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IGN Japan put it best: "It's a story about right and wrong told by people who think they're always right"

His only mistake was to save Abby's life.

Honestly, the fire flies really gave Joel every reason to turn on them. They attacked him twice both when he was saving Ellie’s life and secondly, when he was trying to get out of the bed, they also asked Marlene to just kill Joel while he was sleeping. This meant that they were never going to give him his supplies or his reward for delivering Ellie and while he was being marched out by that fire fly, he never got the opportunity to grab his backpack, which had a supplies and weapons in it, implying heavily than the best case scenario, he was being robbed, and sent out into the world without anything to protect himself, and worst case he was being marched out somewhere to be killed quietly they also never woke Ellie up from her near death experience meaning that they never asked for her consent in the situation, and even if they did would a 14-year-old kid who has gone under a years worth of stress and pain and loss really be able to consent properly to having her life taken away for the greater good

A VERY important note about this situation is that there no guarantee that killing Ellie would’ve actually yielded a cure. They simply were going through a trial and error process

He did save the world in the first game. Ellie was his world. *Cries uncontrollably.

"Sometimes you can make no mistakes and still lose. That's not weakness, that is life." A lesson that people need in this day and age.

The sad thing is that the first game and the DLC show Ellie probably would have consented to the surgery for all the WRONG reasons. Marlene knew her mother and acted as a surrogate guardian, she felt intense survivor's guilt over Riley, she asks Joel something akin to "I need my immunity to mean something" after Sam and Henry die, all the deaths (Rileh, Tess, Sam, Henry) impact her and she is almost killed (and worse) by David. She was too young, too naive and traumatised to make a decision.

I don’t think anyone with a child could ever question Joel for a second regarding his choice with Ellie. As a father myself, he did what any father would in my opinion.

Best quote I‘ve heard was “tlou2 is like a fan fiction written by somebody who utterly hated the first game“

People who condemn Joel's choice always conveniently forget that Ellie was unconscious and couldn't consent to the surgery the fireflies were going to put her through. She had zero idea she would die if they got the cure from her, if she had said yes and Joel killed the fireflies the 2nd game would be justified in condemning him from taking away her choice, but she didn't. Also it's so annoying how they go out of their way to make the Fireflies look like humanities only hope. They were insanely incompetent in the first game, creating a cure came off more like wishful thinking from a group of idiots then an absolute guarantee.

We all forget that for all their talk about "the greater good" and "what Ellie would want," the Fireflies never actually asked Ellie what she wanted to do. Whatever you think that Ellie would want is irrelevant if you don't have the spine to be honest with her.

I love the whole “Joel doomed the rest of humanity” thing. Yeah, look at what happened when Joel needed humanity the most in his life. It took a daughter from him, so he’ll be damned if he’ll let it happen again.

“All the fake awards in the world doesn’t make up for the fact that no one liked your fucking game Neil...” Quote of the century.

The Fireflies were portrayed as complete assholes in the first game. Joel's whole mission was to travel across the country and deliver Ellie to them on a silver platter. What he gets when he arrives is he gets knocked upside the head unconscious while defenseless and trying to save Ellie's life, Ellie gets forcefully taken from him, Joel get told he isn't allowed to talk to her or say goodbye, and gets escorted out via gunpoint without even getting a payment of some sort. Nobody tried talking to Ellie either to see what her final thoughts or words were, they drugged her while she was still unconscious and prepared her immediately for the surgery. The Fireflies were hyped up to be this special group trying to save humanity, but the way they treated Joel proved they were just assholes like all the other groups he encountered though his journey. In Part 2 they wanted to portray Joel as this evil monster that screwed humanity, and it was just awfully done. IMO Joel was actually justified in what he did.

I'm no doctor or scientist or prospective MENSA applicant but I'm pretty sure scanning and observing the affected brain tissue while the host is still living would yield better results in determining exactly what's going on as opposed to ya know digging out a chunk of brain from whom could potentially be the only immune human on the planet, having a good stare at it and coming to the conclusion of "yep! that's not normal! just as I suspected!" which was pretty much the extent of the Fireflies plans. They didn't know what they were doing and there's a pretty good chance Ellie isn't the only one who's immune. Its just that in the world of The Last Of Us folks die more often from gunshots; self inflicted or otherwise. Joel made the right call.

The one good thing from tlou2 is that line joel says at the end: "I would do it all over again". Idk if they thought that line would demonize him or what, but for me it made him the only consistent character in that fanfic

Being willing to sacrifice the entirety of humanity for your baby girl is the definition of being a father.

Joel: “Hey, I saved your life!” Ellie: “You didn’t save my life, you ruined my death!” (Thanks for the +3 thousand likes! Also, Naoko is insane. Don’t provoke them, they’re clearly still a child learning about how the real world works.)

I love how Joel lies in the end. And she knows, or seems to, but she accepts it. Love is a fickle and ambitious concept. Hopefully everyone finds their own love!

I always stuck with what Marlene herself said to Joel in the hospital, “COULD produce a vaccine.” I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m not going let go of someone I love over a slim chance of an outcome. Vaccines are never guaranteed to even work. I can’t imagine losing everything and everyone I’ve come to know and love. Joel developed this feeling for Ellie that he hasn’t felt in 2 decades and he is absolutely not going to let anyone take it from him again. Albeit, selfish in its own aspect; Joel is completely justified for his actions. I wish they would’ve made Ellie realize why Joel did what he did but instead they made her resent him and painted him to be a bad person outright.

“Nope you are nitpicking and homophobic, I win bye bye” -Neil Druckmann

*Revenge is bad.* BUT, killing hundreds of people on your way to get your revenge is absolutely acceptable. As long as you don't get your revenge. *credit rolls*

Just putting this here as an added note. I met Troy Baker (Joel's VA) and he, as Joel, said, "I'd do it all over again." Honesly made me tear up. I don't care that it's just a story because "in the end, we're all stories."

People seem to forget that the fireflies never asked if they could take Ellie’s life for the hope of a cure. They essentially kidnapped her and were going to murder her, but we gloss over that fact to proclaim Joel was the bad guy.

For those who didn't quite catch it, "Ellie's gay, by the way."

Lying to Ellie was wrong. Not that it really matters because she knew it was a lie anyway despite what Neil Druckmann's disaster retcon says.

One thing that not a lot of people realize is that if Joel actually sacrificed Ellie, the Fireflies would most likely create like a dictatorship of some kind, and they alone ruled the world, which would cause insanely catastrophic problems, becuase the Fireflies are unstable af. If anything, Joel actually did humanity a favor.

He was a man put in an impossible situation. I remember the feeling of beating the game the first time: I had won, and I got what I wanted, but there was an empty feeling of all the desolation I'd caused in achieving it. It was a pyrrhic victory, but Ellie was there with me, and that was all that mattered.

The moral of the story is "revenge bad" even though Ellie genocides everyone. EXCEPT the girl (lol) who murdered Joel.

For me, The Last of Us was a story about finding a way to save the human race, but by the end of your journey, you realize there's nothing left to save. In the end, Joel must choose between preserving his humanity or simply preserving human existence, making the point the latter isn't worth saving without the former.

When I was a kid, I hated the ending. I felt robbed of the choice to save humanity. Now that I am a father, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Druckman took such a heaping shit on Joel. I'm still not over it.

If druckmann left this series alone everyone would still think he's a brilliant writer. Now everyone knows he was just piggybacking on Bruce Straley's and Amy Hennig's work

“Ellie’s *GAY* by the way.” -Naughtydog

Joel does not find out at the climax of the story ( 3:03 ), the story is about him knowing about Ellie’s immunity the whole time, but growing to rethink his values once he finds out her life would most likely be lost just like number of others whose immunity was “studied” prior to Ellie.

I'm glad Critical Drinker mentioned that first game's ending, which I loved. One of the things that bugged me about the sequel is the certain flashback of the fallout between Joel and Ellie, when the ending of Part I indicated that SHE ALREADY KNEW he was lying to her but decided to stick with him anyway. Yes, other flashbacks showed she was getting suspicious over time, but it's still depicted in Part II as if she originally believed him at first. A question left unanswered at the time was, Would she live with him after that ending, content with that lie? Or would she go into Jackson and then stay in her own corner, keeping away from him because she didn't trust him? Would there always be this silent tension between them even if they lived together? Different fanfiction written after Part I went in different directions about it, since all of those were valid. The sequel just going, "She lives with him, but THEN she got mad about it years later" just ignores one of the best things about the ending. Neil Druckmann clearly didn't write and edit the first game's story, and it shows.

What TLOU fails to hammer home to the player in any meaningful way is that the Fireflies are terrorist, as if the game somehow forgot that part of the lore. Hypothetically if they were able to derive some form of cure to the fungus then they would have just used it for their own means under the guise of self righteousness, that they think they're the saviors of mankind. But what the game also shows, almost ironically, and what TLOU2 definitely pretends never happened, was that the Fireflies were NOT a well put together organization. They constantly fight with what's left of the military and constantly lose people and resources, turning to private individuals to get them to run missions for them; ie Joel and Tess. They also can't seem to maintain any sort of base for an extended period of time, either being taken out by infected, raiders, or their own incompetence; the base at the college mid game where one of the doctors released a whole group of infected monkeys from their cages and got bit himself, nice job genius. Then the fact that Marliene told Joel that she had lost half her people just trying to make it across the country; HALF! I don't know what kind of operation these people think they're running, but everything in the game is telling us that the Fireflies in no way shape or form are competent enough to survive this world, let alone save it. Which brings us to the ending contrivance of apparently the one doctor man in the whole end of the world who can apparently find the cure to save all of mankind, and his first action is the kill the only immune subject they know about? No test? No blood work? Nothing? Just straight to cutting her brain open to just look at it? Real geniuses working for the Fireflies. In conclusion, Joel did nothing wrong, not only for being a father choosing to save the life of his daughter, but because the game ironically justifies his actions in almost every way possible by the end sequence by showing that the Fireflies, the "saviours" of mankind, have absolutely no idea what the hell they are doing, and were probably gonna get themselves killed off in a month or two anyway. Oh not to mention that they didn't even pay Joel for his work and were going to walk him out of the hospital at gunpoint without his equipment, without his payment, and without his daughter; yeah no, fuck that noise.

I love this quote from a commentator “The last of us 2 is story about right and wrong made by people who think they’re always right”

If you have kids, it's simple... you protect them (at all costs). The end of TLOU was Joel's character arc PEAK. He suffered UNBEARABLE loss in the beginning, came across Elle, and with time found someone to "father." He found purpose. There was ZERO guarantee for a cure, and like I said... MOST parents out there would say what Joel said, "FIND SOMEONE ELSE." No, Joel did nothing wrong. Should he have told Elle right after? Why? Why give her that guilt and possible resentment. Shes alive.

2:01 that quote from Picard is a REALLY good quote

"I swear." "OK." One of my favorite endings, not just in gaming, but in all of fiction. The juxtaposition of the simplicity of the interaction and the complexity of everything behind the action is just incredible. ANYTHING which resolved the ambiguity was ALWAYS going to lessen it.

Ellie: wakes up in the back of a moving car in nothing but a medical gown. Joel, covered in bloodspatter and reeking of gunpowder: "Oh, yeah, they've totally given up on making a vaccine. They said they don't even need you." Ellie: "Yeeaaaah. . . ."

My biggest problem with this game is that there was massive retcon that drives the whole plot of TLOU2. Ellie at no point in the first says "I want to die for humanity" in fact she was talking about what her and Joel were gonna do after this was all over. Yet in the second game Ellie is now super vocal about wanting to die for the greater good. You cannot rewrite the first game to fit the narrative of the second that isn't how sequels work.

Why do the Scottish have great voices for commentary. You, count dankula, I could listen to you guys forever.

I like how the sjws that always talk about empathy refuse to understand Joel's situation and are completely apathetic If the genders were flipped and Joel was a woman and Abbie was a man, you'd see them immediately support Joel. These people are so basic and predictable

Correct me if I'm wrong, because this is something few people ever bring up, but Ellie wasn't the 1st person to be Immune, and they actually killed several people trying to Make a cure, so there was no guarantee sacrificing Ellie would even work in the 1st place. That actually puts Joel's actions in a more positive light.

Yep. After watching it again, this is my all-time favorite video of yours, and it is without a doubt the most relevant to the problems we face in narratives today. Sometimes more is less. From ambiguity scrubbing prequels, to horror films that exceed the fake blood onscreen with countless gallons of exposition on the exact mechanics of how their monster works.

There's no choice for Joel when deciding to let Ellie die. She is his only reason to live so if she dies, he dies with her. And about the so-called doctors in the Fireflies, why are they in so much of a rush? Sure, thousands of people die every second but they're not under the pressure of a doomsday clock because doomsday already happened. What is so wrong about waiting for Ellie to wake up and let her have a moment with Joel to see if she would be okay with dying? If anything, that might've resulted in Joel accepting Ellie's fate and give the Fireflies what they want anyway.

Joel *debatably* MIGHT have done something wrong in the original. Part II FAILED to explore that in any meaningful way.

When the leaks came out I generally thought Joel’s death scene was like a joke or dream sequence the fact that anyone green lit that scene is actually disturbing

I always thought Ellie's hate toward Joel was misguided, unnecessary, and irrational. He saved her life. Point. Blank. Period.

The truest and greatest line ever spoken by Picard, or anyone in Star Trek. "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life."

My favorite part about the TLOU2 is the part where the infected don't actually exist unless the plot needs them to push the characters along. Not a single person in the entire game talks about them even once, and none of the factions in the game even care about them. I don't know how "Joel doomed humanity" when the threat to humanity isn't even an issue apprently.

I understand this now to be a cornerstone of films. But not just films. It's a cornerstone of any kind of story. I appreciate how you laid down the laws of ambiguity. Well done, fellow drinker.

People forget something that now the show reminds us, Joe has heard about a possible cure multiple times before, when tommy was a firefly and when he worked for Marlene, so Ellie dying meant nothing certain except him loosing someone else, in TLOU 2 they kill everything they built in the first one. even the whole one man against the world until the mission is completed, but nothing happens, Joel dies, the villain escapes, a lot of innocent people die, Ellie looses everyone or pushes everyone away, looses a couple of fingers, the villain escapes again and everything remains the same.

Joel: you cant make a vaccine for a fungus ellie! Ellie: Oh, ok then everyone happy in the end

"Played college golf, you know. Could have gone if I hadn't transitioned" Senator Abby Armstrong

I’ve always found it annoying when people keep saying sh*t like “oh Joel is so evil blah blah”. Joel was never a hero to begin with but nor was he really an evil person, he was simply just a man. I know the whole decision he makes has divided the fan base with the half vilifying Joel while the other half totally get Joel and stuck with his decision. I like the thing it’s trying to go with “what would you do?” While many people would probably have an answer, you never really know until it happens. So I completely understand and side with Joel when it comes to this. It was never really clear that a cure would’ve worked anyway and the bond between Joel and Ellie’s father/daughter relationship was something I believe you could understand why a decision like Joels would be made. So yeah, I agree with Drinker; Joel did nothing wrong. And I will always stick with that side

Regardless of what the doctor’s say, Joel’s decision is based explicitly on his first hand experience with how humanity is for him in the present an a bit in the past. That soldier shot at him and killed his daughter for no good reason other than to cover up a government mistake. The outbreak comes and the people are essentially ostracized and condemned to a life of servitude to the militant occupation of federal workers and officials. They forced to perform jobs that would give the average person nightmares and for scraps each day. Then he travels to take Ellie and he runs into Cannibals, murderers rapists, drug dealers and a wide variety of other terrible kinds of human beings.. all the good ones they encounter die or were already dead long before they may have discovered their bodies.. and Joel is suppose to somehow sympathize with a disease like humanity over a disease that turns people into exactly what they are Monsters in exchange for Ellie’s life? Cmon on now we all know deep down we’d choose Ellie over humanity given the circumstances humanity had its chance and it burned out.. and it continues to show why it’s irredeemable even as the last days hang over it 🤦🏾‍♂️

The Last of Us was truly a great game, too bad they didn't make a sequel.

What if Joel didn't stop Abbey's Father? Abbey's Father: *removes Ellie's brain and heart and all kinds of shit* "Alright, I'm done. Now I can go back home to my daughter, Abbey." Joel: "..."

It makes no sense for Ellie to be mad at Joel for saving her. She loved him. In the first game, she had a meltdown when Joel tried to hand her over to Tommy because she is terrified of losing people she's attached to. Even if she didn’t agree with Joel's actions, she would understand and give him a chance to explain himself. Nothing about her behavior in the sequel made sense for her character

I've been writing now for about a decade and religiously reading fantasy novels to advance my craft, (also cause I bloody well enjoy reading). It doesn't take me more than a page for me to figure out if I'm going to like something. Read your prologue, instantly bought the book. Great writer and critic. Props mate. Cheers!

"The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them." - Chekhov

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die." - Roy Batty

"Ellie's gay, by the way" coming out of nowhere just like the game itself. Love it.

1:33 its comments like this that keep me coming back to this channel. CD thanks for the laughs!

To me, what could have made this story more flushed. Is the creators say yes we’re making last of us 2, it will feature a story not connected to 1 and exploring the apocalypse with a new group, we may revisit Ellie and Joel in the future. And you play as Abby, see her life, surviving, falling in love etc. and the ending is her walking in to see what Joel had done. A reveal moment they don’t tease and a full on surprise so when the last of us 3 is made you legit will be torn for team Abby or team Joel/Ellie. They tried so hard to make you root for Abby but all you wanted to do was kill her... and even that can’t be done.

Joel: *saves Ellie’s life but killing a doctor in the meanwhile* Abby: So anyway I started golfing

I just found this channel and I gotta say I’m impressed. This is what I’ve been saying since I first played this game back in 2014. The ambiguous ending is what made the story so special and I knew they wouldn’t eventually ruin it with a sequel.

God damn I needed this video. I just saw a video where someone seemed logical but then took the LOU2 directly in a narrative the writers were trying to feed everyone. Then when he got to the Abby swap he defends it as you're emotionally drained but come back and resume the game with a mind that slowly starts to see why Abby was in the right while Ellie was in the wrong. He also skips over this happy go lucky Abby without ever mentioning how unhinged with revenge and rage she was. Never mentioned it. Mentioned it with Ellie. Which I had to disagree with him, that when we were done with Ellie my mind was taken off the story and focused on the writers, not Abby. You feel manipulated as they take character traits and swap them in a character assassination. Essentially Ellie got Luke Skywalker-ized without the privilege of the iconic actor of that character come out publicly and say as much. This video was a good reminder that yeah, there definitely was a problem how they presented everything. Thank you, sir. Not only did they cuck Ellie hard once, they cruelly bring you back to her, happy, with girl and child and they screw her over a second time making you go through a second senseless revenge plot. Jesus Christ, Neil, you already told me not to care about Ellie anymore because you did her wrong, now you're going to do it again? FFS... I wish EFAP would dissect this guy's video...

I suppose while some might argue the ending was ambiguous and Joel's actions debatable, I never saw the ending as open-ended or have any doubts towards its resolution. There is not hints but direct statements and actions for what transpired. This is going to be a long one so buckle in. Also...spoilers. While we first hear of the Fireflies in the intro video, after the initial sequence, they come across as freedom fighters. However, our first genuine encounter is a terrorist-like attack on a checkpoint. This immediately draws negative parallels to real-life terrorist organizations. From meeting Marlene on to escaping the city with Ellie, we already see they are a desperate group fighting a losing war, far from a capable and organized force. In exploring Philadelphia, you can learn that many cities went South like Philly after Firefly support. Uprisings started but then the Fireflies could do nothing to keep cities from falling to chaos and were rejected. Again, even among fellow fighters, they lose support and are not capable of "freeing" anyone. Fast forward to the campus. Again the Fireflies have been forced out and we learn of more of their failures in the scientist's recordings. He rants how ineffective they are and incapable of performing the research needed. This is only proven further in his own incompetency to release an infected monkey, leading to his own demise. Failures and foolishness continue to plague this group. Now we come to the ending. Our protagonists have arrived barely alive to the Fireflies. Despite posing no threat and begging for help, he is knocked unconscious by FF guards. He awakes to learn several key points. They are going to attempt to create a vaccine from Ellie. It will require her to be killed and is being performed without her consent. Joel, under threat of death, is forced to leave without his gear or the promised compensation. Let's tackle this. First, a fungal infection is not going to be effectively treated by a vaccine, which is for viral infections, but more often than not some type of drug. Next, creating any type of treatment from Ellie's immunity would really be about blood samples and her antibodies, not carving up her brain. Killing the only known immune individual is mad-science. There own incompetence is further highlighted in recordings that show their failures in previous subjects yet they still rush to off the only known immune person. All of this would be done without Ellie's consent. Some said Ellie was ok with dying for the greater good and I refuse to acknowledge any sequel to this game. This opinion is not true. During the campus gameplay, you can hear dialogue of Ellie sharing she believes it all to be simple tests and blood work and further sharing her own fear of needles. She also talks to Joel after the giraffes about a future with him. These are the not the words of anyone with a death wish. Her own notable survivor's guilt didn't demonstrate a desire to die and have purpose but rather she wanted to have her immunity be worth the losses along the way. Simply, the Fireflies were going to murder a girl who very much wished to live. Finally we get to Joel. The Fireflies, already demonstrating their incompetence and misguidedness, proved themselves to be evil. After everything he did, they essentially are murdering Joel. Breaking their initial promise of giving him his payment, they march him into the wild and don't even return his survival gear, ensuring his death. He is to be killed by bullet or by infected but its clear that they are making sure he will die. Being told his adoptive daughter is being murdered, which he even calls Marlene out as being full of it, and having his life threatened, Joel fights back and goes to save Ellie. At this point, I can't believe anyone could call this ambiguous. It's self-defense and a rescue of a murder attempt. All those he kills threatened his life. The only optional deaths (beyond stealthing the guards) are the two nurses in the surgery room. Let's not forget the doctor takes initiative and threatens Joel with a scalpel. Even Marlene had a gun on Joel at the elevator (and was responsible for having him marched to his death earlier). Again, I can't see anyone believe his actions are anything but self-defense and rescuing a loved one. There is no vaccine and the Fireflies are terrorists. This is very much demonstrated in-game. Last, we get to the ending. The lie. Was their ambiguity? Again, I say no. I don't think that was the point of the ending. Joel lied to spare Ellie. He had reached a point of truly loving someone again and would protect her. He had grown and now had a future. Ellie accepted the lie to accept Joel. She knew it was a lie but was questioning if it mattered or not. Ultimately, she recognized her own growth in making the hard decisions and accepted him and now had a future. The ending is resolved and we know these once lonely and family-less people now had found what they were looking for. At this point, there was no need for a sequel. The only path for a sequel with these two characters was to betray this ending. The far better path would be to have made The Last of Us an anthology series that could focus on larger world-building and tell new stories. The much despised Abby story could have made for a better standalone story about finding commonality with your enemy. It could have just been about Abby and the Scars and worked far better than dragging the first game into it. This could have led to the franchise being a platform for new stories, new gameplay, and allow for a deeper experience overall. Too late now.

Joel and Ellie are still together surviving in Jackson, TLOU: Part 2 is a Elseworlds story of what would have happened if Joel had gotten sloppy and didn’t exterminate everyone in the Firefly base.

I'm currently playing through The Last Of Us Remastered on PS4. No matter how many times I see it, Joel's daughter's death always makes me tear up because I have 3 sons. I couldn't imagine how he would have felt through 20 years of animalistic existence.

The same people who criticize Joel for saving Ellie, are the same people who agree when captain America told vision "we don't trade lives"

"The needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few" is largely taken out of context. Spock chose for himself to sacrifice himself to save others. Thats different then sacrificing an unwilling individual to save others.

"Ellie is gay by the way"...gay like happy, happy to be saved by Joel.

"The writers of the game were smart enough not to make arbitrary judgements about Joel's decision or tried to lecture us about what he should have done".....lol no they did that in the second game ! How could they not see what made the first game so great ? I agree with you, the nuances of the first game were completely ignored and destroyed under the patronising jack boot of moral lecturing. You summed up both games beautifully. I guess for most gamers who loved the ethos of the first game and really bought in to it, Joel's death also signified the death of all they loved about the first game and the hope it would continue. Fans of the first game can only hope there will be a Last of Us one and a half, where the story is told between game one and two.

I cannot agree more with you. Great examples as well. It all rings true to me.

Praising this game for being "bold" is just as stupid as praising the Last Jedi for the same thing

despite all the shit Ellie gave him and his lack of defending himself, Joel still held no regrets for his decision until the day he died.

Joel wasn't really amoral here. They were going to kill ellie without either one of their consents / not even informing them until it was too late

i would've done the same thing as Joel, even if I had no emotional attachment to Ellie like he did. Why? I am strongly against the murder of children, and that includes sacrificing them for the sake of humanity. Frankly, I believe that Ellie being immune was just natural human evolution designed to have future humans not be affected by the fungal zombie virus. Ellie just happened to be the first of them. Any humans later on would have a chance of gaining that mutation. Unfortunately, humans in the game weren't able to consider it. Why? they were desperate to bring the world to how it was immediately. However, they have no way of knowing if they'd be successful even if they could create a vaccine/cure from Ellie's mutation. Chances are, it would fail even if it succeeded everytime in their simulations.

Joel... a big, badass, calculated, brutal Texan. Taken down by someone on too much HRT

Joel did the right thing. Ultimately there is no guarantee that the cure was actually possible unless you 100 percent believe those scientists. So, since the scientists are coming at him and Ellie with hostile intent Joel has the right to defend himself.

Amazing video. The lack of ambiguity is precisely what another recent story suffers from in it's final arc : Attack on Titan. Just like TLOU2, the final arc of AOT throws almost any ambiguity it previously had out the window, in favor of lecturing it's audience on what is right, what is wrong, what should be condemned, what should be condoned, which characters you should root for, which characters you should root against, and just like TLOU2, it ended up irreversibly splitting it's fanbase as a result. A true shame.

I don't think it's ambiguous at all when you think about what the Fireflies are doing, or rather what they aren't doing. Why is fatal brain surgery step 1? They have no reason to assume that they need her brain removed. There should be about a thousand tests, experiments, and exploratory surgeries before resorting to a 1 and done last resort. The Fireflies were simply too incompetent to be trusted with this task.

What Last of Us 2? Are we talking about some fan fiction? The Last of Us had a perfect ambiguous ending that made the player reflect and think about the moral ramifications of the Fireflies and Joel’s actions. Only a complete moron would try to ruin that ending with a sequel that makes the whole game a boring black and white conflict that vilifies one character.

Abby is just as compelling as Bryce Walker from 13 Reasons “starting a conversation” Why

The thing that alot of people forget to mention in this dilemma of moral ambiguity, is that if the fireflies were successful in extracting ellies brain and concocting a cure is how exactly would it be distributed? The fireflies were/are in essence, domestic terrorists. They're seen as raiders, and met with disdain by any who learn of their whereabouts. If you were to be living in one of the few QZ's left standing and you were constantly in mortal danger due to the self righteous war that the fireflies were waging, would you believe them if they were to come peacefully and declare that they had a cure to the cordyceps? Nevermind that question of hypotheticals, how exactly would the fireflies mass produce the cure if the surgery was successful? Who's to say that the fireflies would simply create enough doses for their own faction and leave the rest of the population to its own devices? Joel's decision to save ellie and kill everyone can be perceived as evil, but ultimately its equally selfless. By saving Ellie, Joel redeems himself and fully opens up discarding his once standoffish and brooding persona at the start of the game, and prevented a domestic terrorist faction from becoming immune in the process. There are to many what if scenarios and the grand scheme of a cure for humanity is unrealistic. Power in the wrong hands would lead to further disarray and chaos.

This was incredibly well done. Bravo sir bravo

Don’t forget Tommy was mad at Ellie for not trying to get revenge for Joel after telling her to not get revenge for Joel.

Stargate SG1 loves to have “ethical dilemma” episodes as well. They didn’t always hit the mark but it was a sincere effort at higher-minded concepts that elevated the show above others and let it transcend its budget sets and Canadian forest planets. I appreciate that more given the current woke wasteland that is Hollywood.

Joel lost one child. He didn't have the strength to lose another. He did what any parent would have done. Ellie on the other hand thought her life only had one meaning which was to die to maybe help the ones she couldn't so their death had some sort of dignity. It was a two way street. First game was built on love and the second on hatred.

I absolutely love when a story has ambiguity. The Birds is amazing because of this. Sometimes, the lack of closure or certainty is the point of some aspect of the work. The Last of Us was great because of this. There's so many ways to look at it from different perspectives and questions. Should Joel respect Ellie's wishes or override her desires like a guardian? Would they even be able to make cure from killing her, or would the cure be genetic and able to be passed down? Is Ellie the only one alive who's immune or the only one we know of? Would they have used the cure to benefit humanity, or for their own personal gain? Could humanity be saved, or has society collapsed so far that a cure would have little to no effect? Should Joel bother with trying to save humanity, or have they taken enough from him? Is humanity even worth saving, since even in such dire times, we're still evil selfish jerks? It's so complex and makes the story so compelling to discuss.

Why, Joel did chose to save the world. It's just that his world was Ellie.

Wow, posted 9seconds ago. TLoU2 is nothing less than extremely cheap attempted emotional manipulation.

A reminder that Jerry only has a bachelor of science degree.

We could expect Joel dying in the sequel, but we sure as hell didn't expect him be killed by a buffed up girl in an apocalíptica scenario where steroids would be the least thing to be around. And after killing Joel you can be sure we didn't expect playing as Abbye for half the game.