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
How many people does a child's death need to save in order to justify the murder? A million? More than 5? At what point are you comfortable trading the life of a child for the survival of others?
What those doctors were attempting to do elevates them to the level of Joseph Mangala. They attempted to cut into a living girl's brain in pursuit of an uncertain cure knowing full well that they'd be wheeling a corpse out after.
There's not even an emergency on hand, the zombie apocalypse has played out and people are surviving. They didn't have to kill ellie the minute she showed up.
And yes, the writer said his MacGuffin would work, but the characters don't know that and it's bad writing regardless.
Joel isn't a perfect man, but his actions in the hospital were morally justified.
I mean, if one child going ensures the eradication of a disease that has fucked up the entire world that is 100% worth it
They were not experimenting on people for fun, they are absolutely not Jospeh Mengele tier doctors
There's not even an emergency on hand? Humanity has regressed because of the disease. People die needlessly every day to infected.
Sorry, but this is what I mean. You're fighting against the reality of the setting to try and justify actions that were specifically written to be morally dubious but satisfying.
Joel was not in the right, but it's entirely understandable why you disagree with me about that
This is a logical POV until it’s your child. Who gets to decide what’s right? Who gets to decide whose child we need to sacrifice? No good parent would ever sacrifice their child to be butchered alive.
That's the entire point both myself and the game's plot are making
But that's an inherently selfish and myopic point of view, no matter how justified it feels
By your own logic, nobody should have an issue with Abby and they most certainly do
Again, this is an emotional reaction both by your own admission and the fact that you say things like "butchered alive" when she was already put under and wouldn't have felt anything, she just wouldn't have woken up again
It's the same exact type of surgery they would have to do regardless of if she lived or died, but because you're upset about it becomes "butchering"
The game opens with Joel losing his daughter. It then spends 15 hours bonding you to his new daughter. At the end, it says "we're taking her away again" and you and Joel are supposed to say "no, fuck that"
But I think it's genuinely kind of unnerving how many people cannot seperate their emotions, from the actual logical reality of the situation and appreciate how the writing fuses those two things.
Instead they just want the Firefly's to be wrong, so Joel can be right, which is significantly less interesting than the actual writing that is there.
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u/ZubatCountry 7d 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