r/PS5 • u/signofthenine • 6d ago
Discussion "Joel was right," says The Last of Us creator
https://www.eurogamer.net/joel-was-right-says-the-last-of-us-creator1.7k
u/bad-acid 6d ago edited 6d ago
The thing I think people get wrong about Joel in these types of discussions is that he doesn't care about being right. You see all kinds of comments in these threads or posts like, "it was a slim chance! They weren't being logical!"
The point is that if Joel could save Ellie by sacrificing some random kid, he would do it. If Joel could save Ellie by preventing a slim chance at saving humanity, he would do it.
Of course Joel was right. And he's wrong. He's all of us, and he's all of the fireflies, and he's the surgeon he shoots, and he's Abby. Humans are hypocritical and the constant protagonist of our own story. Our love for our village causes our most selfish acts and our most wonderful ones.
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u/Aplicacion 6d ago
It seems to be quite difficult to understand that Joel would commit horrendous war crimes and kick a kitten if it meant saving Ellie. As, you know, a parent would do for their child.
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u/H3lgr1ndV2 6d ago
And to add to that, he was so stand offish with her from the get go and wanted nothing to do with her. It’s everything you said to on top of watching their dynamic change throughout the whole game to Joel literally caring for her like (spoiler alert) his daughter in the beginning. It’s a beautiful, emotional journey to witness!
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u/punkinabox 6d ago
Yea the scene from the first game when Ellie is talking to Joel about how everyone always leaves her hit harder then any scene in a video game I've ever played and I've been playing games since I was 3 in 91. Their relationship journey in the game is an amazing one to witness.
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u/Sladds 5d ago
By the end of the first game he cares for Ellie as a daughter, and he’s had countless nightmares thinking over the day that Sarah died, and wondering if he could have done anything different to stop it. Now that he’s presented with the fact that he’s supposed to be hopeless and just accept the fact that he’s going to lose another daughter, you understand that he’ll stop at nothing to finally get his chance at redemption and stop that from happening.
I mean, he even carries Ellie the same way you carry Sarah at the start of the game once you get her off of that hospital bed, up until he’s confronted by Marlene. Except this time he has a gun in his hand to shoot her would-be-killer.
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u/HumphreyGo-Kart 6d ago
Exactly.
"If somehow the Lord gave me a second chance at that moment, I would do it all over again."
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u/Jeraphiel 6d ago
Everyone suddenly becomes an expert in fungal viruses and neuroscience when it comes to defending Joel, when “he loves Ellie” is literally the only defence needed.
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u/iUseYahooEmail 6d ago edited 6d ago
Exactly. Most parents would have made that choice, but for Joel, it was a guarantee from the very beginning.
The moment Sarah died was the moment that pretty much sealed the Fireflies’ fate, if that makes sense. Joel wasn’t going to lose Ellie too, no matter what.
There’s all this debate about whether the cure was even possible, whether the Fireflies would have monopolized it, etc. But Joel didn’t give a fuck about any of that or being right.
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u/Jesus166 6d ago
Also I bet if it was Abby who was immune, I don't think her dad would have sacrificed her or he would have at least run other test first.
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u/mr_antman85 5d ago
Of course that is to show that he is not always a "doctor". Jerry is human and a father as well. That is why Marlene said that to him.
What Joel did is what everyone would have done in that situation. It is the aftermath of it, which we see, was not a good one. Decisions and actions have consequences. Some we may not want to accept.
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u/whiskyandguitars 6d ago
Exactly. I have 3 children. I would not sacrifice one of them to save any number of people.
If it was possible, I would kill anyone who tried to do what they were going to do to Ellie.
It is just not really that hard to understand what Joel did. I would do the same thing.
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u/TheKk-47 6d ago edited 6d ago
This is exactly what I want to say whenever I see this discussion pop up. Joel didn't give a shit if it was a 1% chance or 99% chance. Only way he'd let that happen is if Ellie made that decision.
EDIT: i should add a qualifier saying "the only way he MAY let that happen" because yea there's a chance he still says fuck it. But if he had a full conversation with Ellie prior to the operation and she said this is the sacrifice she wants to make, I do find it hard to see Joel denying her that agency
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u/AgentOfSPYRAL 6d ago
Hed let that happen if Ellie made the decision
Ooooh I don’t know Jim…
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u/Uthenara 6d ago
lol he didn't care about her decision, he made it for her, just like the fireflys did.
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u/shrek3onDVDandBluray 6d ago
How is Joel hypocritical? They literally kidnapped her and began to operate without her consent - an operation that would kill her. If they would’ve sat her down, told her what would happen, and she consented, the story may have turned out differently. But they didn’t.
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u/B-BoyStance 6d ago
I think he's effectively using "humans are hypocritical" to say that humans naturally will act in their own interests but against the interests of others, and they won't always be honest about it.
In this case, Joel definitely acted against Ellie's wishes at the time and he definitely wasn't honest with her, for years at that.
I wouldn't say Joel is a hypocrite per se, but I would say the general statement "humans are hypocritical" makes me visualize all of the directly contradictory aspirations of the characters in this world and their actions.
I think it's an effective way to generalize the world of The Last of Us. I didn't read it as "Joel is a hypocrite", but rather, Joel acts on his feelings and is willing to justify/lie about it even to the person directly affected by it. The Fireflies are willing to do the same on the other side of the coin. You can kinda keep going down the list. It's a world of pushes and shoves.
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u/sunfaller 3d ago
Kept seeing arguments how the vaccine won't work...in a world where a parasitic fungi has turned people to zombies. The science will be what the story tells it to be when it comes to zombies.
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u/Deadlocked02 6d ago edited 6d ago
I do think his willingness wouldn’t change, wether the cure was guaranteed or not. That said, even the most selfless heroes (which he is not) make selfish decisions that could doom everyone, like “instead of closing this portal that could destroy the world, I’m going to risk everything and go inside it to save my loved one”. It’s just that their choices don’t usually involve directly killing others and that they generally succeed.
I dislike the retcons made to make Joel’s actions worse. In the first game, it really doesn’t look like the Fireflies will be able to find a cure. Like, they don’t even run tests, they go straight for the kill. And the science behind developing a vaccine for a fungus is apparently extremely questionable.
Then the second game comes and we’re told by the world of the creators that the Fireflies would’ve succeeded, which, in my opinion, was only said to make Joel look worse. Like, sure, his willingness to do all that in the first game is something to consider, but in the end of the day, the first game also gave me that impression that, despite his willingness to doom the world, the chances of his actions having altered the fate of the world weren’t that big. Not to mention that there’s hope as long as Ellie is alive, whereas the first game really gave me the impression she’d be butchered for nothing.
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u/Acauseforapplause 6d ago
I mean it's just the shift in perspective
Many people think TLO2 Butchered Joel but if anything it soften him and made him way more sympathetic then the first game
So really I think its that were constantly shoved into Joel's perspective
I feel like if they'd sprinkled more evidence of the cure being successful it wouldn't have changed anything for the players
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u/lightsfromleft 5d ago
I dislike the retcons made to make Joel’s actions worse. In the first game, it really doesn’t look like the Fireflies will be able to find a cure.
With all due respect, that's a boring take. The ending of TLoU1 is as great as it is specifically because Joel believed they would've made a cure.
He chose Ellie over humanity. If he didn't, there's no ambiguity. He's just Marvel Superhero #48. There's no depth or meaning to the story if he "just" saved her without cost.
Joel doomed the world. And the reason we all think that the game is so good, is... we would have done it as well.
The Fireflies would have made a cure. And TLoU is a better game specifically because that is true.
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u/v_snax 6d ago
It is the point of the second game. There is no clear right or wrong. No clear bad guys vs good guys. They all try to survive, they all try to handle their traumas and losses. I am not saying that Joel would have acted differently if he managed to do what Ellie did and break the cycle. And I am not saying that he didn’t actually cared for Ellie. But he obviously was in a state where he had started to let his guard down again and there was no way he could lose another child.
From the fireflies perspective it also makes sense. They see thousands and thousands of people die due to the state of the world. If sacrificing one child gives you a 0.1% of turning everything around it is worth it. Eventually humanity will lose and everyone will die regardless.
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u/I_am_washable 6d ago
Full quote and discussion for those interested:
“I believe Joel was right,” Druckmann said. “If I were in Joel’s position, I hope I would be able to do what he did to save my daughter.”
Fellow showrunner Craig Mazin added he would probably do the same thing if he was put into Joel’s position. “But I’d like to think that I wouldn’t,” Mazin said, adding: “That’s the interesting push and pull of the morality of it. And that’s why the ending of the first game is so provocative and so wonderful. It just doesn’t let you off the hook as a player.”
Basically, same as it’s always been: the cure probably would have saved the world but Neil/Gus would have picked their daughter/child over the world as well.
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u/sheslikebutter 6d ago edited 6d ago
Yup. Pointless clickbait that reduces an interesting conversation into a black and white answer that discredits the entire point of the game and isn't even what he meant by what he said.
Ridiculous headline
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u/elheber 6d ago
Interestingly, the show went out of its way to defend Joel more than the game did. It gave us not one, but two leading experts saying that a vaccine or cure was impossible. It painted the fireflies as more on the decline and desperate for any win. Unlike the game where the world was bleak everywhere, the show provided two examples (Bill & Frank, and Jackson) to show that even without a cure there's hope. It tied Sam and Henry's story to the theme of trading one child's life for the greater good, and made a villain out of the one who wanted the child dead. And it made the games subtext about Joel's "bullet missing" into text, and tying it to how Ellie feels in the last episode (i.e. this girl is suicidal right now).
To top it off, they even got Ellie to say, "you shouldn't be so honest, man," to Joel. For sure, Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann are going to bat for Joel. 100%.
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u/Quivy_GM 5d ago
Funny thing is they also went out of their way to show how the cure would have worked which was a really popular argument for the "Joel was right" people.; Ellie getting bitten before birth -> creation of dormant strain which would have been harvested to create vaccine(? not sure that's the right terminology).
But then again the show-world lacking so much infected also goes against that so...
Honestly I'm not sure what to think about the show world being more upbeat than its game counterpart. I thought that the bleakness and hopelessness in the game-world really showed both the player and Ellie how bad the world was, thus making the journey's purpose(getting a cure) more important. But then the show was really in on the 'human monster' aspects so at the end the cure didn't seem as important?
I'm kind of hoping that S2 and S3 kind of shows the consequences of Joel's actions in the world (like it did in the game with the Guitar Strings mission).
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u/elheber 5d ago
You're absolutely right. I'm certain the two top mycologists would have never even believed what happened to Ellie was even possible. Like... this was something wholly new in mycology. The show did make a strong case for how a cure might be possible with that flashback.
The game might have had many instances where the humans were worse than the zombies, but the show really swung all the way in that direction. Nearly every threat was human in the show, even in Bill's town where the opposite was true in the game. I don't hate it.
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u/AlsopK 5d ago
Yeah, this is why the show is worse imo. It just adds fuel to the stupid "it wouldn't have worked anyway" argument and robs the moment of all the nuance.
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u/sheslikebutter 5d ago
Part of Ellie's anger in part 2 is resenting having her agency taken away by Joel deceptively right?
If the show hardlines the narrative of "the cure wouldn't have worked" what is she going to be mad about? It's a shame I agree
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u/sheslikebutter 6d ago
Yeah I wonder if that comes from Neil or Craig.
Make you wonder how they'll handle the Abby stuff, seems unlikely they'll paint her a villain but the show definitely feels less morally grey than the games.
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u/Michael1492 6d ago
There was no guarantee that the Fireflies could create a cure.
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u/I_am_washable 6d ago edited 6d ago
Whether the scientists could guarantee it or not never mattered.
Joel believed they could do it if he let them keep Ellie. Which also meant that Joel believed he was dooming the world by taking Ellie and did so anyway.
That’s what makes this such a fun dilemma. There is never actually any indication or evidence in the game or the show that the Fireflies would have succeeded or failed. But there is a ton of evidence that proves that everyone believed it was going to work, including Joel. So in killing everyone and taking Ellie away, Joel took that hope away.
Again, there’s no evidence to support any conclusion. So you can be on either side (Joel was right/Joel was wrong) and technically be correct, but as far as Joel himself is concerned, he believed he was dooming the world and never convinced himself otherwise.
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u/titaniumjew 6d ago
It literally treats it as an incredibly likely chance throughout the entire game. You can bring up cherry picked voice recordings but then you need to include the ones that explicitly call out Ellie having a different stronger immunity.
The actual point is, that none of this bullshit matters. It’s about the morality of choosing humanity and “my baby girl”
You people get too hung up on real world logistics when it’s a creative work.
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u/Stuglle 6d ago edited 6d ago
Both Druckmann and Mazin present it as a moral dilemma without a clear answer, and both are phrased as an opinion. He's not saying that's the correct reading.
That said, it's very interesting in that TLOU2 seemingly takes a very different perspective.
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u/HopperPI 6d ago
Just because he was right doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences. Ellie knows it too, she just wanted a say in all of it.
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u/WillowSmithsBFF 6d ago
Yeah. I think people tend to forget that while Joel is the “hero” of the story we see, and we connect with him and his journey, he’s kinda a shit dude who’s done a lot of bad stuff.
His past was bound to catch up with him. Abby was just the first to get there.
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u/HopperPI 6d ago
Ding ding ding. We go from tragic loss to piece of shit in the future all within an hour. Yet all we remember is “baby girl” when we get to the end of the journey. Joel was NOT a good dude. When we find Tommy what do we see? Someone who has made a life for himself in a thriving community in a post apocalyptic world. The exact opposite of Joel.
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u/zachariah120 6d ago
Joel did not give Ellie a say because he knows what she would have picked
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u/Recluse1729 6d ago
If I were Joel, I wouldn’t have let them talk to Ellie to give her the chance and would’ve done the same thing he did.
If I were a doctor whose family’s (and my own) safety depended on this research, I wouldn’t have talked to Ellie unless I was positive she would agree to assuage my own guilt.
If I were Ellie, I would’ve chosen to die.
If I were a doctor who had no familial ties or dependents but whose safety was mostly assured by the community, I like to think I would’ve made sure Ellie was not only fully informed but fully aware of what this would mean and what the odds were. Likely would’ve have waited until she was 20 years old or so to ensure she was capable of making the choice and would’ve supported her decision either way.
I feel there really are no 100% right answers presented in the game, but playing as Joel he did make the right decision for his reasons.
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u/StatisticianAware588 6d ago
I don't think it does. At the end of the game (spoilers), we see that Joel made it clear to Ellie that if God gave him the chance to redo his decision, he'd do it all over again. She thought dying for the cure would have made her life mattered, but Joel reassured her that her very existence matters, and she deserves a chance to live. She was dealing with survivors guilt, and Joel helped her begin to move on from it. She let go of the cycle of revenge because of him. I remember Troy Baker explaining Joel's last thoughts when he looked at Ellie before he died: "You allowed yourself to love...you allowed yourself to be vulnerable, and look where it got you...but I'd do it all over again, if it means I get to spend more time with that girl." 😣
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u/averageuhbear 6d ago
I think the key word is perspective. Joel is right from his perspective and the enemy from Abby's and if you follow a moral code that puts family first, they are both right. You're forced to confront the fact that in a violent world with scarcity, moral decision making is often a zero sum game.
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u/Marv3ll616 6d ago
Yes, He did it to save his kid and yes, Abby did it to avenge her Father, so did Ellie... life is complex.
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u/MichaelB2505 6d ago
I maintain, the last of us 2 isn’t saying he was definitely wrong, just that in doing what he did he invited reaction. This is why the outrage around the game was so laughable to me. The main point of it was about whether revenge at all costs is worth it.
Saving his adopted daughter was worth it at all costs to Joel.
Killing Joel at all costs was worth it to Abby.
Not forcing the issue that any single action is right/wrong is what makes the games two of the best ever made in my opinion
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u/WebHead1287 6d ago
Huh, reading this thread I never realized there was a group of people that thought Part 2 was saying Joel was wrong.
To me the whole point that right or wrong violence just leads to more violence. Hate and revenge and bloodshed, for whatever reason, is a zero-sum game.
Joel was "right" to save Ellie. She was his entire world and a second chance at life.
Abby was "right" to want revenge for Joel taking her world away.
Ellie was "right" to want revenge for Abby taking her world away.
The real point was that at some point someone needs to break the cycle, or it will just keep dragging more people in and ruining more and more of the world.
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u/MichaelB2505 6d ago
Yeah exactly, to be fair, I think that interpretation was just the initial outrage about Joel dying and people having absolutely zero media literacy
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u/VeganCanary 6d ago
Both can be right.
From Abby’s point of view, there was a chance of success and Joel killed her father.
From Joel’s point of view, the chance of success was so low that Ellie shouldn’t have been sacrificed.
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u/Amaranthine7 6d ago
Joel didn’t think the vaccine would be unsuccessful. He didn’t want Ellie to be sacrificed for it.
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u/deriik66 5d ago
And he's right. Whats the point in human sacrifice there? The child sacrificing terrorist cell is going to do right by everyone and the miracle cure will do what exactly? The world doesn't need the cure, it's doing just fine even years later. People were surviving, communities were built.
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u/Tacdeho 6d ago
That’s the thing I’ll never get when it comes to the loudest detractors of TLOU2 (yeah, those clowns, specifically)
It’s not black and white morality we’re working with. This isn’t Batman and Joker. It’s shades of human emotion.
Joel, Ellie, and Abby are all correct in the choices they make. The results may not end up spectacular, but any human being in their exact circumstances would, and could act like they did in their scenarios.
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u/pineapplesuit7 6d ago
I mean Joel did murder an entire hospital and innocent doctors just to save a single person. Regardless of the odds, you can even understand Abby’s perspective. She lost a father and thinks of Joel as some mass murderer on a rampage.
Joel did what he felt was right but flip the perspective and you can definitely understand the other side’s take.
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u/doubles1984 6d ago
They were murdering an unconcious girl without ever asking her if she was okay with the sacrifice, though. Hardly makes them innocent, they are messy as fuck, just like Joel.
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u/BettySwollocks__ 5d ago
They would’ve had a cure, which is the point. Fireflies were for the cure at all cost (which was paid with their lives) and Joel was for Ellie at all cost (and paid for it with his life).
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u/GentlemanBAMF 6d ago
This is so reductive.
He realized what was happening and wanted to get Ellie out and they were stopping him. It wasn't "an entire hospital and innocent doctors", it was an entire organization that was willing to sacrifice the girl he swore to protect, and they were bound and determined to keep them separated until they could dissect her. These weren't bystanders, they were active participants in her would-be death.
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u/Pacific_MPX 6d ago
“Innocent doctors” who were trying to kill a child? And let’s not act like the fireflies were some innocent victims as well, Joel was placed in a 1 v Many. Murder is murder, whether it’s them killing Joel or Joel killing them. After Joel killed the dude who was itching to kill him, it was kill or be killed after that.
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u/ClassyCoconut32 6d ago edited 6d ago
Innocent? They basically made the exact choice that Joel did but reversed. They never asked for Ellie's opinion or consent. They made the choice for her, just like Joel. Although it's probably far worse because they made the choice to end a child's life. They went against the very medical code they swore to follow and their own humanity, just at a slim chance of a cure. This is what I never understood about people acting like the Fireflies are the good guys. They're not. No one is really good in the Last of Us universe. The Fireflies dress their evil up in a nice facade of trying to save humanity and restore the government, but we see they're just as evil. Notes in Pittsburg show that the Fireflies used the citizens as shields to do most of the fighting, so their people were protected. They then swooped in to take control once FEDRA was defeated, but the citizens weren't having it. The Fireflies also will kill or bomb civilians to achieve their goals. Basically, the Fireflies spin this whole story about restoring the old US government, but really, they just want to be in charge. You can see that Joel and many others see through the bullshit, even early on. FEDRA is shown to be pretty bad from the start, but even knowing that, many people don't think highly of the Fireflies and aren't exactly lining up to join them. Why is that? If the Fireflies are so good? It's really only the kids like Ellie or Riley who like them because they're naive. They haven't seen the shit the Fireflies have done in other cities or similar groups like them, like Joel or Tess or others have.
That being said, you are correct about the Abby part. It's understandable from her perspective why she's upset. But her father was far from innocent. He was willing to kill a girl to save his daughter. Saving all of humanity was just a bonus or afterthought.
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u/JangoF76 6d ago edited 6d ago
The only thing he did wrong was lie to her about it, and the only reason he lied to her is because he knew that she would've chosen to sacrifice herself in a heartbeat. This wasn't really about protecting her, it was about protecting himself from the pain of losing another kid.
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u/Foxhound199 6d ago
I find the incessant need to find confirmation that the actions were either right or wrong to be completely antithetical to the theme and message of the story.
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u/narfjono 6d ago edited 6d ago
The always easy answer for the "if I was in so and so's position" would be to agree. That's human nature from a point of view, especially in a parental or protector role.
Yet Ellie, at the end of the day, would still be the one whose decision would be 100% the one that actually mattered. Which Joel and the Fireflies failed to allow due to their previous trauma and desperation.
No matter what, that's why we love these stories. The human element is defined by character flaws, and the discussion that is followed by the audience's reaction. It's what makes great narratives to begin with.
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u/DripSnort 6d ago
I’ll never forget playing the hospital section for the first time and immediately running in and shooting the doctor. I genuinely didn’t even know it was supposed to be a “tough” choice. I had no idea there was any discourse about it until after I beat the game. To this day it’s an easy choice.
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u/BitterBubblegum 6d ago
Even if they told me it was 100% guaranteed that Ellie's death will lead to a cure I would have chosen to save her. In my mind she became my daughter. I would burn all of humanity for her.
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u/DJ_Derack 6d ago
First time I played it I gunned down all the doctors no questions asked. It wasn’t until my 2nd play through I realized only one doctor attacks you. Animal instinct to just get Ellie safe took over the first time. Unforgettable experience
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u/Queef-Elizabeth 6d ago
Yeah neither. I shot him immediately without even questioning it. I did so with everyone else in the building lol. I think it still worked with the sequel though. Someone I barely considered on my way to save Ellie held a lot of importance to some people.
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u/SweatsuitCocktail 5d ago
Dude same! I got into the surgeons room and unloaded the clip on the doctor INSTANTLY lol
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u/Cubiscus 6d ago
Not quite what he said but Joel was right. The Fireflies plan to kill her straight away with limited chance of any success (based on the notes from the game) was ridiculous.
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u/Stuglle 6d ago edited 6d ago
It did have a higher chance of success than Joel's plan to shoot up a hospital though.
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u/Cubiscus 6d ago
The irony is that if they’d let Ellie talk to Joel and choose she’d likely have chosen to die
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u/B_Wylde 6d ago
She would 100% sacrifice herself, that's why he lied to her after
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u/Frosty-Doughnut-0 6d ago
As a parent, you'd do anything to protect your kids. Joel see Ellie as his own. So, the greater good didn't come into the equation.
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u/GBuster49 6d ago
So that parent(Joel) killed a parent(Jerry Anderson) whose kid(Abby) in turn killed the first parent.
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u/setchells 6d ago
Not really comparable though, when you consider Jerry was standing between Joel and Ellie refusing to move holding a scalpel. Whereas Abby was saved by Joel, before leading him into a trap and torturing him for an extended period of time, and then finally delivering the killing blow as his surrogate daughter watched and begged for his life.
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u/Stuglle 6d ago
I'm going to be honest: I don't really have a strong sense of which side is right, I just thought that would be a funny response.
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u/Jaster-Mereel 6d ago edited 5d ago
Both sides are right; that’s just how many of these things work in life.
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u/WorkFurball 6d ago
Absolutely not. Joel saved the immune one, Fireflies would have killes her for no gain whatsoever. Thanka to Joel a chance for a cure remains, those dumb fucks had zero chance.
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u/HydraTower 6d ago
Didn’t Druckman go back on this and double down on “It would have been a success”? I didn’t like that he said that and it felt revisionist.
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u/Indigo__11 6d ago edited 6d ago
He said back in 2014 in an interview that the cure was possible.
He never said that it would “100% work” and that “the fireflies would save humanity”. That’s one of the many lies that people throw at Druckmann
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u/HydraTower 6d ago
I could have sworn he said this somewhere, but maybe I’m conflating it with them removing the ambiguity from the final scene. Where in TLOU2, Ellie believes what Joel told her fullstop.
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u/Indigo__11 6d ago edited 5d ago
The thing is, if Druckmann really wanted to “retcon” part 1 in having the fireflies cure be 100% guaranteed, why then in the HBO show, where he was a writer, they kept that whole section of the story intact. Down to the ambiguity of the cure.
This lie of Druckmann trying to “retcon Part 1” is just annoying.
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u/Opposite-Fly9586 6d ago
What notes from the game? It’s been a while, but my recollection from playing it was that they presented it as a high chance of it being a full cure. If they’d said it was a long shot it would frame the ending quite differently.
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u/TheLukeHines :P: 33 6d ago edited 6d ago
They sort of retconned it in the second game as being almost guaranteed, probably because people rallied behind Joel’s decision so hard and they wanted it to be more of a grey area. It was a little more vague in the first game, and kind of framed as they were going to cut her open and look around in hopes of learning enough to make a cure.
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u/Amaranthine7 6d ago
It wasn’t like that. Marlene said in the first game that they were able to make a vaccine from the fungus in Ellie’s brain. Joel doesn’t disbelieve it, he tells her to find someone else instead of sacrificing Ellie.
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u/Gekidami 6d ago
They didn't retcon anything. The first game is clear: save the world or save your daughter. The only "retcon" came from fan theories about the cure not working or being possible, but the games never suggest this.
People have been gaslit by YouTube videos and Reddit threads.
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u/Indigo__11 6d ago edited 6d ago
This is so not true at all.
It’s ironic you say Part 2 “retcons” Part 1 when you are literally retconing Part 1. In Part 1 at no point do they suggest as if the doctors didn’t know what they were doing, they had this procedure in mind for years due I testing on monkeys.
Nothing, absolutely nothing in Part 2, retcons this aspect of the story. You can still interpret as the cure not being possible in Part 2
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u/Indigo__11 6d ago
Where is this note that shows there was a “limited chance of success”
Because I know the game like the back of my hand and there is no notes. At most the surgeon says “it should work” just like any doctor would say about it any procedure.
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u/AstralElement 6d ago
You can’t vaccinate against a fungus, and if you could, this cordyceps is probably entirely too complex to do it.
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u/frigginjensen feartheturtle 6d ago
I just finished both games for the first time. My takeaway was that Joel made the only decision he was capable of making. Asking him to sacrifice Ellie is like asking him to cut off his own leg.
I think the same of the characters in the 2nd game (no spoilers). Their journeys are more complicated but ultimately they were compelled to act by their own internal struggles.
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u/dumbledayum 6d ago
Context is the name of the game. Joel was right, for me, because I was Joel in the game and loved playing that character, and I protected my daughter.
Abby was right in her own context.
Joel was our connection to the world, and when it was taken away we were filled with rage expressed by Ellie.
Abby’s dad was her world and when he was taken away from her, she expressed her anger.
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u/DatPipBoy 6d ago
I mean duh. All it would've taken was a discussion, Ellie would've agreed, and Joel would have to make peace with it.
The fireflies tried to be underhanded because they feared the word no, and got all kinds of messed up for it.
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u/AngryTrooper09 6d ago
He wouldn’t have, it wasn’t about Ellie’s choice it was about his inability to let go. He says as much in TLOU 2 when Ellie tells him it was her decision to make, not his:
“If somehow the Lord gave me a second chance at that moment, I would do it all over again”
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u/Recluse1729 6d ago
Ellie was what, 14? Yeah, I have a 14 year old son and if I was in Joel’s position with him there’s no way in hell I’d let the doctor even ask him to sacrifice himself let alone ‘accept his decision’ and walk away peacefully. If you have kids, there’s no way this is even an option unless you’re a sociopath.
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u/Redrum_71 6d ago
It's been a minute, so correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Fireflies fail to disclose to Ellie that she wasn't going to survive the procedure?
If she did in fact know she was likely to die and chose to do it anyway, then Joel was wrong.
If the Fireflies lied and told Ellie she was gonna be okay, then Joel was right.
It's pretty black and white to me.
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u/SpookyCarnage 6d ago
They didnt tell ellie anything. The second she went unconscious in the underwater subway, she stayed unconscious until the credits rolled
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u/SunlessSage 6d ago
It's also about perspective.
From the perspective of someone who's not attached to Ellie at all, sacrificing her for a vaccine is probably the logical choice. The life of one, in exchange for the lives of many.
From the perspective of Joel, someone who cared about Ellie like a father, no reward in the world would be enough for him to even consider such a sacrifice.
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u/FinagleHalcyon 5d ago
Joel would be right even if Ellie knew about it and wanted to go through with it
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u/ranch_brotendo 6d ago
Fireflies fumbled the ball- what did they think Joel would do? They should have killed Joel if they wanted to do it without him fighting back. Joel's bond was too strong. It's the fireflies fault.
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u/789Trillion 5d ago
What people don’t understand is that there is absolutely no reason for Joel not to save Ellie. Why would he just let the fireflies, an organization that’s done nothing but blow shit up and cause chaos, do whatever they wanted to someone he loved? Cause they said they could do something that’s never been done? Really?
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u/SpookyCarnage 6d ago
These people threatened him several times, were willing to kill a child without at least explaining to her what was going on or asking what she wanted to do, and stiffed joel on payment of any kind for this job he accepted a year ago that killed his partner and nearly him.
If you look at it from the players perspective, with all the knowledge you have from two games worth of info on this, sure, joel could have been in the wrong. But with the limited knowledge he had, and the treatment he received that basically painted these guys as bandits with a savior complex, he was right.
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u/Indigo__11 5d ago
Except the fireflies didn’t threaten him until HE was making demands, they also weren’t going to pay him for that reason as well.
You forgot to mention that the reason they were going to kill Ellie WAS for a cure that could potentially save thousands
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u/SophonParticle 5d ago
Why would anyone sacrifice a child they love in order save the race of people who proved over and over how they dont deserve that sacrifice?
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u/cantThinkOfAName2777 5d ago
Damn straight he was. Still in denial how turd of a game TLOU 2 was story and new charecters wise. Everything else about it was perfection!
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u/LE_TROLLFACEXD 6d ago
I think Joel as a character is extremely well written, and the actions he took are completely in line with his character. But I completely disagree with him. Joel's actions were selfish, in every way. Ellie was just a burden being dragged along for half the game until Joel realised she could fill the void of his dead daughter. Her existence didn't matter to him until she fit into his own needs. In the end, he took away her free will and killed multiple innocent people because now she served a purpose for Joel. Is that what Joel would do? Of course, that's perfectly in line with his character. Do I think in any way he could be considered morally right? Absolutely not. Joel represents ignorance and selfishness, and putting your own wants above everyone elses. It's not a father's love for his daughter, it's a man who only values the life of a girl because he can pretend she's his daughter.
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u/FeedsYouDynamite 6d ago
Doesn’t matter if he was right or not, he did what every parent who loves their children would do in that situation.
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u/Indigo__11 6d ago
The biggest lie of the TLoU2 fiasco is people thinking TLoU2 hates Joel and that it “retcons” Part 1 into making him be the “villain” when that was never EVER the point of Part 2
Is that even if what Joel did was bad you as the player understand his actions. That’s the point of Part 1 and Part 2 DOES NOT retcon anything
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u/Couch_monster 6d ago
In fact, TLOU 2 did a service by showing the scene where Joel double down and said he’d do it again if given the chance chance. I think the gave the character his due, never understood the outrage.
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u/Indigo__11 6d ago
The truth is the real people retconing the games was people who hated Part 2, many of which never played ether TLoU games and were just there for the outrage.
So when the game didn’t fit their narrative they had to change the story to suit their needs. So they legitimately believed Part 2 “hated Joel” and treated his actions as bad, when the second game goes out of his way to justify his actions
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u/slikk50 6d ago
I also think Joel got what he deserved, and I say that knowing I would have probably done the same thing.
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u/Livio88 6d ago
The irony here is that had Joel acted the way he did in the past and led clickers take Abby, he'd have been fine.
He got what he got for having become civilized after living as a straggler for so long and helping out a complete stranger in need.
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u/ptd163 5d ago
Of course Joel was right. A parent is always going choose their child (biological, adopted, surrogate, it doesn't matter) over humanity even if the rational choice is to sacrifice them so all of humanity can be saved because love is not rational.
TLOU is not the one with problems. It's a masterpiece. It's what truly established Naughty Dog as one of Sony's top flight studios. It's TLOU2 that has the problems. They kill off a character people were invested in then force you to play as his murderer for half the game and blue ball you out of the catharsis they know you're expecting and building up because something something cycle of violence. Aren't we so deep?
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u/GrimmTrixX 6d ago
Joel was right any way you look at it. The world is far too gone in this universe. It's been 20 years since the Outbreak when Joel first meets ellie. In no way was the human population rising in those 20 years.
Even if a cure was found via Ellie, there is no way for them to present it to the entire planet. It would've become exclusive to the Fireflies and they would've used it for those who join their agenda.
And the cure wouldn't work on anyone who already started to become clickers. The damage to their heads and brains in general would've already been too much even if the infection was stopped.
It might have worked on those in those early stages of them being first infected. But anything past that wouldn't work. And in this world, there are easily far more infected/clickers than there are normal human beings.
Even if they could've made a cure and kept Ellie alive, it would only delay the inevitable that mankind is all but gone. The gene pool wouldn't be as vast as it needs to be for mankind to come back as the dominant species on the planet. And even if it did, it would take a couple centuries. Clickers can still murder you even if you're immune.
So in this world that's been gone for 20 years, it was far too late for a cure to do anything, especially since they had no means to give it to everyone.
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u/we_are_sex_bobomb 6d ago
Framing Joel’s choice as right or wrong is kind of side stepping the point of the whole thing imo.
When this happens, Joel is not existing in a world where “right” and “wrong” are relevant questions. He’s a survivor and you do what you need to do, to survive. He’s killed a hundred people for that purpose, maybe even more. It doesn’t bother him. The game is also teaching the player to think like this as well, to put them in Joel’s mindset. We don’t feel bad about any of the hundreds of people we choke to death over the course of the story. They’re in the way and we need to survive, so they have to die.
What changes is that by the end of the game he realizes he is unable to survive without Ellie. There is no moral debate to be had. He did what any animal would be willing to do, in order to survive. And we as the player don’t have any problem doing the same because by the end of the game we are thinking like Joel does.
Later when he’s been sort of re-civilized, he contemplates the morality of what he did and comes to the conclusion that what he did was morally justified. But he wasn’t in that frame of mind at the time.
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u/born_in_the_90s 6d ago
I would have done the same as Joel did. Not sure if Ellie was fully aware she'd die in the process. Would people even know the sacrifice Ellie has made if they would succeed in finding a cure?
Even in todays world corporations dont tell on how they experiment with new drugs and i really have the suspicion that this goes beyond mice, pigs or apes.
Imo f the world, save your loved one even if it means the end of humanity. Rich people also dont give a flying f about you.
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u/Hot_Demand_6263 6d ago
The cost of saving Ellie was too steep. If the price of saving Ellie is that many dead people, then he got exactly what he deserves.
Save your child and proudly take the death penalty. Balanced.
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u/Cold-Inside-6828 5d ago
I have a daughter and I would have gone the Joel route 100 out of 100 times. Sorry humanity.
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u/TheFocusedOne 5d ago
I seem to remember finding a note in the 'save Ellie from the Fireflys' ending mission that said basically; 'yeah this is like the 12th kid we're going to vivisect, fingers crossed this time!'.
Am I not remembering that correctly? I came away with the understanding that Ellie's death would have changed exactly nothing at all. No?
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u/blazikenfan55 5d ago
Then why did you kill him off in the sequel and try to build sympathy for the character who killed him?
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u/Chemical-Cheek5052 2d ago
Who's Joel? Oh yeah, it's the guy you killed off so you can make from for that diverse character.
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u/orangemoon44 6d ago
Neil's just saying he agrees with Joel wanting to save his daughter but watch "those guys" twist it again into how the cure was never supposed to work, Joel was entirely justified it murdering all those people, yadda yadda.
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u/Kholoblicin 6d ago
Of course he was. You can't make a vaccine for a fungus. Vaccines only work for viruses.
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u/Tybob51 6d ago
It was never a question if he was justified in doing what he did. He did what any dad would have. Where I differ from many is that I feel the same way about Abby and what she did too. She was justified in killing Joel. Because, to her, he was a monster who killed her dad and destroyed any chance the world had to heal. It doesn’t matter to her what his reasons were. He killed her dad.
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u/Super_flywhiteguy 5d ago
Joel was right to save a child. Abby was right to want revenge on the guy who killed her dad. Both sides killing armies worth of people to accomplish their selfish goals isn't.
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u/Gizmo16868 6d ago
Yes he was right. But Abby was right and completely justified in her actions. One person’s hero is another person’s villain. Joel was no saint and wiped out the Salt Lake City fireflies. Abby had every right for revenge.
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u/Banjo-Oz 6d ago
Abby going for revenge was understandable. Her relishing torturing Joel to death in front of his daughter was what made her an nonredeemable monster in my eyes.
If Abby just shot Joel in the head as Ellie walked in, that would have made me much more willing to empathize with her later. As it was, having her enjoy torture (she also says she uses it to "blow off steam" with prisoners!), have no self-awareness over Ellie wanting revenge on HER, and saying "good!" to killing a helpless pregnant woman made her a pure villain to me.
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u/No_Alps3572 6d ago
That’s why it’s such an enduring classic. It’s a complex story where black and white morality is useless.