The Last of Us: Epilogue (Spoilers)

[Megalith]

I am curious as to what people thought of the ending to The Last of Us. I finally finished the game but don't think I like what I saw.

Joel essentially becomes a selfish psychopath at the end of the game. He guns down three surgeons begging for their lives during the rescue attempt, shoots Marlene in the stomach and head, and then lies to Ellie about there being others like her.

What the fuck? So the moral of the story is that everyone is selfish and will do whatever it takes to secure their own happiness, even if it means the end of mankind? Really? Worse, Ellie knows he's lying but has to go along with it.

 

[Kinsaras]

By all accounts everyone is a selfish psychopath in LoU. So much so that I believe if we became that savage mankind doesn’t deserve a cure.

It’s worth noting one of the audio dairies suggests Ellie is not the first immune and not the first to die on the operating table for little reason. He had to gun down the surgeons and Marlene or they would never leave them alone and be hunted down.

In 20 years he found a reason for living, something worth fighting for and you expect him to just let that go? It’s unclear if Ellie knows he’s lying. That’s mostly left up to interpretation.

It is in no way a happy ending but at least Joel and Ellie can live in brief happiness.

 

[next-Jin]

Like Kinsaras said, there was no sure bet that she would have been able to provide a cure. It was not something as simple as kill her, drain blood, make serum, cure man.

If I was put in the same place Joel was and it was my kids (it's reasonable to assume he loved her like one of his own) with those circumstances I'd do the same thing. Even if I knew 100% that killing my child would save mankind I wouldn't do it.

I'd sacrifice my life, but not my child's.

I do not believe you have to kill the surgeons, but Marlene had to go for damn sure.

 

[toddw]

Not sure what the OP is upset with. I mean the game had real life situations that weren't easy black and white choices. Welcome to post apocolypse?

I probably would have acted the same. Even if not, I completely understand his decisions.

Also, Ellie might think he's lying... but she does not know it, big difference.
What I think: Ellie probably needed to hear Joel say that, lie or not, for closure.

 

[Q-BZ]

This game's story and characters are some of the best I've seen in any entertainment medium for the last several years. Thankfully the gameplay is there as well. Naughty Dog really is one heck of a gaming studio.

 

[cinohpa]

Yeah. You didn't have to kill the surgeons. I killed one because he pulled a scalpel on me, then the other two made it clear they didn't want to fight so I grabbed Ellie and left. I'm sure I didn't have to kill the first one either.

I didn't really take his actions as selfish. I'm sure he had some crazy "I need to protect this girl" instincts because he started thinking of her like a daughter, but even from a third party standpoint I agree with his decisions from a moral and logical standpoint.

I agree with taking Ellie. Have you done a lot of research in any field? It's never, if I have this I will be able to prove my hypothesis (the hypothesis here that there is a cure and "this" being the crazy Ellie-dissection). It's more like, if I have this, I might make some progress towards figuring this out. Also, modern medicine is still pretty much prodding around in the dark. Even though the surgeons thought dissecting Ellie might be the key to a cure, the actual breakthrough necessary to make a cure might come from some place completely random. Maybe the fungus doesn't like oatmeal or something? The story compares finding a cure to the infection to the discovery of penicillin. They didn't discover penicillin by dissecting a bunch of sick people who recovered from (normal) infections. Some guy said, huh, penicllin is a fungus and check it out, it eats decaying stuff, check it out, it eats the disease in sick people! Killing people to take their white blood cells was never necessary.

I haven't practiced medicine, but I'm sure there is a whole literature on the ethics of medical research. I wonder what that would say about the "experiment" the surgeons wanted to conduct.

As for killing Marlene, I agree that she'd never let them go. I think losing Ellie to Joel just would have made her more hellbent on finding both of them and getting what she wants. Kind of a gut feeling there, but considering the base amount of brutality portrayed in the game, don't really feel like it is an unreasonable decision.

As for lying to Ellie, I might not have done that, but I think it was probably the best decision. Ellie is still a child. It's really obvious how a child's body grows as they become an adult but it is less obvious how the brain and psyche develop. I think if he told her the truth she would have done something stupid like try to run away back to the fireflies or kill herself or something all of which would have resulted in her death in pretty high probability. It is probably safer to tell her something she can accept and tell her the truth when she is an adult even if she hates you for it. Going under the assumption Joel sees her as a daughter, his top priority is seeing her life to adulthood and letting her have her own life. I think what he did was the right way to achieve that.

 

[SonicTron]

I feel like half of the people who post about Joel making the wrong choice / the evil choice must have skipped or missed some of the story details.

It was heavily, heavily heavily heavily implied that there were many other infected humans that developed this form of immunity, and so far none of them survived the surgery nor did the sacrifice result in any useful data or cure; to me, it seemed as though the researchers were chasing a pipe dream and they knew it, but proceeded to continue regardless.

It's implied that the fireflies top brass also knew that there were no results from repeated testing and procedures as well, but conveniently left this out when dealing with Joel and Ellie.

Joel makes the only rational and humane decision, which is to largely disarm the fireflies' function as "researchers" and escape with his and Ellie's lives, in the face of a slew of half truths and lies from people he thought he could trust.

 

[hajalie24]

I thought it was the right the thing to do. Then again I really don't believe in the whole sacrifice one to save others thing.

You never know if they will get a vaccine. Even if they do, it's the fireflies, they're dying out and losing they're little way, they're not just going to spread it out and give it to everyone, they're going to use it for power.

And also for the most part the infected aren't really much of a problem. It's mostly other humans that cause the issues.

As for the whole lying to her at the end, many believe Ellie knew what was going on, but wanted a clear conscience by hearing the words that everything Joel said was true. So in a way Joel was just telling her what she wanted to hear.