Brain Surgery in the Apocolypse?
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- Опубликовано: 18 мар 2023
- #thelastofus #drelliott drelliott #doctorreacts #psychiatrist #mentalhealth
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It's the season finale so its my last doctor reacts video on The Last of Us (at least for now) and it covers the neurobiology of daydreaming, the development of antipsychotics, animal therapy, gender norms and much more. It's a pretty diverse range of topics on this wonderfully written show. As always, let me know what you think in the comments and what else you want me to check out.
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I don't think Ellie would have been in a good mental space to make such a decision because she has survivor's guilt. She would have chosen to be sacrificed and would have believed that this was her purpose. And the medicine might not have even worked.
One thing that broke my heart while watching the scene of Joel telling Ellie about Sarah is how he was talking about how Sarah would have been Ellie's friend even though Sarah died 20 years ago, so she would have been a fully grown adult now. But in Joel's mind, she will always be a little girl because she never got a chance to grow up.
But who would? Joel? He's still dealing with the trauma of having lost a daughter 20 years ago, how is he in a good mental state to decide about the life of his "new daughter"?
@@tlsgrz6194 Literally everyone has baggage that influences the decisions we make. Joel is an adult who lost his daughter 20 years ago verse Ellie is a child who lost her best friend/girlfriend a few months ago. There is a clear difference in where they would be mentally at this time. Does that mean Joel suddenly is over his daughter's death? No. That pain is never going away, but he has had time to learn how to cope. Ellie has not been given such time. She is a child. She has barely even lived her life. Maybe if she was working with a therapist and going over that decision with them then she would be in a better mental place to make such a decision like how a lot of big medical decisions with children are handled. Unfortunately we don't have that luxury right now.
@@Jeetaruey So why not Marlene? She has known Ellie literally since her birth, she was friends with her mother and in a different world would propably have been "Auntie Marlene".
@@tlsgrz6194 Marlene threw Ellie into an orphanage and ignored her. Anna asked Marlene to protect Ellie, but instead she didn't want to look at her and be reminded. Marlene had the opportunity to tell Ellie she knew her mother and didn't. Instead alluded to knowing about it and then sending her away. Looking at the situation without a stake in Ellie's life and lack of humanity is not the correct way to look at the situation either.
The entire story of The Last of Us is about the lengths we will go to protect the ones we love. Marlene was interested in protecting humanity. Not Ellie. That doesn't make Marlene evil, but it doesn't give her the right to Ellie's life because she is looking at the greater picture. Ellie's humanity is a key part of this decision and Joel was the one still looking at it. Does that make Joel perfect? No. He has selfish reasons to be looking at Ellie's humanity. But so do all people protecting the ones they love.
We saw that with the brothers and how Henry chose his brother over the city. That didn't make him universally good for choosing that, but it was the right choice for the brothers and the wrong choice for the citizens. If we are looking at the right choice for Ellie, Joel made it. If we are looking for the right choice for humanity, Marlene could have been making it. The Last of Us is very much about the individual's right choice rather than some greater good right choice.
@@Jeetaruey But that’s the point. Why does Joel get to make the decision to put Ellie above humanity?
Why do you get to decide, that that is the „right choice for Ellie“?
You claim that Ellie herself can‘t make that choice because she‘d sacrifice herself because of what she went through, yet when Joel, can‘t sacrifice her because of what he went through, it‘s „the right choice“? The show has multiple people who make the decision to take their own lives, even in extremely emotional circumstances, but no one questions their ability to make that decision for themselves.
I think it's interesting in the series podcast the creators say Joel enters a "dissociative mode" where he does "what has to be done", this is why he seems out of himself when killing in the hospital
I do not think a 14 year old that was recently incredibly traumatized, showing many signs of dissociation, that was raised in a borderline brainwashing facility, with a hero’s complex, should be able to make that decision.
THANK YOU. “He took her choice too”, yeah damn right he did he’s quite literally her guardian.
Yes but imagine how many 14 year olds and so many others will die if she doesn’t?
@@msreal5270 lol. learn about empathy and ethics. see a psychologist and talk about this issue if you think what he did is right. what he did is right only from a very selfish, pathernal subjective point of view. any other way you look at it, he fucked it up, not once but at least 3 times in the last 20 minutes of the episode.
What a stupid take. Ellie has shown more maturity in this episode in particular than Joel. Joel was already in his fantasy land thinking of going back to the camp with her and live a new life. While she already knew the possible consequences and did not want for all that she endured, the things you mentioned, to be in vain. So she wanted a resolution that could help people. Instead, that was taken away from her in the most insane possible way. If you think Ellie can forgive something like that, even as she grows up, you're out of your mind.
@@msreal5270 Marleen was her guardian, per Ellie's mom. She only passed it off to Joel temporarily because she was injured. So if we're saying guardians are the only ones who are allowed to choose, Marleen was right to murder her in the first place. Which she wasn't.
This is most definitely a case where the two "parents" needed to sit down with their "kid" and go over every aspect of the outcomes, have her be able to ask questions, have the doctor explain everything, and then all of them take her wishes as their guide.
But since Marleen was afraid she'd say no, and Joel was afraid she'd say yes, they both took her choice away. But this is The Last of Us - no one's gonna do the healthy thing around here 😅
As someone who has had 7 surgeries, 6 of which were under general anesthesia - if your anesthesiologist is the highest paid person in the room, you've got a good one. Those folks are magicians of science. Because as far as I understand, we don't necessarily know exactly how anesthesia works, just that it works.
The thing I love about Joel is that his character is established quite early on and it never fundamentally changes. Early during the pandemic, Tommy drives past a family with a small child who are walking along the road. Tommy slows down to help them, but Joel demands they keep going, refusing to take the slightest risk that might endanger Sarah. And of course, it's later established that Joel and Tommy murdered innocent people in order to get what they needed to survive, with Tommy being traumatized by this while Joel still thinks it was necessary.
Joel is a man of deep feeling who would do anything for those he loves. But towards anyone outside of the narrow group of people he considers like family, he is almost completely amoral. I think there are a ton of both ethical and practical arguments against what the Fireflies chose to do, but none of them really factored into Joel's decision making. He would have sacrificed the whole remainder of the human race in a heartbeat rather than abandon his surrogate daughter.
Exactly, I think becoming a father at a young age and being a single father for a long time, not to mention being an older brother ... just reinforced this sense of strong need to protect the ones that rely on him.
In-group morality. Not a good thing.
@@mattgilbert7347 Agreed. But since the world has devolved to this point in 20 years what do you think would happen?
If Ellie’s brain miraculously became a cure, how long would you think it would take to rebuild not only a broken society but a broken world?
Joel had seen enough of this political and societal nonsense in this time to be skeptical. He knew the dog eat dog world not return to 2003 civilization in his lifetime.
Granted Joel has a metric butt-ton of PTSD, but in a civilized world it is common knowledge that finding a person to “replace” the expired person and relationship doesn’t usually work out well.
Given the circumstances at the time Joel thought “me and mine” come before “you and yours”
@@mattgilbert7347 not in modern society. but in an apocalyptic situation?
Hi! Anesthetist here, thank you for your appreciation, love you, wish I could have a doctor like you in my corner❤and yes, the whole Ellie in general anesthesia scene was kind of painful from professional point of view (as was previously the penicillin right into the wound) :D still love the series to bits! Thanks for these videos :)
Yeah while the directly-to-wound penicillin wasn't medically correct, I think the choice itself was realistic since she had no idea what she was doing. Honestly I probably would've done the same thing but maaaaybe right next to the wound instead of IN it 😅
I haven't played the game, but Joel taking out the entire hospital was absolutely chilling! You totally understand his motivations, even if you don't agree with what he's doing. Ellie certainly wouldn't support what he did. I think she would've wanted to go through with the surgery even if she knew for certain she'd die in the process. The Fireflies not giving Ellie informed consent horrified me. The showrunners and Bella said that Ellie chooses to believe Joel at the end. She suppresses all her suspicions. It's so sad that she's forced herself to forget that Joel broke her trust. Erik Voss brought up a great point that even if they had gotten the chemical markers from Ellie and used them to inoculate people, the infected would still be ravaging the planet. All the infected still try to attack Ellie. They can't tell she has the chemical markers. They would leave her alone if they did because they'd think she's one of them. The same would probably be true for anyone they inoculated with Ellie's chemical markers. With the inoculation, new people may not get infected from being bitten anymore, but they'd still get killed by clickers and bloaters. Everyone would still be trapped in the QZs and the like. Until they find a way to kill/cure ALL of the infected and ALL of the fungus, as well as inoculate regular people, the world will be mostly the same. Joel saving Ellie at the expense of the world doesn't seem as awful when you look at it that way.
Both games are my all-time fav games, and I think this finale was almost better than the game. In the game you kill a lot of people throughout, so killing everyone at the end doesn't bother you much other than the doctor maybe.
In the show you really feel like he turned on "protection mode" and his silent focus was scary. Some of these moments works better in the show, but some ep i preferred the game.
Without spoiling anything, this finale sets up everything for the next game (s2,s3) so Im glad they put in so much detail that maybe only ppl who played the game notices.
But your comment is basically why I loved this game, we were all discussing and debating these choices for years after the game came out in 2013. Seeing people discuss it now a decade later is quite fun.
Personally I would have done the same as Joel if I was him. But I think the most moral choice would be to ask Ellie
At no point anywhere in the story did Ellie expect the procedure to kill her, in fact she was constantly making reference to what she and Joel would do after the procedure... so how can you say "Ellie certainly wouldn't support what he did" which such certainty.
@@TukikoTroy From the 2nd game. Ellie clearly told Joel that she would choose to die in the hospital as her life would have meant something.
@@mathsmagic1311 Well, thanks for the spoiler. But so what? We are talking about Ellie as a 14 year old in the first game. Not the mature, able to make adult decisions 19 year old in the second game. She is saying now, that she would have made that decision as a child, but she is gainsaying herself by doing so. The fact is, Ellie in the first game never thought she was going to die from this procedure, the option to make the decision never arose for her, so the older Ellie can only assume that is what her younger self would have done... just as you are doing.
Also note that they cannot possibly make enough of this inoculation for everyone. They would inoculate themselves and then use the fact that they had invented a cure to seize power and become the next FEDRA.
Sometimes in life there are no “good” choices and all we can really do is try to make the decision that we can live with.
I'm so happy that we got to see Joel smile
What do you call cheese that isnt yours? Nacho cheese!
Re Cordy crossing the placenta. Anna also immediately cuts the umbilical cord with the same knife she killed the clicker with (which Ellie inherits) and it's unclear if she cleans the knife. So there's that possibility.
I had many questions about the doctors so called treatment and just how effective it would be, they did not seem to even know whether or not it would work
I think an interesting thing about this ending is when they did a survey of people who played the game, non-parents were split 50/50 on whether or not Joel did the right thing, however, 100% of parents said he did the right thing. It really goes to show how much having a kid changes your perspective on what is right and wrong.
A hundred percent? That surprises me. I'm not sure if it was right or wrong to save her, but I would agree it's not morally wrong. As for lying to her, though, I 100% think that's wrong.
Thanks for the shoutout to anaesthetists. My Uncle was a pioneer in the field back in the 1970s & 1980s. He helped invent a piece of technology used in general anaesthesia. I don't know what it was, but it certainly made him quite wealthy!
Regarding the "dilemma" in this episode (just ask her and assess her competence!), I'm reminded of Paul Bloom's work on moral decision making and the role of empathy (he's not a fan).
I'd argue that Joel is too close to Ellie to make a rational and compassionate decision. The Firefly leadership also handled this situation rather poorly.
This.!! Yes what the eff the Fireflies were in such a hurry.. All Joel did was a direct consequence of Marlene's decision to hurry & not talk to Ellie.. As a parent I would do exactly the same if someone just informs me that my child is being murdered without them knowing about it, I am not even allowed to see them & just walk out of the facility! What choice do I have here as a father? & people who are saying that Joel didn't give Ellie a choice? Was he in any position to give her a choice? He was not even allowed to see her for eff's sake! I am Team Joel forever! The only thing I don't like on Joel's part is that he lied to her afterwards! If he just told her the truth, she might have understood him better. But he was afraid that she might think him as a bad person for killing so many for her sake (she already has a surviour guilt) & end up the relationship with him.
A cheese factory in france exploded....da brie was everywhere.
As someone who's played the 2nd game extensively I CANNOT wait for the tidal wave of feelings and opinions the 2nd season will bring
It's going to go over even worse with a television audience
@@danh8804 I think so too unfortunately
@@lisak8492 to quote another Naughty Dog game, "digna factis recipimus"
@@danh8804 idk man, the gamers are notorious for being unbelievably toxic... But I am certainly excited for the reactions to part 2!
@@jarrahkron9 TLOU 2 wasn't poorly received because of toxic fans, it was poorly conceived because of a pretentious plot structure, facile theme that's been done much better by other properties (for literally centuries) and poor writing choices. All of those things we've been assured are going to be imported directly to TV where they will go down even worse, because those players at least couldn't argue that the murdery gameplay parts weren't fantastic. The TV audience doesn't get them at all
Giraffe are like tall horses. The ones at the zoo are very friendly and let people pet them.
I dont fully agree with your interpration of Joels fear as fear of surgery. What he realised is that she will be killed by them for the cure. This re-triggered the trauma of losing Sarah and him losing all emotion and killing everyone
Joel was wrong to lie to her, but I’m also skeptical that the fireflies had the expertise to find a cure. One doctor is not enough.
I’d say daydreaming can become a problem when it interferes with necessary day to day tasks.
Yep and he was a doctor, not a scientist. Scientists make vaccines. MULTIPLE scientists. We don't even have fungal vaccines in OUR world.
Sure…
Marlene: what do you say ellie?
Ellie: nah
Marlene: oh, okay, I respect your wishes
OR
Wellll it’s the only shot we have so we’re going to do it anyway 😬.
I am HERE for those cheese puns! XD
I think daydreaming like a lot of other things only becomes an issue when it starts to keep you from accomplishing necessary things like daily tasks, affecting self-care, distracting from a situation that could become dangerous (i.e. driving, leaving food on the stove, etc.).
Ellie's mom is played by the voice actress for Ellie in the video game. Her name is Ashley Johnson.
The moment daydreaming becomes a problem is when it starts to border on hallucinations.
i.e. you can't control when they happen and they start to blend into your waking life in a way that you have a hard time to differentiate between what is a dream and what is reality
I have a question: in the real-world how dangerous would it be for a person to have a tissue sample taken from their brain? Marlene seems to act like there's no way for Ellie to survive and I wonder if it is the nature of the procedure or simply bad conditions they're in + possibly staff without proper qualifications...
more than likely either the fungus is deep in her brain or its the bad conditions, especially since a nurse remarks on if they'll even have enough power for the equipment required
The reason marlene acted that way and Joel did what he did was because it wasn't just a case of taking a small tissue sample and there being risks, the procedure was a death sentence. They would have been removing a large percentage of the brain, if not the whole thing. They were killing her to try and make a cure, that was the point.
This isn’t in the show, but the person doing the surgery wasn’t a doctor. He was a veterinarian. So yeah death sentence
Here’s something to consider: the real ant cordyceps doesn’t actually penetrate the deeper sections of the ant nervous system, but rather attaches to the motor centers and throughout the musculature in the body. It makes the ant do things by directly affecting the motor functions of the ant.
In theory, not that ants have an elaborate brain structure, the ant is “conscious” while then fungus makes it do what it wants.
So in a Last of Us/Girl with All the Gifts scenario, all the infected and hungries are still aware despite the fungus making them zombied.
This would also mean that sampling Cordyceps wouldn’t be nearly as invasive as The Last of Us implies.
@@HB2803 I guess for technology we're thinking 2003. I don't imagine there was much opportunity for significant progress in that world...
I always have issues boarding flights with my support giraffe.
Daydreaming becomes a problem when it affects our day to day life ie work and school as we lose focus when we daydream so we miss important things.
THANK YOU for decrying absurd diagnosis of 'prolonged grief disorder' - also you know the difference between ponies and horses! Best video!
Have you ever seen “The League”? That one is mostly improvised but really funny. The character Rafi is amazing.
The day dream question is an interesting one. I've heard of maladaptive day dreaming and I don't think I have that but I do notice if for whatever reason I've not been out of the house much or been alone for a while I daydream a lot more than usual and I do wonder if it healthy. I know I definitely did it a lot more as a child as well. Is it like most things - it's not a problem until it's having some for if negative impact or causing disruption to your daily life?
Not to mention that Jerry Anderson, the guy performing the surgery isn't a neurosurgeon, surgeon or even a doctor for that matter. He is a biologist, who failed this procedure several times already.
ps. For those claiming this is a spoiler. It is not, it became kind of moot the moment Joel killed him. That said it is an interesting piece of background information and putting the whole ethical dilemma in an even more dubious light.
You're giving him too much credit.
He only has a bachelor's degree in biology.
Research wise their were other options. So I don't feel bad for those doctors who should have known better. Not to mention in research things don't ever work out the first time. So statistically speaking killing Ellie wouldn't have saved the world. I have a friend who lived with for 5 years who worked in research, and she world regularly complain about how she fucked up a tiny part of an experiment and now all her work for the day is useless. Sometime I would even hear about them getting to the end of months or years of work only to find that no new data was found or something had been done improperly much earlier in the experiment. So now they have to start everything from scratch. So If it was real life those doctors were going to kill a child and it wasn't going to save the anyone.
…what kind’ve cheese is made backwards? Edam.
my whimsical not based on science per se answer to what I think happens when we daydream: I think that what happens is you are attempting to give your brain the emotional experience of something you want to happen but isn't happening in real life (well I guess that is daydreaming about some fantasy specifically.) but you are trying to replace reality so your brain can deliver relaxed messages of I have what I need etc. the problem is that you can't trick your brain forever. and eventually you have to make the fantasy stronger to get the same impact of feeling like it's enough. and in general it's a problem because of its escapist nature, and not facing what is actually going on in one's life. which can mean not doing things to improve your life when you probably should.
I think daydreaming could become dangerous when it's at the level of dissociating in situations that need attention like operating equipment or paying attention to where your going so you don't end up in traffic or some other dangerous situation or when they get so far into the daydream that they are in intense disassociation and not connecting to the real world and neglecting their own needs.
God, watching this again I'm just absolutely floored by how amazing Bella Ramsey was. Just an absolutely jaw-dropping performance from an actor their age. We all already knew Pascal was amazing, but Ramsey was a revelation. This was a phenomenal first season.
Also hoo boy hearing the words "Gillick competence" in a context that isn't making my heart break for transgender minors and feeling infuriated with lawmakers is an unusual experience for me.
Dude got slammed right in the stitches!
Here's my take - If anyone to be blamed here by Ellie later in the show is Marlene.. If that doesn't happen whatever showrunners present is a simply a stupidity. Here's why- Ellie was looking forward to go anywhere with Joel & live happily. She is clearly under impression that she doesn't have to die for this. Would she decide to sacrifice herself after knowing? Maybe yes. But Marlene didn't allow it to happen. Had Marlene (& the doctor) given Ellie a chance to decide, allowed her & Joel to process what's gonna happen & given them time to say Goodbye, it could be avoided.
I would blame Joel 'only if' he kills everyone even after knowing Ellie's willing to die. Not before that. Joel's actions are a direct result of Marlene's decision to hurry everything without giving Ellie a choice. They waited for 20 years, what's another few months! Joel gave Ellie a choice twice & respected her decisions both the times. ep.6 & ep.9 The only thing I don't like on Joel's part is that he lied to her. IMO he should have been upfront about why he did it. Ellie might have disagreed with his actions but she definitely would have understood his motives (selfless/selfish love for his daughter) better. But he was afraid of losing the relationship. I would be curious to know what Ellie would react when/if she finds out what happened. Will she be angry at Joel - for killing those people or only for lying to her?
To sum up - If Marlene is not in super hurry & give some time to Ellie to respond, only then Joel gets to know what Ellie wants.. If Ellie says Yes & even then Joel kills everyone then & only then he is to be blamed.. If Marlene doesn't give that chance to Elli, then we don't actually know what Ellie might have said 'before' the surgery (Whatever she may say afterwards is her afterthought considering whatever happened). So before the surgery whatever Joel does is a direct consequence of Marlene's actions & only she is to be blamed! As a parent I would do the exact same thing as Joel did. I will take a blame only If I did those killings even after knowing my child's wish to sacrifice themselves. All the best to HBO. If they ignore this simple fact in next season then they will have very angry reactions from parents. Protecting the children from the 'predator' is a primal animal instinct.
Your cheese puns are grate. Doesn't get cheddar than that!
Wow, wow, you gouda brie kidding me with that Camambert pun. I expected grater from you.
So I always had this feeling that schizophrenia is just day dreaming but the brain for some reason isn’t able to isolate them off and it starts to bleed over into the more conscious parts of your brain. My brain is cloud central today so that probably doesn’t make sense 😂
I hope you can watch the trailer for the second game and share your thoughts
This is a great show, and I like the way they refer to real science for their concept of a fungus pandemic, but the science seems to get weak in the finale episode. What kind of science requires that someone get a brain operation immediately? Real science takes a lot of time due to massive careful calculations and measurements, the work required to design hypotheses and experiments, and other time-consuming work in a laboratory. I don't buy that Ellie has to have an emergency operation to save the human race. It feels like a contrived time-lock to me. The writers should have come up with something better.
I paused the video: (caveat, I have bipolar type 1) my daydreaming becomes a problem, or probably unhealthy, when I go through phases where I'd rather live in my fantasies than in my own life. I have vivid storylines and characters that I feel I know that I'll spend hours upon hours during the day, laying in bed, just... kinda playing them out. On these days, it's not uncommon that I accomplish nothing including getting dressed, and I'm a little ashamed to admit, not brush my teeth. I've known these characters for over 25 years at this point and view some of them as friends.
FUN FACT
The mother of Ellie is actually the voice of Ellie in the game the last of us.
Tell me, if the world hinges on terminal surgery of a kid, what ethics apply? If she was given a choice in exchange for the world, would that be acceptable? And knocking her out to force her into it, in these conditions, is that OK? Or Joel pulling her out of it for selfish reasons at the detriment of the world, that's a cross between old world ethics and new world. How might this best be resolved?
See, that's my biggest problem with the Firefly's "Doctor".
At the very most, they did under a month of research on Ellie's immunity.
My solution to this glorified trolley problem is to do extensive research for 4 years, try everything to find another way.
If not, Ellie would be a legal adult, able to legally give consent.
By then, Joel & Ellie would have 4 more years to bond.
The moral arguments here, the justifications and rationalizations, make for an interesting examination of the moral sense of the show's audience, but don't really address the bottom line of the show in my opinion.
As the game and show present events, the idea of love being an entirely good and wholesome emotion is brought into question. The game creator and show co-creator have expressed as much. Whether who did what was right or wrong is incidental, its dramatic and compelling but ultimately beside the point. The point is several horrible things happened in this show in the name of love.
Love is a very broad term and can mean very different things between people depending on their individual perspective. Whether we as the viewer would call it love doesn't play into it, as the characters themselves believe it is love that drives them: love for another person, love for a group of people they care about, love for an ideology or a system that creates order from chaos, love for humanity as a whole, love for one's self. The game and show demonstrates that as beautiful as love can be, love can also be dangerous and dark in all of these conditions, and can have some pretty terrifying consequences.
What do you call cheese that’s not yours ? Nacho cheese
I thinks If daydreaming becomes fantasying about a situation or people then it has become a problem
If Ellie was being prepared for brain surgery, wouldn't the shaving of the head come before anesthesia?
Please react to Hi Ren - amazing artist for his portrayal of mental health !!
Came here to say not to worry, ponies are horses ;) But horses as a species are divided between ponies (anything less than 14.2 hands tall) and horses (anything above that). It's kind of weird because that means that horses are a subtype of horses, but there you have it. Ponies are horses too, when you're talking about the species of animal. They're just small horses.
Really, Marlene is to blame here, That "I do" (have a choice) from Joel is a clear challenge, and she knows what he is capable of.
ellie is 14 here
Chances that surgeon is a dermatology student...
It was really a chiropractor
In the game he wasn't a medical doctor. He had a PHD in biology. So he wasn't even competent to operate on Ellie's brain. Plus he's in his late 30's to early 40's. So he didn't even complete his education when the apocalypse happened.
@@phoenixrising8231actually, he only has a bachelor's degree in biology, with six years unaccounted for.
That's all that's been confirmed of him.
I worked as an admin in a children's hospital and I find the consent thing interesting. I know once a patient who was over 16 signed his own consent form for a procedure he had multiple of previously and his mother didn't think it should be his decision but hers, even though she was also willing to consent to it so she crossed out his signature and wrote her own.
I also know of parents who felt their children didn't have competency to consent, but, when assessed, medical staff believed they did and so the parents had to then respect their children's decision to either agree to or refuse treatment. I also found it interesting that if someone over 18 is assessed as not being competent it is the job of two consultants to decide if treatment should go ahead or not, and parents/family are only able to decide if they had power of attorney or other legal things in place. It makes sense of course, it just hadn't occurred to me that in some situations doctors decide for the patient.
Yeah, the tragedy is that both Marlene AND Joel violated Ellie's consent. Neither one gave her the chance to make her own medical decisions for herself.
@12:28, I know you're trying to relate this to the real world to provide educational content, but you do know that the question they would be asking her is, "Are you okay if we end your life in order to potentially save the world?" In what way is that a fair question to ask someone let alone a teenager? lol
👍🏿
Can you react to the movie The Univited???!!!!!!! Please
I just _love_ how you dismiss a concept that has been effective in helping people deal with grief as nonsense. It's SOOO enlightened of you. How about you not be dismissive and offer an alternative instead? Oh, but that's beneath you.
Would Joel be considered a sociopath? I’m not trolling. Just wondering.
No he cares way to much about people whom aren’t himself.
@@KBzaz i thought sociopaths can care for people but only for selfish reasons and in their inner circle like family and close friends. I could be wrong though.
@@midnightcat6116 yes that is accurate. However, that’s not the only form of caring Joel displays, while the last thing Joel does in this season is potentially a very “selfish” love. There are other moments like pouring out his emotions to Tommy about how he knows he’s going to fail Ellie.
I would like to think they could of made the cure and it's treated as a fact. If it isn't, and it is a fact that it would fail, then it just ruins the ending and ruin Joel as a character. I love that Joel is willing to doomed humanity for one person. It makes him and the ending more complex and heartbreaking. I will NOT accept a soft azz ending of "Joel was right, they would of failed, so he's a hero".
The idea that the cure was a sure thing might make Joel’s character arc better but it makes the writing quality of the whole show worse. It strains credulity that a group as ineffective and unorganized as the fireflies could pull off a cure. We’ve never seen them have a win. The groups that have found success in this world are not associated with them. They haven’t successfully liberated and run any QZs that we have seen. The idea of starting of with life ending surgery on your only immune subject is so stupid it’s laughable and in conditions where they don’t have a full surgical staff or even reliable electricity? I dearly hope they don’t push that this was a sure thing because if they do it’s a shark jumping moment for anyone with any scientific background.
@@corabee923 The Fireflies do not matter. It was the doctor that said it, NOT the Fireflies. Fireflies have only lost the war, that's it. You're conflicting two things that are not the same.
Also, those zombies are impossible. If you can believe that those zombies exists, than you can believe that they were able to have a genius scientist that knows what they are doing.
This is also is such a small thing that doesn't ruin the show at all. We've seen even more unbelievable stuff in almost everything else.
@@lunavioleta001 A genius scientist that goes straight to life ending surgery without reliable electricity? I realize that we are talking about surgery on a mushroom zombie virus but they haven’t established a genius doctor yet have they? In fiction you have to build up the world to be consistent and believable. We’ve seen two experts so far in the show that have said a cure is impossible. Now maybe we will find out next season that this doctor was a genius paediatric neurosurgeon with hundreds of successful surgeries under his belt. Maybe we will see some of his previous work that lead him to be confident enough to sacrifice not only his patient but also his only cure source. But from what I know of season 2 that would be a departure from the source. I agree that Joel making a decision that dooms the world would be impactful but only if it is actually believable in the first place.
I think the most fair take is that there was some undefined chance of success. It was clearly no sure thing, even Marlene said the doctor thinks it "could be" a cure, not that it definitely would be. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and some chance is better than none.
Nevertheless, I agree with Joel's call here: At the very least, it needed to be Ellie's decision if she was going to sacrifice herself (and even then, putting that decision on a 14-year-old is really a bridge too far).
And ultimately, I don't think Joel really had a choice. After everything he had been through, walking away and leaving Ellie to die was just not something that he was capable of doing. He knew right away that he could not live with that, so he took the only path left to him.
@@mikewilliams4443 That ruins the ending for me. It goes from a great ending and a great character piece to a mediocre and safe ending.
The show is pretty good but the writers tried too hard to contrive this scenario in the game and here. It just doesn't ring true to how the characters would act (I think Marlene in particular would have told Ellie--she has shown us she does not shy from the hard call)
True, but her excuse was that this way Ellie doesn’t have any fear. People will often latch onto an excuse in order to do what they want to do anyway: Sacrifice Ellie without asking her if she’s willing, so she can rationalize that she probably would have said yes.
Both Marlene and Joel are scared if they give Ellie a choice to become a cure or not that's why she didn't told her about surgery especially how urgent it is and why Joel lied to her after he got her out from hospital
@@mikewilliams4443 Also doesn't change that Joel took her choice by lying.
Marlene took her choice away. Joel reacted to that decision, but Marlene’s action came first. In this case, the chronology matters a great deal. Joel was left with no option that would give Ellie a choice.
@@mikewilliams4443 Nah. See game 2 for more details on why.
;)
It was interested to hear your take on Joel especially towards the end of the episode. I felt general unease throughout the entire episode, I didnt even think the giraffes were real at first. But, there's something sort of Icky to me with Joel's demeanor in this one while Ellie is sort of distraught. Joel had this sort of smile in the beginning and end when he's trying to bond with Ellie, and his talking about Sara. It sort of feels out of touch to me, and completely lacking attunement with the real Ellie, when she needs it most.
Joel is such a creep at the end of the episode. Projecting Sarah onto Ellie
My hottest take is that I am absolutely on the side of the fireflies in this episode, and I felt the same when I first played the game. I absolutely empathise with Joel and probably would have done the same in his situation, but logically and morally the Fireflies are 100% in the right imo. Even in the case of them not waking up Ellie to ask her about the surgery. In a perfect world, of course you should never do surgery without a person's consent, but when you are talking about the literal end of the world and the chance to save millions or billions of lives it really isn't worth it to risk the person saying no, because you cant take no for an answer in this circumstance. What happens if Ellie woke up and said no? They would have to knock her out violently which would risk damaging or killing her and compromising the cure, as well as causing her unnecessary pain. They cant let the only chance at a cure in decades walk out of the door and refuse the surgery. To me, its like the trolley problem, but instead of 1 person you know vs 5 strangers its 1 person you know who probably wont live past the age of 25 vs billions of people you don't know who you could save from living in constant terror in hell on earth.
(SPOILER ALERT FOR SEASON 2)
In part 2, Ellie herself expresses that she would have wanted to die for the cure, as I'm sure 99% of people would also be willing to do if they had the chance to save the world. It would be a great thing to be able to wake Ellie up and let her make the choice to die to save the world rather than choosing for her, but it isn't worth the risk when the fate of humanity is on the table.
@noise2signal you are definitely right that they were desperate and acting out of that desperation, but I think it’s warranted. God, this is why the last of us is so amazing it really does an amazing job of presenting these incredibly difficult question
I strongly disagree. The Fireflies were never going to be able to make a cure. The show goes out of it's way to repeatedly tell us-through the mouths of experts in the fields of both medicine and mycology-that there is no way to make a vaccine for something like Cordyceps. It's literally the first thing the show ever tells us, and it's reinforced again in the second episode. We're also shown that Joel has never believed that the Fireflies (or anyone else for that matter) are capable of making a vaccine. And it's a well-justified belief. Doctors couldn't manage it back when they had funding and resources, but the Fireflies are somehow gonna magically pull it off in a dingy moldy hospital with 20 year old drugs and equipment, and a "doctor" who only has a bachelor's degree in biology? Ok lmao. Not to mention the fact that within literal hours of getting their hands on Ellie, they decide to cut her brain out and kill her. She's their only hope for a potential vaccine against cordyceps, and they immediately decide to murder her. And it's not like they're killing Ellie with absolute certainty that this will work either, they're doing it based on a completely unproven hypothesis. Which means that if it fails they've destroyed all possibilities for future research bc their only immune subject is dead. They don't even try anything else, no blood or plasma samples, no biopsies, no spinal tap, nothing.
Marlene talks to Joel about how "Ellie would have wanted this" bc it's the "right thing to do" and will "create a better world", but she has no way of knowing it will work or that dying for their cause is what Ellie actually would have wanted. Because they never fucking asked her in the first place, and (like you said) it's not like they would have just accepted it if she'd said no either. Hell, even if they had asked her and she'd said yes, I personally don't think there's any justification for putting the weight of the entire world on the shoulders of a deeply traumatized 14 year old with survivor's guilt and a martyrdom complex, and then asking them to die for your cause. There is no possible way for Ellie to give informed consent in this situation-even if the Fireflies hadn't kidnapped, sedated, and tried to murder her-because she is a child and the situation itself is inherently coercive. Joel and Marlene are not equals in "taking Ellie's choice away", bc one of those paths is irreversible while the other isn't. If the Fireflies have doctors then there are gonna be other factions who do too, so it's not like the potential for a vaccine (to the extent that it even exists in this world, which is definitely up for debate) dies along with the Fireflies in that hospital.
This is all without getting into the fact that even if the Fireflies by some miracle were able to create a vaccine from the cordyceps growing in Ellie's brain, they still don't have the infrastructure to mass produce or distribute it. It wouldn't be some kind of magical cure rolled out to save all of mankind, it would just be another chip in their political war against fedra, and probably also a recruitment tool.
I'm sorry, but the idea that the Fireflies were ever going to end the cordyceps pandemic by killing Ellie is laughable to me.
Ultimately, the moral correctness of your option or the decision in the show is based in personal perspective, and valid arguments can be made from varying perspectives. Personally, I think the best ending might've been Joel being killed fighting the Fireflies, as he was to a point where he simply could not lose her, would rather die then lose another daughter. And then Ellie could die attempting to save the rest of humanity, which I think is clear would have been her wish if she'd been given the option.
Whether there is a right answer here I think makes for an interesting thought experiment if you enjoy those types of debates, but I think the moral dilemma expressed in the show is a vehicle for the point of the story, not the point itself. I think the point of this story, as expressed in every episode, is that love is a complicated, and sometimes very dangerous, thing. It can be as dark and full of contradiction as it can be light and full of purity, most especially unconditional love. The game creator and show co-creators have expressed as much, and I get their point. People throughout history and worldwide have done some exceedingly horrendous things in the name of love. And examples of these things can be seen throughout the show, culminating in what happened at the hospital and Joel's ultimate betrayal of Ellie's trust.
@@heathenpotato You make a lot of very good points, I think if it’s a certainty that the virus is absolutely impossible to cure against then yes the fireflies were in the wrong, but from their perspective they truly believed that they had the chance which (in my opinion) still doesn’t make them evil. I go by the assumption that the debate of ‘is a vaccine possible’ is up for debate in-universe and not a closed case ‘no it isn’t possible’ like it is for us with the benefit of hindsight. I think it’s pretty clear that the writers of the game intended for this question to be a part of the moral dilemma, otherwise it’s not much of a dilemma.
In conclusion, knowing what we know and going by the science and logic in our real world, you are almost certainly correct. But from the perspective of the characters in the game I still believe that the fireflies who truly believed they had a chance to save the world were justified in their actions, and Joel, who knew he risked dooming the world for his own undoubtedly selfish reasons, was in the wrong. But yes it’s a huge moral grey area, and that is an intentional choice by the story writers for this very reason, that it sparks discussion!
@@JohnPalb very very well said
Daydreaming for me feels pretty similar to recalling a memory, at least in the sense that my brain is so focused on that process that all other sensory input around me is not consciously registering, if that makes sense? That's what it feels like anyway. The problem is that with my inattentive ADHD my brain wanders into that state and I really struggle to pull myself back out of it 🫠 so it gets to the point where I'm doing it at moments where I NEED to pay attention - working on machinery, cooking, ect. So yeah it's a problem! Medication is a big help with this. I still don't trust myself to drive a car, thankfully in my life I can do without driving.