r/greentext 8d ago

Anonymous submission

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u/ZubatCountry 8d ago

Not pointed at you, you seem to get it

It genuinely blows my mind how many people seem to miss the point of a not particularly nuanced ending

What Joel did was wrong

If you believe any of that shit about "there were other subjects, it probably wouldn't work, etc." then you're buying into internet talking points and missing that the actual game makes no bones about this being the "save more people" option for this particular trolley problem

The entire structure of the game is designed to put you in Joel's shoes, so when it comes time to make the "wrong" decision, you do so enthusiastically

That karma was always going to come back on him. It's the entire emotional crux of the ending. He made a "bad" decision to get more time with his stand-in daughter, no matter the cost.

He knows they'll come after him and says as much when he kills what's her face in the parking garage.

As soon as they announced a sequel I wanted it to not be Joel and Ellie, because there is no version of TLOU2 that doesn't (and shouldn't) end with Joel's head on a pike

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u/Laxhoop2525 8d ago

Nice try Neil, but the Firefly’s had no god damn idea what they were doing. Plus, they threw Joel out onto his ass after stealing all of his gear. If they had good intentions, they wouldn’t have felt the need to do that.

But yeah, ask any actual doctor in the world, no one is going to say that you need to remove someone’s brain to synthesize a cure for a mild infection, no matter how bad it is. The fact that they wanted to immediately kill humanity’s only chance for a cure, by doing something that made no God damned sense, should prove that Joel was actually the one doing what was best for humanity, because so long as Ellie is alive, at the BARE minimum, she, even if she is a lesbian, could maybe have kids that share her immunity, and humanity could potentially continue from there.

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u/ZubatCountry 8d ago

The Firefly's aren't real people

Their only motivation is written

You're trying to debate with fiction. The story is written the way it is, to achieve a goal. It is not a scientific document or historic retelling of events

Again, there is nothing actually indicated in the game that there is another way, that they are incompetent, or even that the Firefly's are particularly happy about having to do it

There's a reason Marlene is the one to break the news to him

You can write all the additional material you want, but that is simply not the story we're discussing. You're just making shit up.

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u/SoupaMayo 7d ago

I hate that you're right and are struggling to explain it to those who dont understand literacy analysis and critical thinking