Did Joel Really...? (Spoilers)

[sepheroithisgod]

One of the things that seem to get tossed out a lot is that Joel screwed over humanity, but is it really that simple?

I want to list a few counter-arguments to this idea.

 

1) First and foremost, one of the things that makes TLoU so cool is that it's actually based on a real disease, Cordyceps. This is a fungal disease that was mutated by a virus according to the game. In reality, there is no way to make a vaccine for such a thing. It simply is not possible with modern-day medicine, versus what would be available in TLoU. I do understand that maybe since this doesn't work the way it does IRL, that you could argue it is possible to make a vaccine, but I just wanted to share this with people.

 

2) Abby's father is not qualified for this procedure or have the medical knowledge necessary to make a vaccine. The man is in his early thirties or mid 40's at most. TLoU takes place 20 years post the outbreak, where society ended. If we give him the benefit of the doubt and say he is 40, that means he was only 20 when the outbreak began. He would not have taken many medical classes at this point even if he was pursuing a medical degree. He would not have any medical experience, and he would certainly not be qualified to conduct an operation on Ellie.

 

3) Even if it was possible to make a cure and Abby's Father did have the proper knowledge to operate and create a vaccine, he does not have the equipment. These are not created in hospitals. They are created in laboratories with tons of equipment, staff, and specimen (ie Ellie) on hand. Now maybe this was just not shown, but they simply do not have the equipment necessary to produce vaccines.

 

4) Even if they did have the equipment, they definitely do not have the supplies to mass-produce the vaccine. There are no factories out there that are sterile and equipped to do the job in this world.

 

5) Even if they defied all odds and could make a vaccine and mass produce it, how would the logistics really play out? Are they going to send a truckload to the hunter camp and say free cure to a bunch of hardened survivors? No, they would be shot on sight and most would not trust the vaccine. I will not go further with this one because I think most of us realize handing out the vaccine is just not going to happen.

 

While I am positive Joel did not care about any of the above information and did it for a selfish reason, I can't see how he doomed humanity. He simply saved a gung-ho 14-year old from making a pointless choice the fireflies never gave her.

 

Please keep it civil.

Edited July 6, 2020 by Beyondthegrave07
Spoilers in title

[JavaNext]

Some good points there but you're looking way too deep into it, in my opinion.

All works of fantasy and fiction require some suspension of disbelief, because without it anything can be dissected and made illogical.

[ObsceneSociopath]

I agree with all of the above points being feasible if you were to read into it that much and would also like to add that there are also the recorders you can find in the hospital in the first game that allude to the existence of other immune people or at least people with resistance to the infection that they tried to make a cure from & failed.

 

It never outright says there were others who were immune but the recorders give context to suggest there were (or at least people more resistant to the infection) & attempts at producing a vaccine from them failed. With that in mind, I don't see how anything different would have happened with Ellie & would have just resulted in her dying needlessly.

Edited July 6, 2020 by ObsceneSociopath
Typo

[TalalHmd]

no, it's a silly plot that shouldn't be overthought because it will only get sillier 

[Undead Wolf]

Joel made the right decision. He was done dirty in TLOU2.

 

[hazeblunt]

16 minutes ago, Undead Wolf said:

Joel made the right decision. He was done dirty in TLOU2.

 

Great post buddy. I wish this was the actual conversation. The two flashback chapters with young ellie are my favorite parts of the game. It's great that people enjoy the game and i wish naughty dog the best, but nobody can deny that the writing is god awful. Joel got the Luke Skywalker treatment

[Dauersack]

Joel did not do anything to make humanities situation worse. Humanity is hanging on just fine, they have learned to live with the infection being out there. A vaccine being developed by some fool who is in way over his head and already killed many children in a futile effort won't help. Even if he succeeds in creating a vaccine, which is a very big if, there is no telling how effective it would be or how it would react to a fungus trying to do damage to the body. Even if it works flawlessly, the fireflies were DONE, reduced to one area, no ressources to create enough of the vaccine or the infrastructure to transport it to other places in high amounts, a single man was able to take almost all of them out.

They are also labed as terrorists in other communities, no one in their right mind would take a supposed wonder vaccine into his body if it comes from some hardcore terror cell, or would you take in a fluid that was developed by the Islamic State terror cell if they claimed it would prevent Covid19? Thats to assume the Fireflies would not try to use it as a tool to get more power and influence, which they would because thats how they are, and they would just get wiped out for it if anyone believed it. Their plan was doomed from the start.

 

Also, I fail to see how even a perfectly working vaccine thats instantly available to anyone is supposed to help. There are still MANY more infected than humans, if they bite through your neck it does not matter whether you get infected or not, you just bleed out. Aside from the infected, there are too many hostile factions are out there who won't cooperate with anyone. Hunters, military states, religious fanatic cults, cannibal communities, crazed and isolated people sitting on arsenals who probably shoot on sight. Thats not even touching the subject of the fungus possibly mutating again, as a sudden mutation was responsible for the first downfall of humanity to begin with, so it could very well mutate again in a few years and make that vaccine useless. All these things of course would only matter in a somewhat well written story, which the second game is as far away from as it can possible be.

I have no doubt that with the level the writing has scooped down to in the second game, that the vaccine is supposed to magically solve everything and evil patriarch Joel has doomed humanity to further order Ellie around, cause thats just how men are supposed to be perceived in this game. So with the idiotic writing of the second game, he most likely has doomed humanity in this story because the writers say he did, but with the writing from the first game, or common sense, his actions had no influence in the grand scheme of things. Since this game claims its somewhat logical or realistic, the answer is still no though, Joel didn't do shit, just killed a bunch of murdering terrorists who were about to take him outside, shoot him like a dog and then slice up his daughter for a lost cause.

Edited July 6, 2020 by Nighcisama

[sepheroithisgod]

3 minutes ago, talespagni said:

Ok, so instead of only criticising the game, without providing reasonable arguments, which I believe none of us are doing in this (and many others) threads, let's give some ideas on how TLOU2 could be better:

 

 

 

Nice meme, but why do you feel my arguments are not proper criticism?

[SasquatchSaul]

You can deconstruct the first game’s most pivotal character choice into something that ruins the ending of the story and turns Joel from an actual character into generic survivor dad everyone here so desperately wants him to be. Neil Druckmann himself said after the release of the first game that if the surgery would have been performed, a vaccine would have been developed. Oh wait writing man bad

[jpfield]

I would have made the same choice that Joel made even though it was selfish. There was no proof that the vaccine would have worked and how effective it would have been. How would they be even be able distribute the vaccine to the masses even if it was successful. And some faction if it was not the firefly’ s  would have attacked to get control who gets the vaccine. As I see it if you do not agree with the person who controls the vaccine, you will not get the vaccine.

[Dauersack]

10 minutes ago, SasquatchSaul said:

You can deconstruct the first game’s most pivotal character choice into something that ruins the ending of the story and turns Joel from an actual character into generic survivor dad everyone here so desperately wants him to be. Neil Druckmann himself said after the release of the first game that if the surgery would have been performed, a vaccine would have been developed. Oh wait writing man bad

I can write a supposedly realistic story about an overly aggressive lion pack running amok in a rural area (something like the story of "The Ghost And The Darkness") and then write that a single average Joe will walk right between that pack of lions, slap one of the males across the face, shit on his head, take meat they are currently eating and walk right out of that situation without anything happening to him, without any further explanation to it. Does that happen in my story? Yes, because I say it does. Is it realistic? No. Is it good writing just because I said it would happen in my story? No, because it is not only unrealistic but also defying the established logic and consistency of the rest of the story.

 

The game went out of its way to state that the vaccine was no sure thing, that many kids already died for it, that the guy doing it was not a prodigy at this kind of thing. Sure good old Neil can retcon everything into "yeah mate would have worked 100% and solved all of the worlds problems in a single day", but that does not mean it suddenly turns into good writing or starts making sense, especially given how most of the points mentioned in this thread aren't even adressed, because the guy never thought that far.

[sepheroithisgod]

21 minutes ago, SasquatchSaul said:

You can deconstruct the first game’s most pivotal character choice into something that ruins the ending of the story and turns Joel from an actual character into generic survivor dad everyone here so desperately wants him to be. Neil Druckmann himself said after the release of the first game that if the surgery would have been performed, a vaccine would have been developed. Oh wait writing man bad

I have to disagree with his choice ruining the ending. I think it strengthens it, but agree to disagree.

 

However, what Neil says would happen is irrelevant unless it does happen in the story.

 

Anything in-game only says there is a chance at a vaccine and there is information that does suggest they have failed on every test subject up to this point. Ellie is a special case though and may be the key, but again it's a may. Nothing in-game makes it seem like it would actually work. It's presented to the viewers as this long shot, but a chance worth taking (at least by the fireflies).

 

However, whether it is made or not is irrelevant.

 

They cannot mass-produce it and they cannot just hand it out like the Red Cross, it simply would not change anything. Also as another post pointed out, humanity is outnumbered by the infected, it might make them less deadly but does not make them magically go away.

[sephiroth4424]

If i learnt anything by playing the first game and watching Walking Dead, is that humans are the biggest threat to other humans in a post-apocalyptic world inhabited by deadly creatures/zombies.

So Joel didn't doom anything. Although i do believe that he didn't think any of that while he stormed that hospital

[Wendenhorn]

Joel chose Ellie over the vaccine. That was one of the key premises of TLOU to make the story interesting. If you completely ignore the premise, that would render the Joel's choice almost completely meaningless and TLOU would be a bland hero dad drama.

 

Nitpicking at the game's premises won't get you nowhere. Even though the concept of zombie has been repeatedly used on many games, movies and books, the whole zombie thing is full of nonsense in the first place. Nothing about it is realistic regardless of its executions, but you kinda just have to accept it.

[SasquatchSaul]

19 minutes ago, sepheroithisgod said:

I have to disagree with his choice ruining the ending. I think it strengthens it.

Why? Curious.

 

19 minutes ago, sepheroithisgod said:

However, what Neil says would happen is irrelevant unless it does happen in the story.

 

They cannot mass-produce it and they cannot just hand it out like the Red Cross, it simply would not change anything. Also as another post pointed out, humanity is outnumbered by the infected, it might make them less deadly but does not make them magically go away.

Same goes for you pal, this thread is irrelevant sums it up

 

30 minutes ago, Nighcisama said:

I can write a supposedly realistic story about an overly aggressive lion pack running amok in a rural area (something like the story of "The Ghost And The Darkness") and then write that a single average Joe will walk right between that pack of lions, slap one of the males across the face, shit on his head, take meat they are currently eating and walk right out of that situation without anything happening to him, without any further explanation to it. Does that happen in my story? Yes, because I say it does. Is it realistic? No. Is it good writing just because I said it would happen in my story? No, because it is not only unrealistic but also defying the established logic and consistency of the rest of the story.

 

The game went out of its way to state that the vaccine was no sure thing, that many kids already died for it, that the guy doing it was not a prodigy at this kind of thing. Sure good old Neil can retcon everything into "yeah mate would have worked 100% and solved all of the worlds problems in a single day", but that does not mean it suddenly turns into good writing or starts making sense, especially given how most of the points mentioned in this thread aren't even adressed, because the guy never thought that far.

I don’t see how some ancillary world building lore changes the story at all, nor makes the writing bad. It (vaccine) would be hard to develop sure, but atleast it’d still be do-able. The game isn’t about the medical knowledge nor vaccine dispersal logistics,  it’s about Joel taking the last hope of the human race out of the equation for a selfish yet loveable and totally understandable choice. Without this paradigm the ending is boring shit you would see on The Walking Dead, the game would be forgotten as another Days Gone zombie romp.

 

Neil didnt retcon shit lol 

Edited July 6, 2020 by SasquatchSaul

[Dreakon13]

As much as we want to tear apart the writing, just look at what's happening now in the world.  Something doesn't have to be perfectly logical for people to believe it, and people choose to not believe and/or otherwise spin perfectly logical things (*ahem* masks).  If people believe in something hard enough, and things get bad enough, who is to say logic would prevail?  That's probably the least realistic outcome.  Even in Joel and Ellie's case, they probably believe in the vaccine because they don't really know better... and everyone is either hanging onto one last hope for humanity and some sense of purpose, or killing eachother, or both.

 

I'm sure I'm just covering up plotholes here but really think about it.  It's enough to suspend disbelief IMO.

 

EDIT: All the people logical enough to debunk the vaccine theory in the TLOU world probably ran their mouths too much, got stabbed in the neck in the middle of explaining it, and had their food and supplies stolen.

Edited July 6, 2020 by Dreakon13

[Solid-Fisch]

Humanity doomed itself. End of story.

[sepheroithisgod]

16 minutes ago, SasquatchSaul said:

Why? Curious.

The first game is about building a relationship between Joel and Ellie. As a result, Joel regains his humanity through caring for Ellie. At the end, he is being walked out of the building by gun point by people who were completely okay with killing a 14-year old girl(who was not given a choice) for some one in a million chance. He decided he would risk his life to save her even if it could save the world. After all, living the world without her would be worse than death for him.

Again, I'm not saying anything I said mattered to Joel, because it didn't. He wanted to protect the one thing that gave him happiness and wouldn't give that up for anything, 

 

With this explained, learning that the choice he made would have actually saved Ellie from a pointless and meaningless death would have been a terrific revelation if they handled it correctly.

For example, we go through the game knowing that Ellie resented Joel for this making this choice without asking her, but she gets this bombshell dropped that her resentment for Joel was completely for nothing.That it was thanks to Joel that she could have a future.

 

18 minutes ago, SasquatchSaul said:

Same goes for you pal, this thread is irrelevant sums it up

You actually need to provide a counter argument to make this claim. I laid out an argument to this notion that Joel doomed humanity, which I believe to be false. Nothing Joel did or didn't do mattered. The world was screwed and as I have stated, there was no way to mass produce the vaccine if it was made, no way to distribute the vaccine, and does not solve that the infected will kill you regardless of if you have a vaccine or not.

[Dauersack]

58 minutes ago, SasquatchSaul said:

I don’t see how some ancillary world building lore changes the story at all, nor makes the writing bad. It (vaccine) would be hard to develop sure, but atleast it’d still be do-able. The game isn’t about the medical knowledge nor vaccine dispersal logistics,  it’s about Joel taking the last hope of the human race out of the equation for a selfish yet loveable and totally understandable choice. Without this paradigm the ending is boring shit you would see on The Walking Dead, the game would be forgotten as another Days Gone zombie romp.

You get one thing majorly wrong here, and it ruins your entire point, which otherwise would be something I'd be willing to agree with. You call the vaccine the last hope of the human race, I disagree with that for two reasons, and I will tell you why.

The vaccine is not something that is on peoples radar, the only people still trying for that are the fireflies, I haven't heard a single non firefly character actually talk about the possibility of developing a cure, for them it is not even a thing anymore, yet they keep living on anyway. Even Tommy, a former firefly, not only does not believe Joel, his brother, about Ellies immunity at first, but after he believes him he is very reluctant to go out of his way to make it happen, even as someone who used to believe in that. So I'd call it the fireflies last hope, as successfully developing a vaccine is the only way for them to maybe avoid annihilation, the human race has long since moved on and is not losing anything that they are aware of.

The second point I already talked about, namely the vaccine, even if it works, not changing the fact that theres a ridiculous number of clickers out there, as they can last for decades, while theres a pretty small number of humans in comparison. The vaccine would not change them being a threat, nor would it stop people from killing each other over supplies, territory or ideology, so the vaccine would do very little for humanity, even if it could be magically mass produced and distributed, hell with the factions in this game it is more likely to lead to war instead of helping people.

 

Also I am a bit weirded out by people constantly calling Joel selfish for saving Ellie from being dissected without even being asked. He saved his daughters life by stopping people from killing her. Did he do it for himself? Of course he wants to see her alive, like any parent would, but he did it for her, so she could live on instead of getting murdered. Would you call a father selfish if he forcefully stopped a serial killer, who befriended her in the past, from dragging his unconscious daughter into a white van? Or did he just fulfill his role as a parent by protecting his young and naive daughter from doing something or letting something happen she clearly can't decide at this point?

Edited July 6, 2020 by Nighcisama

[EIdain]

22 minutes ago, Nighcisama said:

Also I am a bit weirded out by people constantly calling Joel selfish for saving Ellie from being dissected without even being asked. He saved his daughters life by stopping people from killing her. Did he do it for himself? Of course he wants to see her alive, like any parent would, but he did it for her, so she could live on instead of getting murdered. Would you call a father selfish if he forcefully stopped his daughter from casually getting dragged into the van of a serial killer who had befriended her? Or did he just fulfill his role as a parent by protecting his young and naive daughter from doing something or letting something happen she clearly can't decide at this point?

I don't believe Joel to be as evil or bad as many make him out to be. However Joel knew she would willingly give up her life if it meant securing a vaccine (as unlikely as it was to happen). He knew Ellie wanted her life to mean something by being the cure. He willingly says as much to Tommy at the beginning of Pt. 2. She can decide and confirms that it's something that she wanted years later in the scene at the end of the game on Joel's porch.

Another important thing to note is that whilst the player (you or me) may think a vaccine is improbable. Joel didn't, and believed it was viable or at least did at one point in time. He get's very mad at Ellie for running off in the first game, and tells her she's stupid for putting her life at risk.

Edited July 6, 2020 by EIdain

[JoaLoft]

I remember posting about this very same question when The Last of Us (1) was out back in 2013-2014.

 

Even if they were able to develop a vaccine, and get it distributed to everyone: is there anything left saving to begin with? You have looters, cannibals, thieves, murderers, rapists, slave traders around every corner. Humanity's worst is left. And at that point, attempting to save it is in vain.

 

Not only that: a cure is the post-apocalyptic equivalent of gold. It is the perfect bargaining chip. Factions and people would be fighting over it in an incredibly vicious power struggle, just as they fought for every bit of food and medicine at the beginning of the outbreak. Which would, ironically, sow even more death, destruction and misery all around.

 

If the Fireflies were genuinely trying to make a vaccine to help humanity recover fully: it was a very noble, but equally very flawed, naive and futile attempt.

 

There are so many theoretical requirements to have this vaccine successfully developed and distributed without violence, that in reality it never stood a chance to begin with.

 

Joel didn't doom humanity. Joel stopped a delusional faction from killing an innocent girl who deserved better than to die on a slab in an operating room.

[alexandra-jane09]

5 minutes ago, SasquatchSaul said:

You can deconstruct the first game’s most pivotal character choice into something that ruins the ending of the story and turns Joel from an actual character into generic survivor dad everyone here so desperately wants him to be. Neil Druckmann himself said after the release of the first game that if the surgery would have been performed, a vaccine would have been developed. Oh wait writing man bad

Mate, I understand you have some problems with daddy's as you inferred that your father isn't all that great. But, Neil Druckmann became a father himself during the production of TLOU part 1 and said " I would do anything for my daughter" now whilst Joel was never a good guy or even a bad guy, he was first and foremost a father and those paternal instincts never went away when he lost Sarah, whom he raised by himself after his wife [ whom he also married at 17] died.  He just buried the pain of losing her [ and his wife long before ]and those instincts in his subconscious, his journey with Ellie and getting to know this sassy 14 year old, made those instincts return to the surface, there was no way he would ever allow her to become some "guinea pig" for a "wing and a prayer" idea of gaining a vaccine/cure for what is essentially a virus albeit a fungal one, and I am sorry to say that viruses are not curable only treatable.  Even the flu jab doesn't actually work, since a) every time you contract the flu, its a different strain, and secondly it only lessens the symptoms of the virus, it doesn't prevent you from getting it.  You can vaccinate or innoculate against a bacterium such as Meningitus for example but not viruses.   So I very much doubt that Druckmann or any parent for that matter would sacrifice their child for a supposed "cure" to a mutated virus.  He only decided to do a complete 180 on fatherhood [ there is a lots of anti-dad themes in this game, and anti the "nuclear family" in general ]after he listened and got influenced by a racist masandrist woman [ Sarkessian, whom I am sure is the female image of the cultists in this game].  Its a shame, the environments are very nice in this game, I liked the fact that Ellie describes "wet leaves and woodsmoke" in the flashback with Tommy and Joel, a typical Autumnal smell, which I am sure plenty of people including myself are familiar with so can imagine it, liked the storm as well, not sure why they decided to go for ISO 600 grain all over it though.  The first one didn't have any of that, even in low light shadows the first game was clear including its MP.  Whilst the game isn't bad, it isn't good either, there are some particularly intense moments, the moment with the multi-infected [ shambler/bloater/stalker]boss springs to mind.  It doesn't have the same atmosphere or gravitas that the first one had[ I certainly miss nail bombs], I don't care about Abby or Owen or their little clique-except for the pregnant lady Mel, I personally never ever want to see a dead pregnant woman in my video games ever again, or "doggy style" sex for that matter, both are gratuitous and totally unnecessary imo.  

[nrs1nrs1]

56 minutes ago, JoaLoft said:

I remember posting about this very same question when The Last of Us (1) was out back in 2013-2014.

 

Even if they were able to develop a vaccine, and get it distributed to everyone: is there anything left saving to begin with? You have looters, cannibals, thieves, murderers, rapists, slave traders around every corner. Humanity's worst is left. And at that point, attempting to save it is in vain.

 

Not only that: a cure is the post-apocalyptic equivalent of gold. It is the perfect bargaining chip. Factions and people would be fighting over it in an incredibly vicious power struggle, just as they fought for every bit of food and medicine at the beginning of the outbreak. Which would, ironically, sow even more death, destruction and misery all around.

 

If the Fireflies were genuinely trying to make a vaccine to help humanity recover fully: it was a very noble, but equally very flawed, naive and futile attempt.

 

There are so many theoretical requirements to have this vaccine successfully developed and distributed without violence, that in reality it never stood a chance to begin with.

 

Joel didn't doom humanity. Joel stopped a delusional faction from killing an innocent girl who deserved better than to die on a slab in an operating room.

but why is that Joel's decision to make? What gives him the right to decide that? Ellie clearly wanted her life to be worth something by the end of the journey, and regardless of how effective or plausible a vaccine might or might not have been, that wasn't part of Joel's reasoning for why he did it. 

[djb5f]

23 minutes ago, alexandra-jane09 said:

Mate, I understand you have some problems with daddy's as you inferred that your father isn't all that great. But, Neil Druckmann became a father himself during the production of TLOU part 1 and said " I would do anything for my daughter" now whilst Joel was never a good guy or even a bad guy, he was first and foremost a father and those paternal instincts never went away when he lost Sarah, whom he raised by himself after his wife [ whom he also married at 17] died.  He just buried the pain of losing her [ and his wife long before ]and those instincts in his subconscious, his journey with Ellie and getting to know this sassy 14 year old, made those instincts return to the surface, there was no way he would ever allow her to become some "guinea pig" for a "wing and a prayer" idea of gaining a vaccine/cure for what is essentially a virus albeit a fungal one, and I am sorry to say that viruses are not curable only treatable.  Even the flu jab doesn't actually work, since a) every time you contract the flu, its a different strain, and secondly it only lessens the symptoms of the virus, it doesn't prevent you from getting it.  You can vaccinate or innoculate against a bacterium such as Meningitus for example but not viruses.   So I very much doubt that Druckmann or any parent for that matter would sacrifice their child for a supposed "cure" to a mutated virus.  He only decided to do a complete 180 on fatherhood [ there is a lots of anti-dad themes in this game, and anti the "nuclear family" in general ]after he listened and got influenced by a racist masandrist woman [ Sarkessian, whom I am sure is the female image of the cultists in this game].  Its a shame, the environments are very nice in this game, I liked the fact that Ellie describes "wet leaves and woodsmoke" in the flashback with Tommy and Joel, a typical Autumnal smell, which I am sure plenty of people including myself are familiar with so can imagine it, liked the storm as well, not sure why they decided to go for ISO 600 grain all over it though.  The first one didn't have any of that, even in low light shadows the first game was clear including its MP.  Whilst the game isn't bad, it isn't good either, there are some particularly intense moments, the moment with the multi-infected [ shambler/bloater/stalker]boss springs to mind.  It doesn't have the same atmosphere or gravitas that the first one had[ I certainly miss nail bombs], I don't care about Abby or Owen or their little clique-except for the pregnant lady Mel, I personally never ever want to see a dead pregnant woman in my video games ever again, or "doggy style" sex for that matter, both are gratuitous and totally unnecessary imo.  

Is it possible that Abby has man parts?  I honestly thought that might be part of the reveal during that scene.  Or that she was going through a gender change? And it would fit this “woke” era.  If nothing else, not sure where she gets her testosterone supplements during the pandemic!
 

Joel and Ellie developed a nice bond over a short amount of time but they were not father/daughter.  As a parent, nothing approaches that level even if you are tasked with overlooking the care of someone in need.

 

It is a video game with a lot of other leaps so I don’t think that the distribution of a potential vaccine is of much importance.  At any rate, it was finally a hope, which was better than anything else they had.  
 

Chances were pretty high that Ellie was going to die from the infected/hunters/whoever pretty soon anyway so might as well make her life mean something.  I would prefer that option myself instead of living in that bleak world!  Joel made a self-interested decision.  It does not make him a bad person, just human, and I understand Abby’s point of view from losing her father who not violent and was just trying to help.

 

Wonderful story and game.  I thought the Lev/Yara storyline did not fit well, but outside of that, it was quite a thrill.
 

 

Edited July 6, 2020 by djb5f

[EdinhoN]

1 hour ago, Nighcisama said:

You get one thing majorly wrong here, and it ruins your entire point, which otherwise would be something I'd be willing to agree with. You call the vaccine the last hope of the human race, I disagree with that for two reasons, and I will tell you why.

The vaccine is not something that is on peoples radar, the only people still trying for that are the fireflies, I haven't heard a single non firefly character actually talk about the possibility of developing a cure, for them it is not even a thing anymore, yet they keep living on anyway. Even Tommy, a former firefly, not only does not believe Joel, his brother, about Ellies immunity at first, but after he believes him he is very reluctant to go out of his way to make it happen, even as someone who used to believe in that. So I'd call it the fireflies last hope, as successfully developing a vaccine is the only way for them to maybe avoid annihilation, the human race has long since moved on and is not losing anything that they are aware of.

The second point I already talked about, namely the vaccine, even if it works, not changing the fact that theres a ridiculous number of clickers out there, as they can last for decades, while theres a pretty small number of humans in comparison. The vaccine would not change them being a threat, nor would it stop people from killing each other over supplies, territory or ideology, so the vaccine would do very little for humanity, even if it could be magically mass produced and distributed, hell with the factions in this game it is more likely to lead to war instead of helping people.

 

Also I am a bit weirded out by people constantly calling Joel selfish for saving Ellie from being dissected without even being asked. He saved his daughters life by stopping people from killing her. Did he do it for himself? Of course he wants to see her alive, like any parent would, but he did it for her, so she could live on instead of getting murdered. Would you call a father selfish if he forcefully stopped a serial killer, who befriended her in the past, from dragging his unconscious daughter into a white van? Or did he just fulfill his role as a parent by protecting his young and naive daughter from doing something or letting something happen she clearly can't decide at this point?

You got a superb point above.

I'm still amazed how people haven't understand TLOU1's plot in 7 years: the vaccine is a Holy Grail, an obsession to the ideological and fanatical Fireflies.

TLOU1's ending is amazing due to the morally neutral actions of Joel. Some people (looking through an idealistic view of our comfortable world) really think Joel doomed mankind, while I see it as a man who saved the "baby girl" he learned to love from being MURDERED by a FANATIC CULT.

There's no acceptable moral argument to exchanging the life of one individual to benefit millions of others (well, that's utilitarianism and it's pretty lame as a moral and ethical system).

 

I'm really afraid of where TLOU2's plot retcon might have taken this discussion, it can be a potential stain on what TLOU1 has built. Can you please elaborate more? I don't care for TLOU2 spoilers,  have already read a good portion of them.