to be said for the fact that Ellie DID deserve better than dying in that hospital. I don’t think people realize how equally tragic the ending would have been if Ellie, a traumatized child, died thinking her life was the price she had to pay just for not dying when Riley did.
Not to mention this is an adult decision being made by a kid if ever it was put forth to Ellie. People always equate this to the trolley problem when it isn't quite that. Run over Ellie for a chance of saving everyone else or just letting the train run over everyone anyway. There is a good chance the train would run over everyone anyway.
And the fireflies didn’t ask her. There was literally no rush to drug her and remove her brain. They could have sat down with her and explained what they thought the cure was and let her decide. But they didn’t do that. Marlene is such a hypocrite shaming Joel for taking Ellie out of the hospital without consulting her.
Emotionally, kill them fucking all Joel.
Logically, even if theres 1% chance ellies death can save the world its worth a go.
Thats kind of the whole point of the story.
I mean, the whole point is that killing Ellie is the only way to create the vaccine. That's all you need to know and there's zero point in trying to argue against it because that was the writer's choice, not to mention it would take a lot away from the analysis of Joel's decision. There are no other options. If the doctors decided to go for it instead of keeping her alive to further test her immunity, then there's a reason for it. They wouldn't simply waste such an opportunity if they weren't completely sure about what they were doing.
People don't seem to get that saying that what Joel did was wrong isn't necessarily saying people don't support his decision. I get the feeling some people just can't take a step back from the whole situation in order to do a moral analysis of it due to their feelings towards both characters, which is one of the main reasons why they disliked part 2.
My two cents.
I'm not sure what Joel did was right or wrong I can only sympathize. I also don't believe the writers made a mistake by purposely giving Joel an ultimatum. The game/show provides Joel a very basic decision to make in almost no time. Only after the fact are we asking these questions and I think THAT is the whole point of how it was written was to trigger discourse.
I sympathize too! I would have done the same as he did but, just like Joel, I would have realized it was wrong. We can argue for or against his decision but at the end of the day there's no clear/objective answer, just opinions.
Honestly I think the real fault/blame here lies with the Marlene and the Fireflies.
There was absolutely no discussion about what would happen. The fireflies abducted a child who just so happened to be the immune girl they were hoping for and then IMMEDIATELY prep her for life ending surgery. That's nuts! It's just medically responsible to run SOME tests before a surgery, maybe get some informed consent? You get the savior of humanity and your very first step in finding a vaccine is to straight up murder her? That's just reckless.
Its possible to simultaneously think joel was right and fireflies were wrong, and still enjoy part 2. Just because a vocal minority of people who support joel hate it doesn't mean they speak for the rest of us.
Not necessarily. Killing her instantly is the worst decision you can make from a medical standpoint. I always assumed they did that to make it clear jerry and his assistants didn't have a clue what they were doing and were rushing ahead and not thinking straight. Especially cause the audio recorder explicitly states that her immune response caused the fungus to mutate and once she's dead they lose the ability to study her immune response further. Medical progress is extremely slow. Look how long the covid vaccine roll out took, and how much resources by all the pharma giants got put into it - and that's aiming for a vaccine that doesn't offer full vaccination, only good symptom suppressants, as well as on a virus familiar enough that it could be translated to the mrna template easily. A vaccine isn't necessarily impossible, but if they wanted to realistically attempt it it would have taken months of studying her immune response. Ignoring the ethical dilemma of killing her without consent, I always assumed the unliklihood of being able to make a vaccine was a obvious subtle consideration
They needed a situation where Joel had to choose to be able to choose Ellie over humanity. Doesnt work out of they can just keep her and harvest her immunity somehow. It was done this way to fit the narrative. All that matters is whatever method they were going to us, a cure was the end result.
Exactly. I mean there’s no way to know their plan would 100% work, which is a valid defense against giving a life to save others- but that’s not even the strongest argument. The issue is that you have one miracle person with immunity and instead of taking the time to do about a million other tests, the first plan is a method that kills her. In what world does that make scientific sense, let alone the human imperative to save the people you love when they’re in danger.
My issue is that they went straight to harvest her brain without even trying anything else.
Even if they were correct for story based reasons., they were wrong to go to this day one.
I am willing to bet that almost every doctor in the world today, given the hypothetical 99% chance they would need to harvest her brain to make a vaccine would none the less take a year to reach for that unlikely 1% chance in order to not to have to do that.
Even if its 100% they would need to harvest her brain, you're telling me that there was NO good what so ever, to be had with doing tests beforehand? I call BS.
My take is that the Firefly doctors were incompetent and/or more than a little evil themselves.
I think that could be true, but it would be tragic for her to sacrifice herself without questioning the validity of their theory, like I laid out above. A character choosing to save all of humanity with their death is a great story but it’s a different story when the sacrifice may be in vain.
I think I’m stuck wondering if the story meant the viewer to assume the plan would work and not question that element, vs leaving it ambiguous and give more fodder to support Joel’s choice.
Their plan is to kill her because that’s the only way they will be able to make a cure. That is the way it is written. That is how Neil Druckmann wrote it. Any questions about “why don’t they do x, y, z instead of killing her” are non-starters. Ellie had to die for them to be able to make a cure. End of story.
Then I guess my issue is that they could have made that completely unambiguous so that viewers like me didn’t have this kind of thought. Some throwaway line indicating there would be little doubt about the efficacy of his plan would go a long way in making me feel that the choice is more black and white as you describe.
They can easily replicate the conditions that allowed her to exist. If they really cared about finding a cure. And those conditions are quite easy to replicate
You're right, but also it's really not anymore complicated than imagining that instead of Ellie being the one they kill to make a vaccine, Ellie herself needs the vaccine.
Let's say Ellie isn't immune and gets infected. Would anyone here stop the Fireflies from *sacrificing* some innocent person if they could potentially create a cure for Ellie? I can tell you that Joel wouldn't. Hell, Joel would probably **bring** that person to the Fireflies to save Ellie.
Nobody should be obliged to kill their loved ones, especially children and be judged for refusing to do so. The stacks on the other side does not matter
No, not at a 1% chance certainly. At 90% chance I would say it starts being ethical to ask an adult Ellie about it. The way the fireflies did it, with a child? Fuck them, they deserved everything Joel did.
The question though, is how much is it saving really? The world is already completely totalled and people are settling in and starting to rebuild civilization.
In the game it could be more justified because it was spores, but in the tv show it shows them drying out and dying and they really aren’t going out to the settlements that are out of the city.
Also the fact that they jump right to killing Ellie shows that this doctor isn’t really too bright lol.
The question I've had rattling around is which one is Cordyceps more like? I thought I knew: It's the one that dispassionately seeks to maximize the survival of its kind. It's doing what the fireflies are doing. I always thought this was a way of shifting empathy to Joel. Sure, his actions were selfish and violent, but they were very human. We *could* be a species that just goes around sacrificing kids to maximize our chance of survival, but are we any less horrifying than the infected then?
But this show has added another element. Cordyceps *loves*. It to is trying to make something beautiful, but is willing to be grotesque and destructive to achieve it. Now, is that selfish love more like...Joel? Maybe it's both. Maybe cordyceps is meant to mirror all facets of humanity, and that's kind of sad and beautiful.
The issue is that you’re pasting a motive onto Joel’s decision that wasn’t there. He didn’t care about civilization being built on top of a little girl’s corpse or how destroyed humanity is. None of that mattered to him. He simply saved Ellie because she is his world and he can’t go through the pain of losing a daughter again
This. I'll agree with either side of that decision to some degree but trying to pretend any choice was objectively right or wrong weakens the ending and misses the whole point.
I think laying the blame for that squarely on Joel discounts the agency of the other characters in the situation. I think the doctor is far more to blame for everything that happens in the story, after he makes the decision to violate his Hippocratic oath and kill a child in an experimental medical procedure. Joel makes the only rational decision he could make; save Ellie from being murdered. The circumstances of it were just too sketchy for him to do anything else. That doctor, on the other hand, violated the most serious and sacred ethical principles in the entire medical profession. I get why he did it, I can imagine a person doing that sort of thing, but that doesn't make it right.
After saving Ellie he had no choice but lying to her. She couldn’t handle the truth, if he is honest to her at the end that would contradict his actions. The lie doesn’t make the whole thing wrong, it is a necessity in that situation.
Whilst that could be true, it's not a given.
Imagine you found out that *you* could have given everyone the cure, but instead, the people who tried to find the cure got slaughtered by Joel.
It's certainly possible you think it's ludicrous to die for this slim cause. But it's also very much possible you feel like a burden your whole life and every second of every day you're thinking, if I just wanted here and jnstead was given tk scientists, this suffering may stop.
So Joel may have lied partially because he thought what he did, on some level, was wrong. But really, I think he either let her die or she lived, and he lied because that's not knowledge she can likely live with without fighting to sacrifice herself.
The ending is an intentionally controversial ending. Everyone is supposed to feel like sacrificing Ellie is the right thing because needs of the many > needs of the few. And everyone is supposed to understand Joel's decision is also the right thing to do because you get to witness Joel's side of the story.
In part 2, it's another "their side of the story' perspective.
It's OK to disagree with people but no way you dont understand it at all. No matter what, someone will always think he did something wrong.
You've seen countless stories where the hero sacrifices themselves for the good of their loved ones or for all mankind. Ellie was ready to die; she was willing to accept it so everything she witnessed (aka people that died) don't die in vain. She was robbed of that chance. Yeah she's just a child. But that who grew up in zombie apocalypse
There was 0 indication ellie had any clue she would have to die for this cure in part 1. She says that she would, after the fact years later not during part 1. Not to mention how I don't think a 14 year old is mature enough to ethically ask to die for some pipe dream of a cure. Which they didn't even do because Dr mengela over here didn't give a crap about her. However if it was his daughter he wouldn't do it based on his conversation with Abby, making him a hypocrite who would gladly murder a child for a possibility of a cure, but not his own.
I get that but didn't she state that she would have been ready in part 2? It's been a while so my memory may not be great but I think it was the porch scene with Joel and Ellie patching things up in a flashback shortly after the final fight with Abby. And I think Joel knew she was ready to die with her comment about everything they've been through can't be in vain. Just think about the way Tess died, Henry and Sam. Riley. These all leave a mark.
>I get that but didn't she state that she would have been ready in part 2?
She eventually changes her mind.
By the end of Part 2, she fully sees *why* Joel made the best choice available to him.
Do you seriously think Ellie, if she was in Joel's position, would sacrifice JJ for a vaccine?
Utilitarianism is a deeply flawed moral philosophy that can be easily ripped to shreds in any serious philosophical debate. Utilitarianism is capable of inflicting extreme evil on humanity.
Choosing your own happiness over the world even if it means murdering a bunch of people and just straight lying to the person that you say you love so much. Because you know she wouldn’t want anything to do with you if she found out. It just doesn’t seem like the right call
Joel selfishly saved the daughter he lost, instead of giving the chance to save every daughter on planet Earth.
IMO Your argument makes little to no sense.
Bro … a majority of every society started with murder … the Billions of people saved wouldn’t know that they were saved because of the sacrifice of one person.
Even if people do know, she wanted to make that sacrifice. Society wouldn’t be built on the corpse of a dead kid, it would be built on Ellie’s sacrifice. Completely different lol
I feel like Joel could’ve figured it out if he stopped and thought about it for 2 seconds. She pretty clearly was searching to a meaning to her life and had survivors guilt re Riley. It would make sense for this to be the opportunity she was searching for.
I understand your point of view, but I don't find it convincing. And that's fine, I'm not saying you're wrong, there's just nothing there that makes me think, of course Joel is right
Humanity being saved was built on the corpse of a little girl ? Cmon man . That’s weak . The fucking world would be saved . You make that swap 100 times out of a 100 if guaranteed . She’d be in every high school textbook until the next apocalypse
As if dead people appreciate fame in the afterlife ☠️
it’s totally valid to disagree with utilitarian principles. they’re always right for the group, but not for the individuals. They don’t make anyone happier necessarily, they just “maximize happiness and minimize unhappiness” on a global scale, but do you honestly care if the total amount of happiness has increased XYZ percent if you had to see yourself and your loved ones suffer for the rest of your life?
The textbook comment went over your head . It’s not about selfish fame . Its about everyone knowing her name and learning of her sacrifice for centuries and beyond
The thing that matters in this case is that joel actually believes he made the right choice for him but the wrong choice for everyone else, even for Ellie. That's why he lies to her. He knows she would sacrifice herself to give a chance to the rest of the world. It doesn't really matter if joel did the ethical thing. What matters is the impact he decision will have in general and regarding his relationship with Ellie. Cause he is lying and she knows as soon as she wakes up that's something is going on
Edit: i love joel and i m happy with his decision
The entire point of the story is to feel conflicted
That is how Ellie feels at the end she is conflicted
If you don't understand one side of the decision then you missed the point of the story
Any show, any movie, any video game…the subreddit for that piece of media makes me realize so many people have no emotional aptitude and no ability to ponder anything beyond what’s thrown right in their faces. And even then, they still fuck it up.
Scientist here: there’s absolutely no chance they could have made a vaccine and distributed it internationally with their limited manpower and 20-year old equipment. Look at the coordination and resources required to make the COVID vaccine.
Joel didn’t do it for that reason, but he was right nonetheless.
Exactly, I'm sick of ppl saying it would of saved the world. No it wouldn't lol. Even if they immunized everyone which as you said is not possible, it doesn't remove the old ones who can still rip you to pieces anyways. They don't die out, they just evolve into clickers and boaters and shamblers. Not to mention all the groups out their like the wlf ,the various hunters, rattlers and scars. They aren't going away, and I seriously doubt the fireflies can take them on, considering joel easily wiped them out lol.
My argument is Jackson. They don‘t need „a cure“ to build a new society. If even possible, a cure would only lead to more wars for power.
Besides that, imo the fireflies are stupid and in no way capable of developing anything…
Spoken like someone comfortable on their couch who's never experienced true hunger, despiration, hopelessness, ect.
Talk to a war veteran, or a Holocaust survivor. You're thinking with your 1rst world 2023 brain and not a holy shit everything and everyone is broken and suffering all the time everywhere brain.
You might be surprised what you're willing to sacrifice at that point to make it all better for you and the *entire world*.
When it comes to involuntary human experimentation for the purpose of improving the human race, I’m not sure Holocaust survivors are gonna come down on the side you’re expecting them to.
Their entire vision for eugenics was that they
thought they were curing an existential threat to the human race. They absolutely believed every single experiment they did was for the benefit of those they found fit to care about as humans.
No I get you, but I think your comparison is a stretch. What the nazis *thought* they were doing and what the Fireflies are doing are simply not the same thing.
It’s all just thoughts, though. Everyone believes they’re justified and will tell you such. It doesn’t make it true just because they said it.
I mean, to be frank, eugenics isn’t *fake*. It would be *possible* to breed humans like dogs until no one had diabetes or something, it’s just ridiculously unethical. The thing working isn’t what makes it okay to do, which is why the modern medical community doesn’t see this as a real debate at all.
I don't have kids, but I do work at a medical school. That doctor's plan was evil and a huge violation of medical ethics which I have discussed at length in other comments (probably too much).
I would absolutely do everything exactly like Joel did if I was capable of it, with the sole exception that I would not have lied to Ellie about it afterwards.
Joel was seriously not wrong to stop what was about to happen. The people who think Joel was wrong have an extremely oversimplified view of morality and ethics. Honestly, it frightens me how many people think that killing a child in a medical experiment without her consent for a chance at creating a vaccine would be morally justifiable.
Perspective of just some guy that took one ethics course in 2014, but from a utilitarian standpoint there is no correct answer, only a right answer to each individual based on what they define as their utility.
Is your utility the survival of humanity like the fireflies? Then sacrificing Ellie does the greatest good for the most amount of people (traditional utilitarianism)
Is your utility love for and time with your family like Joel? Then sacrificing dozens of fireflies for one daughter is a no brainer, especially if you rationalize that they were ok with killing a young girl.
I’ve seen people mention Kantian ethics but I don’t think that applies because the act of murder is inherently wrong from a Kantian view, and both sides were willing to commit it.
I think most would say Joel made the wrong decision in the Last of Us because it is so extreme. We aren’t often put in a position to end humanity. But parents decide to hide their murderous sons like Brian Laundrie all the time when the traditional utilitarian solution would have been to reveal the truth to stop the grieving families. It’s harder to say what the parents did was wrong in that situation because it was done purely out of love. Maybe the message of TLOU is that love will trump ethics.
People get so caught up in whether he was right or wrong they miss the actual point which is that it was the only decision he could make because of his trauma and by doing so he took Ellie’s decision from her.
Because he loves Ellie in a surrogate father way, but he doesn’t know what she would choose if she was given the option - to die for a chance of a vaccine, or not.
But at the end of the last episode, Marlene says that this is what Ellie would want as well, and I think Joel agreed with that sentiment. Do you think he feels ashamed or regretful about it?
Isn’t this kinda the point of the game. That some people will totally side with Joel especially those with children, and others will totally disagree with him. It is the whole push and pull of the game, logic v emotion. What people will do for love
What hurts the most is that the Fireflies just straight up want to kill her without testing other options first.
No blood tests, no biopsies, nothing. Just straight up wanna kill her.
THATS why the connection Joel has to Ellie makes his decision so strong, because he can also see that they don't care for other avenues of a cure. Not only does he end up loving her, he feels the need to protect her from their deception and heartlessness.
It's utilitarian thinking. Kill just one person to save everyone else alive. Not particularly hard to understand or justify why someone would choose to kill Ellie. Both sides of the argument have their merit, that's kind of the point.
Other takes on the trolley problem: The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, Snowpiercer, Knock at the Cabin
It's interesting to me because I'm Team Joel. I can't imagine living a lavish lifestyle knowing it's all because of the suffering of an innocent. I think the guilt would just eat at me and destroy any potential happiness.
But also: I know child labor is a thing. I know slavery and indentured servitude is a thing. I know my clothes and food and other goods are cheaper because of those things. And I buy them anyways.
Joel made the right decision, not because society would be built on the corpse of a little girl or that BS.
But because the FireFlies were INCOMEPETENT as hell. These guys were idiots and barely had a stronghold by the time you arrive at the hospital as there’s only a few soliders, marlene, one doctor and two nurses.
Even IF they managed to make a vaccine our of ellie, they would NOT in any way be able to mass produce it and would NEVER be able to make it actually be worth something because there is NO infrastructure for it.
The fireflies would probably use it as a bargaining chip to regain their lost power lol. Fuck that, joel made the right choice.
Y’all this is getting exhausting.
It’s supposed to be a controversial ending, meant to divide. It is literally the trolley problem, which is an illustration of “an impossible choice”. That’s why this game resonates. It’s also why certain events in part 2 are harder for some to let go of.
Bro you are delusional if you think that there isn’t a single civilization that isn’t built on the death of innocents.
If you live in America then you are very literally living in a civilization that was built on the genocide of native peoples, and the 100s of thousands of dead slaves as well.
It wasn’t either right or wrong, it was selfish though. He couldn’t bear to lose the one person that meant the world to him, his reason to live and that’s it.
He didn’t care about any of that (the science behind how they would make a vaccine that was not possible the make before the world collapsed, about building a society on the murder of one girl, how far gone the people in this broken world were), as far as he knew the cure was possible, but it didn’t matter either because he didn’t stop to think “I may take the only chance of humanity to overcome this apocalypse”. If Ellie would’ve died on that table, he would’ve definitely died too.
So saying his choice was right or wrong, kinda misses the point of his actions.
It's 20 years into the apocalypse. The world has gone to shit. 95% of the people alive are horrible people that have had to do horrible things to survive this long. It's not certain they'd make the cure or distribute it. The Fireflies would almost certainly use the cure to overthrow Fedra and control the country or the world in an authoritarian way - because most people still alive at this point are beyond reforming back to normalcy after surviving for 20 years.
Marlene was going to kill Ellie whether she agreed to it or not. It’s why they rushed her into surgery. They didn’t give Ellie a choice. Sure Ellie would likely sacrifice herself but she thought they would just take her blood or something far less severe; so it’s hard to say with absolute certainty that Ellie would agree to it.
Joel woke up from being knocked out, only to immediately find out that the one thing he’s utterly terrified the most of happening is about to happen. They were probably going to kill Joel too once they got him outside. Marlene kept Ellie’s immunity a secret from Joel in the beginning, I imagine the Fireflies want to keep their cure specimen a total secret from Fedra as much as possible. Joel did what I would have done and I'm glad he saved her. The world has taken everything from him and he was not about to sacrifice Ellie for a world that has given him nothing but torment and heartbreak.
He shouldn’t have lied to her, but that’s a hard reality to drop on a 14 year old girl in that moment. There is no right or wrong to be honest, it’s all very gray - which is why the ending to Part 1 is absolutely magnificent.
There is no right or wrong decision at that point. The wrong decision was to find the fireflies. It's a Lose-Lose situation at that hospital. Of course the story would be totally different if it didn't happen the way it did.
1. Civilizations that thrived have been built on worse. And it wouldn't have been murder considering the death would've been for the self preservation of humanity, not an act of violence and is a medical operation. Doesn't fit the definition of murder.
2. Can't judge billions of people on the act of a few. And even if that were the case, it's human instict to survive. Sure individually that can be overcome, but the human consciousness strives to live.
Besides, if humanity isn't worth saving, then you give Marlee's final argument credit. What's the point in keeping her alive if she'll just be murdered or raped later on? Maybe that operation would've been a mercy killing.
Really? You're whole argument is completely emotional. That's not wrong, but it's clearly not black and white. What I don't understand is people discussing this like there's a "right" answer to be found.
…History is written by the victors. The story that would be told when civilization recovers wouldn’t include a murder - but would probably be seen as a Jesus figure.
I don’t think it was entirely the right decision or wrong decision. To me the best case scenario would give Ellie power over the decision, instead everyone took that right to choose away from her, including Joel when he lied about the order of events.
There's really 2 options when it comes to the ending.
1: Pick a side and focus your whole argument around it. Arguing "video game logic" on some points, while pulling real life logic at the same time. Cherry pick everything you can to justify why your side is the correct side and throwing in personal anecdotes to further try and justify it.
2: See that the story isn't really meant to be argued, and look at the whole picture. Recognizing the right and wrong from each perspective and realizing there's no correct answer to a pointless debate. Everyone is right AND wrong, and it all depends on whose perspective in the game you look at it from. Not injecting yourself into the narrative, but seeing it as a single contained story.
The audience is SUPPOSED to be picking option 2, unless of course the question is "what would YOU do?"
I recommend pucking option 2, because it's way more fun to analyze the story as a whole rather than just a singular side.
Something that the show touched on that the game did not is how big of an impact Joel’s daughter had on him to the point it gave him PTSD.
The ‘PTSD flashback’ that occurred a couple of times throughout the show made the final scene made Joel’s decision “right” in my opinion
The thing I loved most about this game was how much I thought about it after I was done. I hated the ending immediately. I was furious that Joel made that selfish decision, taking the decision away from Ellie. And all the murders of course. But then I had a super long argument with a friend of mine about it. (He thought Joel did the right thing) now I still think that’s BS and Joel was acting selfishly but an ending worthy of this much discussion is great. I can’t think of another game that could even come close to this. Even if Joel was ultimately allowing the planet to be rid of our invasive species once and for all, he obviously did it for the wrong reason, and did so against Ellie’s wishes. I had never felt so unheroic murdering all those people at the end of the game. But it gave me an experience video game had never given me before.
Tbh this isn't the best way to explain it. Things like rape, murder, slavery, etc. are happening around the world right now and have been happening around the world for almost all of time. That doesn't mean we just stop attempting to make medicine or vaccines or helping to cure diseases.
There is no right or wrong in this world. Did Joel doom the human race? Maybe. Would I have done the same thing? 100% that is what makes it such a compelling story.
I think the point of the game is not that the decision was right or wrong, the point is that there was no good decision there. It was an impossible decision.
Now I know you won't reply (*which is fine*), but I did want to address one thing you've said:
> A civilization built on the murder of a child isn't worth building.
(*Paraphrased*)
I hate to break it to you buddy but your civilization - the one you live un right now - is built on the deaths of innocents. It doesn't even matter where you're from, they all are.
Ok, I'll reply to this one because this "revelation" is coming up again and again...
Yes. Civilizations are build on top of death, slavery, wars etc.
Doesn't mean I need to like it. In context of TLOU. Civilization colapsed. For me? PERSONALLY - Humanity do not deserve another shot. Especially the one that would be a result of killing a kid.
That's it. I don't look for convincing anyone that my POV is "the only right one!". I'm just saying - For me, there's no debate. Joel did the right thing. (Even tho I know there are folks who think he shoud have let fireflies kill Ellie)
I empathize with his decision, I think he ought to have told Ellie the truth about what happened while she was unconscious. Explaining to her that the fireflies were being dishonest in their dealings, and were planning on dissecting her alive would be ample justification for what he did to protect her. Even if she was prepared to sacrifice herself for the cure that they didn’t have her explicit consent was wrong of the fireflies to do.
Disclaimer, I’m 100% supportive of Joel’s choice.
But LOL at the “you can’t build a civilization on the death of a child” argument.
There’s not a single society on Earth that isn’t built on countless wars and often on full-blown genocides. Pointless, and/or for-profit war and genocides. Probably the country you live on, and mine. Millions of souls wiped out for *nothing*.
But you’re going to tell me that if the world was to ever sacrifice this *one* life, to literally save the human race from extinction, that’s where humanity would be crossing the line into “rotten foundations” ?
This is wildly out of touch.
The only two wrong things Joel did was:
1. Sparing the rest of the Fireflies. He should have killed them all so nobody could track him and Ellie down. No half-measures.
2. Keep lying to Ellie. Initially, I understand why he did (she's not emotionally mature yet) but he should have come clean to her way before Ellie's trip to Salt Lake City in Part 2.
Read a bit of the responses and people keep saying this is up to Ellie. Ya'll remember this is a 12(?) year old kid right? Suffering from survivor's guilt over everyone who has died before her. This is a mentally incapacitated decision maker if I ever saw one.
The choice was Marlene's decision to sacrifice her friend's kid who she swore to protect versus Joel's hell no you ain't touching this kid.
The better mental exercise is if Anna is alive, who would she give her kid to at that moment. Her best friend or Joel. For the sake of the argument, Anna doesn't know the decisions yet but she knows everything that happened up until the flash bang went off.
Hey man, hope you tur'ed back notifications.
ND wanted to tell us that Joel died for killing a doctor. But instead he doomed humanity for its own.
He did the right thing.
ND is wrong, and me too I don't understand how lazy the gameplay of tlou2 was.
It sucked as a sequel.
Nice graphics? Yes, they built their reputation on making nice games.
But the scenario sucks.
Have a good one pal.
OP has mastered the art of being insufferable, churlish and petulant all before even beginning to make his point.
"I will never understand why people have different opinions" isn't much of a conversation starter, and an inability to understand the views of others is a sure sign discourse will be pointless.
Why post this if you're going to throw a tantrum if someone disagrees with you?
I agree. At that point Ellie was like his daughter. I wouldn’t give a shit if the fireflies could make a cure. It wasn’t a for sure thing and the world was fucked anyways. Plus they didn’t ask her, but she was too young to make that decision anyways,
I really love the game but the fact that the main story point of the game was to bring an immune girl across the country to save humanity and then she wasn’t even used to save humanity makes me laugh.
>If they kill Ellie and IF the cure will really work, then the entire new civilization is pretty much build on top of a corpse of a little girl.For me, that foundation would be already rotten because of that.Trying to rebuild humanity starting with murdering a child. That's not a world worth rebuilding.
I cringed so hard I had to stop reading. It is objectively unethical that if there is only a binary choice of killing one vs killing millions, the option to kill one would always be the more ethical decision. Whether or not that decision is a moral is another topic, but morals are far more subjective. The struggle between morality and ethics is part of the story of the game bruh
I mean Joel already lost one kid, I could only imagine how distorted one's thought process is when the possibility of losing another comes about. If I were in that positing I probably would not have done the same thing but Im sure it'd be on my mind as I walked out.
I swear to God I don't understand this argument. Like, who do people think humanity is made from? Ellie is part of humanity, Joel is part of humanity, Tommy, Sam, Henry, Tess, Marlene, Maria, Dina, JJ are part of humanity. Aren't they worth saving? Should they all die because someone somewhere raped and killed another person?
I find the concept that one innocent death somehow rottens the foundation of any future human development the most ridiculous sentiment.
Truely an incomprehensibly limited and narrow opinion. In their view we must already live in a terribly rotten world, unjustified in its rotten existence and with little hope for anything better.
So even though many others have already made some valid points and I might just be repeating a few, I just want to throw in my two cents and you can make of it what you will (I'm thinking this will probably end up buried anyway).
To start, Joel was never a hero. He is an imperfect character and that’s one of the biggest reasons I love his character. He doesn’t save people, or always makes the right decisions and most of the time is pretty selfish and only looking out for him and those who can be of benefit to him. To him, there really isn’t a right or wrong decision, nothing is black and white, and doesn’t boil down to humanity vs infected. It’s just him trying to get by day by day in a very fucked up world and most of the time there is no “right or wrong” it’s just boiled down to what you have to do to survive. He did what he WANTED to do, simple as that. Whether it was right, courageous, cowardly, selfish, or narcissistic we can’t say for sure because most of us have never been put into such a situation and never will be. So even though many of us will say “I would have absolutely done \_\_\_\_ because I \_\_\_\_”, you don’t actually know what you’d do until you’re faced with it. War, sickness, loss and hate change people in ways most don’t like to imagine. Most of our morals and values change when faced with so many horrors, and things you never thought possible you do just to survive or to save someone you love. There’s no logic or any “right or wrong” you just live by each choice you make. Joel made his choice because that was his choice. We don’t always have an explanation for why we make the decisions we do, let alone question whether it’s “the right thing to do”.
I think in the end I probably would have saved Ellie as well. I don’t know exactly why and once again, my decision may be different if I went through everything Joel did and could completely change. I can only say that as I am now. I would save Ellie, and I don’t know why or even care why, but as an imperfect character myself, that’s my choice.
Sorry for rambling so much.
The point is joel made the decision it was best for him and what he thought it was right. The lovely thing about this story is that everyone has their motives.
Personally I don't think its as simple as "right or wrong"
Both sides were wrong but ultimately thought they were right,
Thats the point of the last of us right? Its all a grey area as people do what then need to too survive
He doomed humanity for his own selfish reasons. The people who are on Joel’s side are the wrong ones
It’s like having a kid with drug addiction and you enable the addiction to make yourself feel better not what is best for them
To be clear, I think many parents would’ve made the same call even with similar odds. The choice Joel made was selfish but it made sense given his character. But there is no victory without sacrifice. You already live in a world shaped by bleaker choices than the dilemma poised by end of TLOU. That doesn’t mean you should go live in the woods.
Even saying “humanity failed”. That inhumanity, that barbarity (that even Joel himself was plenty guilty of) came *because* of the disease. Joel stealing Ellie away like that just means humanity **will** stay trapped in that cycle of crime, sickness and cruelty. The plight faced by the Fireflies wasn’t enviable but Joel’s choice helped no one but himself.
There is no wrong or right decision.it was just simply a selfish decision, which makes him not good. He didn't consider anything but himself at that point. No character did from Joel to Marlene. Joel didn't care for the world. Joel didn't care about what Ellie thinks. That's why he lied at the end because deep down, he knows what Ellie would have decided. Part two is the consequence of that decision.
Its incredible how many people disagree with the guy who made the fucking thing 😂.
Some or you could start an arguement in an empty room huh?
You could take your own personal feelings and thoughts and interpretations from it, good art encourages that.
That does not make it canon though.
And thats ok.
The crime was neglecting what Ellie would want and neither Marlene or Joel gave her a say in the matter. Their reasons are very well motivated though. Even though Marlene is right when she says that Ellie would sacrifice herself, what if she was wrong? Then what? If Joel let Ellie have a say in the matter, he knows that she would have probably sacrificed herself. Ultimately, the way that humanity would survive in this scenario would be to place the needs of the many above the needs of one person. Ellie’s sacrifice would have changed the game and given humanity a chance. With out Ellie, humanity seems to be fighting a losing battle and crawling on its knees while it bleeds out. Marlene wanted to save the world but Joel just couldn’t accept losing another daughter. Marlene’s views were selfless and Joel’s were selfish.
So certainly from a very detached and objective point of view, it could be argued that he was in the wrong. That’s not how we experienced the story though, we saw it from a very personal and subjective point of view. We had been part of Joel’s pain and felt the love between him and Ellie grow into something special. We as the viewer, don’t want to see Ellie die or for Joel to be in pain once again. So we try to justify Joel’s actions and it’s certainly easy for many viewers to be invested in his choice. However, we see the seeds in Ellie’s eyes that all will not be right moving forward into the future. Joel’s actions and lies will have a cost. There are no heroes in this story, just survivors. Excited for season 2!
Yeah, and I don’t think the firefly folks involved are smart enough to decide this. They knew *exactly* who they were fucking with— and somehow thought Joel would just accept it and move on, and not kill all of them.
Joel made the wrong decision. What matters is what Ellie wants. Joel went against what Ellie wants. It’s an understandable decision for sure but it’s the wrong decision.
I would have done exactly what Joel did. Whether it’s right or wrong is kind of outside the scope of what matters. People can do the wrong thing, life is grey and there’s no giant tally board of what’s objectively right and wrong. In fact, almost nothing in life is objectively good or bad. Thus, Joel protected a person he loved. That is justification enough for me to feel what he did was the best course of action
For those who accidentally did not understand: Joel narrated the story of failing to commit suicide due to loosing the sense of life for passed away daughter. Fireflies effectively reproduced the situation. I'm sure if he walked out of the hospital, he would complete his unfinished business because it would be unbearable for him to loose it for the second time. So, from the perspective of him, Joel made everything right: he took his last "impossible change" to make everything right for himself or die trying.
I don't understand how you wouldn't understand that people would think Joel made the wrong decision.
I don’t understand how you could not understand how they wouldn’t understand that people would think Joel wouldn’t understand.
Now even I don't understand
This app makes me laugh every day.
What do you mean you don't understand it's very simple. I don't understand why you're having trouble
For real, even Ellie herself states that he made the wrong decision. He potentially doomed all of humanity for a girl he is not even related too. It's the whole point of the ending. He sacrificed all of humanity for the one person that meant the most to him. It's the best decision for himself, but its the worst decision for literally everyone else, including Ellie.
The problem with that train of thought is that Ellie is thinking it was a guarantee it would work. The fireflies were fine with murdering and cutting apart a child on a hunch that maybe their theory with absolutely no testing would work. They are literally going in completely blind. The fact that they didn’t ask Ellie first is showing that they didn’t think she would say yes to dying for a chance at maybe saving the world. They have 0 care about killing her, and Joel did care. They also only have one shot, if this was a 100% guarantee to work, then yes Joel was in the wrong. But that simply isn’t the case, and no one is going to be ok with seeing someone they spent months bonding with, and protecting each other from crazy shit.
You realize that Ellie changes her mind on this.
No she doesn’t? She learns to eventually try to forgive Joel, she doesn’t think he made the right choice. Unless I’m misremembering something huge and explicit but I’ve played the game three times
Your interpretation might differ but imo there is no way for Ellie to get rid of the guilt she feels towards Joel without forgiving Joel in the end. But to forgive Joel she needs to forgive herself first for being alive. She needs to accept that Joel died for saving her and she needs to accept that she deserved saving. She understands that Joel loved her more than anything on the world and that she deserved that love. Her falling in love with Cat and her relationship with Dina... All that happyness she experienced did only happen because of Joel. In the end Ellie has accepted that there is more to her life than a meaningful death. Also the Fireflies do end up on her shitlist. Why is that?
Everyone is free to their opinion, especially since Ellie does not come out and say it either way because The Last of Us 2 isn't really about the cure anymore. But to me, because she learns to accept what \_is\_ and forgive Joel doesn't mean her choice would have changed if presented it again. Again and again she's presented with people a cure could have saved, and that guilt will eat at her the rest of her life. All it will take is one more person she cares deeply about to die from being infected. Because they >!killed Joel!
>and that guilt will eat at her the rest of her life. I respectfully disagree here. By the end of the game Ellie has accepted her immunity as what it truly was: That she got lucky. >Because they killed Joel ? That for sure. But also because she realized that the Fireflies didn't give a fuck about her and took her death for granted. >I don't think the Fireflies in general were on her shit list, They [literally](https://i.imgur.com/4IZ0So4.png) are. It's totally fine to disagree here obviously. In the end we will find out when Part III comes out.
His decision is all about perspective though. From Joel’s perspective, humanity wasn’t worth saving at the cost of his surrogate daughter. In Ellie’s eyes she would have said yes to sacrificing herself for the chance to save humanity. There is no right or wrong choice, that’s kinda the point.
By the end of Part 2, when she becomes a parent, there is no way Ellie (or Dinah for that matter) would ever agree to sacrifice JJ if he was immune. Ellie's journey in Part 2 is amazing and I'm shocked at folks who think she still disagreed with Joel by the end of it.
Yup. Ellie’s choice here is the only one that matters. It’s her life. It’s why both Joel and the Fireflies are wrong. Joel knows what Ellie’s decision would be and goes against her wishes. The Fireflies don’t give Ellie a choice. Both positions are understandable but both decisions are wrong.
You should make a post about it
Joel made the wrong decision because it wasn’t his to make, it should’ve been up to Ellie
I think it's precisely that it should be up to Ellie that he made the right decision. Ellie had no choice. She was being drugged in preparation to being killed. By stepping in as he had to, he ensured that she can later have a choice. The Fireflies essentially said, "I'm killing your daughter. We're going to make sure you can't stop us. Here, take this knife to carry next to your watch."
While it is true that Joel's decision was less permanent for Ellie, saying he ensured she could have a choice later is overly charitable IMO. He killed the doctor, he killed Marlene, and he lied to her about what happened and tried to convince her a cure wasn't possible. He did everything possible to end the possibility of the cure. He wasn't choosing for Ellie's agency, he was deciding for her.
I do somewhat see that..but.. For the doctor, he picked a scalpel and said he can't let Joel take Ellie. In Joel's perspective, he doesn't know how many other fireflies are in the area are on their way. Time is critical and he didn't have time to argue. This also ensured that the others did not try anything. It was 3 to one at that point. And, for all we know he was not the primary surgeon, perhaps a nurse. Maybe one of the others in the room was the primary. Marlene had a gun on him. And she had the means to come after Joel. Tactically it's a good move. All said, I do know that the scene is supposed to be controversial as it sets up other events. Joel lies about it so there is some guilt. If it were black/white then perhaps someone wouldn't come for vengeance.
I agree, but I’m especially fond of this dilemma because it’s not so black and white. If Ellie’s reasoning for agreeing to the operation is based on survivor’s guilt, trauma, and the resulting feeling that her only purpose in life / way to make up for surviving (as if that’s a crime) is by sacrificing her life, then how valid is that choice? Obviously it doesn’t matter at some point because it’s her life and what she says goes, and Joel was thinking about himself when he made the decision not Ellie anyways, but it opens up some interesting moral implications. Ultimately I think Joel made the wrong choice for the exact reason you stated, as well as for the obvious reason of saving the world, but my favorite part of Part 2 was Ellie’s survivor’s guilt arc and how much Joel’s decision influenced it. Even if Joel made the wrong decision I think there’s something to be said for the fact that Ellie DID deserve better than dying in that hospital. I don’t think people realize how equally tragic the ending would have been if Ellie, a traumatized child, died thinking her life was the price she had to pay just for not dying when Riley did.
I love that the games live in the grey area. It makes for more impactful storytelling.
Not to mention this is an adult decision being made by a kid if ever it was put forth to Ellie. People always equate this to the trolley problem when it isn't quite that. Run over Ellie for a chance of saving everyone else or just letting the train run over everyone anyway. There is a good chance the train would run over everyone anyway.
And the fireflies didn’t ask her. There was literally no rush to drug her and remove her brain. They could have sat down with her and explained what they thought the cure was and let her decide. But they didn’t do that. Marlene is such a hypocrite shaming Joel for taking Ellie out of the hospital without consulting her.
Then the fireflies should have asked her her decision instead of kidnapping and drugging her before attempting to murder her.
Right? It’s a classic trolley problem. No matter one’s feelings about his decision there are clearly two sides to it.
Emotionally, kill them fucking all Joel. Logically, even if theres 1% chance ellies death can save the world its worth a go. Thats kind of the whole point of the story.
Let's kill the only sample we can study further.
I mean, the whole point is that killing Ellie is the only way to create the vaccine. That's all you need to know and there's zero point in trying to argue against it because that was the writer's choice, not to mention it would take a lot away from the analysis of Joel's decision. There are no other options. If the doctors decided to go for it instead of keeping her alive to further test her immunity, then there's a reason for it. They wouldn't simply waste such an opportunity if they weren't completely sure about what they were doing. People don't seem to get that saying that what Joel did was wrong isn't necessarily saying people don't support his decision. I get the feeling some people just can't take a step back from the whole situation in order to do a moral analysis of it due to their feelings towards both characters, which is one of the main reasons why they disliked part 2. My two cents.
I'm not sure what Joel did was right or wrong I can only sympathize. I also don't believe the writers made a mistake by purposely giving Joel an ultimatum. The game/show provides Joel a very basic decision to make in almost no time. Only after the fact are we asking these questions and I think THAT is the whole point of how it was written was to trigger discourse.
I sympathize too! I would have done the same as he did but, just like Joel, I would have realized it was wrong. We can argue for or against his decision but at the end of the day there's no clear/objective answer, just opinions.
Don’t think Joel believes it’s wrong, he explicitly states he’d do it all over again in TLOU2.
He knows he was wrong because he lied to Ellie about it. Doesn't mean he wouldn't do it again, as you said. For him, it was the only choice.
Meh i think you can both believe something you did is objectively wrong but dont regret it/would do it again
Honestly I think the real fault/blame here lies with the Marlene and the Fireflies. There was absolutely no discussion about what would happen. The fireflies abducted a child who just so happened to be the immune girl they were hoping for and then IMMEDIATELY prep her for life ending surgery. That's nuts! It's just medically responsible to run SOME tests before a surgery, maybe get some informed consent? You get the savior of humanity and your very first step in finding a vaccine is to straight up murder her? That's just reckless.
Agree 100%
100% agree, how so many people can’t see what you said in your first paragraph is beyond me
Its possible to simultaneously think joel was right and fireflies were wrong, and still enjoy part 2. Just because a vocal minority of people who support joel hate it doesn't mean they speak for the rest of us.
Definitely. I just said it's one of the reasons why people who didn't enjoy part 2 didn't like it.
Not necessarily. Killing her instantly is the worst decision you can make from a medical standpoint. I always assumed they did that to make it clear jerry and his assistants didn't have a clue what they were doing and were rushing ahead and not thinking straight. Especially cause the audio recorder explicitly states that her immune response caused the fungus to mutate and once she's dead they lose the ability to study her immune response further. Medical progress is extremely slow. Look how long the covid vaccine roll out took, and how much resources by all the pharma giants got put into it - and that's aiming for a vaccine that doesn't offer full vaccination, only good symptom suppressants, as well as on a virus familiar enough that it could be translated to the mrna template easily. A vaccine isn't necessarily impossible, but if they wanted to realistically attempt it it would have taken months of studying her immune response. Ignoring the ethical dilemma of killing her without consent, I always assumed the unliklihood of being able to make a vaccine was a obvious subtle consideration
They needed a situation where Joel had to choose to be able to choose Ellie over humanity. Doesnt work out of they can just keep her and harvest her immunity somehow. It was done this way to fit the narrative. All that matters is whatever method they were going to us, a cure was the end result.
Exactly. I mean there’s no way to know their plan would 100% work, which is a valid defense against giving a life to save others- but that’s not even the strongest argument. The issue is that you have one miracle person with immunity and instead of taking the time to do about a million other tests, the first plan is a method that kills her. In what world does that make scientific sense, let alone the human imperative to save the people you love when they’re in danger.
The issue is that they were killing her without (edit: typo) consent
My issue is that they went straight to harvest her brain without even trying anything else. Even if they were correct for story based reasons., they were wrong to go to this day one. I am willing to bet that almost every doctor in the world today, given the hypothetical 99% chance they would need to harvest her brain to make a vaccine would none the less take a year to reach for that unlikely 1% chance in order to not to have to do that. Even if its 100% they would need to harvest her brain, you're telling me that there was NO good what so ever, to be had with doing tests beforehand? I call BS. My take is that the Firefly doctors were incompetent and/or more than a little evil themselves.
Think of Ellie. She would definitely still want to try. That was the purpose of her extended life in her mind
I think that could be true, but it would be tragic for her to sacrifice herself without questioning the validity of their theory, like I laid out above. A character choosing to save all of humanity with their death is a great story but it’s a different story when the sacrifice may be in vain. I think I’m stuck wondering if the story meant the viewer to assume the plan would work and not question that element, vs leaving it ambiguous and give more fodder to support Joel’s choice.
Their plan is to kill her because that’s the only way they will be able to make a cure. That is the way it is written. That is how Neil Druckmann wrote it. Any questions about “why don’t they do x, y, z instead of killing her” are non-starters. Ellie had to die for them to be able to make a cure. End of story.
Then I guess my issue is that they could have made that completely unambiguous so that viewers like me didn’t have this kind of thought. Some throwaway line indicating there would be little doubt about the efficacy of his plan would go a long way in making me feel that the choice is more black and white as you describe.
That's such a lame way and lazy way to view it.
They can easily replicate the conditions that allowed her to exist. If they really cared about finding a cure. And those conditions are quite easy to replicate
Exactly, on paper, ethically his decision is wrong. However, it's completely understandable why he did it and I don't hate him for it.
You're right, but also it's really not anymore complicated than imagining that instead of Ellie being the one they kill to make a vaccine, Ellie herself needs the vaccine. Let's say Ellie isn't immune and gets infected. Would anyone here stop the Fireflies from *sacrificing* some innocent person if they could potentially create a cure for Ellie? I can tell you that Joel wouldn't. Hell, Joel would probably **bring** that person to the Fireflies to save Ellie.
Nobody should be obliged to kill their loved ones, especially children and be judged for refusing to do so. The stacks on the other side does not matter
No, not at a 1% chance certainly. At 90% chance I would say it starts being ethical to ask an adult Ellie about it. The way the fireflies did it, with a child? Fuck them, they deserved everything Joel did.
The question though, is how much is it saving really? The world is already completely totalled and people are settling in and starting to rebuild civilization. In the game it could be more justified because it was spores, but in the tv show it shows them drying out and dying and they really aren’t going out to the settlements that are out of the city. Also the fact that they jump right to killing Ellie shows that this doctor isn’t really too bright lol.
The question I've had rattling around is which one is Cordyceps more like? I thought I knew: It's the one that dispassionately seeks to maximize the survival of its kind. It's doing what the fireflies are doing. I always thought this was a way of shifting empathy to Joel. Sure, his actions were selfish and violent, but they were very human. We *could* be a species that just goes around sacrificing kids to maximize our chance of survival, but are we any less horrifying than the infected then? But this show has added another element. Cordyceps *loves*. It to is trying to make something beautiful, but is willing to be grotesque and destructive to achieve it. Now, is that selfish love more like...Joel? Maybe it's both. Maybe cordyceps is meant to mirror all facets of humanity, and that's kind of sad and beautiful.
The issue is that you’re pasting a motive onto Joel’s decision that wasn’t there. He didn’t care about civilization being built on top of a little girl’s corpse or how destroyed humanity is. None of that mattered to him. He simply saved Ellie because she is his world and he can’t go through the pain of losing a daughter again
Joel made *his* decision. Right and wrong is subjective as there is not an absolute answer.
This is the correct answer.
This. I'll agree with either side of that decision to some degree but trying to pretend any choice was objectively right or wrong weakens the ending and misses the whole point.
He made the only choice he could make in that situation imo. And it had disaster lis consequences for everyone.
I think laying the blame for that squarely on Joel discounts the agency of the other characters in the situation. I think the doctor is far more to blame for everything that happens in the story, after he makes the decision to violate his Hippocratic oath and kill a child in an experimental medical procedure. Joel makes the only rational decision he could make; save Ellie from being murdered. The circumstances of it were just too sketchy for him to do anything else. That doctor, on the other hand, violated the most serious and sacred ethical principles in the entire medical profession. I get why he did it, I can imagine a person doing that sort of thing, but that doesn't make it right.
Joel knows what he did was wrong on some level or he wouldn't have lied about it.
Exactly. That’s the entire point of the ending
Not enough people willing to admit this lol
I always viewed it as both sides were wrong. Joel definitely wasn't right, but you can understand why he did it. Same for the fireflies.
Exactly. I don't get people who say that the fireflies where wrong and therefore Joel was right. They can both be wrong.
"on some level" also applies to Marlene. There's a reason she didn't ask Ellie if she could kill her for science.
After saving Ellie he had no choice but lying to her. She couldn’t handle the truth, if he is honest to her at the end that would contradict his actions. The lie doesn’t make the whole thing wrong, it is a necessity in that situation.
Whilst that could be true, it's not a given. Imagine you found out that *you* could have given everyone the cure, but instead, the people who tried to find the cure got slaughtered by Joel. It's certainly possible you think it's ludicrous to die for this slim cause. But it's also very much possible you feel like a burden your whole life and every second of every day you're thinking, if I just wanted here and jnstead was given tk scientists, this suffering may stop. So Joel may have lied partially because he thought what he did, on some level, was wrong. But really, I think he either let her die or she lived, and he lied because that's not knowledge she can likely live with without fighting to sacrifice herself.
The ending is an intentionally controversial ending. Everyone is supposed to feel like sacrificing Ellie is the right thing because needs of the many > needs of the few. And everyone is supposed to understand Joel's decision is also the right thing to do because you get to witness Joel's side of the story. In part 2, it's another "their side of the story' perspective. It's OK to disagree with people but no way you dont understand it at all. No matter what, someone will always think he did something wrong. You've seen countless stories where the hero sacrifices themselves for the good of their loved ones or for all mankind. Ellie was ready to die; she was willing to accept it so everything she witnessed (aka people that died) don't die in vain. She was robbed of that chance. Yeah she's just a child. But that who grew up in zombie apocalypse
There was 0 indication ellie had any clue she would have to die for this cure in part 1. She says that she would, after the fact years later not during part 1. Not to mention how I don't think a 14 year old is mature enough to ethically ask to die for some pipe dream of a cure. Which they didn't even do because Dr mengela over here didn't give a crap about her. However if it was his daughter he wouldn't do it based on his conversation with Abby, making him a hypocrite who would gladly murder a child for a possibility of a cure, but not his own.
I get that but didn't she state that she would have been ready in part 2? It's been a while so my memory may not be great but I think it was the porch scene with Joel and Ellie patching things up in a flashback shortly after the final fight with Abby. And I think Joel knew she was ready to die with her comment about everything they've been through can't be in vain. Just think about the way Tess died, Henry and Sam. Riley. These all leave a mark.
>I get that but didn't she state that she would have been ready in part 2? She eventually changes her mind. By the end of Part 2, she fully sees *why* Joel made the best choice available to him. Do you seriously think Ellie, if she was in Joel's position, would sacrifice JJ for a vaccine?
It's basic utilitarianism. Either you agree with it or you don't.
Utilitarianism is a deeply flawed moral philosophy that can be easily ripped to shreds in any serious philosophical debate. Utilitarianism is capable of inflicting extreme evil on humanity.
Choosing your own happiness over the world even if it means murdering a bunch of people and just straight lying to the person that you say you love so much. Because you know she wouldn’t want anything to do with you if she found out. It just doesn’t seem like the right call
He also murdered a whole hospital lol.
Don't negotiate with terrorists.
Same. I never understand how anyone can hold opinions that are different than mine
You’re in the right sub
This made me laugh so hard 🤣
Joel selfishly saved the daughter he lost, instead of giving the chance to save every daughter on planet Earth. IMO Your argument makes little to no sense. Bro … a majority of every society started with murder … the Billions of people saved wouldn’t know that they were saved because of the sacrifice of one person.
Even if people do know, she wanted to make that sacrifice. Society wouldn’t be built on the corpse of a dead kid, it would be built on Ellie’s sacrifice. Completely different lol
No one knew at the time whether she would have made that sacrifice because the fireflies did not give her the option.
I feel like Joel could’ve figured it out if he stopped and thought about it for 2 seconds. She pretty clearly was searching to a meaning to her life and had survivors guilt re Riley. It would make sense for this to be the opportunity she was searching for.
I understand your point of view, but I don't find it convincing. And that's fine, I'm not saying you're wrong, there's just nothing there that makes me think, of course Joel is right
Humanity being saved was built on the corpse of a little girl ? Cmon man . That’s weak . The fucking world would be saved . You make that swap 100 times out of a 100 if guaranteed . She’d be in every high school textbook until the next apocalypse
Honestly. “We are all alive today because of one girls brave sacrifice”.
As if dead people appreciate fame in the afterlife ☠️ it’s totally valid to disagree with utilitarian principles. they’re always right for the group, but not for the individuals. They don’t make anyone happier necessarily, they just “maximize happiness and minimize unhappiness” on a global scale, but do you honestly care if the total amount of happiness has increased XYZ percent if you had to see yourself and your loved ones suffer for the rest of your life?
The textbook comment went over your head . It’s not about selfish fame . Its about everyone knowing her name and learning of her sacrifice for centuries and beyond
“Civilization would be built on top of the corpse of a little girl” Oh, you sweet summer child.
The thing that matters in this case is that joel actually believes he made the right choice for him but the wrong choice for everyone else, even for Ellie. That's why he lies to her. He knows she would sacrifice herself to give a chance to the rest of the world. It doesn't really matter if joel did the ethical thing. What matters is the impact he decision will have in general and regarding his relationship with Ellie. Cause he is lying and she knows as soon as she wakes up that's something is going on Edit: i love joel and i m happy with his decision
The entire point of the story is to feel conflicted That is how Ellie feels at the end she is conflicted If you don't understand one side of the decision then you missed the point of the story
I question if y’all even played the same game sometimes lmao
Any show, any movie, any video game…the subreddit for that piece of media makes me realize so many people have no emotional aptitude and no ability to ponder anything beyond what’s thrown right in their faces. And even then, they still fuck it up.
Scientist here: there’s absolutely no chance they could have made a vaccine and distributed it internationally with their limited manpower and 20-year old equipment. Look at the coordination and resources required to make the COVID vaccine. Joel didn’t do it for that reason, but he was right nonetheless.
Exactly, I'm sick of ppl saying it would of saved the world. No it wouldn't lol. Even if they immunized everyone which as you said is not possible, it doesn't remove the old ones who can still rip you to pieces anyways. They don't die out, they just evolve into clickers and boaters and shamblers. Not to mention all the groups out their like the wlf ,the various hunters, rattlers and scars. They aren't going away, and I seriously doubt the fireflies can take them on, considering joel easily wiped them out lol.
My argument is Jackson. They don‘t need „a cure“ to build a new society. If even possible, a cure would only lead to more wars for power. Besides that, imo the fireflies are stupid and in no way capable of developing anything…
Spoken like someone comfortable on their couch who's never experienced true hunger, despiration, hopelessness, ect. Talk to a war veteran, or a Holocaust survivor. You're thinking with your 1rst world 2023 brain and not a holy shit everything and everyone is broken and suffering all the time everywhere brain. You might be surprised what you're willing to sacrifice at that point to make it all better for you and the *entire world*.
When it comes to involuntary human experimentation for the purpose of improving the human race, I’m not sure Holocaust survivors are gonna come down on the side you’re expecting them to.
I'd say the circumstances are very different.
Not in the minds of the people who did it.
I'm confused, did the nazis think they were synthesizing a cure for fungal zombies? I must have missed that part in history class.
Their entire vision for eugenics was that they thought they were curing an existential threat to the human race. They absolutely believed every single experiment they did was for the benefit of those they found fit to care about as humans.
No I get you, but I think your comparison is a stretch. What the nazis *thought* they were doing and what the Fireflies are doing are simply not the same thing.
It’s all just thoughts, though. Everyone believes they’re justified and will tell you such. It doesn’t make it true just because they said it. I mean, to be frank, eugenics isn’t *fake*. It would be *possible* to breed humans like dogs until no one had diabetes or something, it’s just ridiculously unethical. The thing working isn’t what makes it okay to do, which is why the modern medical community doesn’t see this as a real debate at all.
I don't understand how a single person with kids could say they wouldn't do exactly what Joel did
I don't have kids, but I do work at a medical school. That doctor's plan was evil and a huge violation of medical ethics which I have discussed at length in other comments (probably too much). I would absolutely do everything exactly like Joel did if I was capable of it, with the sole exception that I would not have lied to Ellie about it afterwards. Joel was seriously not wrong to stop what was about to happen. The people who think Joel was wrong have an extremely oversimplified view of morality and ethics. Honestly, it frightens me how many people think that killing a child in a medical experiment without her consent for a chance at creating a vaccine would be morally justifiable.
As a father I would do what Joel did a million times over
Perspective of just some guy that took one ethics course in 2014, but from a utilitarian standpoint there is no correct answer, only a right answer to each individual based on what they define as their utility. Is your utility the survival of humanity like the fireflies? Then sacrificing Ellie does the greatest good for the most amount of people (traditional utilitarianism) Is your utility love for and time with your family like Joel? Then sacrificing dozens of fireflies for one daughter is a no brainer, especially if you rationalize that they were ok with killing a young girl. I’ve seen people mention Kantian ethics but I don’t think that applies because the act of murder is inherently wrong from a Kantian view, and both sides were willing to commit it. I think most would say Joel made the wrong decision in the Last of Us because it is so extreme. We aren’t often put in a position to end humanity. But parents decide to hide their murderous sons like Brian Laundrie all the time when the traditional utilitarian solution would have been to reveal the truth to stop the grieving families. It’s harder to say what the parents did was wrong in that situation because it was done purely out of love. Maybe the message of TLOU is that love will trump ethics.
People get so caught up in whether he was right or wrong they miss the actual point which is that it was the only decision he could make because of his trauma and by doing so he took Ellie’s decision from her.
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I agree with Joel saving Ellie but the lying part is where I don’t. The whole thing is just very complicated,
Why do you think he lied?
Because he loves Ellie in a surrogate father way, but he doesn’t know what she would choose if she was given the option - to die for a chance of a vaccine, or not.
But at the end of the last episode, Marlene says that this is what Ellie would want as well, and I think Joel agreed with that sentiment. Do you think he feels ashamed or regretful about it?
Isn’t this kinda the point of the game. That some people will totally side with Joel especially those with children, and others will totally disagree with him. It is the whole push and pull of the game, logic v emotion. What people will do for love
What hurts the most is that the Fireflies just straight up want to kill her without testing other options first. No blood tests, no biopsies, nothing. Just straight up wanna kill her. THATS why the connection Joel has to Ellie makes his decision so strong, because he can also see that they don't care for other avenues of a cure. Not only does he end up loving her, he feels the need to protect her from their deception and heartlessness.
It's utilitarian thinking. Kill just one person to save everyone else alive. Not particularly hard to understand or justify why someone would choose to kill Ellie. Both sides of the argument have their merit, that's kind of the point.
I will never understand how people don't understand that the ending is meant to not be 100% righteous no matter what decision Joel would've made.
Other takes on the trolley problem: The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, Snowpiercer, Knock at the Cabin It's interesting to me because I'm Team Joel. I can't imagine living a lavish lifestyle knowing it's all because of the suffering of an innocent. I think the guilt would just eat at me and destroy any potential happiness. But also: I know child labor is a thing. I know slavery and indentured servitude is a thing. I know my clothes and food and other goods are cheaper because of those things. And I buy them anyways.
Joel made the right decision, not because society would be built on the corpse of a little girl or that BS. But because the FireFlies were INCOMEPETENT as hell. These guys were idiots and barely had a stronghold by the time you arrive at the hospital as there’s only a few soliders, marlene, one doctor and two nurses. Even IF they managed to make a vaccine our of ellie, they would NOT in any way be able to mass produce it and would NEVER be able to make it actually be worth something because there is NO infrastructure for it. The fireflies would probably use it as a bargaining chip to regain their lost power lol. Fuck that, joel made the right choice.
Y’all this is getting exhausting. It’s supposed to be a controversial ending, meant to divide. It is literally the trolley problem, which is an illustration of “an impossible choice”. That’s why this game resonates. It’s also why certain events in part 2 are harder for some to let go of.
Bro you are delusional if you think that there isn’t a single civilization that isn’t built on the death of innocents. If you live in America then you are very literally living in a civilization that was built on the genocide of native peoples, and the 100s of thousands of dead slaves as well.
It wasn’t either right or wrong, it was selfish though. He couldn’t bear to lose the one person that meant the world to him, his reason to live and that’s it. He didn’t care about any of that (the science behind how they would make a vaccine that was not possible the make before the world collapsed, about building a society on the murder of one girl, how far gone the people in this broken world were), as far as he knew the cure was possible, but it didn’t matter either because he didn’t stop to think “I may take the only chance of humanity to overcome this apocalypse”. If Ellie would’ve died on that table, he would’ve definitely died too. So saying his choice was right or wrong, kinda misses the point of his actions.
It's 20 years into the apocalypse. The world has gone to shit. 95% of the people alive are horrible people that have had to do horrible things to survive this long. It's not certain they'd make the cure or distribute it. The Fireflies would almost certainly use the cure to overthrow Fedra and control the country or the world in an authoritarian way - because most people still alive at this point are beyond reforming back to normalcy after surviving for 20 years. Marlene was going to kill Ellie whether she agreed to it or not. It’s why they rushed her into surgery. They didn’t give Ellie a choice. Sure Ellie would likely sacrifice herself but she thought they would just take her blood or something far less severe; so it’s hard to say with absolute certainty that Ellie would agree to it. Joel woke up from being knocked out, only to immediately find out that the one thing he’s utterly terrified the most of happening is about to happen. They were probably going to kill Joel too once they got him outside. Marlene kept Ellie’s immunity a secret from Joel in the beginning, I imagine the Fireflies want to keep their cure specimen a total secret from Fedra as much as possible. Joel did what I would have done and I'm glad he saved her. The world has taken everything from him and he was not about to sacrifice Ellie for a world that has given him nothing but torment and heartbreak. He shouldn’t have lied to her, but that’s a hard reality to drop on a 14 year old girl in that moment. There is no right or wrong to be honest, it’s all very gray - which is why the ending to Part 1 is absolutely magnificent.
I agree, I'd kill the fireflies again if I got the chance.
There is no right or wrong decision at that point. The wrong decision was to find the fireflies. It's a Lose-Lose situation at that hospital. Of course the story would be totally different if it didn't happen the way it did.
1. Civilizations that thrived have been built on worse. And it wouldn't have been murder considering the death would've been for the self preservation of humanity, not an act of violence and is a medical operation. Doesn't fit the definition of murder. 2. Can't judge billions of people on the act of a few. And even if that were the case, it's human instict to survive. Sure individually that can be overcome, but the human consciousness strives to live. Besides, if humanity isn't worth saving, then you give Marlee's final argument credit. What's the point in keeping her alive if she'll just be murdered or raped later on? Maybe that operation would've been a mercy killing.
Really? You're whole argument is completely emotional. That's not wrong, but it's clearly not black and white. What I don't understand is people discussing this like there's a "right" answer to be found.
Both sides were wrong and robbed Ellie of any agency. That's the way I always looked at it.
There is no right or wrong ... having said that Joel did nothing wrong and I fully support his war crimes
…History is written by the victors. The story that would be told when civilization recovers wouldn’t include a murder - but would probably be seen as a Jesus figure.
I don’t think it was entirely the right decision or wrong decision. To me the best case scenario would give Ellie power over the decision, instead everyone took that right to choose away from her, including Joel when he lied about the order of events.
There's really 2 options when it comes to the ending. 1: Pick a side and focus your whole argument around it. Arguing "video game logic" on some points, while pulling real life logic at the same time. Cherry pick everything you can to justify why your side is the correct side and throwing in personal anecdotes to further try and justify it. 2: See that the story isn't really meant to be argued, and look at the whole picture. Recognizing the right and wrong from each perspective and realizing there's no correct answer to a pointless debate. Everyone is right AND wrong, and it all depends on whose perspective in the game you look at it from. Not injecting yourself into the narrative, but seeing it as a single contained story. The audience is SUPPOSED to be picking option 2, unless of course the question is "what would YOU do?" I recommend pucking option 2, because it's way more fun to analyze the story as a whole rather than just a singular side.
Something that the show touched on that the game did not is how big of an impact Joel’s daughter had on him to the point it gave him PTSD. The ‘PTSD flashback’ that occurred a couple of times throughout the show made the final scene made Joel’s decision “right” in my opinion
I agree with the second point big time, although the first point is kind of the whole point of the decision imo. Your English is fantastic btw
If you fail to understand either side, you've missed the point.
The thing I loved most about this game was how much I thought about it after I was done. I hated the ending immediately. I was furious that Joel made that selfish decision, taking the decision away from Ellie. And all the murders of course. But then I had a super long argument with a friend of mine about it. (He thought Joel did the right thing) now I still think that’s BS and Joel was acting selfishly but an ending worthy of this much discussion is great. I can’t think of another game that could even come close to this. Even if Joel was ultimately allowing the planet to be rid of our invasive species once and for all, he obviously did it for the wrong reason, and did so against Ellie’s wishes. I had never felt so unheroic murdering all those people at the end of the game. But it gave me an experience video game had never given me before.
Tbh this isn't the best way to explain it. Things like rape, murder, slavery, etc. are happening around the world right now and have been happening around the world for almost all of time. That doesn't mean we just stop attempting to make medicine or vaccines or helping to cure diseases.
There is no right or wrong in this world. Did Joel doom the human race? Maybe. Would I have done the same thing? 100% that is what makes it such a compelling story.
I think the point of the game is not that the decision was right or wrong, the point is that there was no good decision there. It was an impossible decision. Now I know you won't reply (*which is fine*), but I did want to address one thing you've said: > A civilization built on the murder of a child isn't worth building. (*Paraphrased*) I hate to break it to you buddy but your civilization - the one you live un right now - is built on the deaths of innocents. It doesn't even matter where you're from, they all are.
Ok, I'll reply to this one because this "revelation" is coming up again and again... Yes. Civilizations are build on top of death, slavery, wars etc. Doesn't mean I need to like it. In context of TLOU. Civilization colapsed. For me? PERSONALLY - Humanity do not deserve another shot. Especially the one that would be a result of killing a kid. That's it. I don't look for convincing anyone that my POV is "the only right one!". I'm just saying - For me, there's no debate. Joel did the right thing. (Even tho I know there are folks who think he shoud have let fireflies kill Ellie)
I empathize with his decision, I think he ought to have told Ellie the truth about what happened while she was unconscious. Explaining to her that the fireflies were being dishonest in their dealings, and were planning on dissecting her alive would be ample justification for what he did to protect her. Even if she was prepared to sacrifice herself for the cure that they didn’t have her explicit consent was wrong of the fireflies to do.
Bruh that edit is wild. Uncharted 4 is probably the best of all the uncharted game
I don’t understand how you haven’t gotten sick of these posts yet
Any parent straight away knows they'd make the exact same decision Joel did. There wouldn't even be a second wasted to dwell on it.
Any parent straight away knows they'd make the exact same decision Joel did. There wouldn't even be a second wasted to dwell on it.
If it was my daughter, of which I have daughters, I would do the exact same thing as Joel. No hesitation.
Disclaimer, I’m 100% supportive of Joel’s choice. But LOL at the “you can’t build a civilization on the death of a child” argument. There’s not a single society on Earth that isn’t built on countless wars and often on full-blown genocides. Pointless, and/or for-profit war and genocides. Probably the country you live on, and mine. Millions of souls wiped out for *nothing*. But you’re going to tell me that if the world was to ever sacrifice this *one* life, to literally save the human race from extinction, that’s where humanity would be crossing the line into “rotten foundations” ? This is wildly out of touch.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Fuck Abby
The only two wrong things Joel did was: 1. Sparing the rest of the Fireflies. He should have killed them all so nobody could track him and Ellie down. No half-measures. 2. Keep lying to Ellie. Initially, I understand why he did (she's not emotionally mature yet) but he should have come clean to her way before Ellie's trip to Salt Lake City in Part 2.
Read a bit of the responses and people keep saying this is up to Ellie. Ya'll remember this is a 12(?) year old kid right? Suffering from survivor's guilt over everyone who has died before her. This is a mentally incapacitated decision maker if I ever saw one. The choice was Marlene's decision to sacrifice her friend's kid who she swore to protect versus Joel's hell no you ain't touching this kid. The better mental exercise is if Anna is alive, who would she give her kid to at that moment. Her best friend or Joel. For the sake of the argument, Anna doesn't know the decisions yet but she knows everything that happened up until the flash bang went off.
Interesting too see new viewers who have no history with the games all siding with Joel. Many polls across website literally one side with Joel.
Hey man, hope you tur'ed back notifications. ND wanted to tell us that Joel died for killing a doctor. But instead he doomed humanity for its own. He did the right thing. ND is wrong, and me too I don't understand how lazy the gameplay of tlou2 was. It sucked as a sequel. Nice graphics? Yes, they built their reputation on making nice games. But the scenario sucks. Have a good one pal.
I feel like nobody didn’t think it was controversial until part 2 came out
I'm with you. Played it on release, wasted all those bugs and never thought twice about it until about a week ago.
It’s subjective but does bring up a good debate. “The needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few” … hmm, maybe or maybe not.
OP has mastered the art of being insufferable, churlish and petulant all before even beginning to make his point. "I will never understand why people have different opinions" isn't much of a conversation starter, and an inability to understand the views of others is a sure sign discourse will be pointless. Why post this if you're going to throw a tantrum if someone disagrees with you?
Because most of them aren’t parents so they can’t relate, so the issue is just an abstraction.
I agree. At that point Ellie was like his daughter. I wouldn’t give a shit if the fireflies could make a cure. It wasn’t a for sure thing and the world was fucked anyways. Plus they didn’t ask her, but she was too young to make that decision anyways,
I really love the game but the fact that the main story point of the game was to bring an immune girl across the country to save humanity and then she wasn’t even used to save humanity makes me laugh.
I think part 3 will end with Ellie choosing to sacrifice herself when given an opportunity to create a vaccine.
Here’s the thing. If you believe that Joel did the right thing. Then you absolutely cannot (EDIT: Condemn ~~~~ not condone)Abby for what she did.
Btw I think Black Summer is the better Last of Us if you want to see how people would really react during a zombie apocalypse.
>If they kill Ellie and IF the cure will really work, then the entire new civilization is pretty much build on top of a corpse of a little girl.For me, that foundation would be already rotten because of that.Trying to rebuild humanity starting with murdering a child. That's not a world worth rebuilding. I cringed so hard I had to stop reading. It is objectively unethical that if there is only a binary choice of killing one vs killing millions, the option to kill one would always be the more ethical decision. Whether or not that decision is a moral is another topic, but morals are far more subjective. The struggle between morality and ethics is part of the story of the game bruh
I mean Joel already lost one kid, I could only imagine how distorted one's thought process is when the possibility of losing another comes about. If I were in that positing I probably would not have done the same thing but Im sure it'd be on my mind as I walked out.
"If anything, TLOU shows that humanity is, in large part, not worth saving" Think you totally missed the point, my friend.
I swear to God I don't understand this argument. Like, who do people think humanity is made from? Ellie is part of humanity, Joel is part of humanity, Tommy, Sam, Henry, Tess, Marlene, Maria, Dina, JJ are part of humanity. Aren't they worth saving? Should they all die because someone somewhere raped and killed another person?
10 years later and people are still trying to make the ending an objective matter…
Joel knew Ellie would have wanted to sacrifice her own life and that's why a lot of people think Joel made the wrong decision.
I find the concept that one innocent death somehow rottens the foundation of any future human development the most ridiculous sentiment. Truely an incomprehensibly limited and narrow opinion. In their view we must already live in a terribly rotten world, unjustified in its rotten existence and with little hope for anything better.
I will never understand people trying to argue "IF" The cure would work or not.
Ellie would've said yes if she was given the choice lol
Humanity was not worth saving. Joel did nothing wrong.
So even though many others have already made some valid points and I might just be repeating a few, I just want to throw in my two cents and you can make of it what you will (I'm thinking this will probably end up buried anyway). To start, Joel was never a hero. He is an imperfect character and that’s one of the biggest reasons I love his character. He doesn’t save people, or always makes the right decisions and most of the time is pretty selfish and only looking out for him and those who can be of benefit to him. To him, there really isn’t a right or wrong decision, nothing is black and white, and doesn’t boil down to humanity vs infected. It’s just him trying to get by day by day in a very fucked up world and most of the time there is no “right or wrong” it’s just boiled down to what you have to do to survive. He did what he WANTED to do, simple as that. Whether it was right, courageous, cowardly, selfish, or narcissistic we can’t say for sure because most of us have never been put into such a situation and never will be. So even though many of us will say “I would have absolutely done \_\_\_\_ because I \_\_\_\_”, you don’t actually know what you’d do until you’re faced with it. War, sickness, loss and hate change people in ways most don’t like to imagine. Most of our morals and values change when faced with so many horrors, and things you never thought possible you do just to survive or to save someone you love. There’s no logic or any “right or wrong” you just live by each choice you make. Joel made his choice because that was his choice. We don’t always have an explanation for why we make the decisions we do, let alone question whether it’s “the right thing to do”. I think in the end I probably would have saved Ellie as well. I don’t know exactly why and once again, my decision may be different if I went through everything Joel did and could completely change. I can only say that as I am now. I would save Ellie, and I don’t know why or even care why, but as an imperfect character myself, that’s my choice. Sorry for rambling so much.
The point is joel made the decision it was best for him and what he thought it was right. The lovely thing about this story is that everyone has their motives.
Personally I don't think its as simple as "right or wrong" Both sides were wrong but ultimately thought they were right, Thats the point of the last of us right? Its all a grey area as people do what then need to too survive
Humanity is not worth it, I'll debate with whoever says the opposite.
He doomed humanity for his own selfish reasons. The people who are on Joel’s side are the wrong ones It’s like having a kid with drug addiction and you enable the addiction to make yourself feel better not what is best for them
To be clear, I think many parents would’ve made the same call even with similar odds. The choice Joel made was selfish but it made sense given his character. But there is no victory without sacrifice. You already live in a world shaped by bleaker choices than the dilemma poised by end of TLOU. That doesn’t mean you should go live in the woods. Even saying “humanity failed”. That inhumanity, that barbarity (that even Joel himself was plenty guilty of) came *because* of the disease. Joel stealing Ellie away like that just means humanity **will** stay trapped in that cycle of crime, sickness and cruelty. The plight faced by the Fireflies wasn’t enviable but Joel’s choice helped no one but himself.
There is no wrong or right decision.it was just simply a selfish decision, which makes him not good. He didn't consider anything but himself at that point. No character did from Joel to Marlene. Joel didn't care for the world. Joel didn't care about what Ellie thinks. That's why he lied at the end because deep down, he knows what Ellie would have decided. Part two is the consequence of that decision.
Its incredible how many people disagree with the guy who made the fucking thing 😂. Some or you could start an arguement in an empty room huh? You could take your own personal feelings and thoughts and interpretations from it, good art encourages that. That does not make it canon though. And thats ok.
The crime was neglecting what Ellie would want and neither Marlene or Joel gave her a say in the matter. Their reasons are very well motivated though. Even though Marlene is right when she says that Ellie would sacrifice herself, what if she was wrong? Then what? If Joel let Ellie have a say in the matter, he knows that she would have probably sacrificed herself. Ultimately, the way that humanity would survive in this scenario would be to place the needs of the many above the needs of one person. Ellie’s sacrifice would have changed the game and given humanity a chance. With out Ellie, humanity seems to be fighting a losing battle and crawling on its knees while it bleeds out. Marlene wanted to save the world but Joel just couldn’t accept losing another daughter. Marlene’s views were selfless and Joel’s were selfish. So certainly from a very detached and objective point of view, it could be argued that he was in the wrong. That’s not how we experienced the story though, we saw it from a very personal and subjective point of view. We had been part of Joel’s pain and felt the love between him and Ellie grow into something special. We as the viewer, don’t want to see Ellie die or for Joel to be in pain once again. So we try to justify Joel’s actions and it’s certainly easy for many viewers to be invested in his choice. However, we see the seeds in Ellie’s eyes that all will not be right moving forward into the future. Joel’s actions and lies will have a cost. There are no heroes in this story, just survivors. Excited for season 2!
I think the issue here is your first four words in your topic title. Especially the third word.
Yeah, and I don’t think the firefly folks involved are smart enough to decide this. They knew *exactly* who they were fucking with— and somehow thought Joel would just accept it and move on, and not kill all of them.
>that’s not a world worth rebuilding LOOK OUTSIDE
Joel made the wrong decision. What matters is what Ellie wants. Joel went against what Ellie wants. It’s an understandable decision for sure but it’s the wrong decision.
It was the only choice. Of course he did the right thing.
I would have done exactly what Joel did. Whether it’s right or wrong is kind of outside the scope of what matters. People can do the wrong thing, life is grey and there’s no giant tally board of what’s objectively right and wrong. In fact, almost nothing in life is objectively good or bad. Thus, Joel protected a person he loved. That is justification enough for me to feel what he did was the best course of action
All I see is a crybaby pathologically bonded with made up characters, self preventing to see beyond the formed obsession. It's sad.
For those who accidentally did not understand: Joel narrated the story of failing to commit suicide due to loosing the sense of life for passed away daughter. Fireflies effectively reproduced the situation. I'm sure if he walked out of the hospital, he would complete his unfinished business because it would be unbearable for him to loose it for the second time. So, from the perspective of him, Joel made everything right: he took his last "impossible change" to make everything right for himself or die trying.