Joel Did Nothing Wrong - The Importance Of Ambiguity
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- Опубликовано: 3 окт 2024
- Sometimes the questions you ask in a story are more important than the answers, and sometimes a character's actions are neither right nor wrong. In this video, I want to take a look at the value of ambiguity in storytelling, and some examples of where it's been done well.
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No
Ok
If someone is trying to kill you or someone else you have the right to defend yourself or them, even a 3rd party does. If it wasn't moral or leagl there would be no justification for the justice system.
How many of you guys want to see the Drinker do Anime Reviews and Which Anime do you want to see the Drinker review?
Just finished your first book. Great story, and the mystery of Anna had me guessing throughout! Looking forward to starting book 2.
"Sometimes you can make no mistakes and still lose. That's not weakness, that is life." A lesson that people need in this day and age.
Funny how I have just read a post on reddit stating this exact quote, about the collapse of Nokia, a mobile phone titan. Something about Nokia refusing to adapt to a more "modern" aproach, refused to take risks because they fear that would end up in failure, ended up dying anyway.
That's when cheating becomes the winning option.
@@gyrozeppeli00 Nokia's real reason for collapsing was hiring a Microsoft executive to run their company, who immediately cancelled their new OS (Meego) before the first (and critically lauded) model running it, the Nokia N9, was even released. Said executive then had them go basically all-in on Windows Phone as OS, which ended up with Nokia as a subsidiary of Microsoft.
Seriously, check out the reviews for the N9, its Meego OS and its, at the time, revolutionary swipe-based GUI. The only reason reviewers gave for not buying it was that the ecosystem was killed off before launch.
Picard?
Sometimes you can make all mistakes and still win. That's neither strenght nor capability, that's Kathleen Kennedy´s whole life.
IGN Japan put it best: "It's a story about right and wrong told by people who think they're always right"
Based
DAMN
Welcome to Western ‘woke’ culture, my Asian friends!
Good one!
Amazing line
For me, The Last of Us was a story about finding a way to save the human race, but by the end of your journey, you realize there's nothing left to save. In the end, Joel must choose between preserving his humanity or simply preserving human existence, making the point the latter isn't worth saving without the former.
How did everyone forget the evidence you find in the hospital that confirms they have done this to several others and had no viable results? Drinker doesn't even bring that up either.
@@thedreamer6930 It was removed in the remake so from a story perspective that piece of lore is not canon anymore. I personally think this was the right decision to make as it changes things from Joel was 100% right and Ellie would had died for nothing to a more ambiguous and complex problem. It also shows that the game developers from the first game cared a lot more compared to the sequel.
"what is the point of saving humanity if we lose ours in the process?"
@@thedreamer6930 I've never heard that before, and I've played through the game an embarrassingly high number of times. I can't find proof of it though.
no bro revenge bad bro
Honestly, the fire flies really gave Joel every reason to turn on them. They attacked him twice both when he was saving Ellie’s life and secondly, when he was trying to get out of the bed, they also asked Marlene to just kill Joel while he was sleeping. This meant that they were never going to give him his supplies or his reward for delivering Ellie and while he was being marched out by that fire fly, he never got the opportunity to grab his backpack, which had a supplies and weapons in it, implying heavily than the best case scenario, he was being robbed, and sent out into the world without anything to protect himself, and worst case he was being marched out somewhere to be killed quietly they also never woke Ellie up from her near death experience meaning that they never asked for her consent in the situation, and even if they did would a 14-year-old kid who has gone under a years worth of stress and pain and loss really be able to consent properly to having her life taken away for the greater good
That's a really good point. In retrospect it makes his decision to kill Marleen that much more sad. It seems like she was the only one who really sympathized with him and gave him a chance. You get to see what makes her a charismatic trustworthy leader in the midst of a paranoid desperate militia, and how they disband without her.
@@MCcadet04 To add to this, tlou2 shows the doctor is a vet so likely even less chance he could pull off a cure.
Not to mention the cure wouldn't necessarily have done that much. All it would really do is replace the need for masks and only until the fungus mutates to be immune to the cure. Even in the magical scenario it ended the infection globally somehow, things wont just go back to how they were 2 decades prior, infected were not even the most significant threat in the game for a reason.
@@Sam-vp3pw Very true, plus we don't even have a single working fungal vaccine today, in 2023. The likelihood of some unqualified dude with no materials, no equipment and no staff would be able to produce a fungal vaccine is laughable to begin with, and even more so after we find the recordings that more or less confirm they'd already tried. Ellie would've died for nothing.
@@MCcadet04 the greater good usual comes from evil people lol plus was never a guarantee of a vaccine
@@MCcadet04 THE GREATER GOOD!
He did save the world in the first game. Ellie was his world.
*Cries uncontrollably.
A world without Ellie is a world not worth living in. Then that world decides to off him with a golf club.. sigh....
@@dm3402 just makes you think the huge difference in quality the writting team had between the first and second one. So much so that TLOU became a Netflix teen drama and just bringing the point of "I think the writing was bad" causes an endless civil war between people who loved it and people who disliked it.
OK that hurt
@@dm3402 yeah its almost like he's a killer in a world of killers
@@joaquincasascortes624 why would they make the last of us part 2 a TV show before the first? Do you hear yourself? Should they start the Uncharted movies with uncharted 4?
Ellie: wakes up in the back of a moving car in nothing but a medical gown.
Joel, covered in bloodspatter and reeking of gunpowder: "Oh, yeah, they've totally given up on making a vaccine. They said they don't even need you."
Ellie: "Yeeaaaah. . . ."
He wasn't even prepared to lie lol
I mean it's pretty clear from the ending of the first game that Ellie knows he's lying, but she accepts the lie because she begins to come to the realization that ultimately, it doesn't matter. She has a chance at life with Joel and the other survivors, which is what matters more
@@kimmeeb and the sequel ruin it
@@kimmeeb I think it''s more that she realizes the fireflies never told her that they were going to kill her to try and make a cure.
Ellie: Wakes up in the back of a moving car in nothing bud a medical gown.
"Hey you, you're finally awake."
His only mistake was to save Abby's life.
A mistake Ellie SHOULD have corrected, permanently.
Nah all Ellie needed was a flashback of seeing Joel playing a guitar to calm her down... after losing her fingers and loved ones.
Oh and Abby getting away because she couldn’t make up own mind.
@@RogueFox2185 dumb writing
@A Light Skin With Taste See, it's not even impossible to do a story about the danger of revenge. God of War, Red Dead Redemption and Afro Samurai are good examples. The thing is, we don't even get any Fucking revenge.
john fkng marston finshed the job like man
So as kratos
So as cap price
Ellie is coward and... Many things
The sad thing is that the first game and the DLC show Ellie probably would have consented to the surgery for all the WRONG reasons. Marlene knew her mother and acted as a surrogate guardian, she felt intense survivor's guilt over Riley, she asks Joel something akin to "I need my immunity to mean something" after Sam and Henry die, all the deaths (Rileh, Tess, Sam, Henry) impact her and she is almost killed (and worse) by David. She was too young, too naive and traumatised to make a decision.
What? "Ellie would have consented to the surgery, for all the wrong reasons, like having empathy for her friends" is a wild take to have. "She was too young to make a decision" is a hilarious excuse for Joel's actions. Why did Joel get to make the decision for her and not the fireflies then? If Joel actually cared about what Ellie wanted, he wouldn't of immediately lied to her about what happened.
@@danielshepard1449 The Fireflies were a dangerous incompetent militia that butchered every immune person they had their hands on before. They knocked out Joel (understandable due to the situation but still not gonna win any points with him), denied him the weapons he was promised for the long trek to return Ellie, prevented him from seeing Ellie and marched him out at gunpoint to presumably kill him. The dilemma at the end fails when you realise there was no way the cure would both happen and be distributed by these chuckleheads. Joel was justified.
@@danielshepard1449 No. I believe ellie would agree to save the world, but at that time she would have agreed for the wrong reasons. Feeling guilty about Riley and all of deaths in her life It's not "caring about her friends" It's survivor's guilt and this is not okay. Even in Tlou2 she says to Joel her life would have had any value like she doesn't see the importance of her life +just reinforces the Idea that she would sacrifice herself for the wrong perspective. It's the same thing asking to a suicidal If they wanna sacrifice themselves for someone, of course they would. This is not trying to justify Joel's actions (even If I totally understand him) but It's just facts. It's not about age, but she wasn't in her right mind to make this decision and she have never been, honestly.
@@princeali4157 ur spreadin misinformation here, the fireflies never met other immune people you silly little acorn, that recording you find in the first game reveals the tried to experiment on INFECTED people, not IMMUNE like ellie, ellie is the only person we know of that is immune.
@@danielshepard1449 you seriously think trusting the fucking fireflys would be the right move?
At least with Joel he actually loves her, and did what he did to save her no matter how bad it was.
And you think the right decisions was to have a fucking CHILD sacrifice their life in ATTEMPT to make a cure that was said to NOT be garrenteed to work at all, for the sake of (again, try)saving the world that is beyond saving?
Yeah you have fucked up logic buddy.
The Last of Us was truly a great game, too bad they didn't make a sequel.
I heard somebody got enough money to make their fanfiction into a game and called it the sequel. How they weren't struck for copyright infringement I'll never know.
Idk man, sequels don't always live up to the original. I think we're just fine with out a sequel.
@@onyxrose4349 me either. They must have robbed a bunch of people to get that money
True
I think there's a golfing simulator out there that might spur some memories...
The truest and greatest line ever spoken by Picard, or anyone in Star Trek. "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life."
There was a really great episode where they found a bunch of rich people frozen in space . "We live to better ourselves". I based my life on that .
@@peacefulscrimp5183 I remember that episode. I remember the businessman they saved, who they treated as a monster the whole time, saving them because he understood the mindset they were dealing with. I remember him coming off as the more reasonable one, in that he didn't understand Picard and company, but he didn't take them to task over it. At the end, Picard was shown to have the maturity to realize he'd been the one acting the fool, though it didn't change his convictions. I really like the writing done there, and miss that quality of storytelling in media.
I actually added this to my collection of good quotes. I really like this one, because it's simply an undeniable truth.
The moral of the story is "revenge bad" even though Ellie genocides everyone. EXCEPT the girl (lol) who murdered Joel.
Even worse is that aside from Abby and Lev, nobody gets a semi-happy ending either.
Thanks Neil for subverting our expectations and making us hate you more than we could with Rian Johnson.
Whoops! At least the game makes you hate playing it, right?
Prolly cuz she left her the two "most useful" fingers
Break the cycle of violence, that's the growth
That's not the moral for fuck sake is not a children's book
She killed everyone in self defense, the game clearly showed that
We all forget that for all their talk about "the greater good" and "what Ellie would want," the Fireflies never actually asked Ellie what she wanted to do. Whatever you think that Ellie would want is irrelevant if you don't have the spine to be honest with her.
And even if they did, it's important that she's a child. Does a child really have the mental capacity to rationally consent to such a decision?
Also the cure was not a cure. At best it would be a vaccine for those few humans who were still uninfected. And we have to believe they could produce this vaccine with old dilapidated equipment and then somehow mass produce it and some how get it to all the fractured groups of people throughout the world. It's crazy far fetched.
Even worse, why do a surgery that will kill her instead of studying the fungus that makes her immune while she's alive? Or allowing her to reproduce and see if her kids are also immune? If she's dead that's it. If the surgery didn't work she died for nothing. There are no other immune people and you lose your last hope.
And they could've done it in a way that _doesn't_ kill the golden goose.
@@hellacoorinna9995 Well that would kind of ruin the tension now wouldn't it xD
Joel:
“Hey, I saved your life!”
Ellie:
“You didn’t save my life, you ruined my death!”
(Thanks for the +3 thousand likes!
Also, Naoko is insane. Don’t provoke them, they’re clearly still a child learning about how the real world works.)
Ellie is a Krieg guardsman? Oo
@@thedragon133 The Incredibles...
Bruh,Ellie would die in vain.....
Change my mind
Joel has been outed, forced to live his life as his alter-ego and go into a government protection programme.
Seriously. :)
People who condemn Joel's choice always conveniently forget that Ellie was unconscious and couldn't consent to the surgery the fireflies were going to put her through. She had zero idea she would die if they got the cure from her, if she had said yes and Joel killed the fireflies the 2nd game would be justified in condemning him from taking away her choice, but she didn't.
Also it's so annoying how they go out of their way to make the Fireflies look like humanities only hope. They were insanely incompetent in the first game, creating a cure came off more like wishful thinking from a group of idiots then an absolute guarantee.
Yeah the cure for the fireflies seemed more like a power play they needed against fedra then anything regarding saving humanity
It's pretty heavily implied that their kill ellie cure had almost no chance of working anyway
Like I said above.. a doctor doesn’t kill a healthy patient even though he could save 6 people with the organs.. this is similar individualism vs collectivism
@@ettoreozzy9932 immagine them saying they had a cure(or at least something that makes them immune) that would make everything tip in their favor. It does not even need to be true.
but wouldn’t that in of itself be ambiguity and raise question to discuss.
are the fireflies skilled/organised enough to distribute a cure. would they distribute a cure. would the use it for a power play. would getting the cure be successful. would it even work.
all of that is ambiguity and another factor to consider when determining what you would do and what kind of man Joel is.
Joel: you cant make a vaccine for a fungus ellie!
Ellie: Oh, ok then
everyone happy in the end
I mean you really can't. An infectious fungus would be more like a parasite, than a virus, and your immune system would be totally useless against it. What you'd need to do is actually *make* a virus, that kills the fungus in your body.
@@EvanOfTheDarkness What if it's not so much Ellie that is immune but it's her fungus that is mutated. She is infected but has no symptoms. They collect her mutated fungus and infecting yourself with it means you can also never turn into a clicker. To me that makes more sense than trying to make a vaccine for a fungus out of someone's natural genetic immunity to the symptoms of the fungus. She's not really immune after all if she's infected.
@@chamoo232 Yes, and I think the game implies that this is indeed the case. Still, it's not a vaccine, vaccination works by teaching the immune system. And you would only need a vial of her blood to extract the mutated fungus anyway, so they are quacks anyway, and Joel should look for someone with *actual* medical knowledge.
@@EvanOfTheDarkness The writers twisted logic a bit for the sake of story and gameplay. The whole cure for a fungus is not the worst of it. Why is there still running cars 20 years later when gasoline starts to degrade after three to six months?
@@chamoo232 I guess they're diesel? Zombie games always have some logical pitfalls.
For example fungus spores go literally everywhere, that's why you get mold when something spoils. In that city anyone would be infected in mere seconds, just from the spores in the air.
A VERY important note about this situation is that there no guarantee that killing Ellie would’ve actually yielded a cure. They simply were going through a trial and error process
But when you point that out, you’re either “praising the villain” or people flat out denying the evidence in game that shows the cure is not guaranteed and Ellie could die for nothing
There is never going to be a guarantee for anything, but from what the game gave us, all the doctors and information we are given says that it's very likely they could of made a cure from Ellie's brain sample. Saying "well there is no guarantee!" is something fans say to cope with Joel's decision and try to find an easy way out of the moral dilemma between sacrificing Ellie and saving humanity from extinction.
@@danielshepard1449 Humanity cannot be saved in the Last of Us scenario. Even when we hypothesize the best-case scenario where the cure somehow destroys the zombies as well, that will not stop humans from still killing each other and the peaceful world before the outbreak will never come back.
@@legionreaver LOL wtf
@@imlivingunderyourbed7845This is some real comic book villain Thanos type logic. "Humanity cannot be saved, so we will just let millions of people die and doom them to extinction without a vaccine."
Wow, posted 9seconds ago.
TLoU2 is nothing less than extremely cheap attempted emotional manipulation.
Yeah
JJ Abrams: *hold my beer*
There were a lot of ways joel previous actions could have caught up with him
Firefly jobbers though just no they were effectively dead to rights
Just like the latest Star Wars trilogy.
The dogs part of the game is pathetic.
You literally play fetch multiple times with Abby side. And you kill dogs multiple times with Ellie side. LOL
*Revenge is bad.* BUT, killing hundreds of people on your way to get your revenge is absolutely acceptable. As long as you don't get your revenge.
*credit rolls*
Not the message
@Egg Not the INTENDED message.
Of course, as white heterosexual males who made games over the past few decades have found out what you intentions were are irrelevant. Whats relevant is only what a bunch of agitated people can read into THINK your intentions were.
Lol exactly. Dumb as hell this game.
yeah let's just cut out all the gameplay
its how we do it when we let our emotions control us, but in the end when ellie saw abby all fucked up, she had some sort of empathy towards her, ellie stopped hunting for abby for a while til she cant sleep because of it, she met abby once again all fucked up, maybe its about "karma is a bitch" not "revenge is a fool's game"
If druckmann left this series alone everyone would still think he's a brilliant writer. Now everyone knows he was just piggybacking on Bruce Straley's and Amy Hennig's work
Druckmann was the sole writer for TLOU. Not making excuses for the guy but get your facts right. There's nothing wrong with his skill. Hes quite talented. But unfortunately he allows social politics to imprint on his work too often. But Part 2s biggest problem was that the game was in essence a generic revenge plot. It just felt so uninspired when you think about all the amazing things he could've done with the world he built and instead settled for less.
He may have been sole writer, but was still hold back by Straley. Druck wanted to make TLOU 1 about revenge, but he wasn't allowed. When Bruce was out, he went all in and lost
@@thomaslombard8058 It was shit. Plain and simple.
I'm willing to believe that Neil Druckmann can be both a talented writer, and yet also capable of writing contrived garbage--He wouldn't be the first such.
I think the main issue with TLOU2 is that a fundamentally simple yet deeply moving story about a man and his surrogate daughter was hijacked and driven off the rails to focus on an unlikable character nobody cares about, at the direct expense of one who they were deeply invested in.
The strong undercurrent of divisive politics was only the cherry on top, but served as an excellent smokescreen for the actual character and story issues once the criticism began.
So, he had people keeping him in check. It's a bit like George Lucas. Only, in Lucas' case, when he ended up putting out stories so many people found unsatisfactory, he never lashed out at the fans or tried to shut down their ability to speak.
I don’t think anyone with a child could ever question Joel for a second regarding his choice with Ellie.
As a father myself, he did what any father would in my opinion.
Wasn’t his child though
@@123ShadowMario Aren’t you a funny little smartass.
Got some more good anecdotes, even though you got the point for sure?
@@123ShadowMario Not a biological child, but adopted children exist, and they are no less than biological children.
100%. An obvious choice for a dad.
The problem I have with Joel is not that he saves her, it is why. The game makes it clear that Joel has done horrible, perhaps monstrous things to survive. Tommy talks about having nightmares about what Joel did and made him do to survive. I find it hard to believe that killing or allowing kids to be killed was beneath him. Ellie becomes a surrogate for his actual daughter, Sarah, who dies in the prologue. While I believe he loves Ellie, and genuinely wants to protect her, it is also pretty clear that Ellie would have been willing to sacrifice herself for a cure. She almost says as much before they get to the fireflies. Joel's ultimate motive is selfish. He wants to protect Ellie who he sees as a replacement for his daughter that he could not save even though he is pretty sure she would consent. Joel is also clearly a bloodthirsty person. This is made apparent from the information about his past and what he has done. The most clever way this is shown is in the scene you actually rescue Ellie. It is not necessary to kill the doctors. The game will allow you to jus take her. Most players kill the doctors because at this point in the game, anyone who is not an ally is presented as an enemy to be killed, perfectly displaying Joel's mindset AND the basic flaw in it.
"Played college golf, you know. Could have gone if I hadn't transitioned"
Senator Abby Armstrong
"You can't hurt me, Joel!"
ROFL
I'M FUCKING INVINCIBLE
God I love Senator Armstrong. He is unironically the best.
Nano-tranmachines, old man! They harden in response to revenge and golf clubs!
Why won't anyone ask the *important* questions, damnit!? What is Elly's sexual orientation?
I think I remember hearing somewhere that she was initially intended to be either bisexual or pansexual, but they just ended up making her fully lesbian in the second game for some reason.
Blergh
@@carterholcomb1072 Of course they did.
She was lesbian in the first one too. If you played the dlc from the first game, you'd see it establishes that.
Filthy Frank can tell a better story then this.
Best quote I‘ve heard was “tlou2 is like a fan fiction written by somebody who utterly hated the first game“
Neil Druckman is drinking your tears.
@not kevin ouchhh that hurt me good lol. Cry me a river.
@not kevin real question is you? This game def got you in your feelings since daddy Joel got clubbed.
@not kevin using the same boring insult. Ik you can do better.
@@everettenjeze6276 both of you need to go take a shower and go outside
I love the whole “Joel doomed the rest of humanity” thing. Yeah, look at what happened when Joel needed humanity the most in his life. It took a daughter from him, so he’ll be damned if he’ll let it happen again.
people also assume the development of the vaccine would have undoubtedly been successful. imagine it only worked for some, or not at all? id certainly have my doubts about such a monumental task turning out successful in a post apocalyptic world.
Joel 'dooming humanity' is literally contradicted by Part 2, because Jackson and even the WLF were thriving despite there not being a cure. There was no indication whatsoever that the world was doomed. Only a faction war that made very little sense anyway.
@@TukenNuken Wdym? Humanity is doomed. There’s an ever evolving fungus that’s easily able to enter humans and kill them in minutes. Billions of people have died from the virus and all governments have fallen. The only thing left are organizations with thousands of people. There are RUclips channels with more people following them than people who exist in these groups
@@Dashinvader At it's lowest point in hunter-gatherer times human population dropped to somewhere between 1000 - 10000 and still managed to repopulate the earth in very harsh conditions with very primitive technology, so population size and lack of government is not an issue. We also have no reason to believe the population is that low, there could easily be millions of people still alive in North America alone. The fact that Jackson and WLF has not only survived 25 years into the apocalypse but grew considerably, as well as the fact they find their lives easy enough to go to war with other factions or dedicate incredibly valuable resources for revenge quests clearly show they aren't particularly pressed by the infected.
The only true existential risk is the fungus mutating to infect other animals (which could have been an amazing sequel).
Also, part of the point is that even if humanity was doomed, it would not be Joel's fault, but the Fireflies', whose incompetence and lack of ethics caused that entire situation.
I liked this comment because your profile pic is Hell on Earth.
Joel: *saves Ellie’s life but killing a doctor in the meanwhile*
Abby: So anyway I started golfing
Joel: kill a doctor
Abby: so you chose golf
Not a doctor, an attempted child murderer. There is no question that Joel was right.
Honestly, I expected to hate abby but she turned out to be my favourite character in the second game.
@@keithdeegan462 she had the most interesting story. Also, she grew the most.
@@strict5797 if the first game started from her point of view you'd probably hate Joel for what he did, I was a big fan of Joel but I got where abby was coming from
Lying to Ellie was wrong. Not that it really matters because she knew it was a lie anyway despite what Neil Druckmann's disaster retcon says.
You could tell she knew in the First game....
You Always Could tell
@@baohweeb6935 It's in the way she says okay. During the entire game every time Joel tried to lie to her she saw right through it.
@@baohweeb6935 she knew he was lying about something. But it's difficult to prove if she suspected in the firefly deaths.
@@NobleRenegade7 probably did
But Neil didn't retcon it though. It was evident in the first scene (guitar scene) in TLOU 2 when they were back in Jackson that Ellie and Joel had an awkward rift because Ellie always knew that Joel was lying to her.
Stargate SG1 loves to have “ethical dilemma” episodes as well. They didn’t always hit the mark but it was a sincere effort at higher-minded concepts that elevated the show above others and let it transcend its budget sets and Canadian forest planets. I appreciate that more given the current woke wasteland that is Hollywood.
I loved that show. I had a big crush on Samantha Carter.
"Canadian forest planets" XD I can only think of a handful of episodes that tried this and failed to give both sides a fair shot, but I would agree that SG1 and SG A both did this pretty well.
And then SG:U threw that all away for contrived conflict and drama so that they could be BSG.
But in seriousness, Stargate was an expert of making opponents that are powerful enough to be threatening but vulnerable enough to be defeated. The Goa'uld were vastly more powerful than SGC, but they were a feudal system ruled by paranoid megalomaniacs constantly backstabbing each other (especially with the power vacuum left with the death of Ra)
Someone mentioned Stargate! I click like!
Stargate was pseudo intellectual A-Team shlock in space. B tier at best.
I'm no doctor or scientist or prospective MENSA applicant but I'm pretty sure scanning and observing the affected brain tissue while the host is still living would yield better results in determining exactly what's going on as opposed to ya know digging out a chunk of brain from whom could potentially be the only immune human on the planet, having a good stare at it and coming to the conclusion of "yep! that's not normal! just as I suspected!" which was pretty much the extent of the Fireflies plans.
They didn't know what they were doing and there's a pretty good chance Ellie isn't the only one who's immune.
Its just that in the world of The Last Of Us folks die more often from gunshots; self inflicted or otherwise.
Joel made the right call.
Abbys Dad has to be given a lot of slack to assume he even knew what he was doing at all. It was a shot in the dark, and the truth is if the guy promised a 1% chance of saving humanity in exchange for her, the Fireflies would have been totally OK with that. They'd sacrificed so much it was small potatoes to kill one little girl. I'm sure a lot of 'the many' would also agree, great odds to save the world.
Putting aside that 1% is generous. That a freezer could fail and the work could be ruined. That 'the few' have every right to resist being killed. Just because you're the majority or believe you act in their interests doesn't mean people won't fight back. It's not evil to defend yourself and those you love. What Joel did wasn't evil. He didn't do it for himself.
Correct me if I'm wrong, because this is something few people ever bring up, but Ellie wasn't the 1st person to be Immune, and they actually killed several people trying to Make a cure, so there was no guarantee sacrificing Ellie would even work in the 1st place.
That actually puts Joel's actions in a more positive light.
He Always was right
Yes in the first game you can find audio logs in the hospital from doctor's that say that they have killed many people like Ellie but every time it ended with nothing the where desperate so that is why they wanted to cut out Ellie's brain.
I honestly never found that audio log
And it's tiny micro details like this people overlooked in the game that would've painted a clearer picture.
I never found those audio logs either. Only the ones where the leader is fucking desperate. Maybe I have to replay it.
What TLOU fails to hammer home to the player in any meaningful way is that the Fireflies are terrorist, as if the game somehow forgot that part of the lore. Hypothetically if they were able to derive some form of cure to the fungus then they would have just used it for their own means under the guise of self righteousness, that they think they're the saviors of mankind.
But what the game also shows, almost ironically, and what TLOU2 definitely pretends never happened, was that the Fireflies were NOT a well put together organization. They constantly fight with what's left of the military and constantly lose people and resources, turning to private individuals to get them to run missions for them; ie Joel and Tess. They also can't seem to maintain any sort of base for an extended period of time, either being taken out by infected, raiders, or their own incompetence; the base at the college mid game where one of the doctors released a whole group of infected monkeys from their cages and got bit himself, nice job genius.
Then the fact that Marliene told Joel that she had lost half her people just trying to make it across the country; HALF! I don't know what kind of operation these people think they're running, but everything in the game is telling us that the Fireflies in no way shape or form are competent enough to survive this world, let alone save it. Which brings us to the ending contrivance of apparently the one doctor man in the whole end of the world who can apparently find the cure to save all of mankind, and his first action is the kill the only immune subject they know about? No test? No blood work? Nothing? Just straight to cutting her brain open to just look at it? Real geniuses working for the Fireflies.
In conclusion, Joel did nothing wrong, not only for being a father choosing to save the life of his daughter, but because the game ironically justifies his actions in almost every way possible by the end sequence by showing that the Fireflies, the "saviours" of mankind, have absolutely no idea what the hell they are doing, and were probably gonna get themselves killed off in a month or two anyway. Oh not to mention that they didn't even pay Joel for his work and were going to walk him out of the hospital at gunpoint without his equipment, without his payment, and without his daughter; yeah no, fuck that noise.
And they were going to kill Joel while dissecting Ellie anyway, like a wounded dog being taken out behind the shed.
Absolutely correct. They wind up dead at every turn in the first game and now they are somehow competent enough to cure mankind?
The Fireflies were nothing more than a well-armed cult who believed a particular human sacrifice would save the world. When that didn't work they just would have found some other little girl to kill. Seriously, they come off like a barbaric tribe that must kill a virgin girl every so often to appease their gods.
They also forgot that the government or military still existed, we know from the first game that they are still working and have resources
yeah I'mma be honest if their security is bad enough that their entire main base can be exterminated by a guy they already disarmed who single-handedly overcomes all of their troops through a series of hallways... I'm kinda thinking their chances of surviving long enough to distribute their anti-fungus vaccine (???????) are slim at best.
"Ellie is gay by the way"...gay like happy, happy to be saved by Joel.
Good one!
Underrated comment
Finally, the right definition.
It was so obvious from the first game!
It was ambiguous enough in the first game and then revealed in the dlc for the first game... so yea
People seem to forget that the fireflies never asked if they could take Ellie’s life for the hope of a cure. They essentially kidnapped her and were going to murder her, but we gloss over that fact to proclaim Joel was the bad guy.
When the leaks came out I generally thought Joel’s death scene was like a joke or dream sequence the fact that anyone green lit that scene is actually disturbing
When Uncharted 4 was still in development, fans thought that ND will kill off Drake in his final game. But devs said in some interview that there was no such plan and they think that killing off main character is just cheap and it's very lazy manipulation of players emotions.
But now the tables have turned somehow.
@@GonzoInside I honestly think that because Bruce Straley left after uncharted 4 there was nobody to keep druckmann in check so he went full blown woketard with last of us 2.
Denial isnt just a river in Egypt.
i fucking loved the over layed subtitles of the doctor in the first game when Joel is coming up to him.
"Get back! I have a daughter, she works out and plays golf!"
@@charliegoldrick2442 i agree.
What Last of Us 2? Are we talking about some fan fiction? The Last of Us had a perfect ambiguous ending that made the player reflect and think about the moral ramifications of the Fireflies and Joel’s actions. Only a complete moron would try to ruin that ending with a sequel that makes the whole game a boring black and white conflict that vilifies one character.
Making a Last of us 2 (or even the dlc) was like Naughty Dog hitting on 17 in blackjack.
Preach👏👏👏
Yeah but majority of people somehow someway convinced themselves that everything was going to be fine for the second game and that Joel's actions weren't going to completely get him killed. Once again one point out these people are slow minded and have no idea how the real world would work because Joe as soon as he got out of that fucking fireflies hospital was a dead motherfuker. There was no saving him there was no nothing that no one ever could have done he was dead from that moment plane simple. You people need to realize this
Unfortunately it happened in the most ME TOO movement way by making the scared child the butch lead 🤦🏻
A complete moron who wants more money😄
As far as I'm concerned last of us 2 doesn't exist and it never happened. Joel and ellie went to live with Tommy and lived happily ever after
TLOU suffers from sequelitis syndrome: making a sequel for no reason other than for it to exist. Some stories just actively prohibit sequels, especially stories heavy on theme and/or with all plot lines and character arcs neatly resolved. What more was there to say by making a sequel to TLOU that wasn't said in the first game? Other than, perhaps, finding a cure to the infestation that doesn't involve murdering a child, which itself would undermine the moral dilemma and character conflict that comprised the entire basis of the story.
Sometimes, writers and fans just need to learn when to leave well enough alone. So you enjoyed something. Great! But you're not necessarily going to enjoy it once more just because you do it again with a different coat of paint next time, and it might even end up undermining what you loved about it in the first place.
They could just expand "the cure of the virus" theme. None of that was expanded in part 2
Honestly, I think that if they kept using it, they should’ve made it an anthology. Just a series of stories about the people surviving and trying to claw a life for themselves out of the world.
@@StupidAnon-gn8ih I just look at a lot of sequels and recognize a few things about all of them, even the good ones:
1.) They repeat the plot or basic premise of the first film with no variation whatsoever. (The Mummy sequels)
2.) They *try* to do a different story from before but since themes have already been addressed and character arcs have already played out, the writers struggle to find a premise that works (Kingsmen 2, TLOU2, Blade Runner 2)
3.) They do basically the same thing over and over again, only they change the situation, the context, the premise, the thematic framing, and maybe add a new villain every time. (Die Hard movies, almost any action movie).
What people really want is to have more of our beloved characters and fascinating worlds shown to us. The problem writers have is finding an excuse to.
A good story tends to start with a clear vision. Everything about the story, from the characters to the world to the themes and even the music, stems from that vision. Which is why characters and events can often seem so out of place in sequels, to the point that characters no longer even resemble themselves (John McClain, Luke Skywalker), and events contradict to the point of breaking continuity. They're literally characters in search of their story, in a story in search of a point.
@@StupidAnon-gn8ih I think a good example of a series where most of the sequels improve and build on the previous games, was the Legacy of Kain series. The main thing about that series that everyone loves and remembers is the story. It's why games with weaker stories or no real story of their own, like Blood Omen 2 and that one battle royal game, Nosgoth are not looked back on favourably and are at best tolerated. Though those games have a running narrative, a strong story that ties them all together, unlike TLOU which ended where it should have, with some ambiguity. There was no reason the sequel even had to include Joel and Ellie again, this is an extinction level apocalypse, there's literally a whole planet of survivors to work with. They could have made a spinoff game, something like Dishonored: Death of the Outsider i.e, canon but not the next mainline game. Hell they could have introduced Abby that way, setting up for a better TLOU2 =/.
Just putting this here as an added note. I met Troy Baker (Joel's VA) and he, as Joel, said, "I'd do it all over again." Honesly made me tear up. I don't care that it's just a story because "in the end, we're all stories."
He’s just the voice. He did a phenomenal job voicing Joel. The writers on the other hand, not so much with part 2.
@@co7769 your loss
@JadedJester doesn’t sound like I’m the one who has to cope. You’re welcome to explain how they act out of character.
@@user-jt1js5mr3f and the loss of MILLIONS OF OTHERS including myself. I'm not a fan of being lied to in trailers and watching my favorite character to be made into a weak dumbass in the prolonged and then have the pleasure of spending 10 hours playing as someone I want to see impaled. Big F for neil
@@robogreek3157 age nerfs us all. Get over it.
The Last of Us was a fucking masterpiece, almost brought me to tears on some occasions. There is no "Last of Us Part 2", only a mockery.
Yes, there is. Cry more, bitch.
Is it really that bad? I just finished the first game and I really liked the story/characters, but the gameplay was sometimes painful. I find it hard to believe the second game is that much different on the writing side. It's done by the same people, or not?
@@faktickyneviem it's not made by the exact same people the main writer behind the first didn't work on the second.
@@faktickyneviem Should look up the development of the game, was a shit show.
bro last of us 2 is my favorite game, i think its so much better than part 1
“Ellie’s *GAY* by the way.”
-Naughtydog
There are two types of people in this world. Gay people and people who haven't met J.K. Rowland
Well, they did pretty much reveal that in the DLC before part 2 came out, to be fair. That was their plan all along. And honestly, Dina had 1000% more personality than Ellie so I didn't mind her. Don't get me wrong, though, part 2 was an abortion.
It's ELLIOT. 😉
“Ellie’s GAY by the way. You BIGOT "
- Naughtydog
fixT for you.
Gay the WHOLE TIME too. Don't forget that. Yeah gay all along.
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die." - Roy Batty
When he looks at Deckard struggling to stay alive, yells kinship and saves him. That moment when he feels empathy for the person who's been hunting him still kills me. More human than human indeed.
My favourite Batty boy!
Very long; Did read. Enjoyed very much.
@@MrHarrystank The book was pretty good, but I do prefer the movie.
I love how Joel lies in the end. And she knows, or seems to, but she accepts it. Love is a fickle and ambitious concept. Hopefully everyone finds their own love!
Being willing to sacrifice the entirety of humanity for your baby girl is the definition of being a father.
Hell Yeah!
It is not like other people would let you choose anyway
It seems like the cure wouldn't be a sure thing not to mention there's no infrastructure to deliver and manufacture such a cure. Joel made the best choice given the options. Also i can't imagine any adult willing to put a child in harms way like that.
Asura appreciates this comment
#DaughtersLivesMatter
The Fireflies were portrayed as complete assholes in the first game. Joel's whole mission was to travel across the country and deliver Ellie to them on a silver platter.
What he gets when he arrives is he gets knocked upside the head unconscious while defenseless and trying to save Ellie's life, Ellie gets forcefully taken from him, Joel get told he isn't allowed to talk to her or say goodbye, and gets escorted out via gunpoint without even getting a payment of some sort. Nobody tried talking to Ellie either to see what her final thoughts or words were, they drugged her while she was still unconscious and prepared her immediately for the surgery.
The Fireflies were hyped up to be this special group trying to save humanity, but the way they treated Joel proved they were just assholes like all the other groups he encountered though his journey.
In Part 2 they wanted to portray Joel as this evil monster that screwed humanity, and it was just awfully done.
IMO Joel was actually justified in what he did.
Exactly!!! All clues point to these guys being batsh*t crazy and killing anybody they suspect of being immune, there’s audio evidence that the surgeries aren’t successful and wouldn’t work. They’re just desperate people grabbing at straws to justify their actions. Like everybody else!
Completely agree and to further your point were they just gonna hand everyone the cure or would they use it to control the people? Does anyone else realize they could basically enslave anyone who wants the cure?
@@luisfuentes3846 There's not audio evidence, that's false, but fireflies wanted more power to be the leaders I guess; having the cure on their side would have made them the most important group
Well said man. Did these idiots who defend 2 not actually play 1 lol? What choice did Joel or Ellie have?
Go ahead and take away my kid or my surrogate kid and tell me we're killing them for a "possible" cure and you can't say goodbye.
Fuck off. I would have been right next to Joel shotgun in hand mowing fuckers down
@@zerot480 You can find audios in the first hospital in Salt Lake city stating that the surgerys failed lol
Joel... a big, badass, calculated, brutal Texan. Taken down by someone on too much HRT
And that was freaking dumb to trust on a stranger
@@baohweeb6935 something Joel would not have done
Or just ate a lot of steak
@@lukebailey3662 exactly
@@baohweeb6935 EXACTLY
I always stuck with what Marlene herself said to Joel in the hospital, “COULD produce a vaccine.” I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m not going let go of someone I love over a slim chance of an outcome. Vaccines are never guaranteed to even work.
I can’t imagine losing everything and everyone I’ve come to know and love. Joel developed this feeling for Ellie that he hasn’t felt in 2 decades and he is absolutely not going to let anyone take it from him again.
Albeit, selfish in its own aspect; Joel is completely justified for his actions. I wish they would’ve made Ellie realize why Joel did what he did but instead they made her resent him and painted him to be a bad person outright.
Fungal vaccines are also currently impossible to create, imagine trying to do so 20 years after the catastrophic collapse of society.
@@jacklang3314 They already killed many other immune children and failed. Not to mention who said they'd share a cure if they had one.
@@viktoriyaserebryakov2755 Yeah, I did remember that.
Vaccines don’t work on Fungus, plus if everyone’s infected it’s not gonna do shit, plus Ellie has a different strain of Cordyceps so her immunity means nothing to anyone else, Joel made the morally correct decision.
Vaccines work very well.
What's wrong with the story is that it is dealing with fungi, not viruses. Anti fungals would work very well in a fungi outbreak. It acts nothing like a virus.
What Joel did was a callout of lack of knowledge. Either way, he made the right choice. Ellie was young and unconscious.
"Ellie's gay by the way" - LMFAO!!!!
Best thing coming from tlou2 haha
She already was in the TLOU1 DLC.
*bUt HOw eLSe wOuLD PeoPlE KNow WiTHout reMinDing ThAT iN EvERy SCeNe?*
It's that kind of pushed narrative, that makes me think that the LGBT lobby needs to be pissed off, by having such a pushed narrative and an insufferable Avatar of it absolutely brutalised or killed in a homophobic action that they provoked.
@@Haterator Except she wasn't. She was a thirteen year old girl whose fifteen year old friend forced a kiss on her. That was it. It was a pandering attempt, had people not applauded it they would have dropped it, especially since the game ITSELF, which takes place later, directly contradicts her being fully gay.
Why, Joel did chose to save the world. It's just that his world was Ellie.
A true parent's answer
@@dedf15 exactly. Anyone with kids likely understands Joel did the only just thing. Sacrificing Ellie would have undermined his entire humanity.
Based.
Yeah, he was a selfish POS. Joel is a bad human being, should've considered how much positive impact her sacrifice would've had. He took that from her. "His world" is far less important than the future of humanity. The dumb girl ended up being the worst kind of sub-human in the sequel, too.
@@FFFan3445 Why sacrifice the life of someone you love for an empty future? It’s the apocalypse, fuck everyone else.
“Nope you are nitpicking and homophobic, I win bye bye”
-Neil Druckmann
Its like writing a good story at Neil Druckmann's house.
Ironically the man who came up with that meme liked TLOU2
@@wyattshoemaker7018 who came up with that meme
@@benjaminlrd9599 VideogameDunkey
Just Neil?
One thing that not a lot of people realize is that if Joel actually sacrificed Ellie, the Fireflies would most likely create like a dictatorship of some kind, and they alone ruled the world, which would cause insanely catastrophic problems, becuase the Fireflies are unstable af. If anything, Joel actually did humanity a favor.
Not to mention a vaccine isn't going to cure a fungal infection, it's the equivalent of using water stream from a fire hose to stop a tank.
So in addition to being incredibly unstable, they're also really retarded.
Well if they managed to get the cure - they're too incompetent to keep it secret and secured. Everyone would've had it probably
Wow yep never rlly realized this
Knowing Joel, he would've considered helping the fireflies take Ellie in the proposal if he knew the fireflies were genuinely good people. There is a reason that Tommy left.
You act like the fireflies could have actually developed a cure, rather than pointlessly butcher a child.
“All the fake awards in the world doesn’t make up for the fact that no one liked your fucking game Neil...” Quote of the century.
And it's actually wrong. Plenty of people liked it and it sold like hot cakes. He was obviously joking.
@@faktickyneviem not joking, he has talked about it a lot before and it was all in a serious tone.
Last of us 2 turned what was before an HBO flagship show into a Netflix teen drama. People like such shows but it doesn't mean they are of high quality. Additionally, the downgrade in quality also angered most of the og fan base to the point there is a civil war in the fandom whenever someone opens a discussion about the storyline in the franchise.
@@faktickyneviem
People who liked the 1st bought the 2nd.
And were disappointed because it's crap.
Even those who knew the 2nd was shit bought it, to "end the saga".
The same way those who know the Star Wars 7, 8, and 9 movies are shit watched them anyway.
It is a phenomenon well known in psychology and exploited in marketing.
No you’re wrong. IGN liked it...
bro last of us 2 is my favorite game, i think its so much better than part 1
Abby is just as compelling as Bryce Walker from 13 Reasons “starting a conversation” Why
Abby wasn’t a bully rapist, she was a girl who lost her dad and was consumed by revenge. It could happen to any of us. Hell, it almost happened to Ellie.
@@kylemajerczyk8160 Quiet simp
@@kylemajerczyk8160 But both characters have the writers pretend that they're deserving of sympathy despite all the bad things that they did
TLOU2 was just more consistent about it (badly written) while 13RW just flipped the switch when they're about to write Bryce's death (inconsistent bad writing on the other extreme)
@@kylemajerczyk8160 Ellie was consumed by revenge it’s only at the very end drunk man decided to subvert expectations giving Ellie the bleakest of ending and Abby an effective get out of jail free card
@@kylemajerczyk8160 I mean, yeah. But do remember that they, ND, made it seem as if Joel was a mass murdering monster, who killed her father for nothing, and rather then killing him quickly or even with some sort of dignity, especially after he saved her life, she proceeded to kill him in front of Ellie in the most brutal way possible, and in the cruelest way possible, while then having ND proceed to make her out as if she was some sort of paragon. Face it, the hypocrisy and disrespect of a fan favorite character is what people really had a problem with. Not to mentioned the false advertising.
Joel and Ellie are still together surviving in Jackson, TLOU: Part 2 is a Elseworlds story of what would have happened if Joel had gotten sloppy and didn’t exterminate everyone in the Firefly base.
Agreed. This is the way.
EXACTLY!
Absolutely.
The fireflies did have quite a bit of firepower and Joel wanted to save Ellie was his top priority so I can understand why joel didn’t kill everyone my problem is how did Abby survive the collapse of the fireflies and a few decades of the apocalypse with minimum training
Part 2 is an alternative timeline where everyone is an idiot, the black doctor in the dirty operation room changed to a white doctor in a clean operation room confirms it.
If you have kids, it's simple... you protect them (at all costs). The end of TLOU was Joel's character arc PEAK. He suffered UNBEARABLE loss in the beginning, came across Elle, and with time found someone to "father." He found purpose. There was ZERO guarantee for a cure, and like I said... MOST parents out there would say what Joel said, "FIND SOMEONE ELSE." No, Joel did nothing wrong. Should he have told Elle right after? Why? Why give her that guilt and possible resentment. Shes alive.
Joel didn't just lie to ellie though, he took her choice away from her as surely as the Fireflies did. The Fireflies wanted to sacrifice her, Joel wanted her to live, neither asked Ellie what she wanted to do. She went under thinking she was going to save the world all by herself, and she very well could have. But by the time she was awake, her foster father had just murdered a village's worth of people AND what the story frames constantly as the last, best hope for humanity and he just tells her "eh, on second thought, you were never gonna save the world. Actually, you and people like you are a dime a dozen, so I just took you and left."
Joel is a great character, its a wonderful gutwrenching scene. As you said, it is peak Joel. But let's not pretend that Joel was being a good person or father. Pushing Ellie out of the way of a moving car is heroic and selfless. Doing what he did is not, and the game goes to great lengths to tell you that.
@@jolt187 How could Joel have taken away her choice if she was already unconscious by the time the idea of killing her was even mentioned?
@@basilcook4280 There is certainly a world where he rescues her without murdering the entire hospital and at *least* the room of unarmed doctors, who were the only people able to perform the procedure. So when he domed him while he begged for his life, that’s how he took Ellie’s choice.
@@jolt187hank god everyone forgot about this shit show so media with good fucking writing can take center stage unfortunately I can’t believe I’m gonna have to watch all this garbage transpire in TV
@@basilcook4280 Killing Marlene, killing the doctors, not telling her (so she could go back by her own) made his choices selfish and taking away her choice. His decisions are understandable, but ultimately selfish.
Also, even then, the story is not only about the choices, but about the consequences as well.
Even if you agree with his choice given the circumstances (as I do), you have to accept that other people will have their say about his actions, most importantly Ellie. Being lied to have it's consequences on trust, and there's a process to make sense of the complexity of Joel's decision when Ellie finds out. We discover that she was willing to work it out with him, and that is the greatest gut wrenching discovery at the end of the second part.
I always thought that deep down, Ellie was happy that Joel saved her life at the end of the game. Which made part 2 worse for me.
The only thing TLOU2 succeeded at was making me hate the characters.
She had severe survivor's guilt. She wanted the choice to end her life, hope it had meaning. Joel took that from us. That's why the final decision is so emotional
@@alecross5255 except now she know that her life has meaning - for Joel she is more important that every other human alive. If anything it would make her fall for him and be happy with herself, though some guilt would surely be there too (until she births like 3rd immune child).
@@dimas3829 except she literally doesn’t. At no point does she acknowledge that she basically helped restore Joel’s humanity. And no point does she acknowledge that’s she was important to him in anyway.
@@frenchfriedbagel7035 you missed it then. She is quite playful about him taking the role of a loving parent in the first game. She teases Joel to no end. She wouldn't do it if she didn't care.
"The needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few" is largely taken out of context. Spock chose for himself to sacrifice himself to save others. Thats different then sacrificing an unwilling individual to save others.
The other people the fireflies murdered didn't yield a cure so why would carving up Ellie yield any different results? There is a recording in the first game that shows the Fireflies did dissect other people like Ellie and... nothing. It didn't yield a cure or treatment or anything.
unwilling or too young to consent..
No it's very much in context, Spock by in large was a logical person so it was more a clearly mathematical choice for him, one life verses many, whether you choose to sacrifice yourself for the greater good or someone else for the greater good it still comes down to the math, the "question" is the morality in that choice.
@Jin Sakai cordyceps is harmless to humans because he never evolved to hijack more complex brain structures but that doesn't mean he can't evolve to do that and how cause a pandemic you just need to look how COVID spread happened
@@forgivemenot1 it was still his choice and thats the important aspect thats what makes it heroic ie morale.
What if Joel didn't stop Abbey's Father?
Abbey's Father: *removes Ellie's brain and heart and all kinds of shit* "Alright, I'm done. Now I can go back home to my daughter, Abbey."
Joel: "..."
Oof ;(
LMFAO
4 years later:
Abbey's Father: "Damnit! We still haven't found a cure! I've deceived and put people to sleep, then murdered them while they were under, and then removed their brains and other vital organs...hundreds...maybe even thousands...coming here thinking we were going to find a cure...and we are nowhere, I mean absolutely nowhere near finding a cure at all! Should I have like...taken blood samples or something instead of doing all that other stuff?"
Jerry was literally trying to save humanity. Jfc you people are literally impotent crybabies.
@@XxBlumannxX And? Abby didn't give a shit about that, she wanted revenge for her dad. It was personal for her, just as it was personal for Joel to save Ellie. Whatever Abby's father was attempting, Abby doesn't get to claim that as her moral high-ground, because she had nothing to do with it, and didn't care about it.
That's what's being pointed out here.
I don't think it's ambiguous at all when you think about what the Fireflies are doing, or rather what they aren't doing. Why is fatal brain surgery step 1? They have no reason to assume that they need her brain removed. There should be about a thousand tests, experiments, and exploratory surgeries before resorting to a 1 and done last resort. The Fireflies were simply too incompetent to be trusted with this task.
Exactly
Praising this game for being "bold" is just as stupid as praising the Last Jedi for the same thing
Bold and brash? More like *BELONGS IN THE TRASH*
In Wokespeak, “bold” is shorthand for not giving a damn about the consequences of your actions. It’s a classic example of claiming that a moral failing is actually a virtue. “Oh, did I ruin your franchise, turn your heroic characters into pathetic losers, and cost you billions of dollars? That’s too bad, but I was being BOLD, and that’s what’s important, right?”
I hate how they keep saying it going against people's expectations was a good thing. Like that's a neutral thing, can be good can be bad. In the case of Last of Us Part 2 and Last Jedi it was very very bad.
The first game was the bold one and Druckmans look when the sequel swept the video games awards makes me think he might feel a bit of shame for how they shat on the original (probably not He may have no shame)
Kinda like Drinker said in his Midsommar review, having "themes" isn't enough to justify being a boring or confusing mess
I suppose while some might argue the ending was ambiguous and Joel's actions debatable, I never saw the ending as open-ended or have any doubts towards its resolution. There is not hints but direct statements and actions for what transpired. This is going to be a long one so buckle in. Also...spoilers.
While we first hear of the Fireflies in the intro video, after the initial sequence, they come across as freedom fighters. However, our first genuine encounter is a terrorist-like attack on a checkpoint. This immediately draws negative parallels to real-life terrorist organizations. From meeting Marlene on to escaping the city with Ellie, we already see they are a desperate group fighting a losing war, far from a capable and organized force.
In exploring Philadelphia, you can learn that many cities went South like Philly after Firefly support. Uprisings started but then the Fireflies could do nothing to keep cities from falling to chaos and were rejected. Again, even among fellow fighters, they lose support and are not capable of "freeing" anyone.
Fast forward to the campus. Again the Fireflies have been forced out and we learn of more of their failures in the scientist's recordings. He rants how ineffective they are and incapable of performing the research needed. This is only proven further in his own incompetency to release an infected monkey, leading to his own demise. Failures and foolishness continue to plague this group.
Now we come to the ending. Our protagonists have arrived barely alive to the Fireflies. Despite posing no threat and begging for help, he is knocked unconscious by FF guards. He awakes to learn several key points. They are going to attempt to create a vaccine from Ellie. It will require her to be killed and is being performed without her consent. Joel, under threat of death, is forced to leave without his gear or the promised compensation.
Let's tackle this. First, a fungal infection is not going to be effectively treated by a vaccine, which is for viral infections, but more often than not some type of drug.
Next, creating any type of treatment from Ellie's immunity would really be about blood samples and her antibodies, not carving up her brain. Killing the only known immune individual is mad-science. There own incompetence is further highlighted in recordings that show their failures in previous subjects yet they still rush to off the only known immune person.
All of this would be done without Ellie's consent. Some said Ellie was ok with dying for the greater good and I refuse to acknowledge any sequel to this game. This opinion is not true. During the campus gameplay, you can hear dialogue of Ellie sharing she believes it all to be simple tests and blood work and further sharing her own fear of needles. She also talks to Joel after the giraffes about a future with him. These are the not the words of anyone with a death wish. Her own notable survivor's guilt didn't demonstrate a desire to die and have purpose but rather she wanted to have her immunity be worth the losses along the way. Simply, the Fireflies were going to murder a girl who very much wished to live.
Finally we get to Joel. The Fireflies, already demonstrating their incompetence and misguidedness, proved themselves to be evil. After everything he did, they essentially are murdering Joel. Breaking their initial promise of giving him his payment, they march him into the wild and don't even return his survival gear, ensuring his death. He is to be killed by bullet or by infected but its clear that they are making sure he will die.
Being told his adoptive daughter is being murdered, which he even calls Marlene out as being full of it, and having his life threatened, Joel fights back and goes to save Ellie. At this point, I can't believe anyone could call this ambiguous. It's self-defense and a rescue of a murder attempt. All those he kills threatened his life. The only optional deaths (beyond stealthing the guards) are the two nurses in the surgery room. Let's not forget the doctor takes initiative and threatens Joel with a scalpel. Even Marlene had a gun on Joel at the elevator (and was responsible for having him marched to his death earlier). Again, I can't see anyone believe his actions are anything but self-defense and rescuing a loved one. There is no vaccine and the Fireflies are terrorists. This is very much demonstrated in-game.
Last, we get to the ending. The lie. Was their ambiguity? Again, I say no. I don't think that was the point of the ending. Joel lied to spare Ellie. He had reached a point of truly loving someone again and would protect her. He had grown and now had a future. Ellie accepted the lie to accept Joel. She knew it was a lie but was questioning if it mattered or not. Ultimately, she recognized her own growth in making the hard decisions and accepted him and now had a future. The ending is resolved and we know these once lonely and family-less people now had found what they were looking for.
At this point, there was no need for a sequel. The only path for a sequel with these two characters was to betray this ending. The far better path would be to have made The Last of Us an anthology series that could focus on larger world-building and tell new stories. The much despised Abby story could have made for a better standalone story about finding commonality with your enemy. It could have just been about Abby and the Scars and worked far better than dragging the first game into it. This could have led to the franchise being a platform for new stories, new gameplay, and allow for a deeper experience overall. Too late now.
Why does this not have more likes? This was done beautifully.
True words 🙌
I don't think players were exclaiming on the spot with "wait. You don't treat fungal infections with vaccines!"
The surgeon's recorder transcript doesn't even say the word "vaccine". It's just that words like "treatment" and "cure" and "vaccine" are ubiquitous in meaning - which is the potential reversal of a disease or condition.
And I really don't think players were taking note of the Firefly's laboratory incompetencies to ultimately come to the conclusion that they just wanted to straight up murder a girl with absolute zero (debatably) altruistic motives.
Joel still missed his daughter. He saved Ellie for selfish reasons. That's all there really is to it.
@@MrCerebellum2 lol, so now, there are good and bad reasons to save people :°D. What a wonderful world.
There's also reason why Marlene is forcing her hand, unlike the sequel told by Jerry.
Fireflies is feeling dissident against Marlene as you have quoted, for incredible incompetence in leading the fireflies and they are ready to kill Marlene few days away until Joel and Ellie have arrived in Salt Lake's quarantine zone.
So what you’re telling me is the first game was written by a group of people that knew how to tell a story.
And the second game was written by a talentless hack that can’t handle being told he’s a talentless hack.
That is a simp that wanted to impress Anita Sarkeesian
@@mateoreyes6921 No, thats a good question actually
That is a weak straw man argument. Fortunately, reality has you covered. There are numerous sources that detail the development of the game and even the corporate coming and going in Naughty Dog. Druckmann conceived the idea but it went through several changes guided by far more mature writers and developers at ND. One of his initial ideas was "Mankind", a game where only women get infected and the protagonist protects the one immune girl. It took several women approaching Druckmann over how problematic it was to have a game of a man running around and shooting women. While Druckmann was a creative director on the game, Bruce Straley was the the game director and it's been noted by themselves they weren't always in agreement about direction, with Bruce making the ultimate calls.
Post game, things became more apparent that Naughty Dog had drama behind the scenes. Certain individuals were leaving and it was noted that development crunch was becoming more present. Finally, after Uncharted 4, Bruce had enough and left. Druckmann would move up and have near complete creative control over the game.
Let it be known, I find the story to be rubbish of the 2nd game. The simplicity and brevity of the first game are replaced by near Metal Gear Solid length cutscenes and retcon elements of the first game to make it fit with a convoluted narrative with poor pacing and amateurish screenwriting. It draws amazing parallels to George Lucas and the development of Star Wars. Lucas had many strong storytelling qualities but from even the first film, he was challenged on several ideas he thought were critical. There were numerous subplots he was pushing (like Luke's social life on Tatooine and friendship with Biggs) that bogged the film down and other creative decisions the actors were not in favor of. It would be the editor and even Lucas's first wife, who reworked the movie to be what it was. With many considering Empire to be one of the best, we can see some notable differences. Lucas didn't direct or even write it. He was influential on the story beats but otherwise was a producer. Compare this to the often criticized Prequel Trilogy. All Lucas. Directed and written by, for better or for worse. This was no longer a man collaborating but rather moving unrestricted and it led to several points of criticism. This is where we find Druckmann in the sequel. Its all on him.
Talentless hack? No. Actually very talented. But, he has shown both in product and approach that he should not be the one helming the ship and I'm afraid ND will suffer for it. His juvenile responses online demonstrate considerable arrogance and his ham-fisted dialogue and story in the sequel show he really needs someone over him to funnel his creativity. That's not a bad thing but until that happens, I believe we will get more Last of Us Pt 2 type games filling Walmart shelves months after release.
@@strangerofthisworld intelligent take 👌
@@strangerofthisworld A straw-man argument??? Really??? If you honestly believe that, then you need to get your facts straight, buddy~
First off, as of right now, Neil Druckmann has lead 2 great modern gaming franchises into ruin, which were Uncharted & The Last of Us.
Furthermore, he has openly-admitted to being an SJW due to his personal gaming beliefs at the 2013 Toronto IGDA, which means that he has been trying to insert SJW propaganda into the games that he been apart of THE WHOLE TIME that he has been working at Naughty Dog.
Here are some examples of his effort:
- Ellie magically becoming gay in The Last of Us: Left Behind and The Last of Us 2 despite not being gay AT ALL in The Last of Us 1.
- Nadine from Uncharted 4 magically had the ability to completely dominate Nathan Drake in every fight that they had with each other, even though Nathan is physical stronger than her and Nathan has more fighting experience than Nadine does.
Then Neil has openly admitted to copyright-striking numerous people on RUclips, with the help of Sony Entertainment, just because these people wanted to criticize The Last of Us 2's story-line.
And lastly, Neil Druckmann's creative-ability is a farcry from that of George Lucas' creative-ability; they are not even comparable within that skill-set.
Star Wars Legends, which used to be called the Star Wars Expanded Universe, is multiple times more genuine than Neil Druckmann's story-lines.
George Lucas allowed for ALL of the Legends stories to be published in different formats by many different people; these formats were video games, story-books, animated series, etc.
However, Neil Druckmann, on the other hand, couldn't even tolerate people's RUclips videos or online comments relating to their disapproval of how The Last of Us 2 was made with Abby being overly-masculine-looking and all of the retconned Last of Us 1 characters acting out of character.
Personally, I think that you are giving Neil too much credit for the success that he has received, but has not rightfully earned.
The man has story-writing talent, but he has little-to-no direction for it, much like a talented writer who can't keep their focus on the theme of a story.
Neil is too emotionally unstable, he is too arrogant to perceive proper criticize of his own work, and he is too indoctrinated by SJW beliefs.
THAT is why Neil Druckmann is considered to be a hack.
You should at least admit to this truth before we carry-on this discussion.
What a terrible fan fiction. So glad it’s not canon
it is canon dumdum
Joel did the right thing. Ultimately there is no guarantee that the cure was actually possible unless you 100 percent believe those scientists. So, since the scientists are coming at him and Ellie with hostile intent Joel has the right to defend himself.
doesnt the doctor failed many times already and lead a lot of death for this "Cure"? Yeah, i don't think it was even close to 10% when it come to successfully getting the cure
@@G1assWater also there's no such thing as a vaccine for fungi, and if it is they rarely work. Its much better to let Ellie reproduce and let anti-fungal genes pass on
Vaccines are always preventive;
Vaccines take years of test to be safely ready (we’re ignoring this lately for cονιd hysteria);
Therefore, all the infecteds would still be wandering around the world and, if everything goes right, people would be immune if bitten. But one always can be shattered by a horde, so immunity wouldn’t be relevant on this case.
The game would have to demonstrate that somehow Ellie’s death could really bring a cure. The vaccine was a terrible plot.
@@joshgroban5291 there's also no strain of cordyceps that turns humans in to zombies, if you wanna be like that.
In today's modern science and medicine there's no vaccine for fungal infection. In the game the world ends in 2013 and in 2013 they didn't have a vaccine for fungal infection either so 20 year later after civilization collapse the vaccine stlll wasn't possible. But if the fireflies wanted to try to extract a vaccine from Ellie they should have look into Ellie's antibodies and not murdering her and dissect her brain with no consent. Abby's daddy is a dumbass and the worst vaccinologist ever!
I'm gonna randomly add "Ellie's gay by the way" in all my daily conversations from now on.
It may not have been this character or this series, but there’s another video he does where he says either that or something to that effect, and says something to the effect of, “If it seems like I just threw that in there, the game (maybe show, maybe movie) more or less does also.”
I hate when people make this comment an argument. SHE WAS ALWAYS GAY
@@akumabazooka9169 Indeed. People seem to forget that point.
@@akumabazooka9169 I hate that too. The problem wasn't her sexuality or anything else about her imo. The problem that I found was that they force you to play as Abbey when clearly NOBODY wants to. They tried really hard to victimize her and make her a compelling character which only made me hate her more. I wouldn't have minded if they had made her a DLC character, you know, something optional. Instead they force feed you Abbey and all of her dumb little friends who I care even less for. I apologize for my ranting but I really hate Abbey.
@@akumabazooka9169 Er, that's the point. It's so contrived.
There's also the importance of keeping in mind the differences between cinematic storytelling and interactive storytelling.
In cinematic storytelling, we are an observer and the choices characters make are just part of the story. Interactive though, they have a different weight to them. Throughout all of TLoU 1, Joel's actions, while often harsh, are depicted as the right thing to do. Yes, he had a dark past, where he did some bad stuff, but we never are asked to partake in any of that. Because of this, when your one and only option during the climax is to control Joel as he mows down the doctors to save Ellie's life, while in the story it is depicted as morally ambiguous it also is expressed as the correct, good thing to do from a gameplay standpoint.
Fast forward to TLoU2, and we are expected to sit there and be berated the whole damn game over a choice we didn't make. To be punished for caring for a character whom the designers failed to express as being quite as cut and dry evil as I suppose they were shooting for in the first place, accidentally making a complex interesting character by mistake. Now we are tasked with doing tons of crap that nobody wants to do. Kill dogs, kill pregnant women, and let's not forget play AS the person who killed Joel on a quest to kill Ellie.
Watch any Let's Play of TLoU2 when Abby, in the control of the player, is tasked with killing Ellie in a boss fight. Without fail, everyone ignores that command and just makes Abby stand there out in the open, letting Ellie kill her.
The hours leading up to that showdown were the moments the game tried to sell the player on Abby's redeeming qualities, but in that again they failed miserably. Not in so much that Abby did something that could never be redeemed, even though she did, but in how the game goes about "redeeming" her.
Like many a strong, amazing and loved female character, Abby is simply surrounded by people who talk about how kind and awesome she is, and how much of a piece of shit Joel was and how Abby honestly went easier on him that he deserved by a long shot. Torturing someone and beating them to death in front of a loved one is actually merciful if you think about it, right? Obviously, this tell don't show storytelling does fuck all to redeem the character in a medium where the best kind of storytelling available is "don't show, do."
And yes, after all this time I still have an axe to grind. My fiancee loved TLoU 1, and did avoid the spoilers. I had to watch as she went from absolutely elated as the story opened to Joel and Ellie and guitar lessons - something she struggled with, being disabled, to absolute horror and confusion and disgust. Having nightmares, forcing herself to finish the game to see if it ever got any better. Letting Ellie kill Abby at the boss fight, and eventually saying she regretted getting it digitally, because that means she can't sell it now.
All this time, I wanted SOME kind of show of remorse from Neil. Some apology, that he was at least off the mark and didn't read the room right. Some acknowledgement that he hurt people, and not EVERYONE who disagreed with the direction of the game did so out of bigotry.
Instead, I've blocked him on Twitter because I got sick and tired of him showing up and bragging about all his fucking awards.
You are asking the wrong questions. I’m hardly as competent as the person who creates the video, but I was always surprised at the softness of the fans of Last of us 2.
The problem is, snowflakes would not have survived the post-apocalypse. They would die or become someone else.
Druckmann is not a genius, just soy-boy. It was obvious to me from the first part. Naive romanticism, a green world full of animals ... It's anything but not post-apocalypse. It's like The Hunger Games (Twilight in disguise)
Abby is not an accident, but a pattern. Druckmann never hinted that characters like her would be killed or punished in the harsh world of the post-apocalypse.
Also, the question is not which is better, cinematography or interactive, but that Abby had no right to revenge.
Firstly, she is not a successor to the affairs of her father or Cicada, but simply a mercenary.
Secondly - logically, she should have hunted Ellie, because of her Joel killed her father.
Thirdly, according to Druckmann's logic, if Abby (the daughter of the butchers from Cicada) has the right to revenge, then even the relatives of the cannibals from the first part had the right to come for Joel.
I’m really sorry your wife didn’t enjoy the game. It is way more violent and harsh than the original. But I personally never saw Joel’s choice in the first game as the “absolute correct choice.” Just because we’re playing as him, doesn’t mean everything we did as him was right. Joel was a complicated man who loved his family and friends, but couldn’t bear to lose any of them again because of what happened to Sarah. He had good attributes and bad attributes; that’s what makes him a person. It’s only natural that some people wouldn’t see him as an absolute good guy, especially the daughter of the scientist he killed so suddenly. And Abby gets called out on her own shortcomings all the time in the game. Yeah, some of her friends, like Manny, Owen, and Mel, agree killing Joel was the right thing to do because they respected Abby’s father and want revenge. But Mel also calls Abby out for sleeping with Owen even though they’re not in a relationship anymore, and Lev critiques Abby for her use of anti-Seraphite language. No one walks away from this story looking perfect, because no one person is perfect. Even if you play as them and see things from their perspective, they can still be wrong.
@@janussimonsen24, > But I personally never saw Joel’s choice in the first game as the “absolute correct choice.”
Why? The world coped without a vaccine. Ellie's immunity became irrelevant in the second part of the game. There are as many people as in the first game (or maybe more)
No offense, but Last of us 1-2 (including DLC) is naive romanticism for women and gays. This is not a post-apocalyptic world with deep and interesting characters.
Joel is a typical mercenary. Ellie is just a lesbian tomboy. Dina is just an unattractive bisexual and tart (
Although she is obviously a lesbian, the LGBT woman asked me to edit this comment, accusing me of intolerance and disrespect for bisexuals
.)
Abby is a transsexual version of Bane from The Dark Knight. Lev is just a girl who considers herself a boy and the game approves of it.
There was not a single ambiguity moment in the game. This is just a fairy tale for woke folks.
Tell me, at least in one of the Last of us games, the hero blackmailed a cannibal selling human meat in order to get some of his money? Or support the government of thugs and slavers, simply because without them, slaves will still be left without protection? Were there any actions in the game that could be associated with terrorism or war crimes? Hardly.
Then what kind of ambiguity are we talking about? Last of us 1-2 is a straightforward game for the same people. There is no deep morality.
@@ahoramazda6864 The fact that you’re simplifying and misrepresenting all the characters shows that you have no real criticism to make about the games. Joel isn’t a typical mercenary, because then people wouldn’t care so much about him. The world clearly has not coped without a vaccine, because people getting infected is still a huge issue. Refusing to engage with the characters in any meaningful way doesn’t make you a legit critic, it makes you an intolerant person who just wants the world to fit their viewpoint and not the other way around. Come back if you have some legit criticisms, and not just buzz words to make yourself feel smart.
Edit: And it’s the Fireflies, not Cicadas. Try playing the games if you’re going to talk shit about them
@@janussimonsen24, >Joel isn’t a typical mercenary, because then people wouldn’t care so much about him.
The exception only proves the rule. If Joel hadn't been a mercenary in the first place, he wouldn't have gotten into this situation with Ellie. He would simply refuse to bring the girl anywhere. Cicadas could be slavers or just perverts. And only having already become attached to Ellie, Joel began to perceive her not only as a package.
>The world clearly has not coped without a vaccine
Then why do the Seraphites exist? They are technologically the most backward group. Although in terms of survival - the best. They are the only realistic faction in the entire game. But they were made villains, not anarchists from the city where Ellie was kissing on a dance night with another lesbian.
>because people getting infected is still a huge
So what? Let me tell you a big secret - in a good post-apocalypse, the reason why the end of the world has come is not so easily corrected.
> it makes you an intolerant person who just wants the world to fit their viewpoint and not the other way around
I just want a post-apocalypse created by people who have ever been outside the office and comfort zone. Do you think these are such high requirements?
Why do the Scottish have great voices for commentary. You, count dankula, I could listen to you guys forever.
Scottish accent is horrible
The ending of the last of us was a perfectly ambiguous send off for two beloved characters.
The sequel retcons the whole game, twisting it into a different light to tell a contrived story with none of the thought or care that went into the first game.
What a waste.
They even retcon Ellie's face in the flashbacks, as well as Dr. Bruce; the surgeon whom Joel killed to save Ellie, who's suddenly turned into a white guy named "Jerry".
@@lugbzurg8987 Lmao I actually made a few videos about the stupidity in the sequel it annoyed me so much
I always thought that one of the greatest points in The Last of Us was how it handled really well humanity. Humans do good things and bad things, so it’s very hard to judge someone for one specific action without considering their background or the motivations.
But then, we get TLOU2 judging Joel harshly for saving his new “daughter” when there was no clear clue for a cure and judging Ellie harshly for trying to avenge him, while Abby is treated in a better perspective, with a possible “bright” future ahead.
Note to self: never trust anyone named Abby if a zombie apocalypse happens.
Nah just never trust anyone who looks like they take steroids in the apocalypse and you’ll be good, in fact just Snipe them from a distance just to be safe.
Well no, just dont trust someone with a female head and a male body 😂
Or when that person wants to hunt ghosts, based on a successful franchise.
i'd rather have Abby on my side then against me though.
"HI my names Abby-"
*everyone in the group empties their magazines at her*
Neil Cckman: "Remember Ellie, revenge is bad. Except for my Abby, you go girl."
That’s not at all the lesson that Abbie would have learned. Her revenge got all of her friends killed, and she lost herself in the pursuit of revenge even before that
@@mc1s238 but she only knows three of her friends are dead and even then she stops caring about manny pretty quick also she gets a new life with lev and the fireflies
It would've worked better if Ellie killed Abby only for someone to kill her in vengeance. It keeps them themes of the cycle of violence but at the same time you understand their actions.
@@cameroncaws5959 That would be so bad writing that it would've been so hilarious. make sure Dina also kills the person that kills Ellie too and have it as a circle jerk of murder boners
@@aidanaidan8662 didn’t Joel do a complete 180 like Abby did after starting to care for a child?
When I was a kid, I hated the ending. I felt robbed of the choice to save humanity. Now that I am a father, I wouldn't have it any other way.
the game is 6 years old what are you, a weird cryptid?
@@MrOneil76 it released in 2013, that was 10 years ago
@@MrOneil76 how is it worse?
"The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them." - Chekhov
Then why is it that everybody is jumping to the conclusion that the writers/developers were making a moral condemnation of Joel just because Ellie had a problem with Joel? They literally don't answer any moral questions and they're being treated as if they did.
You better listen to Chekhov, he's got a gun
@@Mcat_XX Nice.
"What are stories but mystery boxes?" - JJ Abrams
You don't have to answer every question, but you should have an intended answer.
@@Mcat_XX I mean Chekhov was a fantastic writer with a methodology, but I think the reason he's being evoked here isn't because his quote applies but because he's an authoritative voice people won't question. Just like Orwell when he advocated using as few words as possible, or simple words in place of complex words, Chekhov didn't follow this rule all the time either. Using old quotes in place of a real argument is a pet peeve of mine.
A society that forgets how to tell stories is doomed.
It didn't forget
You just didn't like it and instead of moving on like a normal human you guys keep kicking a dead horse and treating it like a conspiracy or an evil thing
We're being oppressed by powers in high places. Free Speech is the true freedom fighters.
@@shorewall and how is TLoU 2 tied to that ? How is anything we are talking about have to do to what you are talking about ?
@@plaguedoctorjamespainshe6009 dude, what the hell are you on about?
@@jude8943 Lol, you don’t like the story of one game, so now it’s time to make an overly dramatic statement about S O C I E T Y. We’re truly living in one, smh.
Joel does not find out at the climax of the story ( 3:03 ), the story is about him knowing about Ellie’s immunity the whole time, but growing to rethink his values once he finds out her life would most likely be lost just like number of others whose immunity was “studied” prior to Ellie.
For those who didn't quite catch it,
"Ellie's gay, by the way."
Thanks 😊 must have missed that.
Bill and Ted: “No way!”
Thanks for the chuckle
WHAT? No way! I demand proof!!!!
Still couldn't quite catch it. CI know others didn't as well. Could you please repeat it again? Or maybe put in on a loop?
Imagine when your ideology is more important than writing a good story and making a good game
Don't have to imagine. I see 40 copies of it collecting dust at Walmart every time I go to their game section.
there's this character in attack on titan - Gabi
@@creatorsfreedom6734 what about her
@@billybayaraa the stuff she spout's is the same as the ideology of neil drukkman
@@creatorsfreedom6734 doesn't mean the series condones it, does it?
"I swear."
"OK."
One of my favorite endings, not just in gaming, but in all of fiction. The juxtaposition of the simplicity of the interaction and the complexity of everything behind the action is just incredible. ANYTHING which resolved the ambiguity was ALWAYS going to lessen it.
Yeah, that was so powerful, how you can tell that she CHOOSES to believe his lie, for his sake. She was the one who told him that if he wasn't around she would not be more safe, she would only be more scared. She had to overcome him trying to get rid of her, so she more than anyone could understand him not wanting to lose her. Because she was already there. She didn't want to lose him.
Even though she said she was waiting to die, Joel said that you find things to live for. I'm sure he wanted to die when his daughter did. But he chose to live, even if it meant bad things. And by accepting Joel's lie at the end, Ellie shows that she has begun to understand. She was willing to die, but because Joel needs her to live, she will live for him. And that's beautiful.
some people enjoy ruining things for others, not everyone is on the same page, people will have conflicting views and interest, what one person finds good another person will despise.
They could've made The Last of Us an anthology series focusing on the stories of a new group of survivors in every game.
Instead we got a Joel in One.
totally agree
I groaned when I heard that a sequel was being made, for the reasons you give. As time went on I almost came round to the idea (think I was just won over by the idea of playing more Last of Us rather than story points), but then the leaks came, the game dropped, and although I refuse to ever play that sequel I feel like just KNOWING what happens spoils the first game for me. I adored the first one and now I doubt I'll ever play it again.
He was a man put in an impossible situation. I remember the feeling of beating the game the first time: I had won, and I got what I wanted, but there was an empty feeling of all the desolation I'd caused in achieving it. It was a pyrrhic victory, but Ellie was there with me, and that was all that mattered.
Tell that to the millions you let die
Joel *debatably* MIGHT have done something wrong in the original. Part II FAILED to explore that in any meaningful way.
Wait, there was a part two?
@@somerandolad Nope. There never was. There's a horribly written fan-made game, but nothing official.
@@praisethesun1172 oh that's good then, the original game had a decent enough ending as is honestly so a sequel would feel a little forced
Part 2? There is no Part 2 in Ba Sing Sai.
The Earth King has invited you to Lake Laogai
@@lgnd2k3 it never needed a actual sequel.
There’s something about the ending to the first last of us game that I honestly feel like nobody mentions. I fully believe the fireflies were always going to kill Joel. Marlene knows how much Joel loves and cares about Ellie and there is no way she would just let him go and not expect him to come back. Notice how hostile the guards are towards him, I really think that if Joel kept following the guard. The guard would have killed him.
they were attempting to march him out without his supplies notice the guard walks him past all his stuff. if they werent gonna shoot him they were gonna leave him defenceless to the clickers
That's complete BS, players are making up things that are not in the game to cope with Joel's decision. There is no reason to kill Joel, as far as they know, he's just a smuggler they hired to do a job. During the flashbacks to the hospital in the 2nd game, no one indicates they are going to kill Joel, and Marlene even says they are letting him go. They obviously aren't going to give him his guns and weapons until he leaves...and why would guards for a mercenary organization not be "mean"?
@@danielshepard1449 Ahh. A young one. You sound green my friend. I hope I share your optimism in life's perspective.
@@septacular7 LMFAO
@@danielshepard1449 ngl i had that same reaction my boy, this dude acting like he master oogway or sum shit ong
My favorite part about the TLOU2 is the part where the infected don't actually exist unless the plot needs them to push the characters along. Not a single person in the entire game talks about them even once, and none of the factions in the game even care about them. I don't know how "Joel doomed humanity" when the threat to humanity isn't even an issue apprently.
it's almost like humanity is really good at killing things and a infection like that would burn itself out and it was a temporary problem that can't be sustained as an ongoing plot
My two favorite parts is the fact that I didn't waste my money buying it and I didn't waste my time playing it. Other than that, the game sucks.
Oh my god this is a super good point honestly haha brownie points for you man
@@michaelkeha well, if it was scientifically correct in the first part, then the only surviving people would be always wearing masks outside of their few isolated bunkers cause you know - fungus spores are everywhere in the air and land and even beyond it in the cosmos they can survive for many years.
@@jimdavis1566 so you’re talking about a game you didn’t play. That makes sense.
Druckman took such a heaping shit on Joel. I'm still not over it.
Me either
You do know Troy baker doesn't even like Joel
@@SICPARVISMAGNA3018 I could care less, still was shitty writing and even shittier execution how he was killed. Made no sense in terms of consistency of character
I love this quote from a commentator
“The last of us 2 is story about right and wrong made by people who think they’re always right”
A fitting quote.
A fitting quote.
A fitting quote.
A fitting quote.
A fitting quote.
I like how the sjws that always talk about empathy refuse to understand Joel's situation and are completely apathetic
If the genders were flipped and Joel was a woman and Abbie was a man, you'd see them immediately support Joel. These people are so basic and predictable
Wait, I thought Abby was a man!
@@doublebrewski1855 shhhhhhhhhh
Oh if Joel was a female he would have been applauded for being stunning and brave lol
@@doublebrewski1855 ITS MA’AM!
@@doublebrewski1855 I'm genuinely surprised they went of their way to show that she's a woman. They didn't even try to make her ambiguous like I expected
Oh that Joel. I forgot completely that that woke game still existed.
Its better that way, imagine its not real
@@moustafaayhamzakri9609 Envision*
it was never real
@@moustafaayhamzakri9609
I am doing just that. The same applies to the SW sequel trilogy which after force awakens I never came near to again.
I force myself to forget the existence of the sequel along with disney star wars trilogy.
1:33 its comments like this that keep me coming back to this channel. CD thanks for the laughs!
Huge Jackman would have given complete justice to Joel character. But nah..... HBO I hate you.
Edit : You people are missing my point. Hugh Jackman would have perfected the Joel and after he dies people will realise how they massacred our man in game.
Sadly... this character is now as wrecked as old man Luke. It wouldn’t work for Hugh anymore. Yes, he was a perfect candidate before the second game wrecked him. Let the woke work on this garbage fire now.
Show ends with his skull getting caved in, would you want Jackman in the position of being beaten to death by Gigantor with a golf club?
@@someguyshere6968 Big McLargehuge.
Or Nikolaj Coster Waldau.
Yeah I hate to break it to you.
Neil druckman is involved.
The series will be shit anyway.
I say if Pedro Pascel isn’t gonna stand up for Gina carano, then he can have Joel.
And be hated for it.
Part of me likes hbo because they are giving me something I’ve wanted for a long time.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League.
But I won’t deny I struggle with giving them money.
Seems they spend a lot of it on woke garbage that goes against my values.
On the other hand I have been wanting this movie for four years.
And it is a way of giving a director who was wronged, a just resolution to his vision. (Hopefully more)
Also I’ve seen lots of movies made by people who probably despise me because of my political views.
One could argue giving Hollywood any money is immoral.
Or maybe it isn’t.
Maybe I’m not responsible for what people do with the money I pay them.
Even if I know what they are gonna use it for.
Or maybe I am.
Ellie's life is worth millions to Joel, a worthy tradeoff in his mind.
Only because his daughter got killed. If she hadn’t he wouldn’t have thought twice about saving her.
@@dagdabelenus6654 rainbows are only possible after a great storm. (Or maybe a little mist. But you get the point.)
@@adameins5622 huh? My point was we knew she was gay from the first game. So his remarking about being a lesbian (repeatedly) was kind of redundant as it wasn’t new in the second game. We knew, it’s not like we were blindsided by social justice virtue signalling. I mean I suppose you needed to play the dlc but you know, that probably required playing the first game (which I’m beginning to doubt he did). If anything, the ambiguity of Joel’s actions are mirrored by Abby and ended in a way that makes people realise that revenge is kind of pointless. Saying that, I bet Joel would have took a golf club to the head of the people who shot his daughter too.
Idk if you've seen the Game theory video but there is no cure because the cortiseps infection is a fungus and funguses can't be vaccinated against so ye
@@Glue.Man. I'm pretty sure the plan was to cultivate the non-invasive fungus inside Ellie's brain and use the spores to provide others with that variant of the infection, providing "immunity" in the same way Ellie has it,with "vaccination" being a sort of catch-all term. Whether or not that's possible or would even need Ellie to die is debatable, but we're already stretching the science to breaking point from the word go so why not?
Here's a key fact everyone seems to overlook. Ellie didn't know that the fireflies were going to kill her. While at the university Ellie outright asks joel if he thinks getting the cure from her will hurt and Joel responded by saying he thinks they'll just have to draw some blood. Ellie didn't correct him because she didn't know better! Marline never told her the truth! So when Ellie was incapacitated and Marline asserts to joel that Ellie would want to die and threatens joels life when he questioned her, Joel had all the justification in the world to think that she was killing Ellie against her wishes and engage papa wolf mode.
If he did anything wrong it was not stating as such.
Just because she was curious about what they would do to her doesn't mean that she wouldn't have been alright with dying for the vaccine. That's a non-sequitur. Anyone in her shoes would wonder what exactly making the cure would require. Knowing Ellie's mindset in the first game, I actually think that she would have been completely okay with sacrificing her life if it meant making a vaccine.
@@siddharthraykar9476 her at the beginning would have been alright with it, because she was full of hope for the world, but by the time she'd seen the world, and what it did to men like Joel, I doubt it, particularly with the knowledge that they would kill her without her consent, which would strike her a lot like the man who tried to rpe her only a few months beforehand
@@calebbarnhouse496 On the contrary, I think she would have agreed to go through with it precisely because of what happened to her. What both Joel and Ellie had to do in order to make it to Salt Lake City. In Ellie's own words, 'it can't be for nothing.' Keep in mind that she says this on literally the same day that the firefly episode happened. In her mind, all of the things that they went through had to have been for something: their suffering and the suffering they imparted upon others through their journey had to serve some kind of a purpose. So no, I don't think Ellie would have refused to go through with it if she had been asked. She may have been uncomfortable with it like anyone would, but she would have agreed nonetheless.
Joel knows this, of course. It's why he lies to her in the end. Why on Earth would Joel lie, and risk jeopardizing their relationship forever, if he honestly thought that she would have refused had she been asked? No, he lies because he knows that Ellie wanted her immunity to mean something, and because of him, it never will.
@@siddharthraykar9476 counterpoint. Then she'd lose joel, the most important person she'd known. I think she'd say no saying goodbye to joel.
And btw, the fireflies would've failed. This is an operation with no former subjects, they had NOBODY to test to see if this is really possible. But the 'brightest mind' of the fireflies give it a go? Yeah, that' clear that they have no idea but are just going with it, because "it's for the greater good". And also, their 'best equipment' is something that have been left for years without care. I doubt if they'd even function right.
@@oh4835 Whether or not the operation would've actually succeeded is irrelevant. For the record, I am in full agreement with you on that front - there is no way in hell that it would've actually achieved anything, for a plethora of scientific and technical reasons. But what is important here is not if the operation would've been successful, but if Joel thought it would be, and if Ellie would think so too. Clearly, Joel thought it would be, as nowhere in his conversations with either Marlene or Ellie (in TLOU2) about the operation does he ever question the efficacy of the surgery. He only ever questions the ethics of the situation.
I strongly suspect that Ellie wouldn't be very skeptical either: this is a girl who likely doesn't have much of a scientific education (while she went to military boarding school, she left at 13), and who would be highly desperate for a cure. So, even if she had some doubts, she would likely go through with it anyway. As a result, if she believed the cure would work, I don't think saying goodbye to Joel would be much of an issue. After all, in her mind, a vaccine would probably save him from possible infection and allow him to live a far more normal and safe life, along with everyone else. For someone who cares about him as much as she did, the idea of never seeing him again would be far outweighed by the possible benefits of the vaccine.
Don’t forget Tommy was mad at Ellie for not trying to get revenge for Joel after telling her to not get revenge for Joel.
Lol tommy's unexplained 180 about getting revenge at the end of the game was ridiculous.
He told her not to go to protect her. He literally left the next morning because he didn't want her to die. Then after losing the Asian dude (forgot his name) and getting shot, plus killing a pregnant woman and her friend, he still felt he didn't achieve what he set out to do. It's his fucking brother and makes perfect sense. If you applied even a modicum if thought, you'd understand besides the hurr durr I hate the most successful game of all time.
@@modifidious7171 but why send Ellie?
@@levingthedream Because he was crippled and he was, in a shitty way, playing on her trauma and bond with Joel to go get the vengeance that he couldn't. I don't know how much clearer it could possibly be.
The bigger questions are why did Maria allow Ellie and Dina to go after Tommy against his wishes despite Tommy having more years of experience than the two of them combined and the fact that Ellie is literally the most emotionally compromised person in the world to send
Also how does Ellie, with a broken arm and punched in face, Dina, who is shot by an arrow with an incapacitating pregnancy and her face smashed in and Tommy, shot in the leg and head get back to Jackson alive with no horse and all their gear
One thing I hate that people do when they tried to demonize Joel and say he's the villain of the game is they stick to the cure angle.
Even though when you collect lore tidbits and research into the game, you learn the cure wasn't sure fire and in fact probably was complete BS anyway and her death would have been for nothing.
But when you bring that up to these people they get all pissy and are like "You're defending the villain" or try to deny the fact there is evidence in the game that supports this, because they think this action Joel commits damned humanity despite humanity already being quite fucked to begin with.
EDIT: Still getting replies on this.
No I don't think Joel is a hero, for the record. I just hate people who say he is an outright villain.
People saying there was no evidence, been ages since I played so fuck it, you might be right, but I don't remember. I could swear there was.
These are the same people who in real life were clapping their hands when governments were forcing gene therapy called "vaccine" and when they were locking people in home arrest without any conviction. So no I am not surprised.
as if a terrorist group getting the only cure would have ended well
Nah, I definitely think he is the hero!
You can sacrifice a life to save many, but it has to be yours and not anyone else's. It's not our call to take someone's life they have to give it.
@@water-of-life it does if you remember that only 1 of them even cares about the Fireflies any more, Abby just wants revenge for her father and the others are just there for her. considering the whole point of the story is revenge it makes sense they're just there to kill
Late 10 months+, but try scour around the fireflies base.
Find the records. It tells us that the previous tries of doing the same operation fails many times already.
With that information in hand: not only the surgery itself is not 100% surefire, even if the surgeon did succeed the cure is still not 100% guaranteed either. Gdi
To me, the story ended at the conclusion of the first. It was just perfect left there. Part two was virtue-signalling nonsense and didn't exist to me.
Exactly how I feel. Even before Part 2 was finished, I was wary when it was announced. This story ended beautifully and with good closure at the end of the first game. There didn't need to be a second.
I thought the second game would focus more on other characters with only a cameo of Joel/Ellie since their ark was finished, but then they released the trailer.
Those other characters were so safe and boring just to make sure there wasn't really anything bad to say bout em..... I'm getting tired just thinking bout the dialogue
My biggest problem with this game is that there was massive retcon that drives the whole plot of TLOU2. Ellie at no point in the first says "I want to die for humanity" in fact she was talking about what her and Joel were gonna do after this was all over. Yet in the second game Ellie is now super vocal about wanting to die for the greater good. You cannot rewrite the first game to fit the narrative of the second that isn't how sequels work.
Exactly, and you think after seeing your best friend die for lowering your guard you won't just smoke weed and have sex while on patrol duty...
The biggest mistake with Last of Us 2 was choosing to make Last of Us 2.
Whise words
There's actually more truth to this than you realize. Even Druckmann wasn't initially intending on making a sequel and gave an epilogue in a live-stage performance with the voice actors. It was, as he said, a way to say goodbye to the characters. It was essentially a proto-version of the guitar lesson scene in the sequel. Last of Us: One Night Live.
last of us 2 is a masterpiece. period. it killed of joe because elly don’t need no man and is a strong female character.
@@nepntzerZer pls sfu
>gay
>has a bad relationship with her father
Hmmm....
Should be trans in no time. Oh no.....
Well to be fair it was made pretty clear in 1 and then you were beaten over the head with it in the DLC which's name I can't remember that she was. So it's not exactly like it came out of the blue in 2.
From a strong teen to a boring average brunette flat blue print product.
@@jimmehjiimmeehh9748 The DLC only.
@@BlackCroft666 No, there's a couple of comments in the regular game hinting pretty heavily that she's lesbian.
It's not even a cure; they want to figure out how she became immune so it could also be that her death would ultimatly be pointless.
Exactly
Thats the messed up thing, they didnt even consider an alternative. They didnt wait to explain anything to Ellie, didnt wait to study her or run tests as to why she might be immune, nothing, she went straight from Joel to operating table. Also they expect me to believe the group that had to hired Joel, a 3rd party, to go get Ellie is going to come up with, manufacture, and distribute a cure?
There's also the point that murdering someone to figure out why they're immune doesn't make any sense at all. At the very least, as long as they are alive, you can keep taking blood and tissue samples, put them into a petri dish with some of the spores and test how the samples react. Immunity and immune responses work on the microscopic to molecular level. Even if their goal would have been noble, they would have been too incompetent to carry their attempt to a positive ending. Handing Ellie to them would be downright insane.
Regardless of what the doctor’s say, Joel’s decision is based explicitly on his first hand experience with how humanity is for him in the present an a bit in the past. That soldier shot at him and killed his daughter for no good reason other than to cover up a government mistake. The outbreak comes and the people are essentially ostracized and condemned to a life of servitude to the militant occupation of federal workers and officials. They forced to perform jobs that would give the average person nightmares and for scraps each day. Then he travels to take Ellie and he runs into Cannibals, murderers rapists, drug dealers and a wide variety of other terrible kinds of human beings.. all the good ones they encounter die or were already dead long before they may have discovered their bodies.. and Joel is suppose to somehow sympathize with a disease like humanity over a disease that turns people into exactly what they are Monsters in exchange for Ellie’s life? Cmon on now we all know deep down we’d choose Ellie over humanity given the circumstances humanity had its chance and it burned out.. and it continues to show why it’s irredeemable even as the last days hang over it 🤦🏾♂️
despite all the shit Ellie gave him and his lack of defending himself, Joel still held no regrets for his decision until the day he died.
I don't think he even regretted it in the moment of his death since the game doesn't allow any actual interactions between its three main characters (Joel, Ellie and Abby), thus he had no chance to realise that that was the action that yielded deadly consequences
Yeah, despite how terrible Joel was treated in that game, at least he kept a fair amount of his dignity (aside from not standing up for himself when Ellie first lashed out at him over what happened).
And getting pathetically killed like an NPC by an NPC lol
Yep. He died like a bad ass. He totally ruined it for Abby. He didn’t beg. DIDNT cry. He gave her no pity. No remorse. She got to beat him to death. But she didn’t get revenge.
@Marko Botic I think some game company decided to make a fanfic into a game?
Scroll down in the replies of this comment if you want to see a dude named James get absolutely destroyed and ratiod
I always laugh when people try to defend the Fireflies. They're horrible people.
Firefly patrol hits Joel in the face with a rifle because he’s performing CPR on Ellie instead of putting his hands up
Marlene reneges on giving Joel the guns she promised to Tess if they took Ellie to the outskirts of Boston (obviously he went way beyond the agreement) and instead try to send him out completely empty handed
Introduction to Fireflies in the game - They attack Fedra soldiers outside of a civilian crossing checkpoint
Fireflies are shown to be a mixture of obsessed and incompetent at every stop in the first game. They’ve abandoned every location Joel and Ellie go to before SLC due to personnel losses, leadership issues, or research failures. Tommy leaves them to do something actually productive, like establish a successful community next to a hydroelectric dam.
Another banger vid. Based on my interpretation of the ending of the first game, Ellie knew Joel wasn't telling the truth, but she trusted him and accepted the lie. That "Okay" speaks volumes. And then that all went in the trash in the second game. You explain it perfectly at 7:20
If someone is immune to a plague you don't immediately carve them up. I think that proves the Fireflies had NO CLUE what they were doing and carving up Ellie wouldn't yield any positive results, just like all the others they carved up (there were others before Ellie they dissected).
@LOAN NGUYEN Exactly. It was a horrible risk that failed multiple times before when they tried it on other children. There was no guarantee they could reverse engineer a vaccine by removing Ellie's brain. At the hospital level, you find an audio log that spells out that this had the potential to work, but they had been doing experiments long before this and nothing worked. Ellie could have been the cure or just a unique mutation that can't be replicated. Either way, that isn't something you should rush to surgery without further testing. Fireflies are shown to be a mixture of obsessed and incompetent at every stop in the first game. They’ve abandoned every location Joel and Ellie go to before SLC due to personnel losses, leadership issues, or research failures.
Joel killed innocent people for thier fucking shoes
@@jamesloucks2562 And he spends the entire first game making up for that. Anything else?
Yeah I hate when they say Joel doomed the world because he wouldn't let ellie be experimented on. The faction was a Rag tag bunch of idiots that were barely organized and couldn't hold any of their strongholds off from zombies or enemy groups. Even if they found the cure they'd probably get raided and killed off before they could even get the cure to someone outside of their faction
Remember also that you started the story as Joel’s daughter who dies in his arms shortly after.
Of course he’s going to do everything in his power to save Ellie.
This game didn’t need a sequel.
Agreed. I wont ever play this game
Joel lost one child. He didn't have the strength to lose another.
He did what any parent would have done.
Ellie on the other hand thought her life only had one meaning which was to die to maybe help the ones she couldn't so their death had some sort of dignity. It was a two way street. First game was built on love and the second on hatred.
Basically people who say "Joel bad" should come back and revisit their claim after they become parents. Then they will understand why Joel did what he did and also why Ellie left Dina at the farm.
@BenjaminTheRogue Well, maybe there is still hope for some of them, because I bet most are teenagers. Maybe they'll come around.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think Neil Druckmann wrote this game intentionally for teenagers.
This is the only group of people who can fall for these cheap emotional tricks he uses.
Even if Joel is bad, there is still one problem.
WHY WAS ELLIE RELEASED THE WOMAN WHO THREATENED THE PREGNANT DINA?
If Abby is capable of this, then she must be killed, if not for Dina's safety, then for the safety of other people. Or Ellie's own fingers.
@@ahoramazda6864 wow! Huge problem there!
I understand it and it's still a monstrous thing to do. Can you not separate those concepts? I can understand why a serial killer would do what he does, but that doesn't mean it's suddenly right. You get it?
Oh no I understand why he did it, but that doesn't make him any less of a bad person for doing it.