The Last of Us: The Case For and Against Joel Miller
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- Опубліковано 6 лип 2024
- (MAJOR SPOILERS FOR PARTS I & II)
Following the release of Part 1, the fandom had a myriad of reactions to Joel's final decision, where he slaughtered his way through the Fireflies to save Ellie, thus possibly resulting in robbing the human race of a vaccine for the Cordyceps infection. The years since the release of the game have seen discourse discussing whether or not Joel made the right call rage on.
Upon the release of Part II, the conversation regarding the morality of Joel's final decision was given a resurgence. However, after mulling through many Twitter and YT comment section arguments regarding this topic, it seemed evident to me that the two sides of the aisle (those who consider Joel an undisputed hero and those who consider him a selfish, evil monster) were going off of two completely different frames of reference.
And despite the plethora of discussions around this topic, I was surprised to find that I couldn't find a video that outlined and weighed the arguments of either side of the aisle. Thus, here we are.
If you feel there were other elements of either argument I missed or you'd like to add anything to the discussion, feel free to comment below!
[00:00] - Intro
[04:26] - The Case For...
[29:23] - The Case Against...
[45:31] - Conclusion
Patreon: / macabrestorytelling
Twitter: / macabstory
VIDEOS REFERENCED
Cosmonaut Variety Hour's review of The Last of Us Part 2: • The Last of Us 2 Isn't...
Just Write's review of The Last of Us Part 2: • Why I Liked The Last O...
Patrick (H) Willems review of The Last Jedi (origin of "movie about space wizards" image): • Patrick Explains STAR ...
Joseph Anderson's review of The Last of Us Part 1: • Uncharted and The Last... (3:06:43 is where he talks about how the Fireflies are incompetent buffoons.)
MUSIC
All songs from The Last of Us (Original Soundtrack) by Gustavo Santaolalla
ARTICLES MENTIONED
Timetable for developing vaccines: www.historyofvaccines.org/con...
Vaccines for fungal infections: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
Druckmann on Part 1 Ending: thelastofus.fandom.com/f/p/20... (for some reason the original article 404d?) - Фільми й анімація
Ellie: Tell me what happened at that hospital
Joel: so anyway I started blasting
He really just saw abbys hulk biceps and was jealous of her so he showed his grit by killing everyone while carrying Ellie. Like a god damn man!
💀💀💀💀💀
I wasn’t even mad that Joel died, I was more mad at how he died. Joel was a lot smarter than his actions would reflect in the second game.
Hombre and yet so much hatred and for what besides he knew his end was coming
It was like joel was metagaming. He knew he was gonna kick the bucket.
He didn’t have a choice tbh
surrounded by a horde in the middle of a blizzard after 4 years of peace, this didn’t seem like too big of a stretch to me. It was painfully ironic that he learned to trust people again and it fkd him over. That’s not an unrealistic character arc to me, I took it as beautifully tragic 🤷🏻♀️
@@TheFreshTrumpet 100%
I think it all comes down to the manner of Sarah's death in the prologue.
Sarah died because some soldier was ordered by some form of "legitimate" authority that shooting Sarah and Joel to death would be for the greater good of preserving humanity. In a very un-personal, dehumanizing, mundane way. But that was it. Shoot 'em all because they're PROBABLY infected and that MAY prevent more people from dying.
And the soldier/whoever ordered that soldier to shoot got what they wanted - if Sarah had been infected, she certainly wasn't going to exacerbate the spreading problem because she bled out right then and there.
And nothing changed. The world still fell apart, Sarah's death was meaningless and no amount of "but whatabout hope" is going to make that meaningless death not meaningless. And that meaningless death didn't come from the infection but because of people killing other people BECAUSE of the infection. He had two decades to ruminate on that, as opposed to the minutes he was given to consider Ellie's situation.
Joel can't see Ellie dying as having purpose for the greater good. There is no and cannot be sense given to Sarah's lost life. So why would he try to impose it upon Ellie's.
This, so much this. I am going to take this even further - since both FEDRA and Fireflies are ruling through force and dictatorial, Joel letting Fireflies rebuild society in their shape and image would probably lead humanity (at least in North America) down the same path as FEDRA, life of military dictatorship, fascism or bolshevism. And come next crisis, another soldier "just following orders" would should another Sarah.
Letting Fireflies make the vaccine would represent humanity rebuilding after all the horror and the trauma, but LEARNING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
Yes, even if Ellie's life would mean saving the current society, none of the survivors except for Tommy on Joel and Ellie's journey made a convincing positive argument to "Why, why are we as a people, worth saving?".
I leave you with this great speech: ua-cam.com/video/f0tW7MiHfhI/v-deo.html .
He lost one daughter because some uncaring authority thought it would be for the “greater good”. And then the fireflies wanted him to accept the death of yet another daughter for the “greater good”
I NEVER realised the parallels between WHY/how Sarah dies and the dilemma Joel faces with Joel before I read this. I’d never considered what the soldier who shoots her down could represent. Wow - god this story is so brilliant.
Intentionally or not, the ending of the first game was great. My interpretation always was that Fireflies represented the desperate but ultimately futile desire to resurrect the old world. And in their search for vaccine, they had to resort to increasingly more brutal acts, losing their humanity in the process. Joel's arch was about rejecting the nihilistic, utilitarian outlook of a man who gave up and re-embracing his own humanity by choosing to save Ellie.
I’m 2 years late but this is such a beautiful take!
Imagine the outrage if Joel agreed with Marlene and just walked away, the hospital behind him, Joel repeating to himself Tess's words "She's just cargo Joel" people would be yelling, "you can't leave her to die", "she's like a daughter to you now", "Go back save her". It'd be interesting to see what people would do if there was a choice, leave the plucky 14 year old to die for something that might not work or like most video games expect you to do, mow everyone down that gets in your way while you save her.
I don't know anyone who played the game when it came out that didn't immediatly kill everyone in yheir path. I doubt anyone realized there wasn't a choice on their initial play through. I know I didn't.
Joel repeating Tess’s words to himself would be completely nonsensical. The winter chapter made it very clear he loved her like a daughter. There isn’t a chance in hell Joel would’ve willingly sacrificed Ellie.
@@SomeGuyWhoPlaysGames333 I know Joel loved her like a daughter, it was purely a hypothetical for the people who now think of Joel as a villain, because he didn't let them kill Ellie.
Pillock I guarantee 100% of them would do the same thing if they were in Joel’s shoes.
@@Pillock25 i don't see him as a villain, but i don't see him the same way after part 2 simply because his repeated lies really messed with ellie's head.
the fireflies decision can't be justified by the simple fact that they didn't even asked for Ellie's opinion before doing the surgery, just wtf.....
Joel didn't ask her either....
@@dangdang4334 and how could he? the fireflies stunned him and didn't give him a chance to ask her and they didn't ask for her opinion either. Joel isn't a bad person he's a HUMAN BEING who had to make a critical decision in the hurry without many options.The only bad thing he did that was avoidable was killing the doctor but given the circumstances and his urge for saving Elly it was understandable, it was a critical error BUT it was understandable, life is not black and white and especially not the human being and you need to understand that if you want to truly understand the complexity of the story.
Exactly. It didn't need to be done right away. Yet they still did it when she was unconscious.
@@duncanthermidor9421 Seriously, people keep insisting that Joel took her choice away like the Fireflies didn't do the same thing, deliberately keeping her sedated seemingly to avoid a scenario where they might have to force the procedure.
@@silverblade357"people keep insisting" that's your argumentation? you'r gonna need wayyyy more thant that to convince anyone....
I also find it odd that Neil confirmed that a cure was guaranteed despite all the clues in the original game that there was no guarantee that the fireflies would create would be successful. Whether the cure was going to get made or not doesn't matter, the important thing is that the fireflies believed it would have worked. It seems like Neil has a personal resentment towards Joel.
It’s just more evidence that Neil has a vendetta against Joel.
Whether or not Joel was in the right or not, nobody was in the right, it was simply everyone having agendas. Joel didn’t want to lose another daughter, and the fireflies wanted a vaccine that would result in the death of a child and them being the only group with a vaccine.
I know I’m late, but he probably wanted to make up for the fact that part II just straight out judges Joel as a selfish vilain.
The dude co-wrote this story lmao he can pretty much feel or say whatever he wants about this and no one but his own brain will ever know whats accurate or not.
Yup, that was the worst crime of Part 2 that it retroactively destroyed a lot of ambiguity and open to interpretation end of Part 1 that made the first game and it’s finale so special in the first place. He did the same thing with Joel’s lie at the end of the first game where anybody with half a brain understood that Ellie probably knows Joel is lying at the end but goes with the lie anyways, while in Part 2… Ellie was completely convinced and feels betrayed by Joel to cut him off from her life entirely. They retconned Part 1 entirely to force emotional stakes in Part 2 and destroyed the first one in the process. All to uplift the their precious Abby. What baffles me is that they made Part 2 specifically with the preconception that Joel is objectively a villain but still based the whole premise on players loving Joel enough to hate Abby and want revenge, only to tell them at the end that hating Abby isn’t correct either. Just wait until Druckmann completely retcons it even further in the upcoming Part 1 remake to make it look like that was the plan all along 😂
No one should listen to Neil, he brought the worst to the games
Gotta say. I'm team Joel here. Given the information we had in TLoU and the actions of the Fireflies themselves, he was absolutely justified in his actions.
They wanted to cut Ellie open for a cure but, if you ask me they should cut open the Dr and found out if his race changing regeneration like powers could cure the virus instead, i mean in one game he is black next game he is white.
From the information we're given in TLOU1:
A: Those doctors are clearly inept. Leaping to "Kill our first and possibly only test subject" in a matter of Hours is absurd.
B: The Fireflies Cannot be trusted. This is clear in regards to them fucking over the deal with Joel (Let alone sending him out into the wasteland with no resources to die a slow painful death.) but even in the beginning, they were commiting terrorist attacks against quarentine zones to release the infected.
They were going to fail, and even if they WEREN'T, they wouldn't have been able or probably even WILLING to spread the cure over the world.
Amen brother. Team Joel Forever!👍🏽👍🏽
HistoryFan476ad no he’s white in both. The lighting in the first game just makes him look black
@@soyspicepod1547 really, i would look but then i would have to play the whole game.
What gets me is, if they were so sure she'd agree, then why not allow her and Joel to say goodbye? What's a few days going to change?
Seems a bit strange they'd be in such a rush to kill her before she could change her mind.
Great point, friend.
They weren’t “in a rush to kill her.” They’d waited a year for her to arrive (remember), and it’s been 20 years of raw survival, looking for a way to create an immunity for humankind.
As for Joel, all he was was a smuggler delivering a package to them. All they likely knew about him was from Marlene and chances are his resume read something like “ruthless smuggler who’ll get the job done, period.”
@@maxshaw1330 They had just found out that the growth in her brain mutated when Ellie got to the hospital. And that made them decide to kill her. So yes, they 100% were rushing to kill her.
And Joel being a smuggler changes squat. Marlene said “I get it” to Joel. She knew Joel wanted to see Ellie because they’d already bonded, but she didn’t even want them to say their final goodbyes. Him being a smuggler has nothing to do with anything.
@@Im.Smaher no one was in “a rush to kill Ellie.”
It’s just fictional writing meant to propel a stories urgency.
Joel being kind to Ellie doesn’t negate the merciless acts he has committed.
If you believe that than no killer should ever go to prison, because for every killer there is someone who they love and are kind to. In fact, many killers have families and children.
Please try to remember The Last of Us is a work of fiction and it’s characters don’t exist in real life. They exist in a written construct that is designed to make us feel and question how we would make our own decisions if faced with the same circumstances.
Joel did not have to kill Abby’s father. It is that simple. Yes, people say “but Jerry brandished a knife (scalpel).” To which I say, Joel could have easily knocked him to the ground and taken Ellie out of that room, thereby avoiding his own death through Abby’s vengeance.
@@maxshaw1330 In other words, the “fictional writing” shows that they were in a rush to kill Ellie. If they weren’t, they would’ve woken her up before the surgery, instead of putting her in a deeper sleep with anastasia. So your flat out wrong excuse for why you couldn’t see this doesn’t change that.
The merciless act of saving a child who had no idea that she was gonna die? From people who planned to kill him, and didn’t even give him what he wanted in return, and were pretty much gonna steal his gear?
Why are you acting like this isn’t the post apocalypse where people have to survive to live. You even danced around the fact that the doctors didn’t wanna find any other way to get the vaccine other than killing Ellie, despite that being dangerous by itself because they’d be destroying the one link to a cure they could find, and if they mess up, then they wouldn’t have another option for a long time. Not only does that clearly show they were rushing without thinking, it also shows that they have the same survival instincts Joel has.
The surgeon didn’t have to pull out a scalpel. It doesn’t mattter how much you try and say “well he didn’t have to kill him”. Too bad, the man could’ve easily stabbed Joel if he tried to get closer (which is why he said “don’t come any closer, I mean it”). He got what was coming to him, since not only was he clearly morally in the wrong, willing to dig into a girl’s brain who had no idea about any of this, but he was threatening the guy right in front of him with a sharp object. He was willing to put his life on the line, and he got what he wanted.
And show me where I said anything about Abby’s vengeance.
I don't know if anyone mentioned this. But, Joel also had a deal with the Fireflies to get weapons. Instead, they didn't deliver and were, in best case, gonna send Joel out with no supplies. This probably added more reasoning for him to rescue Ellie from them
In my opinion, you don’t need to justify Joel’s decision. You just need to understand it. While maybe the procedure on Ellie may not have worked, the only real reason Joel was doing it, was for love. For this emotion we all know or have experienced, love for a friend, love for a pet, love for family or romantically, and he takes this emotion we all seem to agree is a positive experience, and twists it as justification for mass violence.
I’m of the opinion that Joel should have died, but death doesn’t cleanse you of your sins. He cannot return the people he killed back from the dead, and he doesn’t want to. He just lives day-by-day, trying to do small good. Yet, his past lingers over him. Should he have died in the beginning of the game? No. But, i do believe he has to die to complete Ellie’s arc.
In my opinion, you don't need to justify the fireflies decision. You just need to understand it. While maybe the procedure on Ellie may not have worked, the only real reason they were doing it, was for love. For this emotion we all know or have experienced, love for a friend, love for a pet, love for family or romantically, and they took this emotion we all seem to agree is a positive experience, and twisted it as justification for violence against a child.
@@vilhelmofro249 nice copy/paste
@@danieldosso2455 Thanks
Dude Joel killed to survive and defend himself and his people. Not really out of love but what was really out of love was him not walking out on ellie when he could've
Well the original comment, as well as the copypasta, works on the ending of the first game. It's understanding, not justifying, and is totally left on the perception of the player. The second game, however, strongarms and manipulates you WHAT to think and WHAT to feel. It not only becomes hypocritical but also inconsistent, overly pretentious and totally disconnected with the first game. It tries so hard to be 'deep' but becomes hilariously shallow
31:45 I honestly think Joel told Ellie that mainly because that was after Ellie was almost raped/killed by David. Ellie kept zoning off and Joel was obviously concerned for her well-being. Joel kept trying to bring her back to how she was pre-David (talkative, bubbly, asking a lot of questions) by trying to engage in convos and telling her stories but nothing was working. The only time he saw her old self back was when she got excited over giraffes. And that's when he asked if she wanted to turn back. I don't think it's purely because he doesn't care about the cure. Like, yeah, he obviously couldn't care less. But he is reasons for that offer wasn't because of his indifference. He prioritized Ellie's well-being and wanted her to go back to how she was before shit went down.
Scientifically speaking there was literally no chance the "cure" wouldn't have even worked ellie would've died for nothing
TLoU1 actually made sure to give us a lot of evidence that the Fireflies were incompetent. People don't realize that b/c they're probably not very competent in medicine either lol
Yes, but the science regarding the cure does not really matter in the context of this narrative.
@@user-fy6kr7yr9c in consideration of that, disregarding the science, there was little to no real good that a vaccine would have gained for the human race. Because of logistics, to be able to hand out vaccinations to a populace who are for the most part fighting themselves instead of actual infected.
So in that case, maybe we should discard the logistics of the cure in the context of the narrative too. Then we have to consider that if the Fireflies had the logistical ability and active supply of vaccinations by cutting out Ellie's brains, political science (or political dynamics) would entail that the power of offering a cure would be offset by the populations general lack of need for one. For the most part the warring societies propose a stronger threat than the infected ever will. So the vaccine would be its own bargaining chip to enable the Fireflies to become a dominant militant organisation, which means an unequal distribution of vaccination for an autrocratic political system handled by someone as emotionally unintelligent as Marlene.
The point to be made here is that how often are we ought to dillute the reality of human nature and nature itself in order for the context of Druckmann's narrative to stand on its own? No science, no logistics, no politics, no power dynamics, no concept of general sociological study? How much suspension of disbelief will it take to process the mental gymnastics that even were a vaccine established, it'll actually 'save the world'...
honestly, my take was always somewhere in between.
Joel is not a "good" person. he made a lot of expedient ruthless choices along the way - before AND after Ellie that shows us that he will chose survival of his own above all else, I mean we see this in a first few minutes of the game, where he speeds past that family on a road, because he has his own family to protect and he cannot risk that that family on a road is not going to hurt them, just like his neighbor he was apparently friendly with - went mad and tried to hurt him and his daughter.
he is not an "evil" person (because he doesn't make ruthless expedient choices for the lols, he does it for self preservation AND to protect those he loves).
he is a complex person somewhere in between. I do think that Joel made a selfish decision. and I do think he lied for selfish reasons. but I also like him as a character and as a person BECAUSE of it. because I can relate to his choices. because its what I would have done as well if I were in the same situation. because I know that if I were part of his tribe? I know I could count on him.
Even while seeing what writers wanted me to take away from the setup, emotionally. I cannot condemn Joel even while seeing quite clearly that narrative wants me to condemn him and why. because I relate to where he is coming from.
Yeah, Joel only cared about survival at all costs and through this lost his humanity. His journey with Ellie is a journey to regain that humanity (thematically not narratively) and the decision to save Ellie and fully embrace this emotional connection to another human being is the most human thing he does. He truly is a complex and compelling character that you can't help admire even if you can't fully condone his actions.
Vilhelm of Ro He didn’t deserve that type of death. Idk. Abby was too bloodthirsty for what happened to her. I think it was just too much
Sayo no one deserves that type of death, that’s the point, but it’s the brutality of the world these characters live in, nothing is fair and it happens every day. Abby’s decision to do that to him is never painted in a positive light, and she suffers greatly for that choice. No one is saying he deserved that death, not even the game itself
@@uhuhuh1966 I agree it’s all about greys. What Abby did was brutal but understandable give her perspective. She learned to be better though just like Joel did. You can’t really say Joel deserved to die and Abby didn’t or say Abby deserved to die but Joel didn’t.
Agreed, except I don’t think the narrative wants us to “condemn” him tho, I think it just wanted us to empathize with why he did it, and empathize with the people he hurt in the process. They dedicated the entire second game to his memory and played on our attachment to him as the driving motivation for us to play the thing, I think they just wanted us to see him as complex, not as a good or bad guy
Banger video, there is one point I'd like to add that I never see people bring up.
Sarah was killed for the same reason Ellie was about to be killed; for the greater good. Joel already experienced the outcome of this moral dilemma and he lived to see that Sarah truly died for nothing, as the world still collapsed. Sarah died to prevent the world's collapse where as Ellie was about to die to apparently save the world. Both would have changed neither as we see in game via Part 2 and as Joel probably expected.
I have no doubts that unfortunately Joel did go against Ellies motivations in saving her in the hospital, but looking at the bigger picture I will personally say with certainty that he did no wrong. I'd say he lied to shield her of the emotional toll this suicidal child had at such a young age, rather then a creepy desire of having a chance to be a dad again like many people interpret it as.
However the main thing that I like to use to defend my stance is the best line in Part 2: "If somehow the lord gave me a second chance at that moment...I would do it all over again" because this line spells it out clear as day in my opinion; Joel saw her as more then a vaccine, and despite being outed from her life he still fought to defend her because he wanted to give her a life worth living.
I have no doubt in my mind that Ellie would have put herself under the zebra saviors knife to give humanity a chance, but from what the game showed me in the first 20 minutes, no amount of little girl murders will save the planet, all we can do now is adapt.
I know this may go against the message of your video because it's obvious that I am biased towards the Heroic interpretation of Joel, but at the end of the day that's what makes the first game so beautiful, it's all up to how you view it.
Amazing video and so was your Part 2 analysis.
this is a really good point and i appreciate this comment :))
i understand this point of view, but i understand ellie's point of view better. and yes, joel wanted to protect the value of her life, but as it turns out she just lived with immense survivors guilt and trauma from being lied to, so much so that it was hard for her to connect and open up to people. open up to herself even. everything joel did to protect ellie, hurt her. more than what dying in that hospital would have. when joel says "if somehow the lord gave me a second chance i would do it all over again" i understand that what he's really saying is that he loves her, but to me it also sounds like "i don't regret lying to you, traumatizing you and hurting you" and i don't like that. but his choice also gave her dina and jj, so.
@@sgtmian Aren't nuances such a cool thing?
@@PIZZASTEVE44 nuances is my favorite thing
Joel’s decision to save Ellie reminds me of a bit from A Song of Ice and Fire, specifically the part in A Storm of Swords when Stannis and Davos are discussing sacrificing Edric Storm to Melisandre.
Stannis says, “What is the life of one bastard boy compared to a kingdom?”
Davos says, “Everything.”
If we forego our humanity and basic compassion, what kind of a world are we even saving? Humanity showed it’s true colors in the apocalypse, and Joel decided that humanity didn’t deserve a second chance. Obviously, the fact that he saw Ellie as his surrogate daughter had a huge amount to do with his final decision. But Joel has seen the ugly side of humanity up close and personal for the past twenty years. So when it came down between saving the world and saving his happiness, there was no decision to make at all. And especially when you see how Abby and her friends plotted out revenge on Joel rather than do literally anything else productive and didn’t result in more people dying....yeah, fuck the world. I still believe that Joel is a wonderfully gray character, and his decision is very gray as well. But his justification for it makes complete sense for not only his character, but the world in general.
That's a really great comparison actually, and even in that situation the seven kingdoms were already a mess, and killing Edric wouldn't "save" anything. Stannis (although he does have the right) wanted the throne for more selfish reasons, and the fireflies are the same. There's absolutely no way you can see the fireflies as wholly selfless or generous - they didn't want to make a vaccine for the random strangers they never met, they wanted it for themselves.
It's the apocalypse. Everyone would have to be a villain and a hero every now and again.
At the end of the day, Marlene also tried to screw over Joel. He wasn't going to get his guns or any other reward. He was going to be kicked out at gunpoint and would have been executed on principle had Marlene not intervened. On any number of other choice-based games, the Fireflies would be wiped out for that insult alone!
The problem with this discussion overall is that the flaws in the writing are being used to justify this or that. Under the light of scrunity The Last of Us lore may not stand up to the test of time. TBH the only thing we can argue with consistency is if it was psychologically reasonable for Joel (based on confirmed characterization and backstory) to do what he did.
All I gotta say is that if I were in Ellie’s shoes, I would have been okay with dying to give even the chance at a vaccine. But I’ll be damned if anyone gave my father shit for trying to save my life
But biggot sandwich
The difference being that you would presumably be allowed to wake up and make that decision. They could make you comfortable in your final days. They could record your final words for posterity. You know, actually treat you like a proper savior giving up everything instead of a resource to be exploited.
I recall an optional dialogue where Ellie asks Joel what he thought the Fireflies would do to her once they got to them and he mentioned to her that they would probably just draw some blood. Even telling her that "it doesn't hurt". So, that's another case that you can make for Joel in being that he was assuming that's what would happen and then being totally horrified by the thought that they were going to cut her open and kill her.
Also, everyone along their journey has wanted to cut them up for one reason or another (usually for "at any cost" survival, like the cannibals)... the idea that the people at the end of the journey wanted to cut them up as well was just another drop in the ocean.
I’ve watched countless videos over the last 7 years of people defending Joel’s actions or damning Joel’s actions & this video was by far the most informative in-depth video I’ve seen.
Something was said in this video that really struck me that nobody else’s video has ever touched upon, even if Ellie would have agreed to be sacrificed at 14 years of age is that really a decision she can make (the video put it better then I did)
I’m more on the side of agreeing with Joel’s choice, was it selfish... yes but imagine losing your daughter at the governments hands once, then coming to love a girl as a surrogate daughter only to once again be on the verge of losing another daughter to a shady organization without any proof that it will work, I might be interjecting my life into this scenario but as a father with 4 daughters of my own, selfish or not, I can’t see myself doing anything different in that scenario.
This is what makes the story so compelling, and part 2 so divisive
In my opinion Joel's selfish decision was lying to Ellie, not the decision to save her from the Fireflies.
I'm not mad at Joel for saving Ellie, I think that's entirely understandable, none of us would sacrifice the people we love. But him lying to Ellie was wrong and keeping the truth from her. She might be a teen but she also has the right to the truth about something pivotal in her life. Even at 14 years old, she has personal autonomy and Joel lied to her about something regarding herself and I think that's the part that is almost unforgivable. But like I said, I get Joel's decision. However, decisions like the one he made does have consequences, in order to save someone he loves, he took away the loved ones of other people, and there was always going to be a fallout from that. Which is also why I'm not mad at Abby either. Both Joel and Abby (and Ellie) as well all reacted in emotional and human ways.
@@CaptainPikeachu yeah...its heartbreaking when u see it all from everyones point of view...what a story. I wouldn't mind a part III to see what the fireflies are up to
@@CaptainPikeachu 👏 👏👏👏👏
What I don't agree with is Naughty Dog expects us to believe that Abby's dad was the only one that could've made a cure. I think that was an excuse so the sequel wouldn't be about a cure anymore and push the cycle of revenge narrative that nobody wanted. It's not even believable because there would most definitely be more than one doctor who could do that just in case something happens to that doctor. It makes it seem like Joel robbed the world of a cure and makes him look like a terrible person for saving Ellie and it does not even explain where Ellie's immunity comes from. It doesn't explain what made her so special to be immune. And the Cycle of Revenge plot was so one sided and biased since only Abby got her revenge and a fresh start with Lev but Ellie didn't even get it and still lost everything.
Agreed. It felt like, rather than doing a sequel that was a natural extension of the character dynamics and tensions they established in Part 1, they sort of shoehorned in the revenge idea because they wanted that idea to play out with TLOU's IP.
Honestly I think part 2 should've been about Joel vs the fireflies or wlf,the revenge plot would've been good for a part 3 with Ellie as the lead protagonist
@@MacabreStorytelling If i may say there is one thing else about Ellie we must highlight, the fact that a girl the age Ellie is is easily swayed to believe in and try to act like a hero, kids her age want to save the world even if it kills them, thing is though they are not yet wise or old enough to fully grasp what they are talking about or accepting to do. I dare say Marline and the fireflies were subtly using the naivety and want to be a hero and white and black worldview kids Ellie's age has to manipulate her into being open to whatever they need to do.
To sum it up I believe she was to young and of the wrong mindset to fully realise the choice she could be offered, Joel did the right by making sure she could not be manipulated by the fireflies if she woke up.
@@Historyfan476AD and yet Joel lied to her. how ironic.
@@lazyboyterry True but Joel's lying came from the desire to save her and not make her feel bad.
Still better than be cutting up for a very unlikely cure.
But Abby’s dad was a good guy...because he saved zebra (while killing so many children without consent)
when it was shown or hinted?
@@axeoffury1 I think it was hinted somewhere that he saw other cases of a sort of immunity from or mutation in the fungus. But Ellie was special in the sense that hers was different somehow. :)
@@mageinabarrel802 that's Mandela effect. We know from different collectibles that they tried to find cure, but there was no one with resistance to fungus.
@@mageinabarrel802 that never happened, Ellie is the first immune person they know, in the past they experimented with monkeys and studied the fungus with people that were infected already.
Since when does someone consent to murder?
“We don’t trade lives..” Captain America
Based
bet
Captain America: Gave orders that most likely ended with the death of many fine men because in war, sacrifices must be made. Without sacrifice there can be no victory. Captain America killed Nazis and Fascists in WW2!
@@Jew-Gi-Oh_419 "we don't negotiate with terrorists"- America
fireflies are pretty sus, ngl
I saw em fake the extra weapons payment task
@@unformedeight hahaha
Joel is too lol
Vote brown
Y'all got a towel or anything?
I thought Joel was just placating Marlene in that moment to get her to lower her guard. We do know Joel has been an ambush hunter in this harsh world.
It further shows how deadly he is and how he would NEVER walk into a enemy camp without throwing caution to the wind
I can see the logic of Marlene thinking Joel would "understand" the murder of Ellie because doing so would be, well, heartless and brutally pragmatic... which Joel kinda is at the beginning of the game when they hired him. After all, they hired a thug because that's what they required to get their dirty work done. They had no way to anticipate that he would undergo a redemption story and learn to care and love again. That wouldn't even enter their calculations for possible outcomes, particularly in a world like that and with a character like Joel is at the start of- and quite far into- the game. But even discovering Joel trying to resuscitate Ellie wouldn't entail recognizing his redemption arc since he could be counted on to try to protect his bounty, his mercenary payment. Plus he would have to take up arms against a full bunker of Fireflies. Surely that's not gonna happen, and he was unarmed and under guard anyway. So why worry about letting him know they were about to slice and dice her brains out? They were dealing with a cold-blooded sociopath just like them, no? He'll understand...
To "understand"- i.e., acquiesce in and support- the murder of a 14-yr-old child requires at the very least a sublimation of empathy for Ellie. The presumption of acquiescence by Ellie is the failure to act as a responsible adult. She's not treated like a peer if her agency is never preserved. What was the rush to operate anyway? What were they worried about? That, presented with the choice, she might say no? Also it takes nothing away from the logic of his decision that Joel would agree with Marlene that Ellie probably would agree to her own murder. Kids will be kids. She was idealistic and... a kid. As mentioned, Joel likely recognized this. Pumped full of tripe that the cure was certain, Ellie would very likely agree to the wasting of her own life- or, as almost euphemistically rephrased, "to give sense to all that was lost." That her naivete was preserved into the 2nd game is the real contrivance, but that's another point. Joel would have to be dishonest to retort against Marlene's claim. But he seemed also to recognize that that likelihood that a kid can be manipulated into supporting their own murder isn't a justification of such murder.
This is also why one doesn't have to assume Joel was a pure selfless saint about his decision. He could act as a parent both selfishly and selflessly at the same time- protecting his child because, yes, it his child and he selfishly didn't want to lose her, but also because even if shot to death doing so, he would protect her from the dangers of the world. I rarely see Joel-haters capable of appreciating how much he cared for and loved her in the cutscenes of the 2nd game. His "selfishness" did lead to the happiness and enrichment of Ellie's life. And many scenes of him respecting her agency and decisions came out- from her lesbian relationship he hastened to support to her spurnings of him. You'd have to hate genuinely caring parents... and redemption arcs... to despite Joel. But sociopathy always finds rationalizations. I've seen one vid where someone confessed her thrill about seeing Joel murdered was fueled by her own personal experience with her own father... you know, a fully rational position and very convincing... and yet this confession didn't diminish her hatred... an odd sort of irrational self-awareness... or brazen irrationality.
I love this comment and you make a ton of valid points. I know it’s an old comment, but I just wanted to jump in and say I think it’s odd the girl you mentioned being thrilled about Joel’s murder because of her experiences with her own dad. I also had terrible experiences with my father, that’s one of the reasons why I loved Joel! Despite him being far from perfect, he loved Ellie, and that alone made him a better dad than mine and made me love him, simply because he loved Ellie, and my dad didn’t love me. I guess maybe that girl saw parallels between her father and Joel, whereas I saw joel as a man miles better than my father.
at the end of the first game, he lied to her to protect her. He understands it would be unfair for a 15 year old girl to know she "lives on the expence of the rest of the humanity". To me, Joel completely accepts his role as her father and protects her that way... while Ellie accepts her role as his daughter and let's him do just that. It's not a selfish lie. It's a selfless lie.
Its still wrong though. She was old enough to decide for herself. And she herself wanted it.
@@beepbopboop7727 sure she did. But she wanted it based just on her innocent perspective of the world. Joel, as her "guardian" who knows and understands way better how the real world works, believed that she would die for nothing. Maybe she was right for wanting to die for a chance for a better future, maybe joel was right for not letting lunatics kill his daughter because of what they needed to hope fofr. In the end, she gave him the responsibility of looking after her, right?
@@beepbopboop7727 No, she, herself did not “want” to die for the vaccine in 1. And she never got the choice to, by the Fireflies either
@@Im.Smaher "i'm just waiting for my turn". "i was supposed to die in that hospital and you took that from me".
@@sgtmian Nope. In the first game, she even told Joel that she and him can do whatever they want after the vaccine, and she had no idea it would’ve killed her. Joel just told her it would likely just be them taking her blood. “I’m still waiting for my turn” had nothing to do with the doctors killing her, because she wouldn’t have known. She was talking about her “turn” to turn into a zombie, or get infected, like the people she named: Sam, Tess, and Rylie.
Joel simply didn't want to loss his daughter again, I sympathize with him for that reason.
It's always better to do the right thing for the wrong reasons than to do the wrong thing for the right reasons. The results of an action outweigh the intentions behind it. This video is fantastic, by the way.
Wisdom
Though their is a more consistent drive to do good in the future in doing bad things for the right reasons but that’s only if they address their rational failings that drove them to make the error in the first place.
Well the Ending of TLOU would have been a lot more morally "grey" if the Fireflies weren't portrayed as straight up villainous. I mean, they didn't even pay Joel for his efforts. Also there is now way they could mass produce & distribute a vaccine world- or even countrywide
But they did pay Joel, the weapons were in the city and that’s what he wanted.
@@glyle2504 but they never gave him a thing hell they were going to throw him out without the stuff he already had
@@TetsuRiken The guns were back in Boston. Tess went with Marlene to see where they were while Joel waited with Ellie. They didn't give him the stuff he had in case he turned violent.
@@dorkangel1076 so throw him out without his stuff
@@TetsuRiken Maybe they'd have slung it over the wall once was outside... ;)
I feel like Joel also thought subconsciously from everything he’s seen the last 20 years that humanity wasn’t worth it and was too far gone at that point anyway. I highly doubt he never thought about vaccine before and maybe he did think about it just to himself at that moment, we don’t say everything we think. Also imagine falling in love with Ellie like a daughter and having her say everyone has left her or died except him. That would break my heart if I let her die without hearing her say to me she would die personally.
15:40 My argument exactly. How do these scientists know that Ellie's immunity doesn't have a genetic component that could be passed down to future generations if she lives?
I would probably do the same as Joel if it was someone I truly cared about. Fuck morals and all that other stuff and fuck that world he lived in. No point in trying to save it at that point. He tried to hand Ellie off to Tommy but they ended up staying together. He saw Ellie as his daughter so he decided to save her because he couldn’t live with that pain again.
I don’t blame the dude. Is it selfish? Yeah. But so what? Everyone is selfish in their own way. Some more than others. Ellie’s worst fear was being alone but it was also Joel’s it seems like. He didn’t want to lose her the same way she didn’t want to lose him at Tommy’s. It’s easy for some people to say Joel was wrong for what he did but I wonder what they would do if they were in his position. He is only human.
We are all selfish individuals but to act like a hypocrite about it is even more pathetic than simply being honest about it
Tbh this just made me like the games ending less. You pointed out so many contrivances I hadn't thought of. Imagine if instead of a knowing, agreeable silence in response to Marline declaring that Ellie would have wanted to sacrifice herself he snapped back and said 'She's a child!'. That would've driven home both the gravity of what the fireflies were about to do and the fact that Ellies decision is inconsequential, resting your moral standing on the 'decision' of a child is completely invalid.
I honestly feel a bit manipulated into seeing any ambiguity in Joel's decision. It's almost like they made him inept enough to feel bad about what he did.
Joel....indeed...did nothing wrong
Right,it was the fireflies and the doctors fault that forced Joel's hand,Abby should be angry at the fireflies instead of Joel.
If you believe that than you obviously didn’t play part 1
@@Thundernoob98 bruh, nobody would come up with such an idea if they didn't play last of us part 1. Especially since part 2 totally shows Joel as a monster. So for him to think that it's because he played the first game.
@@Thundernoob98 Ellie in part 1 told joel that after they were done with the surgery that she would go wherever he wanted to go and Joel replied that he wasn't leaving her and that they need to rap the situation up so no Ellie didn't know she would die and joel didn't either.he mad her a promise so Joel was in the right,the crazy terrorist fireflies were in the wrong by not letting them see eatch other and pretty much sacraficing Ellie's life blndly without a reason to why Ellie brain mutated the way it did,they were sacraficing her brain to make a cure without taking any blood cells and that's crazy and a waste of someone's life.
@@dreadxplayzs7849 She didn't expect to die at that point. The Fireflies didn't know making a cure would kill her at that point. The in game science gave a reason why they felt they had to. The question is would she be willing. Neither Joel or the Fireflies were willing to give her that choice. Marlene, who has known her much longer than Joel, thought she would be willing. Deep down, Joel did too but he didn't care which is why he shot Marlene then came back to finish her off as she lay bleeding on the floor pleading for her life. Calling the Fireflies "crazy terrorists" is as useful to the argument as calling Joel a "crazy murder hobo".
I wouldn't say Joel's line of finding something to fight for is contradictory, seeing how that's exactly what he did throughout the course of the game.
Damn the ending of TLOU will be debated for YEARS to come when TLOU2 is Long GONE and FORGOTTEN
Keep telling yourself that. Part 2 will always out shine part 1.
@@everettenjeze6276 haha.... Sry but No WAY
@@JAGtheTrekkieGEMINI1701 both are masterpieces but part 2 there was so much more. In termd of gameplay it takes a dump on part 1 which makes sense. Story was brilliant in my opinion. Nobody was safe and the shit was crazy fron start to finish. After seeing joel get clapped i was actually mad like wtf why and playing as ellie throughout the first half made it so satisfying(at first) takin out all of abbys friends. And then when it switches to abby and you see her story i actually felt more for her and her friends then for ellie and joel tbh. Her gameplay were some of the best in the game and seeing her repercusions of her revenge was actually heart breaking because at her core she is good deep down. And the boss against ellie is hands down the best boss in a video game ever. Beating the shit out of the MC who became the villian was so brilliant and seeing both sides it made sense. Part 2>part 1
@@everettenjeze6276 i disagree.
While the Gameplay of TLOU2 might be better, the constant swapping between Ellie and Abby times was irritating, the Story Made little Sense in the Last 30 Minutes and the Death of Joel was Just there for shock-value. And the Fight against Ellie was dumb cause all of the Sudden, Ellie behaves as dumb and as stiff Like a typical A.I enemy lol
Sry but TLOU>>TLOU2
@@everettenjeze6276 "Keep telling your self that bullshit"
Great video, Macabre! I still lean more towards Joel’s side, simply because I am a man of emotion despite my cynical demeanor. Things you do for love, y’know? It’s all grey and muddled, yeah, but damn it, I agree with Joel’s decision.
I had home work...
It can wait.
In addition to my previous comment, looking back now the writing was much lazier in the 1st game than I previously thought, the game is stellar in it's approach to emtion and humanity but it treats all it's characters as being much less intelligent than actual people, although it's in Joel's character to not think much about the probability of a vaccine, Ellie, Tommy and Marlene should all have been much more critical of the plan ESPECIALLY Marlene, she doesn't even offer the idea of a biopsy or any sort of test beyond a single brain scan straight to the chopping block, you might point to the recordings in the hospital but considering they're optional and most people wouldn't even listen to them if they did manage to find all of them but druckman himself seems to disregard they're miniscule nuance so I think they should be ignored all together anyway, the fact that druckman himself says Joel was in the wrong shows just how Little thought the writers put into making the Joel decision seem ambiguous, the writers didn't consider the science or probability of a cure whatsoever and just decided that it was either Ellie or the world, which you perfectly assigned to the trolley problem, that's exactly what the writers thought of the choice, white and black, good and evil. Not gray at all
Yes, its weird how they try to pose it as a hard question, when in reality everything point to the fact that what Joel did was the right decision. Maybe incompetence, or a subversion? Everybody tries to think about it deep, when its answer is at the surface level, the things that happened clearly outline whats the right answer.
Me, as the intellectual: A wonderful discourse on a deeply complex character.
Me, as an immature person: "Mini bitches." Tee hee.
The thing is, the choice he made was the choice ANY father would make. You’d have to kill me to do that to my daughter, wouldn’t care about the fate of humanity
Edit: the only “detractors of Joel” I’ve seen is Naughty dog lol
I have a question for you. If i had a child and i refused to sacrifice it to make a vaccine, would you support my decision if your own child got infected and died slowly in your arms? You being forced to shoot your kid in the head with a gun while it charges at your throat? Or your wife perhaps? The only reason and source of love in your life? Turning into a monster? Because of a scratch or a single bite? All that could be cured with a single needle in the arm and you can see them living till they get old with you.
Would you still support my decision? Would you support me saying "fuck you and your kids, mine is above every single living thing."? I really REALLY don't think so. You would hate me and wished that i helped creating that cure.
That is your opinion but you are extremely selfish here and honestly a monster, because for a single life you sacrifice a whole species. YOUR OWN SPECIES. I will be honest. If my child is the only hope for humanity and the result for a cure is certain, i will sacrifice him/her. That doesn't make me a bad person because i will never smile again or just hang myself in the end, but in the end, my child and me will do more good than anyone else before us and literally give a whole species a second chance. That is worth dying for child or not. Self-sacrifice for a good cause is the greatest of virtues.
Death comes and goes, what matters is what we do with our lives and this... this is worth it. I am not speaking for the TLOU universe because it is very shady there but if there is a very dangerous virus that will eventually wipe us out, i will do everything in my power to stop it.
You people speak of virtues, morality but i am CERTAIN that if i had to sacrifice my kid for let's say, cure all hunger in the world? Or stop Africa from being destroyed or any other continent, people won't say "i understand you", they will hate my guts and probably kill me for refusing to do it.
It is easy to talk about how good morality is when you use it to justify your own decision but what if someone else uses it and it damages your own life? What if i had the choice to either save my kid or let you and your loved ones die a horrible death? Would you then say "choose to save the kid because it is a kid and the moral choice to make". You get what i am trying to say?
@@Shadowhunterbg Words spoken of someone who doesn’t have a child. It’s not only humans, but nature itself, to protect your young at all costs.
If you’d sacrifice your own child, you’re either a liar or fucked in the head. Save me your sob story...
@@TheJunkShot You didn't answer my question.
@@Shadowhunterbg he kind of did and your argument is a cherry picked what aboutism appeal to emotion fallacy. full of would be could be maybe hypotheticals that may or may not happen just to try and guilt your opposition into agreeing with you. his kid could not be infected his wife could end up just fine just as much as your kid dying for a vaccine that results in nothing and the world being screwed over anyways
@@Shadowhunterbg heck you want to get into hypotheticals how about humanity rallies burns out the fugus and kills all the infected they adapt and over come and nobody had to kill anyone in order to do so.
_Would Ellie have agreed to die for the attempt at a vaccine if they'd woken her up and asked her first?_
It doesn't matter. She's a child. Children cannot give informed consent.
Furthermore, though it's a separate issue, I don't think that we can take Joel's "look" in the parking garage as proof that he does think that Ellie would agree to die. It shows hesitation, maybe doubt, but anything past that is just us reading too much into vague facial expressions and body language, and seeing in it what we think he was thinking. Just a "look" by itself can't be taken as an explanation for or proof of someone's motivation. Like Dany's "look" before burning King's Landing. You can't look at someone's face and know what they were thinking.
@@damienwatts2340 It's not a legal issue. It's about the principle behind those sorts of laws, which remains even when the laws are gone.
The idea is that people who don't know enough (and, as we now know, whose brains aren't developed enough) to understand what a choice really means shouldn't be allowed to make life-altering decisions. And that they should be prevented from doing so by the people who are more mature than them and who are charged with looking out for them.
Even in some post-apocalyptic scenario, where the laws are gone and nobody but you knows if you're doing the right thing or not, I would still hold to that principle.
And I understand that trying to decide if someone is "mature enough" for something can be a blurry distinction, and that having a legal "age of majority" act as a simple binary cut-off like we have now isn't a perfectly accurate system.
Still, whatever the boundary really is, I'd put Ellie firmly on the "you can't know what you're agreeing to yet" side of that line.
@@charlieberry7562 pretty weak slippery slope argument there, pal. Also the world of TLoU is not the same as our. In that world, kids die everyday in gruesome ways like Henry and Riley.
I don’t think those doctors really have the luxury to discuss the morals of sacrificing one girl to save the world. I’m not siding with the fireflies but understand their position isn’t as black and white as some think it is. I mean, very few people in that world actually get to die of natural causes.
@@daryno9073 Exactly- Ellie wanted her immunity and death to mean something in a cruel world that robbed her of meaning and purpose.
@@jacobodom8401 that but I also think the black and white absolutism kind of go against what’s the story is about.
Like we all know that it’s wrong to kill a kid but what if that kid death can save the world and spare millions of other kids the horrors that they experience everyday. It’s a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation that doesn’t have an easy answer but too many are viewing it in black and white
I had to pause for the last 10 minutes and say wow, your editing is fantastic. The music, cutscenes, and your dialogue are all so great. 10/10 production quality, luv.
Joel’s whole arc in the first game was him starting out as an embittered, selfish survivor. When he got saddled with Ellie, neither were happy at first, but they slowly bonded and formed a pseudo father/daughter dynamic. When Joel completed his mission and learned that Ellie would be killed, he reacted in a way fitting his character: he killed his own Firefly allies and fled carrying the unconscious Ellie.
It’s not presented as a good action by any means, being selfish and reckless in the extreme, but not an entirely evil one, either. It was based on Joel’s largest drives: his deep cynicism and his love for his surrogate daughter. Whether or not the cure could even be made is irrelevant; Joel doesn’t care either way. He wants to save Ellie as a person, not preserve her so more trustworthy scientist could use her as a potential way to save humanity in a different procedure. He’ll do it even if everyone else, including Ellie herself, disagrees. He’s not hero out to save the world, but a bitter survivalist desperate to grasp some semblance of the life he lost when his real daughter died.
Joel is driven by paternal love at the end, but it was a selfish sort of love that came at the expense of everyone else. All because, his very best, Joel is an extremely flawed man. The kind of man that will choose his own happiness over the world, but also one willing to go to the extreme to protect and aid someone he loves. It’s supposed to bring a very mixed feeling to the audience. This is a dark, morally conflicted, world and Joel, like the Fireflies, is one who has been shaped by it.
I think the best way to summarize Joel and Abby's character is that Joel is an anti-hero while Abby is an anti-villain. Joel was ruthless (he even admitted he was a bandit before) but we sympathise and root for him because in the end, he was just trying to survive and protect the ones he loved. Abby has many redeeming qualities (she's brave, loyal and also protective of the ones she cared about) but her murder of Joel is unforgivable. Joel also murdered Marlene in cold-blood but that was unplanned and was done to protect Ellie. Joel's murder was premeditated and sadistic to satisfy Abby's vengeance (to make matters worse she did it despite Joel saving her life earlier). I don't think either of them deserve to die but it is very clear from a narrative and meta perspective that Joel is the one you truly sympathise with, not Abby or the Fireflies.
God I love stories where I totally agree and disagree with both the protagonist and antagonist.
I think my main issue with the fireflies is: if they're so sure Ellie would want to die to save the world, why don't they wait for her to wake up and ASK? To me, that says they're NOT sure she'd be okay with dying. They want to rush the surgery while she's already unconscious, because they know there's a chance she'll say no. And if she says no and they do it anyway, they're the a---holes in that situation. Whereas if she never wakes up, they can tell themselves it's what she would've wanted.
That's what makes it so morally reprehensible, to me. They KNEW they were m--dering a little girl.
Just one bigger question remains, what did Joel trade to get his coffee?
EXACTLY
Dont you know? he traded his survival skills
His plot armour
His golfing skills
The people he traded the coffee with were probably the leak and that’s how Abby tracked them to their location. They built a stronghold and got lax with protecting themselves from others. The golf club makes sense if you think about complacency.
Thank you for that comment regarding Druckmann's statement about robbing Ellie of her choice. That has bugged me for the longest time and something that people always take for granted.
32:07 plot twist joel was an anti-vaxxer the whole time
I’m personally in the Joel-is-basically-a-baddie camp, but I always saw how people could think otherwise. I mean, the ending of the first game *is* morally ambivalent - the violation of a single person’s autonomy against the saving of the human race is, in the words of Davos Seaworth, “everything.” However, Joel doesn’t allow Ellie much of a choice either; lying to her about what happened is a lesser sin than child-murder but the implication is that he lies because he knows Ellie would disapprove - a selfish lie that divests Joel of responsibility.
Additionally, I figured his violent murder was thematically appropriate in theory; yknow, a he who lives by the sword dying by the sword type thing.
Of course, in execution (pun fully intended), it seemed intended more for spectacle and shock than emotionally resonant story-telling.
Agreed on all points. We can expect no less brutal of a death than Joel imposed on those he came across. And I honestly don't even think Joel is a baddie per say, mainly because I think both sides of the argument, like Macabre said, are arguing different points, and they're both actually valid independently of each other, despite the other existing. Even if Joel's motives were selfish, that doesnt change the fact that what he did was morally pure. So despite both those sides arguing against each other, in the end they actually dont end up disproving each other. Joel is both selfish and morally pure in his actions.
He didn't lie,he told her it was useless because she didn't know she would die during the procedure so it was useless but they retconned it in.part 2 that Ellie was ok with dieing just to further kneel cukmans stupid revenge plot
@@dreadxplayzs7849 Ellie was ok with dying in Part 1 also. Marlene says it, Joel's reaction implies it.
@@lockekappa500 she never says it herself because she didn't even know so don't give me that bullshit about Marlene knowing what Ellie wanted,that's a damn lie
@@lockekappa500 Ellie was making plans to leave with Joel after the Fireflies were done doing their research for the cure. The idea that she would have to die for the cure is not addressed in the first game until after the Fireflies put her into a medically induced coma and have her on the operating table without her consent.
I don't remember the specific branch of morality that i heard this from, but i know there's a moral theory out there that basically says the morality of an action is determined not only by the action itself, but also the intention behind it. Essentially if someone does the "right" thing but for the "wrong" reasons then the action itself is not morally justified, even if everything outside of intent does justify it. So for Joel, while him saving Ellie is justified in the context of everything explained in part 1 of the video, his selfish intent that's explained in part 2 would then turn the action of saving Ellie into a morally unjust one, at least by the definition of that theory of morality. Something to consider when trying to make a distinction between the 2 "sides" of the argument for and against Joel.
At the end of the game, I was pretty blown away. Most morally ambiguous choices in games are not center fold. They are usually along the way and don't have much in terms ramifications and if they do, they weren't so morally ambiguous. They make it clear what you did was wrong.
But with Joel's action when asked about it by a friend for my opinion, all I said was this.
"Joel made the most human choice possible."
I have three sisters. We are all pretty close. If the fire flies told me the same things and treated me the same way out, I'm sorry but humanity played the wrong cards at the wrong time.
in my thoughts, what makes the last of us 1 ending so good is, its a morally questionable thing to do but the player is in complete sync with joel about the terrible thing youre doing. going through the beginning of the game with sarah is so incredibly crucial because by the end youre thinking "joel (and by extension, us) cant go through this again" set up and payoff you know? it earned that ending
i love this guy. even though he dislikes the game he still does such a good job of not offending the people who like the game, and he even has me convinced on some aspects of the game that could have been written better. bravo man. 4+ hours of near perfection
The way I see it, Joel's actions weren't necessarily bad or evil, they were the actions of a father protecting his daughter. It's not clear whether or not the cure would have worked; however let's assume for a moment it would have worked perfectly, then I ask the following:
What would happen afterward? How much cure could they extract from one little girl? How would they mass produced it? What's stopping the only people with a cure from monopolizing it and threatening people to do as they say or they wouldn't get cured? Even if people got vaccinated with the cure, how would that help them combat the spore monsters that roam the world? Being cured doesn't stop monsters from eating your face off after all.
Taking this into consideration I feel that Joel possibly spared Elly a possibly meaningless death, and while Elly has the right to be upset that her choice was taken away, I'd argue that every good thing that happens to her after the fact was thanks to Joel since it's thanks to him that she's alive to experience them. While from an outsider's perspective, I could see people getting upset with Joel for ruining a potential cure, however once again I argue that even if Joel didn't do what he did, just getting a cure doesn't guarantee that everything would automatically get better, if anything I imagine that getting the hypothetical cure would have brought nothing but more problems + a dead little girl and a sad father.
I'm not actually saying Joel's actions were "right" I'm saying that I stand by Joel and his ernest love for his new daughter figure.
Joel isn't a morally great character but like many things, it all depends on how you look at it.
Joel isn't a hero but he isn't a villain either, he's a human being that is forced to make the most of the ruined world he has no choice but to live in, all while protecting what matters to him, is it selfish? Debatable, did he make the right decision? Also Debatable, does he deserve to be seen as evil? No.
(Note:This ended up longer than I expected, my bad whoever you are reading this.)
I kind of agree. A cure doesn't fix everything, it just makes it a little better. However it means, getting infected is no longer a death sentence which gives hope to anyone who gets infected and makes fighting infected easier (eg. no more spore masks).
When I played as Joel I understood his decision and at the time I agreed with it because I loved Ellie too but afterwards given his cold-blooded murder of Marlene and lie to Ellie, it troubled me a lot. What is interesting is that people go to great lengths to justify Joels decision but get outraged when this game did a little of the same with Jerry. I'd always seen the decision in the first game as being an impossible one. That's why people are still arguing about it 7 years and two games later. Jerry and Joel were just two people on opposite sides of that terrible dilemma. Needs of the many vs needs of the few (or the one).
That's what I liked about this game. It expanded on that final dilemma and showed perspectives outside of Joels (which was really all we got to see in the first game). Ellie's on what his lie cost her and the Fireflies (via Abby) on what his deed cost them. All this game did was show two more perspectives. The Fireflies seeing Joel as evil doesn't make him evil. But given their perspective it is understandable why they see him as that way. Ellie struggles over being betrayed and hurt by the person she trusted most while dealing with his murder.
In the end the game doesn't change the dilemma. It remains the same, which is why we can still debate it. It's just makes it harder for the people who defend Joel by simply making the Fireflies the cartoon bad guys and Joel the only real person.
@Edgy Boi Opinions vary...
TLOU is weird for me, I started watching a playthrough like during the David segment when I was 12, and even during that small amount of time and really only weatching the cutscenes I got so attached to Ellie that I was sure the game would kill her because that's always what the main characters do right? Do the thing for the greater good, when Joel didn't do that changed the way I view media. I ended up to this point playing through the game like 6 or 7 times, and it never felt old to me. I maintain to this day that The Last of Us is my favorite game I have ever, and likely will ever play. Also, god yeah Cosmonaut I occasionally watched and when he said Joel isn't beloved because he did bad things, my brain melted. That is easily one of the dumbest things I have ever heard on a serious review of a game by a relatively popular youtuber.
As always, I've enjoyed watching your analysis. It's both well thought out and balanced.
I'd considered doing a video critique of the complexities surrounding the decisions made at the end of the first game. I was motivated because it appeared to me that most people debating the second installment seemed to have either forgotten the specifics or simply ignored them.
You've covered all the points that I'd considered and more.
Again, I'm glad I subscribed. You provide thought-provoking, insightful and entertaining content.
Thanks for sharing.
Joel is clearly the good guy, I would have done the same and then some
I'm still Team Joel. There is a reason the game is called The Last Of Us he did the right thing IMO. He's a "bad guy" but he did the right thing not the good thing.
i personally didn't like how the last of us part 2 expects us to believe that everything is black and white(Neil Druckmann even said that the cure was a f-ing guarantee which I feel derides the first game for it's ambiguity)whereas part 1 always emphasized that things were in the gray zone
Man been seeing these 1-3 hours essays pop up in my recommendation lately. I like it there actually pretty good.
Save big money at Menards
I would say right call but for the wrong reason
This video’s points are pretty much exactly what I was thinking. It’s good to know I might actually be on to something, and am not just being an idiot
This video is excellent by the way.you give us a more in-depth look on the last of us world,the fire flies and the complex relationship between Joel and Ellie in that world after the events of the first game, something that the last of us part 2 should have done but failed to do in my oppion.
I think you are spot on about how part 2 shows too many factions that seem to be stable and self sufficient. The rattlers, Jackson, the scars and the WLF. It feels like the world of the last of us is healing and improving without a cure. like the WLF having a fully functional GYM... It kinda takes away from the ending of part 1 since if they had shown that things were significantly worse then it would have given more weight to Joels decision having dire consequences.
Why do I always find interesting vids at night but not at day
There are a few points I want to touch on after watching your presentation. I’ll hit the first here.
Overall, I agree with your assessment on both aspects, although I feel it is perhaps overly judgmental to call his decision selfish.
In the beginning of the game Joel’s daughter was needlessly killed by an authority figure who thought their decision was the right one to start trying to “save the world.”
In the finale of the game, another authority figure who thinks they are doing the right thing to “save the world,” is going to kill his new “daughter.“
What parent or father would allow that to happen? How could anyone like or respect Joel if he did? His “selfish” act was fighting his way through an entire building full of heavily armed people, at great risk to his own life, to save a good, innocent person he loved more than the world.
In spite of all the work the writers put in, especially in the second game, to present Joel’s choice as selfish, I think to some degree they fail, or at least question that idea a bit themselves, when they have Joel, at the end of the second game, affirm that he’d do it all again.
In spite of the years he’s had to consider it, and in spite of the problems it has caused between him and Ellie, he doesn’t regret what he did at all. By the end of the second game, I’m pretty sure he’s the only one that can say that. That’s because he did what he did out of love.
Very well-structured video, good sir. You addressed many topics with nuance and tact. I sincerely hope this work can start a constructive dialogue. Great work!
If I could change anything about The Last of Us, it would be that the ending felt rushed. Ellie on the table, and you don't actually get to make the decision. More context, like you added, could have been discussed on the way to the hospital. They had time. Having players be able to choose to save Ellie (also make it difficult gameplaywise) vs leaving. Keep the original ending the same but add one where Joel walks and we don't know what happens next to the world. Not saying that's better, but it would get people talking about the decision they made. A canon ending for part 2 would obviously have to be Ellie lives but I don't think they had part 2 planned at all at that point.
In the first game Ellie tells Joel she will do whatever he wants when the surgery is over and Joel responds he's not leaving without her so Joel did do the right thing,great video.
Until Joel got pounded by a golf club
Why didn't the fireflies just say that Ellie died because of the interrupted CPR? Sure Joel would have been pissed off but I don't think he would have killed them all.
@Lucii P Sure, why not.
He's just a guy, not a doctor.
@Lucii P Well there are a million different things that could have happened, they could have just said they couldn't take the body.
I would absolutely say that the odds of the fireflies succeeding was indeed factored into Joel's decision. Not because he had time in the hospital to think about it, but because he had a full year to consider all the possibilities. And considering the environment he spent the last 20 years in, the idea of making a vaccine was probably a topic of frequent discussion in any group he was in. I would expect Joel to recognize the desperate, rushed stupidity in their decision to kill her immediately. I wouldn't say it's the main reason for his decision, but the fact that they are so blatantly incompetent would still have to be a factor in his decision. He knows they haven't had time to do real tests. He knows the organization is falling apart. And he can see how selfish their decision to kill her without her consent is. The reason it plays out the way it does is to make the audience more sympathetic to his decision, after all.
Ive had people argue with me so hard trying to say that the fireflies were sure they could extract a cure from Ellie. I knew I remembered them saying they had tried it before and weren't certain that they could pull it off.
Was kinda hoping COVID would do something cool like turn people into vampires.
I love Part 1 and 2, and definitely hold this series as one of those games that just stick with you. And its nice to see a good analysis on both sides of Joel's decision. So thanks for this, can't wait for that GoT rewrite finale :)
Outstanding video! I realize I'm 2 years late to the party, but I can't thank you enough for the way you so thoroughly and convincingly argue for both side of the debate, expanding my own view on the subject in the process.
You’re never too late hombre ❤️
Great Video. Made a lot of sense. Especially on how you analyse how the debate about this issue is going on. Bravo!
To be very honest it really doesn't matter whether Joel was good or bad because he did what any other person like us would have done in an apocalypse like this and that is to survive. I mean seriously what would you have done? I know it's really tough to answer but it's not very hard and this may come out the wrong way but if I was in a situation like this I would worry about who's number one and that is my family and myself.
The way Joel died didn't make me mad at Abby, it made me mad at Naughty Dog, and in this, they failed as story tellers
I kinda think that the reason Joel's death was so sudden and shocking is because they want the players to be so pissed with Abby that you will be engaged in Ellie's revenge quest. But I guess it failed for you cuz instead of getting pissed at Abby, you were pissed at them lmao
Marlene saying it’s what Ellie would want is her projecting because of her relationship with Ellie’s mom and she feels her friend died for nothing.
6:21 “You’d just come after her.” Well, a lot of good that did him. Joel does the smart thing and executes Marlene, but he still faces the consequences anyway.
Wouldn’t there also have to be a vaccine every time the virus mutates? That’s the whole reason why there are shamblers in Part 2.
26:19 Fair point. Marlene is mysteriously aware of the bond they’ve built for the past year. She can assume that, but how could she be so sure if she wasn’t there for any of it? Marlene and the rest of the Fireflies aren’t very smart people, are they?
26:31 Thank you for mentioning that. A plot device in the first game that was completely forgotten about.
As much as I love the hospital segment at the end of the first game, I appreciate you criticizing this part, since it makes a lot of leaps in logic. Sure, Joel ain’t perfect, but the Fireflies aren’t perfect either.
34:47 I wonder how well either Joel or Marlene
really know Ellie. Joel has known her for a year, true, but Marlene has known her since she was born.
Yeah, I guess when you explain it like that, Joel’s lie at the end does seem manufactured. He had multiple chances to tell Ellie that the Fireflies robbed her of her choice just as much as he did. He wanted to spare her the truth because Ellie already felt guilty about Sam and Riley, but based on how Joel reacts to Marlene, he also knows what he did was selfish.
I enjoyed this video very much.
I know Joel wasn't thinking this he just wanted to save Ellie but every new discovery humans make it gets turned into a weapon so the fireflies would definitely have used the vaccine as a weapon eventually so I wouldn't see mankind being saved but the fireflies gaining power
The hilarious part is the detractors made valid claims instead of the ass-kissers who just brought ad-hominem and insults to the table.
I've seen that a lot and it's hilarious for anyone to take those people seriously...
Great video man! I could tell you put a lot of thought into this
This is the most expansive, well thought out video on this topic I have seen to date, good work dude.
Great video. There's a bigger picture that is so important yet so easily lost in discussion of this game. Part 2 certainly didn't help with that
Joel also used to ambush and slaughter innocent people to take their things, just like the people tried to do to him on part 1. He mentioned knowing what they were doing because he used to do it too.
U brother are the absolute truth..
You brought up so many great points and plot holes great job and great vid👍🏾
I always interpreted the ending as not only morally unambiguously correct, but also as a beautiful metaphor of Fireflies losing their humanity in increasingly futile attempts to preserve or resurrect the past, while Joel gaining his humanity by choosing to look forward and to risk his life to protect his surrogate daughter (unlike the typical scavanger / survival decision to take the reward and walk away).
Also, I want to reject completely the notion that Joel was acting 'selfishly' and that he robbed Ellie of agency.
1) Ellie was robbed of her agency not by Joel, but by Fireflies themselves. They put her into impossible situation where she either chose to die or doom the human race. They, and especially Dr. Jerry, were in a best position to evaluate the evidence scientifically, with proper cost / benefit analysis, they had that responsibility as scientists and yet they outsourced it to 14 year old girl with survival guilt and PTSD. That's evil. But of course MS shows nicely, that it's them who were actually acting selfishly, based on belief.
2) So Ellie really was in no position to make decisions here. I guess in very literal sense she was robbed of her choice, but suppose she's in a cult instead and decides to kill herself to be elevated to higher planes. I don't think we would consider it as taking away her agency just because there's a not a complete certainty that she won't actually meet energy beings from Beta Orionis.
3) Joel didn't just took her. He very clearly faced a very serious possibility that he won't survive this. If your beloved one falls into a rapids and starts to drown and you jump for her, we wouldn't say - oh you selfish bastard, you just didn't want to lose her. There was sacrifice on Joel's part, very real threat of losing his life. I don't think you can call it selfish.
That's why I think Joel's decision as well as actions were unambiguously morally good. He didn't just choose to 'have Ellie' or have vaccine like in a supermarket. He didn't weigh other people's lives on a scale, he didn't lie himself into easy choice. He chose to put his life on a line, so Ellie can live. I reject completely that there's anything selfish about that. The is unambiguously good.
If humans have time to grow crops, have and raise kids, and have organized and drawn out wars, then they aren't really dying out en masse anymore.
Have you seen any of the efaps concerning Tlou2 where they cover the vidoes of people defending the game? Its very cathartic for those of us who had to suffer through the Tlou 2 story.
I have not seen the actual episodes but DID see Mauler's breakdown of Cosmonaut's content in his Force Awakens series. I saw Cosmonaut's TLOU2 review and it irked me like hell lol
@@MacabreStorytelling Yeah they cover his shitty tlou2 video as well, I dont understand why that guy has over 1 million subs.
Ya they basically say the same things as macabre
"Would you choose 1 life over a million, sir?"
"I refuse to let simple arithmetics decide questions like that."
I did not agree with your part 2 video but god damn, this video is fantastic! Best breakthrough of the first games ending I've seen.
I think Joel did the right thing, but that he did it for the wrong reason. He didn't think about the "vaccine" or humanity what so ever when he decided to save Ellie. He did it for selfish reasons because he couldn't stand the thought of loosing Ellie.
I hope ND will go deeper into this in part 3 (if they ever will make one) and explain that killing Ellie would have been a mistake by the Fireflies that would have doomed humanity. They could do this by introducing a new character that actually have the knowledge to use Ellie to save humanity in some way. That way Joel would really become a true hero that by his selfish action actually saved humanity.
Team Joel. Never played The Last of Us Part I [yet], but given the choice between a loved one and a logistical disaster, I'd pick my loved one.
I cannot tell you how frustrating this video is, just purely pedantically. Deontology, the belief that the morality of an action is intrinsic, is not the only possible moral framework. People defending Joel do not have a monopoly on moral arguments. Like, it doesn't really matter to the actual argument, but it is so frustrating listening you to constantly conflate deontology with morality, while referencing utilitarianism and (indirectly) virtue ethics as if they are fundamentally separate from morality. They're all moral frameworks!
Some people, who subscribe to deontological ethics, believe that Joel's actions are wholly or at least largely morally justified. They conclude that killing an innocent girl, regardless of the potential outcome, is wrong, and that Joel is therefore acting in self-defense when he rampages through the facility. They might disagree with his decision to lie to Ellie afterwards, because lying is wrong, but that's probably about it.
Some people, who subscribe to utilitarian ethics, believe that Marlene's actions are potentially morally justified. The utilitarian argument is basically that the path that leads to the best outcome is the moral one. If you condemn thousands to die through inaction, a utilitarian would argue that you are morally responsible in some way for those people's deaths. Marlene and the Fireflies stand to potentially save thousands, even accounting for all of the logistical issues with the vaccine. But even if they stood to save five people, there would be a utilitarian argument that sacrificing Ellie was moral.
Finally, some people, who subscribe to virtue ethics, believe that Joel was not morally justified, regardless of Marlene's actions or any utilitarian arguments regarding the vaccine, because the intent behind Joel's actions are questionable. As you discuss for the second half of the video, Joel is a cynical survivalist who likely did not consider the moral ramifications at all, but simply saved Ellie because he didn't want to lose her.
Of course, it's rarely for anyone to subscribe absolutely to any one framework; each framework, if applied alone, quickly lead to edge cases that intuitively feel amoral while being "moral" under the framework, which is kind of the point of the trolly problem as a thought experiment. That's probably why you probably see people in the ostensibly utilitarian camp overstating the certainty or potential reach of the vaccine, in order to get sufficient utility to overcome the deontological barrier of Ellie's innocent and lack of consent, and why you see people in the ostensibly deontological camp grasping for reasons why the vaccine would fail or nitpicking the Fireflies.
The point is, the issue isn't that one camp is making a moral argument, and another a character assessment. It's that there are three camps, and all fundamentally disagree on what constitutes morality to begin with. And that's sort of the point, isn't it? That's why The Last of Us ends on what could be described loosely as a trolly problem, as you called it. To call into focus the complex mess that is our individual assumptions about morality.
Wow what’s your major at school
@@onelovekaona I have a minor in Complaining About D&D Alignment, which is where I learned what I hesitate to even call the basics of ethics and moral philosophy. :P
@@damienwatts2340 I feel like you've fundamentally misunderstood my point. My argument was not that utilitarianism is morality, and deontology is not, but rather that multiple moral frameworks exist, and so to treat the discussion as though one side is making a moral argument, and the other is making some other, implicitly lesser kind of argument, is reductive and misses the crux of the impasse.
The fact that you'd respond to someone pointing out that every side is making a moral argument, and the disagreement stems from people disagreeing on the moral frameworks, by claiming that one particular moral argument is wrong and asserting a different moral argument... it strikes me as rather silly. But I wouldn't be a very good pedant if I didn't rise to every bait, so disregarding their irrelevance to my own point, I take two issues with your assertions.
The first is that you can justify the most vile evil with pure deontology as well. Pure deontological ethics do not consider circumstance, intent, or consequence: a person stealing bread to avoid starvation is just as guilty and deserving of punishment as a wealthy person stealing money to further enrich themselves. The reality is that very few people subscribe to pure deontology or pure utilitarianism for this very reason: neither produces the results we want on their own. We're just a bit more sensitive to the potential pitfalls of purely utilitarian thinking, because it's become a popular way for writers to spice up their villains these days. Virtue ethics don't lend themself as easily to such justifications, largely because virtue ethics are really wishy washy. I like to think of virtue ethics as being primarily concerned with intent, but it's really mostly just "if you do good stuff, you'll become more gooderer" without really defining what the good stuff necessarily is. The point being, the fact that either deontology or utilitarianism can be used, when taken to their most extreme, to justify something we recognize today as being evil, does not somehow invalidate them as morale frameworks.
The second is your moral justification for Joel. While a deontological argument can be made that the Fireflies' actions were immoral because they violated Ellie's autonomy, the exact same argument would likewise apply to Joel. You'll notice that Ellie is never asked by either party what she wants to do. The video mentions this, even. While I would probably argue that, under the circumstances, Joel did not have an opportunity to query Ellie before irreparable damage was done to the Fireflies' operation, he absolutely did have an opportunity to do so after that, to see if she might want to try and salvage the situation, and he CERTAINLY had opportunity to ask her what she would have wanted after the fact, rather than lie about what happened.
@@damienwatts2340 Personally, I find the Fireflies' action to be unjustifiable from any framework, really. Deontologically, their actions are obviously wrong. Likewise for virtue ethics; as a needless aside, the pitfall of virtue ethics to me is more that it can promote inaction, so for example, under pure virtue ethics, Joel's actions were wrong because rampaging through the facility killing people was not a good thing, and he should be focused more on improving himself than on responding to injustices elsewhere. And, while I think the video may have overstated some of the utilitarian arguments against the Fireflies, I do find that the logistical reality of producing and distributing a vaccine in such conditions are dubious, and that rushing straight to surgery is likewise dubious. From a purely utilitarian perspective, the best course of action would probably have been to study Ellie, and lie to both about maybe having to kill her to get at the cure, and then if either tried to leave or caught wind of the stakes, likely imprison both to allow for further study. The decision to kill Ellie right away doesn't serve any utility, except that it spares the Fireflies of having to face their decision regarding Ellie long enough to have second thoughts, and likewise the decision to kill Joel right away (which Marlene disregards) serves little beyond convenience. I would generally condemn the Fireflies's actions in the finale, and honestly it kinda feels like an example of the villain being half-heartedly written as utilitarian to seem more complex than they are, to which I made reference in my previous post.
However, while I find the Fireflies' actions pretty much universally untenable, I find Joel's actions in the moment to be only partially justifiable. We'll ignore motivation for a moment. So to start, Joel's treatment of the first guard, whom he disarms and then gut shots twice to get him to talk, before summarily executing him. Most deontological frameworks would say that Joel ceases to be justified in his use of lethal force after disarming the guard; it is only from a quasi-utilitarian framework, that harming this man will yield information about Ellie, and then that killing him will maybe prevent him from coming after them much later, that we can find justification for the action. All the same, I find the action to be morally fraught; not outright wrong, but not outright right, either. From there, Joel rampages through the facility, but this is largely fine; to my memory, every person he interacts with up until reaching the operating room is an immediate and serious threat to him. However, when Joel reaches the operating room, he effortlessly disarms Jerry, and his decision both to kill Jerry, and to do so in the manner he does, is not in any way justifiable. At this point, the player can choose whether to just take Ellie, or to kill the other two unarmed nurses, so we'll favorably say that canonical Joel spares them both (though I think you and I both know that canonical Joel would not). He runs with Ellie, that's all fine, and then we reach the confrontation with Marlene. And here, as before, his actions cease to be justified. He gut shots Marlene while she's trying to de-escalate the situation, which is questionable; an argument could be made that Marlene was still armed, and still had dangerous intentions, so maybe shooting her in the gut while she tries to resolve the conflict could maybe be argued as self-defense. But then going back and finishing her off while she begs for her life, on the off chance that maybe she'd come after them eventually? That's a big ol' nope. And I think all of us agree that Joel's decision to lie to Ellie was unjustified, but I also think it underlies his motivation throughout the whole incident: that it wasn't about saving Ellie for Ellie's sake, but about not losing Ellie for his own sake, and we can imagine that if the Fireflies had asked and received consent from Ellie (which would still be somewhat fraught, given her age and traumas), that Joel would likely have taken the similar action.
That's without getting into determinism, but I think an argument from determinism is kinda separate from an argument from morality, and so ignoring determinism, this is generally my moral take: the Fireflies were unilaterally wrong, but that Joel's retaliation was an unnecessary escalation and not wholly justified. And I think that's sort of the point, that neither side necessarily had the right of it, that stories can't always be boiled down to heroes and villains, and all that whatnot. And I think it works as a setup thereafter for a narrative about cycles of violence and escalation, about justice, retribution, and vengeance.
@@damienwatts2340 Utilitarianism is one of those things where a lot of people think they know what it is, because it's very popularly depicted in media, but people actually generally don't really understand it, because it's usually depicted lazily in media. Some time ago, a friend and I were discussing politics and the like, and he gave me the following thought experiment. Say that a hospital has a heart and a set of lungs on deep freeze, ready for transpant, and receives three patients. The first with was in a terrible accident, and would need a new heart, and both lungs. The second would need only a new heart, the third a new set of lungs. If these patients arrived relatively close together, but the first patient arrived just ahead of the others, would it be just to give both the heart and lungs to the one, and let the two die? I argued that, everything else equal, if the hospital could ensure that the two both survive, and they arrived soon enough that they had not already begun treating the one, then they should receive the organs. He retorted that, taken to its extreme, such logic would allow for the harvesting of a heart and lungs from a healthy individual to save two dying people, and that this was the problem with utilitarianism.
But that's not the problem with utilitarianism. The goal of utilitarianism is to seek maximum utility, which is generally considered to be minimizing harm and maximizing happiness or comfort, for lack of a better term. But if we lived in a society where you could be grabbed off the street to have your organs harvested at any moment, you wouldn't exactly be happy; you'd probably be pretty anxious whenever you were out in public, and especially if you went to the hospital for a routine checkup. The reality is that, people often boil utilitarianism down to a calculus of lives, without consideration for the knock-on effects of the things they claim a utilitarian would propose. If you take one life to save five lives, but insodoing make EVERYONE somewhat less happy, you are not doing a very good utilitarianism; with the number of people alive, anything that even mildly harms everyone is going to very quickly outweigh such cheap calculus. It'd be like exchanging paper money in bills, without regard for the number printed thereon: if you exchange one $100 bill for five $1 bills, you have not made a good trade. Or, better fitting to our analogy, if you have eight billion $100 bills, and you sacrifice one to stop from losing five, but in so doing you cause the US dollar to inflate by 1%, you are still looking at a net loss.
So let's assume, then, that the Fireflies were nigh guaranteed to create a successful cure, that they had the necessary facilities to rapidly manufacture and distribute this cure, and that obtaining a cure would broadly improve people's lives. But let's also assume that the Fireflies cannot keep it a secret that, in making the cure, they kidnapped and murdered a young girl, as well as her surrogate father; an operation as big as their's, particularly given that we're shown at least one person disagrees with one of those actions and is troubled by the other, and it would beggar belief that they could maintain such a secret. And I assure you, once word got out, there would be whole populations that would refuse to use the cure on principle, and many others who would experience something akin to survivor's guilt for using the cure. And that's assuming the cure is produced and distributed rapidly, and that it would "save" everyone, if utilized.
But, while I agree that there are some plot contrivances in play, I do not believe that we are meant to assume that the vaccine would be a magical cure-all. Even assuming the Fireflies could rapidly produce and distribute it, I think there's ample evidence that it would not significantly improve the lives of people. As is argued in the video, while the clickers may have been the catalyst for society to collapse, they are no longer the primary threat to people, and thus are no longer the primary barrier to society rebuilding. A utilitarian might, after exhausting all other avenues, consider sacrificing Ellie without her consent to produce a vaccine, but only if doing so would clearly provide a benefit that outweighed the many potential negative repurcussions of such an action, and I do not think we are meant to believe that to be the case. Rather, I believe that the Fireflies are characterized in a way where they NEED to believe that, because otherwise everything they've sacrificed up to this point was for naught. A sort of sunk-cost fallacy, if you will: "We've already sacrificed so much in pursuit of a cure, it has to have been for something... and what's one more death, at this stage?"
--
Regarding Joel's actions, I think it's important to clarify between actions we understand, and actions we deem moral. I can understand why, in response to almost killing his surrogate daughter, Joel murders Jerry, but that does not mean that I would morally condone that course of action. As I mentioned before, I certainly find his actions to be more justifiable than that of the Fireflies, but morality is generally not held to be relative in this way: the fact that the Fireflies are worse does not render Joel's actions wholly justified, in a similar way that I would consider it better that my house to be destroyed in a fire rather than being destroyed in a nuclear explosion, but neither would be a good outcome for me.
It is something of a tragedy, because Joel is put in that situation by the Fireflies, and this results in a number of deaths that might otherwise have been avoided, but I do not believe Jerry's or Marlene's deaths were strictly necessary, even given the circumstances. Joel kills Jerry to alleviate his anger, and I'd argue that he kills Marlene for the same reason - the idea that killing Marlene, the only person we see as being sympathetic to Joel's position, might somehow dissuade the Fireflies from coming after them seems rather absurd to me.
But all the same, the deaths of Jerry and Marlene, as well as the specific treatment of the guard at the beginning, were not justified. I understand why he did it, in the same way I might understand why someone made to wait on hold for a long time might take out their feelings with the helpless customer service representative, but that doesn't really alter the moral argument.
--
Ya, determinism is fun™. I'd say that it's generally what I subscribe to, but it can be very unintuitive to work within, because determinism necessarily requires divorcing one's self from concepts such as responsibility. Rationally, I believe that no one is truly in control of their actions, and therefore no one is to blame for their actions, but emotionally, I still hate the absolute hell out of some people for the harm they cause others. That honestly the thing I like the most about Part 2, really: emotionally, I connect with retribution very strongly, but rationally, I believe such feelings to be harmful to myself and others, so it's nice to play a game that seeks to replicate that dissonance, rather than just feeding into whatever I happen to resonate with emotionally.
In addition to the trolley problem, I also believe there is another factor--when the person who is tied on the trail alone relates to you (friends, family, or anything meaningful), the judgement and measure of the situation will become far more personal and even irrational. In game 2, the debate between Jerry and Marlene over sacrificing Ellie indicates this moral ambiguity. But it was sort of thrown away right after. Yes, saving your own love would be a selfish and cynical choice, but I would argue that it is not morally evil by any means.
I think Joel lying about killing the firefiles to Ellie should be a bigger deal than whether or not the actual act itself was moral or not.