The Last Of Us (Ending discussion -- moral quandaries ahoy!)

[Reincarnate]

Man, when I first hit the ending, I was very much not on Joel's side. Now that I've thought about it more, I can actually find it justifiable with all context considered.

THE ENDING:

Initially, I had set this game down after a few hours of play because I didn't see the big deal (i.e. why everyone was raving over this thing). Yesterday I picked it back up and got through the rest, and thought it was actually pretty interesting.

1. Joel is morally sketchy. He lost his own daughter, and so he's basically replacing Sarah with Ellie over time. Even though Ellie might be the only shot humanity has to survive, Joel decided to kill a bunch of Fireflies, doctors, and potentially (by proxy) the millions of innocents who will die in the future at the hands of the Infected.

2. The Fireflies were selfish for not being up-front about their intentions. Yes, Marlene had difficulty with the decision, but they never even consulted Ellie about anything. Ellie wasn't even aware she was put in a hospital gown or that they had reached the Fireflies. Nope, she was still unconscious from the previous scene where she was stuck underwater... only now she was about to get hacked apart without her consent. The Fireflies were also going to kill Joel after-the-fact, even though this entire delivery was a pre-arranged deal. Lastly, they didn't appear to have any sort of guarantee. Killing her without her knowledge just for the *chance* to study her brain (that may not even lead to a vaccine) is a grim notion. Did they not consider less... invasive means? If they screwed up, then what?

Moving on to the final scene:

We know from earlier in the game that Ellie's biggest fear isn't the Infected, but being alone. Everyone she's cared about in her life has "left her" except Joel. Ellie also feels a great deal of survivor's guilt because she's immune and has to watch everyone else die (hence her story about Riley).

I think Ellie knows something heavy went down with the Fireflies but doesn't want to know the details. She tags along with Joel's lie, I think, because she knows that Joel will treat her as if she were a daughter (and protect her). Who knows -- there will be other doctors, and maybe they can find a cure down the road through some other means.

The whole thing reminds me of the classic "Chopping up Chuck" moral conundrum.

[sp1nzoK]

On the surface Joel's decision is selfish but there are so many undertones why it makes sense - here's a couple:

-Denying the possibility to _attempt_ to get a vaccine for the masses is irrelevant to Joel because as you mentioned Ellie has essentially replaced Sarah and in Joel's words: "You keep finding something to fight for.", in his case protecting Ellie as his new spiritual daughter is what he is fighting for. Losing Ellie would mean losing his purpose in life just after finding it again.

-Even if a cure was successfully created from the sacrifice of Ellie, I wonder if humanity would be even able to distribute it and after all there are other ways to die than transforming into an infected from non-lethal bite; hunters being trigger happy looters & infected being more than capable of doing lethal bludgeoning / ripping / biting. So basically even if all humans became immune to the infection there would be no guarantees that all beings coexist happily after being survivors for so long and the way to non-hostile surviving would be through crops & livestock like Tommy & Maria have planned for their community's future. Otherwise people are mostly military supervised / "protected" / deprived of fair rations - or living on the road, hunter style. I guess the cure would work in the way that there could be no more hosts for infection and each killed infected would be one closer to extinction.

-It's been 20 years since the outbreak and Joel's character is the "has very few moral lines to cross" -archetype by design, he has seen and sees the dark side of humanity and is one with it too as a survivor. He probably hates most of humankind at this point - everyone is just trying to kill everyone at the first chance they get to survive a day longer, he feels humankind is not worthy of a cure.

Some repetition in my thoughts but they should make some fair points for why the ending is pretty sound if you were in Joel's shoes as a 20 years and going survivor who has seen most all or in Ellie's shoes (forced by Joel's decision but still as a person who was never asked to decide if she wanted to die for the _chance_ to _possibly_ aid the current "humanity" to get rid of one way to die among many) fearing to be alone.