The Last Of Us - We Would Have Done What Joel Did 

The Fireflies honestly seemed very unprofessional and untrustworthy. Notice how they constantly mess up their own plans

Joel didn't know that extracting a potential cure from Ellie would kill her until she was already under put under for surgery. I imagine, if they both had known previously, Ellie would have had input which Joel would have respected.

Here's the thing... based on the lore of the game, there was a distinctly significant possibility that Ellie's sacrifice would in the end be in vain. Killing her wouldn't guarantee or almost guarantee a cure, and might in fact actually doom humanity. If Ellie survived, she could father children who would inherent her immunity. If she died to give them a potential for a cure however, there would only be one chance for success.

This game came out a month before my son's birth. My view of the ending was clear: I understood Joel's reasoning, but I could never be so selfish. As soon as my son was born, my stance changed completely. Were I ever in such a scenario, the world could burn so long as my son was safe. It's so messed up. I understand the biological reasons for my feelings, but I just don't care.

Also, audio logs suggest that the firefly scientists are quite inept so that also give a more rational view of Joel's choice. Also, the fireflies are quite questionable an organization as well so them having the cure might in a way lead to a dark path. A choice that seems obvious in the first place given more introspection can become very gray indeed.

"It is by juxtaposing love among life's tragedies that gives love it's meaning and density." My favorite line in this video, thank you! What makes this so hard for us humans is that we usually benefit from this realization in hindsight. When we are right in the middle of pain and loss, it's hard to reconcile this.

Ever since I was little my family has always been about protecting each other. Family would burn the world to save one of their own. Because family is more important than everyone else.

Joel did save the world, because to him Ellie *is* the world

My daughter was 5 months old when I played TLOU, I understood Joel's reasoning right away and I would have done the same without blinking an eye, you can't give up on someone you love that much, that dearly, life would be meaningless without my kid. Maybe that sounds selfish and cruel to other people, but it is what it is. We're human.

Essentially it boils down to a choice of countless strangers versus the single person you hold dear. If I was in Joel's shoes I would have easily put Ellie above everyone else and done what he did. Is that selfish? Absolutely! I'll never say it isn't. Is it not also selfish though to demand others give and sacrifice selflessly? There is no right or wrong answer to this situation, and I wouldn't put it on even my worst enemy.

I might be wrong in my reasoning, plus english isn't my first language so I might have missed a few things. But from what I understood, you argue that if we had gone through the same things Joel did, we would have made the same choice. While I agree with that statement, I believe that since we (as beings) are the sum of our experiences, if we had gone through the same things Joel did (loss of a daughter, survival through any mean, etc...), we would essentially be Joel. We would project our feelings of fatherhood onto Ellie and protect her the same way he did. That's the problem I have with your argument. I feel like you're saying "if you were Joel, you'd have acted like Joel." And of course, we would, because we would be Joel. But someone who would be Ellie's bodyguard instead of Joel but who wouldn't have lost a child, or would be more detached, or anything really, could/would have acted another way. Since I'm a bit of nitpicker, I'll also add that your argument about Life is Strange bothers me a bit. In the context of the Last of Us, your argument puts us in Joel's shoes, meaning in the universe of the game. But for Life Is Strange, we made those choices from an outside perspective. We won't suffer the consequences, we're just experiencing the story. I made the choice to save Chloe, not because I particularly like her, but because I liked the people of Arcadia Bay even less. But as soon as the game is over, I just have to turn it off for it not to matter anymore. That also allows us players to experiment to make a choice we wouldn't do in real life, just to see what would happen, out of pure curiosity. Anyway, that's all of my rambling, and I'd be greatly interested to know what you think of all this. I really like your content, and appreciate your take on all the topics you talk about (even on the rare cases where I don't agree with your opinion). I'll be here to watch more of your videos, keep up the good work ! :) Edit : typos & diplomacy

Nicely done Max. Love thinking about stuff like this

Joel's decision to pull her out of there can actually be presented as entirely rational, even necessary. As I recall, it is at least implied that Ellie does not know that the procedure will be fatal for her. Consider for a second what it would have been like if Ellie (14) had been told clearly and up-front that the procedure would be fatal. She is of an age where she is capable of understanding concepts such as death and sacrifice. She is of an age where she is capable of making an informed decision, but crucially not considered old enough to sign contracts or give informed consent for a medical procedure. There are actually plenty of contemporary legal cases surrounding teens petitioning for the right to overrule parents/guardians/doctors to either refuse or gain access to medical procedures over the objections of the adults involved. It is a tricky area. Exceptions to bodily autonomy often are. Had she been given all the options and opted to sacrifice herself, then it would have been quite the conundrum for Joel to either support her decision or overrule it. Very much what is outlined in your video. That she was not making an informed decision, however, changes that. Now, it is Joel's _duty_ as her acting guardian to get her out of there. Guardians are meant to be advocates for their charges. They are meant to look after their best interests, even above the interests of others. Putting a stop to the procedure can be seen as entirely rational and utilitarian in this light. Utilitarian when you consider not only the proximate consequences, but also the precedent. You could argue that this is just a way to smuggle deontology in the back door of utilitarianism, but I would argue that this approach actually helps smooth out the ripples we create in our lives when we naturally operate on neither a purely utilitarian nor deontological basis. What this doesn't do, however, is sort out his decision to lie to her afterwards. Nor does it sort out why we all killed the doctors during the rescue (we all did, right? right? I'm not alone here, am I?) A more optimal option given the circumstances may have been for her to get her out of there, leaving the medical team alive and facilities intact. Then, a safe distance away, he could lay out the decision to Ellie and come to an informed decision. If she opted to sacrifice herself and convinced him to accede to her wishes, she could have returned and they could have proceeded. That door wouldn't have been shut ... .. which, given the argument presented in the video, would explain rather nicely the decision made for us of Joel lying to Ellie as well as the decision we made ourselves (all of us, right? ) to kill the medical team. The emotional need not only to shut that door but to smash things as well. Smashey smashey.

Number one: If you read the lore pickups in the hospital, it is heavily implied that Ellie is not IMMUNE. Her body simply has some defense that greatly slows the spread of the fungal infection. She is not immune, therefore, is not a host for a cure. This canon logic is used as an incredibly weak fanfic justification by some for as to why she goes batshit in TLOU2. As far as Im concerned, that game doesn't exist. Number two: Ever seen Children of Men? At one point Theo says to his best friend "Even if they discovered the cure..., it doesn't matter. It's too late. The world went to shit." Even if this small group of fringe doctors are able to use Ellie's brain to produce a vaccine, how much would a vaccine help at this point? Do they even have the facilities to mass-produce it? Being immune to the fungal infection won't stop anyone from being torn apart by a pack of clickers. Being immune from the fungal infection won't stop your neighboring tribe of human survivors from murdering your clan and stealing your resources. The hope in Ellie as a vector for vaccine is misplaced at every level. Joel made the objectively correct choice. Fuck Neil Cuckmann.

No, it was not irrational for Joel to save Ellie. Allowing a child to be murdered to potentially save lives is neither feasible nor moral. A future built on the corpses of innocents is not a future worth living in.

Selfishness is in our nature. If I were to be in that situation I don´t know what I would do, but if I dared to choose sacrificing that who I love for the greater good then I would probably die with it, because finding other reasons to live is not easy

Putting that life is strange example made remember something that i thought before sacrificing Arcadia bay. I remember thinking " i would save a person worth a town than a town not worth that person" i know that Arcadia bay had a lot of good people,but none of them are worth what Chloe meant to me, to the main character. I am a person that likes to get in a character's brain and be like them while i play , so when i played Tlou i got this feeling when i knew that Ellie was gonna be killed . It was like a stake going through my heart, so when i got to the operation room i killed all the doctors there out of pure hate for them and pure love for Ellie . Tlou gave a feeling that no other game ever gave me, i felt like i am Ellie's father and it my duty to keep her safe no matter what, to not let anything bad ever get to her . I tried justifying Joel's decision in a outsider's view and no matter how i put it Joel is always wrong , but when i put myself in Joel's boots everything became justified in a weird fashion, it's like emotions that can't be put in words, it's in your heart and you can feel it but can't communicate it . It is the only game that made me feel this way and i appreciate that.

When I played the game, I always interpreted Joel’s choice as directly tied to Joel losing Sarah earlier in his life. I read it as, having already lost a daughter before and having carried that grief for 20 years, if he had to do it again, it would’ve just totally killed or ended him. Considering the choice without Sarah’s loss and still considering the pros of the choice is thought provoking.

I can't wait for Part 2.. An expansion I'd *love* to see is the story of Joel immediately after the death of Sarah, and how he and Tommy survived those first few years. How did he come to the decision to *not* end it all? That would be a fantastically grim and heavy story..

It's an impossible question Max Derrat... to really put ourselves in Joel's shoes, feeling how he felt... without going through all those experiences... and then 'potentially' saving a world of strangers whom in the game... most were horrible... so much thought would go into just the act of contemplate this... and still end up without an answer... (either way regrets would follow). Personally, I would very likely have done what he did after playing the game (& part 2)... and then lived a life regretting those series of choices as well...

I noticed several comments about Ellie's immunity of wether or not letting her live or killing her gave humanity the greatest chance to survive so here's my thought on it. Immunity passed from parent to child fades slowly over several generations. However this rule applies to viruses and infections like the Black Plague, Spanish Influenza, and Smallpox as these viruses have a 'shelf life' inside the body. This means if a person is infected and if they survive or have a natural immunity eventually the virus slowly dies out inside their body until there's nothing left. However when the Fireflies show Joel X-rays of Ellie's head it shows that the fungus has grown around her brain and is still there. If the fungal infection had a shelf life then over the months between her getting bitten and her and Joel making it to the Fireflies camp the fungus would have died out as her body slowly destroyed. This means that Ellie is still actively infected with the fungus however her body is actively and constantly producing antibodies to to keep it under control and likely to also keep her from passing it on to others. This means Ellie will be infected her entire life and any children she or other women like her may have will immediately become infected in the womb but with both the mothers immunity and developing with the virus it is almost a guarantee the child will be immune as well. And this immunity won't fade over time as they're permanently infected.

You are so well spoken its beautiful. I absolutely adored this video and I wanna say thank you for putting in the effort to make this video happen. I appreciate ya man, bless up baby bee

Joel did nothing wrong at the end of the first game. Even assuming that a vaccine could be made, it changes fuck all about the current state of the world and it's in the hands of a dubious organization that didn't even uphold their end of the deal after delivering Ellie. The Fireflies deserved what they got. Joel did the correct thing.

Joel wasn't being selfish, the Fireflies were. They don't even give Ellie a chance to wake up and explain the situation to her, which might've resulted in Ellie agreeing and placating Joel since it's her decision. No only that, but they immediately jump to the "cut her brain out" conclusion after less than a day of analysing her. No blood tests, no taking skin samples, nothing, just straight to the fatal surgery. And perhaps worst of all, based on the game's own lore, there's a possible chance that extracting the cordyceps from Ellie wouldn't even result in a cure after all and they'd be killing her for nothing. They didn't care about saving everyone, they cared about saving themselves and probably blackmailing all other survivors into joining them with the promise of a cure.

It's not as simple as Ellie's life in exchange for all of humanity. It's a hypothetical vs a sure thing. Besides, civilisation was already gone, humanity reduced to small bands of survivors. Creating a cure, even if it works, doesn't save the 99% who are already dead, it just maybe makes the world slightly less dangerous for the survivors. I don't have children, but even I would choose the life of a single child over a cure for a zombie plague that has already done its damage.

I was always sure I would have done what Joel does. No question about it.

Looking forward to your Part II analysis :)

Now here's an interesting game that has the opposite approach. Tales of Xillia 2. It has many bad endings, and one of them involves not killing a family member in a post-apocalyptic world in order to continue saving said world. Interestingly enough though, its true ending is to sacrifice yourself to save the world for a person the MC cherishes dearly instead of sacrificing her, which would lead to a normal ending if you didn't sacrifice yourself. This other person mentioned is not the family member I previously talked about btw.

*Part I:* Joel harnessed his hate [in humanity for taking Sarah] in order to survive the post-apocalyptic world, but was then fueled by his newfound *love* for Ellie to protect her no matter the cost. *Part II:* Ellie, with her love for Joel, lives in relative peace within the Jackson community. An unspecified event causes her to be fueled by *hate* to hunt down and kill all members of an unnamed group.

Waiting for your follow-up on this with Last of Us Part II!

Excellent video Max! This game truly is a marvel!

I love the Nietzsche reference at the very end: "All too human". I couldn't agree more with your argument man, it's precisely what I have been saying about the ending ever since the game was published. It is the greatest hubris of mankind, that we think ourselves as architects and the practitioners of rationality. And yet each and every one of us, day to day, behind the smokescreen of rational thought, lies the irrational. A void. Where logic eludes and emotion reigns. It's chaotic, unpredictable, and seldom makes any semblance of sense. But it is, unequivocally, HUMAN.

I think the creators said it was heavily implied during the live event that Ellie DID know that Joel lied. And frankly, thank god, cause i dont want to deal with that drama in the sequel, ive seen it way too many times in literally every piece of media

If you sacrifice a childs life for the greater good it automatically makes it not the greater good. Also they never asked Ellie if she's willing to sacrifice her life for everybody else,and they never asked me. I began to like that little pain in the ass chatterbox and I was not willing to let her go.

2:35 I guess we aren’t being asked to be other person than Joel… maybe we don’t have our love focused towards one specific person so we prefer to save many people and the future instead of one close to us… but even if I want to save the kid I still didn’t want to shoot the doctors.

Also, are we sure that fireflies would distribute the cure to everyone or just keep it for themselves?

Wow, that almost made me cry. Beautiful!

Nier: Automata!?!?! Jeez.. That game was (still is) an amazing ride. Movement system? Amazing Combat? Amazing Story? Amazing I wish I didn't sell my PS4 and games.. oof

8:30 yeah the problem with the question is to be Joel. Being Joel he does that, but not everyone would do that. Some people could go through the same trauma and have a different way of seeing the world and sense of hope for a better tomorrow.

Ellie will definitely find out. It's too prominent for them to pass on.

PLEASE MAKE A VIDEO ON THE PART 2 ♥️🙏

I would have done the same too. I want to focus on the things that matter to me even if the world is gone into hell. If I had to sacrifice someone, it would be tough to keep going while thinking of them. It just hurts. Honestly, I respected Joel more.

You also have to consider Joel has lost faith in humanity and the world itself. All of his family has died or betrayed him. Tommy has left him although he still has him. The mother of Joel’s daughter has probably died in childbirth or after nasty divorce. He’s killed hundreds of people easily 500+ he does not care for humanity or the world.

Ask someone this question indirectly before they have played it and then their views immediately after. That should be an Interesting. Showcasing the true power of emotions.

I never understood how some would say joel made the wrong choice and if they were in his shoes they would have sacrificed ellie. Dude it's easy to say things like that but when you have to actually make that choice, to let someone you view as your child die even if it's for the greater good, very few people would do it. I get irked somewhat when i hear people say otherwise they just come off as self righteous and wanting to make themselves seem greater than they really are.

Humanity took his Daughter away from him. He took the cure away from humanity. Get rekt humanity!

Some people think that they will sacrifice their loved ones to save humanity. But they haven't been in Joel's situation. His first daughter were not killed by a disease, but by humanity that was supposed to protect her (represented by the military). Now what makes you think he'll willingly sacrifice his 'second daughter' for humanity? (Not to mention that the fireflies doesn't seems to be sure to find cure out of it)

Thanks for referencing Life is Strange! I'm a fan ✌

Your question makes little sense. Yes, if I wasnt me and I was basically Joel in all his experiences I would've probably made the same choice he did, but if I was just me as I am with no emotional baggage like Joel then no, I can with little to no second guessing state that I would have left her to die to save humanity in all its ugliness because its the right thing to do, and if Ellie knew the situation she might agree to save the world or worse still, decide to be a selfish little shit and only think of herself!

This is why Joel deserved better in the sequel

One of the doctor's recordings said, "there have been similar cases to Ellie but no vaccine could be found," so could it be that even if Joel did give up Ellie, it would of been for no reason?

The fireflies are gonna track down Joel for what he did and Ellie still believing what she was told at the end of the game is gonna finish off the fireflies only at the end of the game to be told the truth

Oh I didn't skip a beat in that hospital, the moment they said they were gonna cut that little girl open, I slaughtered all of them. Didn't even pause for the doctors, kicked down the door, shot them all. Get her out, that was about as much thought I put into that. Don't regret a thing. Gonna find a way to get her a giraffe.

I personally think he did the right choice ironically enough since the people we would be entrusting to save humanity can barely survive on its own and also recruit child soldiers, an organisation so disorganised that they are unable to cross America, something that 1 teenage girl and a 50 year old was able to do, so let’s say he did sacrifice Ellie it could only realistically go a few ways, the Fireflies monopolise the cure and in fighting would start within the group or the operation would lead to nowhere and after everything nothing would come of Ellie and Joel’s sacrifice. So yes Joel did burn the world, he did an evil thing killing those doctors and dooming humanity however after some thought it was the right thing to do since humanity is already far beyond saving. Which is why I’m hyped for the Last of us 2 since I’m hoping that Ellie’s journey in that game will bring the same epiphany that Joel had in the end of the first game and seeing how she would live with that.

Joel's decision was objectively rational one tho. Irrelevant of what he experienced before... I don't care what happens to others(humanity, in this case) if I'm not happy. I'll chose what makes me happy no matter what, as I always did and always will. Even tho society forces me to hide my real opinions... That said, I was still mad about the end of Last of Us because I didn't care about Ellie through the game so I was totally OK with "sacrificing" her. I never felt connected to her while playing anyways. She felt like just any other person for me. Well, I've always had problems about connecting to game characters, so maybe that's why. Game worlds never trigger my empathy switch. Maybe that's why I don't like story-driven games. Everything feels fake in them

Not everybody would’ve or In fact could’ve but the thing is Joel’s a badass through in and through out.

Exactly. Humanity has given almost nothing to Joel other than pain and anger and people expect him to give up the one thing he only loves so easily

shit, I had to cry while watching this

A friend and I had an argument about the ending. I liked most of the story and found good reasons for everything Joel did. It was a matter of survival . On his part, my friend didn't like Joel and most of the things he did , he thought he was too brutal and cruel. He was a monster in my friends eyes. Not someone he could relate to. Strangely, our opinions took a different turn at the end of the story. I didn't like that Joel decided to sacrifice everyone to save his daughter. He chose her over the rest of humanity. In addition to that nobody asked her but anyone could guess that she was ready to sacrifice her life. She might have saved everyone this way. Her sacrifice was for the greater good. My friend on an other loved the ending. It was selfish, cruel and brutal but by choosing to sacrifice everything else to protect his daughter he reclaimed his humanity in my friend's eyes. That is one of the reasons I love that game.

Heh. I wish I was given the option of sacrificing, or not, Ellie, b/c I would have killed every last mf'er in that base (to quote Pulp Fiction), time and again. 🙃

3:43 maybe it was just people replaying the game

Seeing what they're doing to The Last of Us p2 (so far), I'm glad I saved Ellie. Nothing is sacred anymore. I for one, welcome the end of humanity. We had a good run, but maybe that's enough for one species. (Well, maybe I'm jumping ship too early... maybe it won't be too bad.)

I think we all know what Joels reasons for not committing suicide that Tommy disliked was......Joel wanted to overthrow the military ..the ones he let his guard down to trust and eventually who killed his daughter. Tommy being a lover not fighter didn't believe in trading blood for blood. So shortly after Tommy became a Firefly and Joel a hunter. But Joel is NOT an evil man so after witnessing what these hunter became with power he broke away. And I believe that's where he met Tess...I think they were both hunters. That's just my take....don't quote me..lol….I don't want people thinking these are facts I read, just my opinion.

I watched one of those “*game* like a movie” things for this game. When I saw it, I thought it was pretty good, but when I saw the ending I thought it was really dumb and strange for him to act that way. It ruined the game for me, but this video and some of the comments changed my view, and I can appreciate it.

It was never even a question for me, when the question was presented into the game by Marlene was screaming inside so Joel would do something to stop that barbaric act. I sympathize and empathize with his journey, feelings and nihilistic view of the human race as presented in the universe of the game. While I don't think he was over analyzing the thing rationally and for him is only a matter "I will not lose my little girl again, I will not fail to protect her again." I think his decision is right, morally justifiable in every sense. The central question of the moral dilemma here is "Does the live/needs of many outweigh the lives/needs of the few?" the utilitarian position say without hesitation that yes it does, but it's fundamentally wrong or flawed in it's reasoning. Because at the heart of this dilemma is the question of the value of a human/conscious or self-aware life. The utilitarian position does basic arithmetic with life, if a single life is invaluable so the sum of various life, millions or even billions, is obviously more valuable that a individual life thus you should always sacrifice the few or individual for the benefit of the many/collective. The problem with this the value of the collective is determined by the single individual or unit pieces that makes the set, if the value of the unit is zero or null to be easily discarded them the value of the set is also zero or null. This apply even about lifespan or life experience, in Invincible !!!!!! SPOILERS!!!! Omni Man justify to Mark his action and the ideology of the his people and their disdain for "lesser" being criticizing our "pathetic, short and fragile existence" compared to they immense thousands years life span and near invulnerability. But if the 70-80 years human experience is pointless why a existence orders of magnitude longer would have more meaning, it would just be thousands years of pointless existence. You cannot value the collective discarding the individual, ignoring all the holes in the fireflys plans even if it's working robbing Ellie of that choice they basically would murder her, a new dawn of a humanity funded at the murder of a child is a humanity that doesn't deserve to live. It would be a species that survived with the same barbaric tactics that they resorted in their downfall. His brother approach of rebuilding the world throughout cooperation and care, building a community that value all it's members equally to fight adversities (including the infected that will parish with time, decaying and the fungus infection) together. To finalize that is a fundamental difference to what selfless and moral "perfect" or moral norths characters like Jesus, Spider-Man, Captain America and Superman do to what is implied that would be the right thing to Joel do with Ellie or what the fireflys wanted to do. They CHOSE to sacrifice themselves by either literally dying to save others or letting people their love die by circumstances not created by them and living with this loss and pain so they can focus their efforts to save other people from suffering what their are suffering. Your life is yours, you can determine the value of it, you can decide if it's worthy more to you that the well-being of others, or worthy less or worthy equal, but you can not determine the value of other people and sacrifice them as you please. From this comes the nobility of those characters. I would like to believe that I would never kill a person to save even the entire human race if this person didn't want to die to accomplish this goal (independent if is someone I love or not), kill my self yeah other not. And even if at the cross road I don't reach this high moral standard and did this horrible act I would commit suicide immediately as self punish to my crime because if I decided that a innocent life was worthless sufficiently for me to sacrifice it the minimum coherence and justice that I can do to balance thing is robbing me of existence as well.

NIER AND LAST OF US. Two of the greatest games ever made.

joel's last choice was selfish He sacrifice the entire world for ellie to survive.

I guess Jim Sterling wouldn't have done what Joel did, but then again, that would require getting off the chair and running a bit.

"You'd just come after her"

I love the theme provided by Gustavo Santaolalla. I think the minimalist acoustic strings go perfect with the overall atmosphere of the game.

Q: would you sacrifice the one you loved for the greater good? A: Absolutely not. The "greater good" isnt "good" enough.

The whole point of the game is that all of us are Joel, even if only in that final moment. That's why saving Ellie was never offered as a choice.

The fact that The Last of Us 1 is still relevant to this day is amazing.

*Humanity took my little girl, so I will take its little girl. * If Joel's daughter did not die from being shot and was instead killed by the fungus I think he would have sacrificed Ellie.

You don't sacrifice humanity by saving Ellie. Humanity is already gone. What's left is a bunch a survivors who would do anything to stay alive, including kill their own.

It was a selfish decision, but a very human one and from a storytelling standard that's the best kind.

Honestly when I played the last of us I was totally on Joels side. I mean yeah the human species is on the line but personally I always figured even if i had the choice I would have done the same thing.

Bro i love your content. You do such good deep dives

"He who saves a life saves the world entire." Joel was right. Ellie saved his life, and given a second chance to save a child's life, he makes the rational choice and gives her a chance to grow up. He was a good man who had to do bad things to keep her safe. The world had already gone to hell, and even though , she takes him at his word because she knows he cares. 'The Last of Us' literally means the last of us who care, possess a shred of human decency and love in a world that is hostile and dangerous. The sequel never happened.

I think Joel's choice was not just the right one from his prospective, but over all. Humanity, at least for dozens of generations, would never get back to pre-apocalypse days. If the vaccine had existed a year or two into the apocalypse, then maybe the damage could have been fixed within a couple of decades at least. But 20+ years later? That damage isn't gonna heal for a very, very long time. Even if they made the vaccine, how would they get it to the remaining people? There are no planes or working boats (as far as I know) in the Last of Us, the best the Fireflies could have done is vaccinate themselves (if they even had the SUPPLIES to make enough of the vaccine for all of the Fireflies) Humanity is at best totally screwed with or without a vaccine, but the best chance is for the human species to natural evolve/develop resistance to the cordecypes

The Anime Dr. Stone poses similar interesting moral questions regarding restoring the human race. The whole "saving humanity" masks the real dilemma: WHO do you save? Do you save everyone or only a select group(s)? All people are not morally equal, society could not function if they were. Murders and rapists do not have equal moral weight as innocent children. Joel handing Ellie over would be giving the Fireflies the Moral Authority to dictate the answer to this question.

What Joel did, although it was very emotionally driven, was the logical choice as well. It would have probably been better if he told Ellie the truth, but the build up of everything the Fireflies doing going to shit is pretty self-explanatory. People like to isolate that moment to emotions because it is a very emotional moment in the game, but there's solid reason behind why it was the best option and it can be explained easily. I mean, look at what happened when the Fireflies caught Joel and Ellie in Salt Lake. Joel was trying to resuscitate her and asked for help and he got knocked out. Ellie could have died right then and there. The Fireflies are reckless and stupid, and they don't learn from their mistakes. Even if they had managed to get the cure from Ellie, they definitely would have either used it for power or lost it immediately, maybe both.

The world took everything from Joel so Joel took everything from the world

My issue with this video's argument Max is your assumption that letting Ellie die for the cure to the Fireflies is the utilitarian option. The Fireflies beat up Joel twice when he tried to drop her off. Already he has no reason to like them. Especially when the cure and procedure process is not laid out to him and he is told straight up they are going to kill her during the surgery. Not only is he right to be angry but it shows how irresponsible and evil the Fireflies are. They are convinced she is the cure and within a day of having her they immediately set off to KILL her during surgery. No extended procedure or extensive testing? No running it by her and him first? It is murder for a cure they have no guarantee off for a theoretical fungal based disease. He did nothing wrong. And he isn't a murderer. The doctors are the murderers and he has no other option to get pass the surgeon in the room. Plus the game gives you the option to use stealth to get pass the firefly guards so you don't have to kill anyone but the doctor if you so choose. Great video essay but you misunderstand the details that make the backdrop. I would have done the same as Joel did. But in a different more black and white scenario where killing a loved one was the only way to save humanity my answer would be harder to find. I think I would sacrifice them knowing it would hurt a lot. Or maybe not. But in the specific scenario laid out by the Last of Us. I would not let them touch Ellie.

Its been 6 years (I think) since The Last of Us came out. 6 years is a lot of games. But still, The Last of Us remains top dog.

That data from Life is Strange i would assume is inaccurate. It doesn't take into consideration whether it was 1st, 3rd or 10th playthrough. I wish they collect only 1st playthrough decisions data. Most people will honestly go through the game, blind, on their first playthrough, and then they will look for some walkthrough and will soil tha data.

Say whatever you like about Joel, I loved that character and that game

what makes The Last Of Us special to me is how well you feel the characters emotions. the music and pretty much everything makes me feel how desperate humans are in this world, no other post-apocalypse game managed to do this to me

tbh i don't think most of us would have gotten as far as joel did

I'm surprised that Nier gestalt/replicant wasn't mentioned here. The game before automata tackled a similar theme, except that the utilitarian/hedonist dilemma was answered by the character early on and you basically kill just about anything and everything (and even "children") to get your daughter back. just as usual, nice vid tho.

While I agree with the conclusion that we would all (likely anyway, but possibly for different reasons perhaps) do what Joel did in that situation, the decision does lack a bit of foresight on Joel's part in a way that isn't really discussed often enough: Being a survivor in the post apocalypse is the opposite of a comfortable existence as we know it. So while Joel may have saved Ellie because he loved her, because he hated humanity, because he couldn't stand to lose all over again (or any mixture of the three), he has in doing so potentially damned her to an existence of suffering and hopelessness in a landscape devoid of meaning other than survival in a world devoid of this thin veil that keeps us from ripping each other to shreds on a magnificent scale (debatable, sure) we call "modern civilization." Just a thought. I'm sure Frankl would disagree with my assessment but...meh.

I always took it that Ellie knew he was lying to her. But she decided to accept it. Maybe she doesn't know the extent of what he's done, but I think she made the connection. Doesn't make his lie less bad though. That's the thing. I agree with what he did and why he did it. And yes, I would do the same for my little girl. The what he did wasn't the "bad thing". The lie was.

I'm just gonna say this: The Last of Us will remain as one of my life-changing games.

I have never considered the choice of saving Ellie from the fireflies to be immoral, irrational, or even morally gray, it was the right thing to simply because of one factor: Consent. Ellie never gave hers. and no, "she would have wanted to", does not count as consent. You wake Ellie up, you ask her. End of story. You can argue Joel went too wild about it, killing people he could have spared, but that's the extent of it. Up until now he was doing okay. For me the most powerful moment in the game was never the hospital rescue, because given the circumstances, and given the choices you had, that was the right thing to do at the time. However, it was Joel lying to Ellie afterwards that was seared into my mind. The lie exposed the self serving part of Joel's decision beyond any doubt (although you can argue that him killing Marlene and the conversation with her was the first instance of that). It was at that moment that Joel sealed the deal for humanity. Had he sat Ellie down, explained everything to her, and offered to take her back IF SHE CHOOSES TO, then Joel's actions at the hospital would have been completely recontextualized. Instead, he lies out of fear that Ellie chooses to sacrifice herself. For me that was the only morally ambiguous choice: whether to give Ellie the choice of sacrifice herself for the greater good, knowing she most likely WOULD, or taking that choice away from her so that you don't have to bear the pain of losing her. I think everything that was said in this video applies to this decision, even more so that the one at the hospital. And Therein lies my problem with how part 2 handled the conflict between Joel and Ellie, because it makes one narrative decision that takes away all the nuance, weight and consequence of Joel's lie: The only one who could make a vaccine was the surgeon, and the surgeon was killed by Joel. Therefore, everything that transpired afterwards was inconsequential to the story: The conversation with Marlene, had Joel not killed Marlene, or accepted her rationale and surrendered Ellie to her, it would be inconsequential. Whether or not Joel Told Ellie the Truth later and gave her the choice, would be inconsequential. Ellie is also completely absolved of any moral implication for accepting Joel's story despite her knowing it was a lie. The whole thing with dooming the world now sounds like a cruel stroke of fate. Yes it is still a result of Joel's actions, but it would have more thematically consistent if it was a result of Joel's decision to keep Ellie alive by concealing the truth from her, rather his decision to kill the surgeon, which stemmed from Joel being in a fit of rage, in fight or flight mode, and had no thematic significance to it.

It’s a masterpiece, To bad the second game shits all over the main characters and kills Joel just to start a fucking stupid revenge plot.

I can understand of what joel did. He took on Ellie as a daughter and it would kill him to see her die. However, though selfish, it wouldnt bring humanity back to point before the fungus spread, whereas sacrificing Chloe would result in stopping the destruction of the town. The world of Last of Us would still be in tatters whether or not Joel would sacrifice Ellie. All you can about that sacrifice is that it may potentially reduce one threat. The infection of the fungus. So I couldnt fault Joel for his action in saving his surrogate daughter

Beautiful, surreal, haunting, depressing, soul-crushing, tear-jerking, personality-changing... The Last of Us is ALL of the above.

Haven't watched yet, but yes. We would have. There is only so much loss a man can take

Aaand part 2 is throwing everything out of the window

Title: We would have done what Joel did Normal people: kills innocent doctors THEN does what joel did