TheMightyEthan Posted November 4, 2014 Report Share Posted November 4, 2014 I don't think I even understand what your problem with it is. You're saying Joel was morally questionable, but not the Fireflies? That it's not worth surviving if you have to do morally questionable things, so they should have let Reveal hidden contents the Fireflies kill Ellie? wut Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thursday Next Posted November 4, 2014 Report Share Posted November 4, 2014 Dude, we have spoiler tags! Reveal hidden contents Nope. I thought the ending was very well played out. Joel has been playing the father figure to Ellie throughout the game, projecting his regret at his inability to protect his daughter on to her. It was inevitable that when he got to the final choice that he would save Ellie's life, everything else be damned. It was also inevitable that he would lie to Ellie to protect her emotionally as well. It may also have been an attempt to lie to himself, that he has not doomed the world because if there is one, there must be dozens of immune people. It is not clear to me (I don't remember) if Ellie knows the harvesting of spores or whatever is lethal. In any event, that Joel takes the power of choice (informed or otherwise) away from Ellie flows thematically to Joel taking that choice away from the rest of humanity. He has decided that the people on Earth today are the last of us. You can read into this some pro-feminist leanings, in that a man, by being manly, has doomed the planet, while two women, Ellie and Doctor Got-Shot-In-The-Face had the potential to save us all. If Joel had listened to women more, there may have been a cure. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted November 4, 2014 Report Share Posted November 4, 2014 I'm pretty sure Ellie did not know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IDDQD Posted November 4, 2014 Report Share Posted November 4, 2014 (edited) On 11/4/2014 at 5:27 PM, TheMightyEthan said: I don't think I even understand what your problem with it is. You're saying Joel was morally questionable, but not the Fireflies? That it's not worth surviving if you have to do morally questionable things, so they should have let Reveal hidden contents the Fireflies kill Ellie? wut Reveal hidden contents I don't know if I remember this correctly, it's been a while since I played this, but as I said - she was willing to submit herself to the procedure, so I don't see it as a double-standard. Besides, you can argue the morality of the sacrifice, but in the end the moral choice here is: either save Ellie (or more like snatch her drugged, unconcious ass and later lie to her about what really happened) for your own selfish reasons, or let her sacrifice herself for the greater good. Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or something like that. On 11/4/2014 at 5:36 PM, Thursday Next said: Dude, we have spoiler tags! Reveal hidden contents Nope. I thought the ending was very well played out. Joel has been playing the father figure to Ellie throughout the game, projecting his regret at his inability to protect his daughter on to her. It was inevitable that when he got to the final choice that he would save Ellie's life, everything else be damned. It was also inevitable that he would lie to Ellie to protect her emotionally as well. It may also have been an attempt to lie to himself, that he has not doomed the world because if there is one, there must be dozens of immune people. It is not clear to me (I don't remember) if Ellie knows the harvesting of spores or whatever is lethal. In any event, that Joel takes the power of choice (informed or otherwise) away from Ellie flows thematically to Joel taking that choice away from the rest of humanity. He has decided that the people on Earth today are the last of us. You can read into this some pro-feminist leanings, in that a man, by being manly, has doomed the planet, while two women, Ellie and Doctor Got-Shot-In-The-Face had the potential to save us all. If Joel had listened to women more, there may have been a cure. I don't care about feminism to be honest, so I'll skip that argument. Lets not mix a gender equality into that. Reveal hidden contents Your explenation is true and I completely agree with that, but I'd say that it applies only to the ending. I guess he was conflicted about Ellie throughout the whole game because he was reluctant to accept her as a daughter, but to me it was playing out more like a story about a guy who slowly accepts his loss and ultimately learns to open his heart to other people. And then, suddenly, the ending changed that indentifiable character into a murderer and liar. I don't know, maybe I wasn't supposed to identify with Joel, but then why make me root for him for the majority of the game and then challenge me with moral ambiguity? It was a bummer because up until that point I hoped that the unimaginable struggle the heroes went through would not be for naught and the ending made a jarring 180 degree turn and decided to be artsy. Edited November 4, 2014 by IDDQD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted November 4, 2014 Report Share Posted November 4, 2014 On 11/4/2014 at 6:42 PM, IDDQD said: On 11/4/2014 at 5:27 PM, TheMightyEthan said: I don't think I even understand what your problem with it is. You're saying Joel was morally questionable, but not the Fireflies? That it's not worth surviving if you have to do morally questionable things, so they should have let Reveal hidden contents the Fireflies kill Ellie? wut Reveal hidden contents I don't know if I remember this correctly, it's been a while since I played this, but as I said - she was willing to submit herself to the procedure, so I don't see it as a double-standard. Besides, you can argue the morality of the sacrifice, but in the end the moral choice here is: either save Ellie (or more like snatch her drugged, unconcious ass and later lie to her about what really happened) for your own selfish reasons, or let her sacrifice herself for the greater good. Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or something like that. That only works if Ellie knew, and I don't think she did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Jack Posted November 4, 2014 Report Share Posted November 4, 2014 She didn't know. There's an audio log confirming that much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted November 4, 2014 Report Share Posted November 4, 2014 (edited) There you go. Now the moral choice is: Reveal hidden contents Allow the organization to murder a 14 year old girl to try to save humanity, or stop them from doing that and potentially doom humanity. Much greyer. *Edit* - Though I would submit that Reveal hidden contents the likelihood that you're actually dooming humanity, any more than has already happened, is slim. Ellie is almost certainly not the only immune person, and even if no one is able to harvest a cure from the immune people presumably their children will also be immune and humanity will go on. Still very grey though. Edited November 4, 2014 by TheMightyEthan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hot Heart Posted November 4, 2014 Report Share Posted November 4, 2014 Reveal hidden contents Plus, you know, the Fireflies are dropping like...well, flies... or the ratings of that Joss Whedon show, I forget the name. Could they feasibly disseminate a cure even if found? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Jack Posted November 4, 2014 Report Share Posted November 4, 2014 Reveal hidden contents It should also be said that even at the beginning of the game, humanity had been surviving in an infected world for 20 years so far. In the real world, the point of cordyceps spores isn't to wipe out a species, but regulate its population. In that sense, it's fairly likely that the spores would eventually go away on their own, or at least become a manageable problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted November 4, 2014 Report Share Posted November 4, 2014 The "point" of any organism is to make more of that organism. That's all. It's just that things that reach a balance tend to be more effective at that because they don't burn through all available resources and then die because none are left. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IDDQD Posted November 5, 2014 Report Share Posted November 5, 2014 For all we know the virus may eventually turn all of humanity to mindless zombies. It may also be the case that our immune systems are developing a natural resistance to the virus, which seems plausible, given that nature is in a constant state of evolution. It's just a speculation anyway and not the heart of the matter that I'm trying to argue about. Reveal hidden contents In any case, I just rewatched the ending on YT and now I remember why I thought Ellie would be willing to submit herself to the procedure. I interpreted it as if she was just waiting for her turn to die and would be more than glad to do it for a just cause, a chance that Joel simply snatched away from her. Not to mention that in the epilogue it is suggested that her sickness is progressing, which makes his decision even more questionable. I guess that the thing I hate most about the ending is that they delibaretly left if vague because, hey, I don't know, they were not willing to give us a decisive conclusion to the story out of fear that people would call it a cliche? I hate it because it starts to become a cliche in itself. We can see more and more of it nowadays and I think it's a stupid trend to follow because that's not how you make a satisfying story, unless you're willing to be consistent with it all the way through (which to me TLoU is not). Maybe its hard to create something unique and original in the sea of blandness and repetition, but being delibaretly vague and forcing the audience to write their own ending for themselves should not be the solution to that. If they want me to guess what happened next then I choose to believe that Ellie eventually called Joel on his bullshit and stabbed him in the face, after which she rode a purple unicorn into a land of chocholate rivers and strapping young lads. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thursday Next Posted November 6, 2014 Report Share Posted November 6, 2014 On 11/5/2014 at 8:53 AM, IDDQD said: For all we know the virus may eventually turn all of humanity to mindless zombies. It may also be the case that our immune systems are developing a natural resistance to the virus, which seems plausible, given that nature is in a constant state of evolution. It's just a speculation anyway and not the heart of the matter that I'm trying to argue about. Reveal hidden contents In any case, I just rewatched the ending on YT and now I remember why I thought Ellie would be willing to submit herself to the procedure. I interpreted it as if she was just waiting for her turn to die and would be more than glad to do it for a just cause, a chance that Joel simply snatched away from her. Not to mention that in the epilogue it is suggested that her sickness is progressing, which makes his decision even more questionable. I guess that the thing I hate most about the ending is that they delibaretly left if vague because, hey, I don't know, they were not willing to give us a decisive conclusion to the story out of fear that people would call it a cliche? I hate it because it starts to become a cliche in itself. We can see more and more of it nowadays and I think it's a stupid trend to follow because that's not how you make a satisfying story, unless you're willing to be consistent with it all the way through (which to me TLoU is not). Maybe its hard to create something unique and original in the sea of blandness and repetition, but being delibaretly vague and forcing the audience to write their own ending for themselves should not be the solution to that. If they want me to guess what happened next then I choose to believe that Ellie eventually called Joel on his bullshit and stabbed him in the face, after which she rode a purple unicorn into a land of chocholate rivers and strapping young lads. If it was a choice, I would have done what Joel was scripted to do. Reveal hidden contents I killed all the assistant docs when they were cowering on the floor. They were going to kill a little girl. Screw those guys. Losing Mordin in Mass Effect also taught me that telling people when you have taken a decision out of their hands is a bad idea. They only go and do a fool thing like try to undo it. So yeah, not letting a friend / surrogate daughter die on a chance that she has a cure locked in her brain tissue. Also not going to burden her with the knowledge that she could have saved the world if I hadn't acted as I did. I feel utterly un-conflicted about those choices. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted November 6, 2014 Report Share Posted November 6, 2014 (edited) Same. Even down to the cowering doctors. Edited November 6, 2014 by TheMightyEthan 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post SomTervo Posted November 7, 2014 Popular Post Report Share Posted November 7, 2014 (edited) On 11/4/2014 at 6:42 PM, IDDQD said: Reveal hidden contents I guess he was conflicted about Ellie throughout the whole game because he was reluctant to accept her as a daughter, but to me it was playing out more like a story about a guy who slowly accepts his loss and ultimately learns to open his heart to other people. And then, suddenly, the ending changed that indentifiable character into a murderer and liar. I don't know, maybe I wasn't supposed to identify with Joel, but then why make me root for him for the majority of the game and then challenge me with moral ambiguity? Your argument is understandable until this point. There is no point at which Joel 'suddenly changes', Except perhaps the prologue. Reveal hidden contents For the entire game, since the end of the prologue, Joel has been that way. He hasn't changed. From the instant his daughter is shot, he becomes the bad guy. Bear in mind we lose 20 years of events, and what happens to Joel in those years? He becomes one of the most renowned and savage criminals in all of Boston. Play it again - you'll notice that from the start he's a really bad guy, Tess even says "we're shitty people Joel, been that way for a long time." He's inherently selfish from day 1, and is against ALL kinds of authority after the soldier shoots Sarah. You can hear it throughout, the tired, bitter way he says things, like when Ellie asks "why did the government shoot these people?" and Joel sighs, saying "... Sacrifice the many to save the few." In almost every line he says throughout, you can hear the trauma of Sarah's death and how this impacts every living thought he has. And we also know he holds these thoughts at bay by deflecting them onto authority and "the law" - which he will try to subvert at every turn. Case in point, the final hospital scene. I'm on my 5th playthrough - and I'm still noticing amazing details. Like him looking at his watch or saying "let's keep focused" whenever Sarah is brought up... So ingenious. The crux of the issue, IDD, is that what you want is resolution of plot. There are two ways of decribing plot: melodrama (all-out losing, or all-out winning) and tragedy (winning in the losing, or losing in the winning.) Hollywood has drilled it into popular culture that we need a resolution of plot, melodrama, that things have to wrap up one way or another. Not just Hollywood- shitty novels have been doing this since the late 1700s. In real life and in all the best storytelling artworks, resolution of plot is a sham. It usually signifies unrealistic cop-out. Tragedy is real, tragedy is emotional, tragedy is sacrificing humanity's only escape from apocalypse to cater to your innermost motives. TLoU is a near-perfect tragedy because there are at least three layers of 'winning in losing'. Joel 'won' because he got a surrogate daughter. Ellie 'lost' because she knew he was lying and went with it anyway, and her survivors' guilt is being ignored by him (though this point isn't really a win or a lose). Humanity 'lost' because the only opportunity for a cure has been destroyed. But in a sense we 'won' anyway because humanity will persevere, "The Last Of Us" will persevere. We won because the Fireflies were arguably a sham just as bad as the military government. So the plot is left in a huge grey area intentionally, and this makes you think about it and feel emotionally confused (a great effect)- but the characters are the ones we really understand. What The Last Of Us does is resolution of character. Like all the greatest novels- Of Mice and Men, The Great Gatsby, Ulysses, Mrs Dalloway, A Clockwork Orange, The Crying of Lot 49 - and all the greatest movies - There Will Be Blood, The Godfather(s), Pulp Fiction - characters are the centre of the story, not the plot. Ie the events don't matter, and how they wrap up doesn't matter. Only the characters and how they change, or don't change, is what matters. As many great writers have said, story doesn't exist without character. And all the best stories revolve only around character. If a story is slave to plot and how things wrap up, it will be fundamentally unsatisfying, even if it's genuinely decent. Eg in Uncharted 3, where Naughty Dog fucked this up. 2 is great because the main resolution is Drake and Elena coming to trust/rely on each other, but 3 fucks it because they rush through all the relationship stuff and the ending is focused mainly on the plot, and the characters are given very vacuous treatment. Reveal hidden contents What's the character resolution at the end of 3 again? Sully gets a fucking plane? Or Drake does? The one from the first game? So weak. In TLoU if you study Joel's character, all the stuff he does and says (and importantly all the things he doesn't say when he could) you'll get a totally unambiguous and perfectly painted portrait of a very psychologically damaged human being. Which is what art's all about, yo. Edited November 7, 2014 by kenshi_ryden Added spoiler tags, even though they're early and/or vague. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted November 7, 2014 Report Share Posted November 7, 2014 Yeah, I didn't know how to articulate it like kenshi, but the whole notion of the ending being unsatisfying was confusing to me right from the beginning. Everything that needed resolved was resolved. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomTervo Posted November 7, 2014 Report Share Posted November 7, 2014 On 11/7/2014 at 1:37 PM, TheMightyEthan said: Yeah, I didn't know how to articulate it like kenshi Literally the only time ever that a humanities degree is worth having. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thursday Next Posted November 7, 2014 Report Share Posted November 7, 2014 Kenshi. Nailed it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hot Heart Posted November 7, 2014 Report Share Posted November 7, 2014 Haha. I was going to write something like Kenshi did (except probably nowhere near as good) on the subject of people needing the story to do the work for them. Although putting it that way sounds kind of rude... Anyway, it is those grey areas, those mixed endings that make you question yourself, your beliefs/perspective and discuss it with others and give stories life long after they've ended. For all the hooha about the ME3 ending, I'm glad there wasn't simply a vanilla ending (not that there weren't plenty of other problems). It often gets attributed to 'the writers wanted to be edgy by being downbeat and depressing' but I think as you mature, you tend to appreciate the nuance between grimdark and just... life is shit, people be people. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomTervo Posted November 10, 2014 Report Share Posted November 10, 2014 (edited) There's definitely a fine line. TLoU had plenty of upbeat and hopeful moments to counteract the difficult tone of the conclusion, eg the giraffes. I think when a story is bittersweet, rather than plain melancholic, is when it is really successful. TLoU is deffo bittersweet. I just noticed IDD, I (and no doubt everyone here) did not meant to put down your opinion. Your opinion is yours and I can totally empathise. A huge part of me wished that Joel died, at a point which will be familiar to anyone who finished it. It felt like it would be much more believable and more dramatic if he had. But that would compromise the character study and also be potentially too similar to The Road in the narrative endpoint. Goddamn I have high hopes for Uncharted 4. If they're going all out like they say they are. Edited November 10, 2014 by kenshi_ryden Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dee Posted November 10, 2014 Report Share Posted November 10, 2014 On 11/10/2014 at 11:11 AM, kenshi_ryden said: There's definitely a fine line. TLoU had plenty of upbeat and hopeful moments to counteract the difficult tone of the conclusion, eg the giraffes. I think when a story is bittersweet, rather than plain melancholic, is when it is really successful. TLoU is deffo bittersweet. I just noticed IDD, I (and no doubt everyone here) did not meant to put down your opinion. Your opinion is yours and I can totally empathise. A huge part of me wished that Joel died, at a point which will be familiar to anyone who finished it. It felt like it would be much more believable and more dramatic if he had. But that would compromise the character study and also be potentially too similar to The Road in the narrative endpoint. Goddamn I have high hopes for Uncharted 4. If they're going all out like they say they are. I'm glad they didn't have Joel die, not because I liked him a lot as a character for all those reasons you stated above about his development, but because it would have been almost too bitter sweet. They ended the game on a very perfect note and couldn't have done it any better, I feel. Death is so random at times, and not necessarily "expected" in situations such as these; although it would be more expected in a post-apocalyptic world where no one is safe, not even in the safe zones. For instance, you know when someone's going to die in The Walking Dead as they toss in subtle hints (or sometimes painfully obvious ones) throughout either an episode or an entire season. But with this game, I didn't know what was going to happen and that is a rarity for most games. Reveal hidden contents I had a feeling Joel would survive after being impaled by the re-bar, but on my first play through I had no clear idea considering the seriousness of his wound and the lack of medical supplies/emergency personnel to help. I mean, for god's sake, his life was in the hands of a 14-year-old. And yeah, Ellie seemed capable to a degree, but only to a certain degree. In any case, I think kenshi explained his character perfectly. I don't think Joel wanted to die. That was made apparent by his, "You keep finding something to fight for," speech. He quite obviously was not ready to go yet, but that plot device didn't write out his fate and I think Naughty Dog was smart in sticking to the unexpected in this case as opposed to going for the obvious choice of having Joel die at some point in the game. Now, if they're planning to work on TLoU 2, who fucking knows at this point what they'll pull out of the bag. It seems more likely at this point that Joel might somehow come to meet his end. I also kind of feel like it'd be a bit of a cop-out in some respects. Ellie has lost so many people already, but what would losing Joel to her? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomTervo Posted November 12, 2014 Report Share Posted November 12, 2014 (edited) Agreed on all points, except that Reveal hidden contents I felt there was no way Joel could survive the fall because that wound was so obviously fatal. It broke my suspension of disbelief more than anything else in the game. Was definitely an event made to overtly shock us and make us double think, and was probably one of the most fantastical things that happened in the game (notwithstanding cordyceps virus and how many fights they survive with ease). It probably wouldn't be fatal in the present, in our first-world cultures, but in an apocalyptic future where everyone is malnourished and has no access to medicine, this definitely would be enough to kill you. Especially if they had to travel several miles of wilderness, in the freezing cold, by horseback of all things. And how the heck did Ellie get him back on the horse?! She can't have dragged him the whole way. And it's pretty obvious he's out of action for a day or two at least, comatose. So yeah. My brain was screaming that Joel should be dead, though my heart was happy he wasn't and it definitely worked out flawlessley anyway. Edited November 12, 2014 by kenshi_ryden Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted November 12, 2014 Report Share Posted November 12, 2014 People are simultaneously surprisingly durable and surprisingly fragile. I agree IRL he most likely would have died, but his survival isn't so impossible as to strain suspension of disbelief imo. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomTervo Posted November 12, 2014 Report Share Posted November 12, 2014 (edited) Yeah I suppose it was just the biggest narrative strain I felt. From my perspective. Like in my brain, if I hold the whole game in my head, that's the bit that seems most tenuous. The next worst was the fact that they survive so many really dangerous encounters. So unrealistic. But then again, infinite lives. I guess it's not so much a durable/fragile argument, but a sheer probability argument. Get impaled on that bit of your body and chances are some really important shit is going to get damaged bad. Edited November 12, 2014 by kenshi_ryden Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted November 12, 2014 Report Share Posted November 12, 2014 That's what I mean by surprisingly durable though: people can sometimes survive really horrific injuries, even with very little medical assistance. Like Phineas Gage, who took the railroad spike through the head (not that he didn't get treatment, but it was 1848 so it was fairly rudimentary by our standards). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomTervo Posted November 13, 2014 Report Share Posted November 13, 2014 (edited) Oh yeah, good ole Phineas. Know him well. Yeah I totally get you. I guess it's mainly the malnourishment/lack of sanitation/cold of winter which I feel would totally sway the odds. Still. It's still believable. Just sliiightly more tenuous than other aspects of the narrative. Which stands out in such a solid plot overall, I guess. Edited November 13, 2014 by kenshi_ryden 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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