“I believe Joel was right,” The Last of Us' Neil Druckmann admits. “If I were in Joel's position, I hope I would be able to do what he did." https://bit.ly/42nJY9s
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i like hating on zionists as much as the next guy, but acting like siding with joel is such a heinous thing is pretty silly, i think. in retrospect, his actions were probably wrong. but in the moment where he had to make the decision, he didn't have enough info to make an informed choice.
joel had no way to know what ellie would have chosen. the fireflies were going to kill her and there wasn't even a guarantee of a cure. would joel have chosen differently if ellie had consented? or if the fireflies were more transparent and cooperative? maybe, maybe not. we don't know for sure.
How many people does Joel literally murder on the way to 'save' her, including actual doctors? Did their lives not matter, because Joel didn't project his trauma onto them?
Not handing Ellie over to a faction whose actions suggest that they were more interested in advancing their political/military objectives is pretty defensible. It's naive to think that a cure would solve the world's problems. It shouldn't be Joel's decision though.
What does this mean, "Joel was right"?. Like, his pain was true and deep, so he was allowed to kill all those unsuspecting doctors and scientists? He loved Eli as a father, so he doesn't need to ask her how she would like to spend her life, and can lie to her?
It's a tricky situation, because if he tried to question the Fireflies about how certain they were that they could get a cure, they might not answer him or lie, or if he asked Ellie if she wanted to sacrifice her life and she said no, he would need the element of surprise to succeed in escaping.
if you look at it Consequentialist style, you just shouldn't murder people like that, you should take the risk of confronting them by talking and seeing if there's another way.
Virtue ethics style, he made that decision out of anger and pain, and did not respect Ellie enough to get permission.
Heh, I'm not well-versed in Kantian deontology to be sure how he would feel about tactically slaughtering a hospital of people to prevent a killing, but I do know he would consider lying to Ellie about it to be Wrong.
The virtue of being a father is an interesting discussion to me.
We as the audience are given privileged information about Joel's past, so we can make judgements about his motivations.
Does he rescue Ellie because he wants to truly be a protective father to her? Is he doing it because he always wanted to kill the soldier who killed his kid, years ago?
kant himself certainly wouldn't have supported joel's actions, but you could set up a deontological framework that does - although it would still probably be against lying about it
but maybe not? just off the top of my head, you might argue that lying to
I think it's important context to note they never really expressly stated that this would have definitely led to a cure. I always under the impression there was simply a presumed hope for a cure eventually.
A beautiful boy. Wouldn't murder humanity for him or take a choice like that from him because I love him. Ellie tells Joel straight up she'd give it up to save everyone, and that should be her choice.
She's aware. It's om the speech she gives at the end about her survivor's guilt over Dina & touched on in the sequel. And he never gives her the chance to choose. I don't want to lose my boy, but if he gives his life like that he's a damn hero, and I'd be sad at my loss, but proud of his fortitude.
Cure world plague by sacrificing one person vs. kill dozens of people trying to save humanity AND doom the rest of humanity.
If Ellie was his real kid, I get it then, sure. It still wouldn't be right but most would do the same. But in the context of the game Joel is a POS for what he did.
In Part 2, it's confirmed that it would have worked. To me, the ending is all about how Joel couldn't move on from the loss of his daughter. He takes to Ellie like his own child and dooms humanity to keep her. It's a selfish action.
No, the point isn't that it was the right choice for Joel. The point is that it wasn't a choice at all. There is no version of the story where he could even conceive of doing something different.
Yeah, I can see that, too. You aren't supposed to sympathize with him, and stories don't need to only tell the "good" version of events. It's just weird that all these years later, Druckmann seems to think players were okay with what happened when the narrative isn't built around that.
I don't know, man. It's one thing to not sacrifice your child. It's another to then brutally murder the doctors before taking her and then lying to her about what happened.
If I were Joel, then perhaps Joel was right… but realistically I will not be Joel and if I did not consider the Golden Rule, how could I justify killing other peoples sons and daughters just to save my own? If you’re a selfish main character then yes Joel is right.
Weird way of saying it and in the context of the game now that we know what happens you can say for certain that joel was wrong, he started a chain of events that made ellie unable to find happiness 🤷🏻♂️
But that’s the thing he said he believed that Joel was right but he wasn’t because we see what happened besides if joel discovered they killed ellie for nothing The Last of Us 2 would have happened anyway
That's the point of having multiple endings possible, even if one would be canon and not the others
Everybody have an opinion on what was the "right choice" and every justifications are equally valid
He is saying that Joel...in that moment in time was right on a moral standpoint...in the long term it had severe consequences but overall gave Ellie, who he cared about deeply a second chance.
He disregarded Ellies' own wishes though, on top of destroying a chance for a cure (and killing one of the last medical experts alive).
He is completely wrong.
Mushroom zombies are significantly more plausible than a bunch of randoms finding a cure for mushroom zombies by poking around in one innocent girls brain in a dirty abandoned hospital.
the most logical and scientific argument i've ever read, personally. it's a made up virus in a made up universe, you can't speak to how it works or what would cure it
Okay but thats just putting your thumb on the scales. I agree that realistically the last thing you'd want to do was kill the one immune person but at that point you have no moral dilemma. Joel is correct cause the fireflies are dumb not because of whatever fatherhood statement.
Actually, the alternative is BOTH sides waited a few hours for her to wake up and allow her to make the decisions for herself.
Both sides were certain if they did that, she'd choose "wrong" and the tragedy is that them being certain of this is exactly why the only moral choice is to wait.
Any other choice is predicated on the idea that it doesn't matter what Ellie would do for herself, that only her pseudo parent figures have the right to make the call.
if you take everything at face value. if was the real world they would kill her just to have material for study and testing with no real cure guarantee and if they find it they are never going to be able to mass produce it. could be intentional or could be bad writing we are never going to know.
Ah the classic take of “I would do mass murder for a teenager I’ve subconsciously projected the grief of my deceased daughter onto. All I need is a year long road trip where I treat her like garbage for a decent portion of it. This is fine and morally good, actually.”
He's a zionist, I honestly expected him to have the opinion cited in the article and the fact it's not more clear in the game js probably thanks to other writers (whose names no one will remember...)
It is not clear what her decision would have been. Nor could we be sure that somebody her age would be able make that decision in the first place. There are clearly ethical implications people seem to miss entirely, which is why they don't realize that this is actually a more difficult decision.
by saying "joel was right" it doesn't matter if she would've said yes or not because neil just stomped the ambiguity of a story with complex people into nothing.
No question - he totally walks over the ambiguity of the situation as well. I just don't agree to the oversimplification when arguing why his take is... let's call it: disappointing.
You see, this is *later*. Unlike you, he could not wait until a second game is released then move back in time for the TV adaption and then make the decision based on this meta knowledge. If one treats the fictional world as a coherent universe, this information did not exist at this time.
she basically outright says she'd happily sacrifice herself during the conversation about how she got bitten and her girlfriend died. and then again, during the ending sequence.
In which scene? At the ending she does just talk about her survivors guilt. Not sure that qualifies as willingness to "happily sacrifice" herself. And it also is one more reason why Joel feels like he has to keep secret what happened before.
I've only played Part I (so I don't know the full continuation of Ellie's story), but I'm inclined to agree. Can completely empathize with his choices; a very cool story overall. 😊
Really hard to square this statement with the fact that the entire second game, which also Druckmann co-wrote and directed, is about how that choice had truly awful consequences for everyone in Joel and Ellie's orbit and of course the rest of the world.
It’s not really against that decision in isolation. Just cycles of revenge and violence. The game doesn’t even really condemn Ellie that much for going after Abby once. The fact that she goes back again despite all the obvious consequences is what’s so bad.
Yeah I guess just seems strange to write a story about cycles of violence and then say "I think it's good my character did the thing that kicked off a truly destructive cycle of violence, robbed someone of agency over their own life in the process, and I would do it too."
I really liked the first season of the show but I wouldn't say I'm "excited" for the second season. Knowing where we are headed, morbidly curious is probably the better way to describe it.
Avoiding specifics, mostly curious how long the show takes to get to the event that drives the central plot.
And how it was wrong from a standpoint of him removing her agency, too.
The Last of Us 2 felt like an intentional turning-of-the-mirror on an audience which, having played the original at a slightly younger age more open to violent heroics, might now be able to see the ending in a new light.
It's very common with writers and storytellers. They're just as trapped in their cultural context as anyone else and they often don't fully understand the complete dimensions of their story. You see different things looking in that byou do looking out.
It’s one thing for someone to have a different perspective. It’s another for the architect behind a plot to completely miss the point. Then again, maybe some things weren’t intended.
The whole context of this answer is that Joel had lost a daughter. He felt he couldn’t protect her. I wasn’t willing to do the same and lose Ellie. Fathers get it.
No, selfish people who can't see Ellie as her person instead of a surrogate to ease their own guilt get it.
He doomed a bunch of other fathers to losing their daughters to the plague.
He didn't even trust her to chose
Your missing the point. She had a chance to rectify this in part two and walked away from her chance to heal and help for revenge. In the end she realized she and Joel were the same.
Honestly, I thought the point was that nobody was right. All options were shitty and Joel had so much PTSD from the beginning he couldn't let go.
But kudos to Neil for whipping up his "fan"base into a frenzy right before the TV series launches again and putting TLOU into headlines. We fell for it.
If he thinks Joel was right then why the hell does TLoU2 end the way it does? The way it all shakes out really only makes sense if you just assume that the writer(s) are firmly on Abby's side.
He's been ruminating on it for this entire time BC he's self-absorbed & also based the game on his own politics, which have changed over time. He doesn't agree with his original take that he based TLoU II on anymore, it seems
Yes, Druckman should just STFU. His comments here make absolutely no sense in the context of both games. Joel could bear the pain of losing Ellie, but he ended up losing her anyway. And triggered a cycle of violence (which Druckman made extremely fun and compelling to engage in!)
FWIW, I believe that every party involved *as depicted in TLoU I* were so shitty & duplicitous that it's all a wash. Joel is a freakishly violent psycho, but the Fireflies are deceitful zealots who (as far as the player can tell) are flying blind on faith who didnt even try to get informed consent.
The sheer violence of the game, combined with the fetishization of guns etc, also makes Druckman's comments -- or any serious effort to talk about the narrative -- absurd. It's a violent and highly entertaining game.
Sure, you can stealth your way through it, and Joel and Abby both have redemption arcs, and Ellie's fate is tragic -- it is truly awful to consider the transformation Ellie undergoes over the course of the two games -- but Druckman provides no real alternative to violence.
TLoU II retconning that Joel is a big stinky idiot for not trusting the faction that TLoU I spends *hours* calling half-cocked, over-ambitious ideologues is hack shit & just one of the litany if issues I have with the core premise of that game.
Only they weren’t allowing Ellie to make her own decision. The Fireflies didn’t tell her that the operation was going to kill her before they put her to sleep. And I agree with Joel that it’s a little hasty to kill off the only person with known resistance for a loooong-shot maybe.
In the end he made the decision because she couldn't. Is it wrong that he wanted to protect her from feeling guilty for his actions, at least until some time later when this could be discussed under less pressure?
They had been through a lot together, killing multiple human beings and nearly being killed themselves on several occasions. I completely agree with his instinct to not let them kill her willy nilly, but he should’ve been honest with her. He owed her that much.
There is a ton of implications coming with the truth. Her dying could have saved many people. That is a lot of guilt to carry around. She might have seen killing and killed herself, but the moral implications behind that were clearer. I am not even sure he was ready to understand them at that point.
You're not wrong, because they were afraid she would say No. I mean who wouldn't when the world is in crisis? But he didn't have to murder them all. He could have let them live, take her, and explain what the deal was when she woke up, and if she wanted to still do it, he could have brought her back
I don’t think the Firefly soldiers were going to let him walk out of there with her alive. Marlene gives the direct order to shoot Joel if he tries to go after Ellie. He shouldn’t have killed the doctor though. Even with a scalpel, he didn’t prove any real threat.
Yes I agree, but the doctors and nurses didn't deserve to be killed... He doomed humanity by killing the last known doctor who could potentially end the pandemic.
The TV show ends with Ellie murdering Abby and turning towards the screen to say "I'm doing this because you killed my good man dad who loved me selflessly, also I support the IDF." Neil says that this was always his intended ending of the story.
It's very funny how many men are in the replies like "well as a fAtHeR I would do the same".
Joel is not Ellie's dad. Kind of a crucial element to the whole thing. He is punishing Ellie for his own inability to keep his kid safe. He prioritised his own trauma over the agency of someone else.
Right? My son was 6 when it first released, so I was a prime target for this take. But even then, I was like “nope. She’s not his kid and this is f’d up.” (Also he seemed like a pretty bad father to his own kid, too, but I digress)
Joel didn’t rob Ellie of her agency, the Fireflies did.
Remember, a patrol captured and took them prisoner. The Fireflies never told Ellie their process would kill her and Joel didn’t discover this until Marlene told him after they had already captured and Ellie was being prepped for surgery.
She already has survivor’s guilt from her past experiences, even if she was given a choice and chose to live he didn’t want to make it worse. He lied to try to protect her.
It's not that he considers her his found daughter, but that he considers her the same daughter he had before.
And as a result, robs Ellie of her own agency. To him, she wasn't Ellie, she was Sarah.
I mean that's fine, but a contingent part of his character is that he did have a daughter who he was unable to protect and that forms a fundamental part of who he is, and how he sees Ellie. The fact that she is not his actual daughter is a key piece.
I don't even think it is a crucial element. If the choice is between sacrificing a child or let an ongoing plague torment humanity, it's right to sacrifice your child. Whether or not you'd be able to do it is a whole different story (and that story is named TLOU)
The choice was sacrificing a child for A LONG SHOT at saving humanity. A humanity that's already pretty fucked up. A humanity that killed Joel's child.
The strength of the game is not making you think if what Joel does is right. It's making you understand there was no way he'd do anything else.
It's both. The strength is in recognizing it as the categorically wrong decision but ALSO the only one the character could conceivably make in the moment. It's nowhere near the same gut punch if the morality is debatable, or worse- as ND seems to believe- above reproach.
I think if that were the case, there would have been no reason to lie to her and the entire emotional tension of the next game would be entirely different.
It felt quite clear in the emotional subtext of the latter section of TLOU that Ellie understood death was a strong possibility.
Which would be a fine statement if it wasn't for the fact that the Fireflies plan wouldn't have worked. Which is the *only* reason why people even do the whole "actually Joel was right" stuff. It only works because he was up against comically inept scientists who would have failed anyways.
If there's one thing the first game makes pretty clear it's that a cure isn't going to fix shit, so I think any "Joel doomed humanity" argument is null and void.
That the cure was not going to work anyway, and that Joel therefore didn't actually sacrifice the greater good to save Ellie, reads more like a fan cope theory to me. Also since sacrifice seems be a recurring theme in the game?
I would agree but a sizeable amount of the structure of Part II seems to rely on the player being in emotional alignment with Ellie's revenge quest so 🤷♂️.
The game's structure is designed to fool you into believing Ellie is right in what she's doing and then showing you how fucked up it is; so I'd say that lines up pretty well with the notion that what Joel does at the end of Part I is also fucked up.
It's interesting right. Probably worth noting that Part II was written quite a while later and after the world digested and interpreted the first game.
And Ellie seems to largely agree with the popular read of the first game. She rejects Joel's choice, is anguished by it, resents him for it but still cares about him.
The Last of Us didn't need a sequel and every time Druckmann says things like this it feels like damage control for the sequel existing. Reminder to folks that The Last of Us ended with no hints of a sequel; why did we need a sequel, especially one that divided the fan base?
He has marred a good thing with the original game; two remasters, an unnecessary sequel that's also being remastered, and he also won't shut up about The Last of Us and keeps making it worse with statements like this. You ruined a good thing Druckmann.
The whole allegory is essentially a trolley problem. The conflict really comes in when you realize that a “cure” actually wouldn’t save them either way, so you just have a bunch of people trafficking a minor across the United States with the promise they will murder her when she gets there.
She does make it clear she wants her life to matter, the sacrifices to get her there to have meaning (not long before she is knocked out I think). He ignored that wish.
The doctors were wrong to disregard her wishes too, but they didn't massacre an entire building to do it.
An entire building of people who wanted to murder an innocent girl to (probably not actually) save humanity regardless of what her personal wishes were. Not sure why their number matters here, they got what they deserved. Fuck around and find out.
Just a quick note to those jumping on this, even the creator is entitled to their opinion on that moment. It doesn’t make it the “right” one. I personally don’t agree but that doesn’t mean I’m not engaging with the fiction as intended. That’s what makes it such a good ending.
One person has a potential cure for a world ending catastrophe but let's not ever pay that off, let's just watch everyone suffer and tear each other apart for years.
Same kind of crap that made me ditch the Walking Dead universe.
I always saw this as kind of the point of the games. What Joel did can be classified as “right” in terms of saving Ellie, but he still killed a LOT of doctors lol. You cant blame either him OR Abby for what they chose to do, and that gray area urges the game on. It makes hating anyone impossible.
And of course it being “right” is ONLY after we learn posthumously that Ellie was just one of many test subjects, and that the same experiment had failed on other immune bite victims. In the moment, its a tough pill to swallow, and hardly the moral thing to do.
Legit question for the people agreeing with Druckmann here and saying Joel was correct: Presuming the cure would work (which the game leaves ambiguous) Do you think Ellie Knew that she would die for the cure?
And does that matter in reference to Joel's choice?
See, my interpretation is that she does. Or at least, she knows her time with Joel is almost up.
During the approach to Denver, you can see her distance herself from Joel. Where he becomes more open and supportive, she becomes more reserved, held back. He talks of the future, she simply accepts.
Finally, during the ride back to the Dam, she is distrustful. Not openly accusing him, but knowing that Joel is hiding the truth from her. She knows something isn't right.
Does she know then what the stakes were? Or was she ignorant of it even after the rescue?
The ambiguity of the choice, the weight of Joel's Decision and how it affects Ellie growing up, was one of the few highlights to the narrative. It showed that our heroes can be flawed, and the ideals we set in our head can be wrong. That our End is our own doing, the consequence of our actions.
Yeah I remember thinking Part 1 never clarified how successful the op would be. If speculative, it would give Joel a possible nod his way on the point, but Part 2 made it pretty clear it would have worked, so, what is this then
Personally, I think Druck is dumb for saying this because it gives up how juvenile his writing is, if TLOU2 didn't spoil that for you already. Classic foot in mouth moment.
But, honest question: If Ellie knew, then was Joel stopping her choice (and lying to her) the right thing to do?
Joel absolutely did the right thing. They were going to murder his child. There’s no way the fireflies could know their human experiment would work, and it was unethical regardless. If a bunch of guys with guns want to stand in the way of a legit rescue, it’s their own fault they got killed.
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Virtue ethics style, he made that decision out of anger and pain, and did not respect Ellie enough to get permission.
virtue ethicists might also argue that on a personal level, joel was displaying virtue in protecting someone that he was playing a paternal role for
The virtue of being a father is an interesting discussion to me.
Does he rescue Ellie because he wants to truly be a protective father to her? Is he doing it because he always wanted to kill the soldier who killed his kid, years ago?
but maybe not? just off the top of my head, you might argue that lying to
It's also pretty obvious she knows he's lying immediately after but trusts him enough to not question it.
There is absolutely nothing I'd choose over my daughter's life. Nothing.
One of my best friends had to adopt both their children. Is he not their dad?
Just because he isn't her biological father doesn't mean he isn't her father.
If Ellie was his real kid, I get it then, sure. It still wouldn't be right but most would do the same. But in the context of the game Joel is a POS for what he did.
What would Ellie’s death possibly have scientifically accomplished?
What could cutting Ellie open possibly have done to alleviate the worldwide fungal zombie plague?
I'm not saying it's the right choice as in for the good of the world.
But in that situation, with Joel's history: yes it was the right choice.
He put "his child" before the rest of the world. As pretty much every parent would.
Everything will work out in the end.
Er, so: yes.
I'd 100% would have lied to her as well. Not because it's the right thing to do but because I don't think I'd be able to tell her the truth.
Every choice has consequences on the long run that nobody could forsee
Everybody have an opinion on what was the "right choice" and every justifications are equally valid
He is completely wrong.
Both sides were certain if they did that, she'd choose "wrong" and the tragedy is that them being certain of this is exactly why the only moral choice is to wait.
#LikeStoriesofOld #MovieEssay
Her decision would have been to sacrifice herself, and he took that option away forever.
Nah, what he did was 100% about him and his feelings.
by saying "joel was right" it doesn't matter if she would've said yes or not because neil just stomped the ambiguity of a story with complex people into nothing.
he's acting as more of a reader at this point, not the creator
He didn't do any of it for her benefit and they both know it
Avoiding specifics, mostly curious how long the show takes to get to the event that drives the central plot.
The Last of Us 2 felt like an intentional turning-of-the-mirror on an audience which, having played the original at a slightly younger age more open to violent heroics, might now be able to see the ending in a new light.
He doomed a bunch of other fathers to losing their daughters to the plague.
He didn't even trust her to chose
But kudos to Neil for whipping up his "fan"base into a frenzy right before the TV series launches again and putting TLOU into headlines. We fell for it.
It was either kill or (she’d) be killed.
The entire ending was morally questionable, and that was the point.
Joel is not Ellie's dad. Kind of a crucial element to the whole thing. He is punishing Ellie for his own inability to keep his kid safe. He prioritised his own trauma over the agency of someone else.
Remember, a patrol captured and took them prisoner. The Fireflies never told Ellie their process would kill her and Joel didn’t discover this until Marlene told him after they had already captured and Ellie was being prepped for surgery.
She already has survivor’s guilt from her past experiences, even if she was given a choice and chose to live he didn’t want to make it worse. He lied to try to protect her.
If there was a legal system in this future, he would have adopted her.
So, yes, I *do* consider him to be her dad by the end of the game.
And as a result, robs Ellie of her own agency. To him, she wasn't Ellie, she was Sarah.
It is beautiful, but adds to the tragedy.
But it is also a key part of why he eventually loves Ellie like a daughter.
The strength of the game is not making you think if what Joel does is right. It's making you understand there was no way he'd do anything else.
Not saying your interpretation is wrong btw, just not the takeaway I had (plus the game's creator thinks Joe's decision was admirable, so idk)
It felt quite clear in the emotional subtext of the latter section of TLOU that Ellie understood death was a strong possibility.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qKC-BiMTX0
But they're all morally gray, not villains.
Not a child. He can't makelife altering decisions for her because he knew her for a few months
And he gave her no chance to have a say then, or went she got older because everyone dead.
The doctors were wrong to disregard her wishes too, but they didn't massacre an entire building to do it.
The military grunts all knew?
One person has a potential cure for a world ending catastrophe but let's not ever pay that off, let's just watch everyone suffer and tear each other apart for years.
Same kind of crap that made me ditch the Walking Dead universe.
And does that matter in reference to Joel's choice?
During the approach to Denver, you can see her distance herself from Joel. Where he becomes more open and supportive, she becomes more reserved, held back. He talks of the future, she simply accepts.
And no one informed her in that time? She never thought to ask? She never wondered what the procedure was, and no one else ever told her what it was?
Does she know then what the stakes were? Or was she ignorant of it even after the rescue?
But, honest question: If Ellie knew, then was Joel stopping her choice (and lying to her) the right thing to do?
Which is pretty reductive considering how important a character she is.