The Last Of Us: What am I missing?

ERaptor

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GoaThief said:
ERaptor said:
The only moment that felt a bit forced was the very last Firefly Joel kills (I forgot the name, if someone remembers feel free to point it out.), its just "Let me live!" and Joel seems to ponder for a moment (even tough he shot everyone else without thinking a second.) and then just shoots her anyway.
Are you talking about the doctors? If so, you don't have to kill them (as you've only watched a LP all these nuances can be lost).

Not sure it isn't a happy end, and I don't think the ending was a cliffhanger as it was changed quite late on after it was decided the most appropriate thing was the "Okay" as Ellie's voice actress had been saying it whilst in production
No, im talking about the Woman. The Exchange goes something like this if i remember correctly:

"Wait! Spare me."
*Joel waits for a moment*
"You would just come after her."
And then he shoots her. It happens in a Flashback when Joel is allready driving away.

Concerning the Docs, afaik you have to shoot the first one. Im not entirely sure tough, i know you can spare the others, but i think the Doc right in front of you after entering needs to be shot before you can progress.
 

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ERaptor said:
GoaThief said:
ERaptor said:
The only moment that felt a bit forced was the very last Firefly Joel kills (I forgot the name, if someone remembers feel free to point it out.), its just "Let me live!" and Joel seems to ponder for a moment (even tough he shot everyone else without thinking a second.) and then just shoots her anyway.
Are you talking about the doctors? If so, you don't have to kill them (as you've only watched a LP all these nuances can be lost).

Not sure it isn't a happy end, and I don't think the ending was a cliffhanger as it was changed quite late on after it was decided the most appropriate thing was the "Okay" as Ellie's voice actress had been saying it whilst in production
No, im talking about the Woman. The Exchange goes something like this if i remember correctly:

"Wait! Spare me."
*Joel waits for a moment*
"You would just come after her."
And then he shoots her. It happens in a Flashback when Joel is allready driving away.

Concerning the Docs, afaik you have to shoot the first one. Im not entirely sure tough, i know you can spare the others, but i think the Doc right in front of you after entering needs to be shot before you can progress.
You don't have to shoot him, but if you don't he attacks you with a scalpel, and you take it away from him and kill him with it in self defense.
 

nyankaty

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((I am new on this forum and I don't know how to tag spoilers yet, but PLEASE know that there may be minor spoilers in my post!! Don't read on if you don't want to be spoiled!))

I was a bit torn on this game.

On the one hand, it's undeniably beautiful to look at and listen to. The graphics are superb and the soundtrack is worth playing the entire game just to experience. The atmosphere was well rendered and well planned, though the ubiquitous oddly blocked staircases did get annoying (though it's understandable why they had to be blocked off). The acting and writing were also top notch, even though I found Ellie's voice acting rather annoying. Then again, she was playing a teenager and that alone can lend itself to annoying some people.

I appreciated how multifaceted most of the characters were, specifically Joel and Tess. Tess was the star of the game for me and I hated that she was gone so soon because I would have LOVED to have her around longer.

That said, there were a lot of weaknesses. The gameplay and fighting itself were really weak and I was actually really disappointed at how few infected you have to fight compared to how many hunters and soliders you fight. I understand the ND didn't want the infected to become something that you, as a player, got used to and no longer spooked by, but it became really annoying to have to expect a hunter around every single corner for the vast majority of the game.

Another weakness was having some of the strongest characters being around for the least amount of time. Like I mentioned, I adored Tess. She was a fabulous character and I would have loved to see more of her. David was also a fantastic character in a horrible kind of way and I would have liked to have gotten to see more of him. The game understandably focused on Joel and Ellie, but there were so many strong supporting characters that really could have made the game stronger overall.

The game is short. Extremely short. I'm not very great at video games (though I hate to admit it!), especially shooting games, but I still raced through the game in only a few hours. I'm sure it'd take a lot more strategy and time on Survival mode, but I know that would just frustrate me.

The plot is generally very predictable with only a few twists that actually shocked me.

Does the game have replay value? Yes and no.

I say it does because the music and environment are just so beautiful that I wanted to play again just to experience those a little more. There's also tons of tiny details to look around and inspect if you care to do so. The people who made the game really did lovingly pay attention to the tiniest details and the smallest nuances that give the game its soul and its sadness. This playthrough I'm in right now, I have left absolutely no stone unturned and I'm enjoying looking at it all.

I say no to replay value at the same time though because you may have already inspected everything on your first go around, and if you felt little to no connection with the story and characters the first time, then the second time will probably just be grating. The game is VERY linear and there are no other paths to go down besides the one single main path and that generally turns me away from a game.

All that said, I did love this game. The first time I played it, my heart was racing for a lot of it because I did find the storyline very intense. I loved the characters, especially how human Joel turned out since he is far from a hero or even an anti-hero. He's selfish and cold and purely self interested which makes him easy to hate and I like finding characters that I can feel strongly about. I felt intense sympathy for Ellie, love and hurt for Tess, and other ranges of emotions for other characters. I almost lost it when Joel fell at the university because that was such an intense part in the game! It managed to actually surprise me, which seldom happens. Originally I intended to never bother replaying because I knew that I would never feel as strongly about it a second time. I am playing it again to leave no stone unturned and I was right; the feeling is definitely not the same but I am really enjoying searching for all the small things the game makers put in for players to notice.

Do I think this deserves best game of the year? No, probably not. I did find it beautiful and hard to really compare to any other game, but it was very linear and I could see how it would be really unenjoyable for many players. I feel like this game hands down deserves best music, but I feel that's the only thing it would really deserve.

I did genuinely love this game, but I can agree with a lot of things posted here about its many shortcomings.
 

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The Wykydtron said:
My point was there really isn't much an excuse I would accept with the whole Ish thing, it's just overly dramatic. I just take issue with how bloody Grimdark the entire universe is, the Ish community is just a good example. Everything is fucked 100% of the time, you can't go 30 seconds without shooting someone in the face for poorly justified reasons (very apparent and disturbing with Tess in the first few hours) and to be honest the entire story of Joel bonding with Ellie is undermined by how terrible Joel is as a person. Topped off by the... polarising? ending. Fuck you, got mine indeed.

Honestly you can tell me that's the point, and I suppose you're right but I don't have to like it.

I'm just too optimistic and idealistic to accept a version of reality as fucked up as Last of Us is selling I suppose.
That's still kinda the consequence of the fabric of society breaking down though. You see it all the time in counties that overthrow their own governments. Even if the govenrment was cruel, the lack of it still plunges the country in a state of disarray. You apply that globally and it's tremendously hard to bounch back from that. And it's not like it happened overnight, it's been twenty years.

Throughout the game you see how people have tried to set up a stable community, but without the foundation of an infrastructure and the protection of law inforcement they get eaten up by the chaos sooner or later.

And the thing about Ish is that he is an extremely positive guy. He let's people in his sewer complex, because what's the point of surviving without company. And even when all has gone to hell he tells himself he has too much faith in mankind to despair. All of this works as a nice contrast for Joel.

I don't know what you were shooting at every thirty seconds though. For every gunfight there's an equal amount of just walking around.

ERaptor said:
About the only part i didnt like was the very last part of the ending. Feel free to point it out when im wrong, but they show Ellies wound looking worse and then that very last exchange where he promises he didnt lie. It absolutely _REEKS_ like a "Maybe we will do a seeequeeeel"-Cliffhanger. It soured the whole thing a bit for me.
This is where you're wrong...

Ellie's wound isn't getting worse, she's simply reminiscing about when she got bit, and how her immunity means she'll likely see others die around her like she did Riley (her friend), Tess and Sam. Ellie is terrified to end up alone, and the fact she can't get infected while everyone else can means she might very well one day.
 

ERaptor

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Casual Shinji said:
ERaptor said:
About the only part i didnt like was the very last part of the ending. Feel free to point it out when im wrong, but they show Ellies wound looking worse and then that very last exchange where he promises he didnt lie. It absolutely _REEKS_ like a "Maybe we will do a seeequeeeel"-Cliffhanger. It soured the whole thing a bit for me.
This is where you're wrong...

Ellie's wound isn't getting worse, she's simply reminiscing about when she got bit, and how her immunity means she'll likely see others die around her like she did Riley (her friend), Tess and Sam. Ellie is terrified to end up alone, and the fact she can't get infected while everyone else can means she might very well one day.
Ah, thank you for pointing that out.

Its only a short look and i might have overinterpreted it a bit. Also, your explanation actually sits better with me. I was a bit puzzled on what the last scene should tell us. Its clear that she has doubts, but i never thought about it in a way that Ellie simply fears of being left alone again. (Which is emphasized by the scene where Joel wants to leave her with his brother.) Makes a lot more sense now.
 

Casual Shinji

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ERaptor said:
Casual Shinji said:
This is where you're wrong...

Ellie's wound isn't getting worse, she's simply reminiscing about when she got bit, and how her immunity means she'll likely see others die around her like she did Riley (her friend), Tess and Sam. Ellie is terrified to end up alone, and the fact she can't get infected while everyone else can means she might very well one day.
Ah, thank you for pointing that out.

Its only a short look and i might have overinterpreted it a bit. Also, your explanation actually sits better with me. I was a bit puzzled on what the last scene should tell us. Its clear that she has doubts, but i never thought about it in a way that Ellie simply fears of being left alone again. (Which is emphasized by the scene where Joel wants to leave her with his brother.) Makes a lot more sense now.
That whole final section as you control Ellie is a clever little reversal. Ellie's default walking speed is slow and she doesn't say much, while Joel enthusiastically runs ahead and can't stop talking. Ellie has more or less become Joel, embittered by the world. And Joel has finally found his happiness and hope for the future, but it's completely delusional. That's what Ellie's 'okay' means... She now understands the current world for what it is, and sees the sad lonely mess of a person Joel really is.
 

Zombie Badger

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Feral said:
Unsurprising that most people didn't get why it's so great. I wish I could take the easy route and say most people are just embarrassingly uneducated so miss countless nuances and finer points, but it's a lot more than that. Most people are sad pathetic dweebs who haven't experienced anything in life let alone what is to struggle, so a lot on the 'survival and its effects on a person' is lost there.
Of course, that's why The Grey, The Deer Hunter and Precious all failed at the box office.
 

ERaptor

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Casual Shinji said:
ERaptor said:
Casual Shinji said:
This is where you're wrong...

Ellie's wound isn't getting worse, she's simply reminiscing about when she got bit, and how her immunity means she'll likely see others die around her like she did Riley (her friend), Tess and Sam. Ellie is terrified to end up alone, and the fact she can't get infected while everyone else can means she might very well one day.
Ah, thank you for pointing that out.

Its only a short look and i might have overinterpreted it a bit. Also, your explanation actually sits better with me. I was a bit puzzled on what the last scene should tell us. Its clear that she has doubts, but i never thought about it in a way that Ellie simply fears of being left alone again. (Which is emphasized by the scene where Joel wants to leave her with his brother.) Makes a lot more sense now.
That whole final section as you control Ellie is a clever little reversal. Ellie's default walking speed is slow and she doesn't say much, while Joel enthusiastically runs ahead and can't stop talking. Ellie has more or less become Joel, embittered by the world. And Joel has finally found his happiness and hope for the future, but it's completely delusional. That's what Ellie's 'okay' means... She now understands the current world for what it is, and sees the sad lonely mess of a person Joel really is.
Thats...sad, I really thought Ellie grew to like Joel. But i guess that just adds to the whole grimdark and rather depressing tone. Not that this is a bad thing, i just dont like it very much personally, it leaves me rather unsatisfied after the story ended. But like i said, im a sucker for at least somewhat of a "happy" wrap-up, and the above just seems totally "Everything is sh*t forever. Have a nice day. - Naughty Dog"
 

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GoaThief said:
He is absolutely correct in his summary, I don't disagree one iota. I think you need to take a step back and read everything again from the top.
Is absolutely correct in what way? What do I need to read again? Are you going to point out the proof of why those groups of people are ignorant and can't judge in full? Because that's what I'm actually talking about, not your opinions on how peoples minds work. I'm not the slightest bit interested in that.
 

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ERaptor said:
Thats...sad, I really thought Ellie grew to like Joel. But i guess that just adds to the whole grimdark and rather depressing tone. Not that this is a bad thing, i just dont like it very much personally, it leaves me rather unsatisfied after the story ended. But like i said, im a sucker for at least somewhat of a "happy" wrap-up, and the above just seems totally "Everything is sh*t forever. Have a nice day. - Naughty Dog"
Oh she still cares for him, but she knows he's lying to her about something very improtant.

But then everyone seems to have their own interpretation of the ending. Some people even see it as possitive.
 

F'Angus

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I personally loved the Last of Us. I liked the pace of it. The slow periods sneaking round infected to find supplies fit perfectly. I did get a little tired of fighting uninfected. I wish there was a way to avoid those battles but they felt stuck in there. And as for the simple story I liked that too, it was exactly what a slow paced game needed.

Bioshock Infinite is still my goty but tlou came close.
 

Ritualist

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You're not missing anything.
Mechanically and gameplay-wise it tried to do too much. It was a sort of culmination of mechanics we've perfected this generation, but didn't do anything to stand out on it's own. The enemy AI ignored stealthy team AI, because the tech for the team AI just isn't there yet.
The writing, the presentation, and the delivery are very good. Movie worthy. But that's all I can say abut it. It's not mind blowing, but it's not bad.

It's up there in the list of great games of the generation, but I wouldn't give it anything more than above average due to the plethora of story driven games, and zombie games that are out there that do better.

Also, you gotta play on the hardest difficulty. I thought getting the Big Boss mask in MGS4 was hard. God damn.
 

G-Force

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00slash00 said:
I thought the game play completely lacked polish. The stealth portions of the game were great but there were far too many parts where the devs just seemed to get bored of stealth and just turned the game in to a third person shooter. That would have been fine if the shooting had been any good but it just felt so clunky. I know they said that was a design choice because they didn't want Joel to be an action hero, but if that's the case then make guns an, "Oh shit" button, not a mandatory part of completing the game. Also, I played on normal and felt that they gave out ammo like it was candy. I never ran out of ammo for my guns and only rarely did I have low ammo. I would have much rather they make the shooting better but make ammo extremely hard to find.
That's fixed on hard mode. I barely had ammo and many of the segments I did not resort to shooting guns in prolonged firefights. Even if you're spotted, there are ways to flee (in fact you're encouraged to as opposed to staying in cover and shooting back like in regular action games).
 

00slash00

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G-Force said:
00slash00 said:
I thought the game play completely lacked polish. The stealth portions of the game were great but there were far too many parts where the devs just seemed to get bored of stealth and just turned the game in to a third person shooter. That would have been fine if the shooting had been any good but it just felt so clunky. I know they said that was a design choice because they didn't want Joel to be an action hero, but if that's the case then make guns an, "Oh shit" button, not a mandatory part of completing the game. Also, I played on normal and felt that they gave out ammo like it was candy. I never ran out of ammo for my guns and only rarely did I have low ammo. I would have much rather they make the shooting better but make ammo extremely hard to find.
That's fixed on hard mode. I barely had ammo and many of the segments I did not resort to shooting guns in prolonged firefights. Even if you're spotted, there are ways to flee (in fact you're encouraged to as opposed to staying in cover and shooting back like in regular action games).
I'm not talking about being spotted, if I got spotted I usually just restarted because I hated using guns so much. I'm talking about sections where you're forced to fight. Like when they trap you in a room and make you kill wave after wave of enemies. That's why the last two chapters were my favorite. In addition to that being the point where the story gets interesting, there were very few forced combat sections in Winter, and none in Spring.
 

Animyr

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Zombie Badger, I've heard people voice your sentiments before, and while it's perfectly okay to dislike LOU, IMO your comments have some misapprehensions that I'd like to comment on.

Zombie Badger said:
My first problem with the ending is that Joel never sees the morally ambiguous situation he's in as morally ambiguous. In his mind his happiness is all that matters and he doesn't care how many people may die as a result. The most important thing when attempting to tell a serious story in a game is to get the player into the mindset of the protagonist, and this game utterly failed to do so (earlier on I wasn't really forming a connection to Joel either.
While games as a medium are uniquely suited for role immersion, I really don't think that's mandatory, and it's small wonder that you weren't able to get into the protagonist's mindset, because I don't think LOU is that kind of game. The protagonist clearly has a distinct personality (it drives the plot, in fact) which is clearly supposed to be separate in morality from the player, whose along for the ride. Of course I doubt they intended to make the main character so unlikable that everyone stops playing, but they were definitely walking a line there and it's clear that Joel coming across as selfish and ruthless was deliberate(I really don't understand how some people, like Yahtzee, thought it was unintentional). Honestly, what seemed so interesting to me about LOU's story is that it got me to understand why character who would have been a villain in a lest complicated story does what he does, and see it from his point of view (even if it's a view you find reprehensible).

Which is the point. I think LOU is more of a character study then a role playing/role immersion exercise, like Spec ops was. The game (as a narrative experience) demands that you not necessarily like or agree the character (beyond a baseline of being willing to keep playing, of course) merely understand them. And it's fine if you don't like that kind of story or it just didn't interest you, but I just want to point out that I think you were under a misapprehension about what kind of story LOU was, or at least trying to be.

Zombie Badger said:
The second problem, and the true source of my seething contempt for Joel is that he does not care about what Ellie thinks. Despite the journey they've been on, her saving his life and protecting him from the cannibals, in the end he lies to her so he can live out his selfish fantasy life. He does not consider what she might think and feel about what has happened to matter, just that she take her place in his fantasy as his surrogate daughter.
I've occasionally heard people say that they found the ending disturbing because Joel covets Ellie like some sort of lifelike daughter doll and now Ellie is totally in his grasp. I really didn't get that impression at all. It seemed to me from their interactions that he respects her as a person and (by the end of the game) as a fellow survivor, and that it's precisely because of this respect that he tries to keep her in the dark about what he's done. He wants to give her the life that both his dead daughter and he, an emotionally stunted killer, were denied (and perhaps in the process get it himself, of course). David's the one who sees Ellie as an object to be possessed (though ironically, Joel's more human brand of affection does arguably have the more devastating consequences).

And while it's true that Joel ultimately betrays Ellie's wishes at the end, there's some subtext in the ending that you might have missed. Some could argue that it's reading too much into it or the wrong meaning, but I think if you pay attention these things are pretty clear. I want to point these out because I personally think that LOU not only has one of the best endings in a game, but one of the best endings I've ever seen, period, and I'd like to illuminate the reasoning behind that perspective a little.

Firstly, remember it's a bit ambiguous whether or not Ellie's sacrifice would have cured the infection (the tape mentions that Ellie's brain is unique, but not that unique), whether that cure would have saved humanity, or even whether or not humanity deserves to survive at all.

Secondly Ellie also betrays Joel. By that point, it's clear that Ellie is Joels only lifeline to his own humanity, and she knows this. And she still says to his face at the end that if he had given her the chance to choose, she would have knowingly destroyed him in the worst way possible, by sacrificing herself in order to escape her survivor's guilt. Note that she talks about it, she seems almost entirely uninterested in whether or not her death actually would have made a cure. It's implied (IMO) that she mainly finds it a psychologically acceptable pretense to commit suicide via the fireflies.

Thirdly-- It is pretty clear that Joel denied her the chance to do so and destroyed the fireflies because he was selfishly saving his own sanity in the process. But (as his short ending monologue implies) it's also because he's convinced that with time, Ellie will be able to overcome her guilt, to stop "waiting for her turn" just as he has. In short, he did actually do it in part for her, not just his own sanity. It's sentiments like this (admittedly unspoken and easy to miss) that make Joel's actions seem more sympathetic and less disrespectful towards Ellie to me.

Fourth, Ellie knows full well that Joel is lying through his teeth. I've seen alot of people (including professional commentators)not even consider this, but I think the very fact that she admits that she wants to die in the ending scene makes it pretty clear that she knows or at least is pretty certain that Joel betrayed her wishes. She provisionally accepts his words (not only about the fireflies, but about what it means to survive) not because Joel has successfully kept her in the dark (she's too smart for that, and Joel's too clumsy) but because she genuinely accepts that he made the right decision, about the cure and about her. Or at the very least (like the player) she understands why he did it. The ending's ambiguous not in what actually happened (as most ambiguous endings are, like Spec ops) but in what the characters are feeling.

Fifth,remember that Marlene and the fireflies didn't consult Ellie either. They turned out to be right, but they didn't know that and Marlene's men didn't care either way. There's an interesting parallel between Joel and Marlene (foster mother and father, one willing to kill her and another willing to kill for her) I wish they'd explored more.

Which is what made the ending conversation so damn awesome to me. The characters betray each other (or wanted to) in the worst way they could, yet end up all the closer for it, and it makes perfect sense in terms of their personality.
 

Zombie Badger

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Animyr said:
While games as a medium are uniquely suited for role immersion, I really don't think that's mandatory, and it's small wonder that you weren't able to get into the protagonist's mindset, because I don't think LOU is that kind of game. The protagonist clearly has a distinct personality (it drives the plot, in fact) which is clearly supposed to be separate in morality from the player, whose along for the ride.

And it's fine if you don't like that kind of story or it just didn't interest you, but I just want to point out that I think you were under a misapprehension about what kind of story LOU was, or at least trying to be.
I do get that TLoU and Spec Ops were trying to do very different things with their characters and that TLoU is not trying to make a point but I stick by my statement about role immersion. Despite me not really connecting to Joel for much of the game, it did get me to care a lot about Ellie and wanted to protect her, which is part of the protagonist's mindset. In fact it was partly that that caused me to hate Joel by the end, as I felt that he was being disrespectful to someone I cared about.

Animyr said:
It seemed to me from their interactions that he respects her as a person and (by the end of the game) as a fellow survivor, and that it's precisely because of this respect that he tries to keep her in the dark about what he's done.

He wants to give her the life that both his dead daughter and he, an emotionally stunted killer, were denied (and perhaps in the process get it himself, of course).
That's exactly my point, that he wants to give her the life that he dreams of, rather than whatever she might want. And we may disagree on this, but I still believe that telling her the truth would have been the respectful thing to do.

Animyr said:
Firstly, remember it's a bit ambiguous whether or not Ellie's sacrifice would have cured the infection (the tape mentions that Ellie's brain is unique, but not that unique), whether that cure would have saved humanity, or even whether or not humanity deserves to survive at all.
People bringing up this point really annoy me (sorry), because nothing in science is ever certain and you won't ever know unless you try. Also, why exactly would humanity not deserve to survive?

Animyr said:
Secondly Ellie also betrays Joel. By that point, it's clear that Ellie is Joel's only lifeline to his own humanity, and she knows this. And she still says to his face at the end that if he had given her the chance to choose, she would have knowingly destroyed him in the worst way possible, by sacrificing herself in order to escape her survivor's guilt. Note that she talks about it, she seems almost entirely uninterested in whether or not her death actually would have made a cure. It's implied (IMO) that she mainly finds it a psychologically acceptable pretense to commit suicide via the fireflies.
But (as his short ending monologue implies) it's also because he's convinced that with time, Ellie will be able to overcome her guilt, to stop "waiting for her turn" just as he has. In short, he did actually do it in part for her, not just his own sanity. It's sentiments like this (admittedly unspoken and easy to miss) that make Joel's actions seem more sympathetic and less disrespectful towards Ellie to me.
I don't like this argument because it's basically an insanity plea, saying that Ellie cannot be considered mentally competent to make such a decision, and that Joel should decide her life for her. In my opinion if either of them cannot be trusted to be level headed here it's Joel, who desires his own selfish dreams above anything else. Also, I do not consider Ellie choosing to sacrifice herself to be a betrayal in any way, as I consider it to be purely her decision to make.

Animyr said:
Fifth, remember that Marlene and the fireflies didn't consult Ellie either. They turned out to be right, but they didn't know that and Marlene's men didn't care either way.
While that is true, I sympathise with her more than Joel because she at least understands the consequences of her actions and cares about them. Joel's in it in my opinion purely for selfish reasons and the contrast makes him all the more unlikable.
 

Animyr

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Zombie Badger said:
That's exactly my point, that he wants to give her the life that he dreams of, rather than whatever she might want. And we may disagree on this, but I still believe that telling her the truth would have been the respectful thing to do.
What life does he dream for her, exactly? When I say "life he was denied" I merely meant a happy life. He imposes no particular wishes or desires on what she becomes, as long as she lives and is happy. In fact, against his wishes she participates in combat and becomes a warrior by the end of the story, and he ultimately accepts her decision.

I agree that telling her the truth would have been respectful in the conventional sense. I'm merely pointing out that his decision to not tell her was not entirely disrespectful either. At the very least, Joel wouldn't perceive it as disrespect. I really don't think it's so clear cut as you seem convinced it is.

Zombie Badger said:
People bringing up this point really annoy me (sorry), because nothing in science is ever certain and you won't ever know unless you try. Also, why exactly would humanity not deserve to survive?
Because' it's become ruthless and feral. It's certainty a contestable idea, but I've seen several people come to that conclusion.

As for science, it makes no sense for Joel to feel that way even if it was pretty certain that Ellie's sacrifice would save the world (and it wasn't).

Zombie Badger said:
I don't like this argument because it's basically an insanity plea,
Ellie has a clear case of PTSD and survivor's guilt that's so overpowering it's altered her personality. All I'm saying is that the story gives Joel a believable basis for his actions, not that he was necessarily right.

Zombie Badger said:
Also, I do not consider Ellie choosing to sacrifice herself to be a betrayal in any way, as I consider it to be purely her decision to make.
Which is what makes it a betrayal in my eyes. It's pretty clear she understands the effect her death would have on Joel (an effect so horrific Joel killed the fireflies to avoid it), but it doesn't deter her, and essentially says so to his face. I think my point stands.

Zombie Badger said:
While that is true, I sympathise with her more than Joel because she at least understands the consequences of her actions and cares about them. Joel's in it in my opinion purely for selfish reasons and the contrast makes him all the more unlikable.
I agree that Ellie is the more clearly sympathetic character, but I don't think Joel acted for entirely selfish reasons (though they did play a key role for sure). There's alot of grey here and it's always kind of annoyed me when people just breeze past it and decide "Joel's so evil this game is stupid for letting him win." Not saying you did that, but you had some of the reactions.

Also, I think it's clear that Joel understands what he's doing. We even experience the fireflies science docs through his POV, and it's heavily implied that his conscience weights on him. He also seems to realize and accept how badly Ellie wanted to die ("I know that's not what you want you hear right now"). He just thinks (or perhaps convinced himself; when he's talking to Ellie at the end he seems like he's half talking to himself) that the reasons he did them justify them, and the ending has him reaffirming this conviction to Ellie.
 

Zombie Badger

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Animyr said:
Zombie Badger said:
Also, why exactly would humanity not deserve to survive?
Because' it's become ruthless and feral. It's certainty a contestable idea, but I've seen several people come to that conclusion.
How humanity acts in TLoU is no worse than how it has acted throughout most of human history. Just in the past two decades I can think of several places where people were doing far worse things to each other (the civil wars in Rwanda, Sierra Leone and the Congo for example).