After the first part of Last of US came out, the fans were divided into two camps. Some said what Joel the villain, he deprived the world of the only chance of revival. The leading podcast "Zero personnel per second" Leo Greenberg even admitted that he was ready to quit the game at the moment of the hospital in the TLOU finale, so as not to participate in the destruction of humanity. People from the Joel -Cattle camp are convinced that the main character sacrificed everyone exclusively from selfishness.
People from the second camp believe that anyone in the place of Joel would have done exactly the same. What is it in our nature. That the salvation of one close person outweighs the well -being of the faceless majority. And in general, humanity has rolled into such a shit that does not deserve salvation. So Joel well done, did everything right.
I want to figure out in this blog whether Joel really condemned humanity to extinction and is his act really terrible.
Attention! Then there will be spoilers to the first and second part, so if you have not played, it is better not to read this text yet.
So, let’s immediately discard the ethical part of the question – "Joel Hare, because he deprived Ellie’s choice". I met the opinion that Ellie was ready to sacrifice himself to save humanity, and Joel ruined everything. But, as it becomes clear from the second part, Ellie did not know that the operation would kill her. She learned about this from Joel. So there is no need to talk about a free choice here.
I want to raise the question of whether Joel’s act is really condemning people to extinction, as many people think. Let’s figure it out.
We are told that Joel killed the only specialist who could develop the vaccine, so now it cannot be created. But the question is: but it would be possible to create a vaccine if the scientist survived? I see here at least four problems.
The first problem
Suppose Joel decided not to interfere in the situation. The scientist extracts Cordyceps mutating in the body of Ellie. What’s next? One of the options is to try to transplant this sample into the body of an unfortunate person. A similar method is used today in the treatment of COVID-19 and the creation of vaccines from coronavirus infection. In the first case, the patient is overflowed with a plasma of a human coronavirus (that is, roughly speaking, tolerate his antibodies). In the second case, they create a vaccine from these antibodies. But in the case of Ellie, we have only one donor, which means that the number of mutated cordyceps that could be transplanted is limited. And even if you can "instill" several people in this way, then how to convey the "vaccine" further? Again kill "vaccinated" and transplant cordyceps in a new medium? And I remind you that Cordyceps Ellie, the only fungus known to us that was able to enter symbiosis with a person, penetrated the girl’s brain. And withdraw him without killing the carrier, you can’t. So, in the method described above, there is no sense. You kill more people.
The second problem.
But let’s say that the scientist needed a mutated fungus not for transplantation, but to study it in attempts to unravel the secret of this mutation. Let’s say he solved this secret. How to organize a vaccine production and put it on a stream?
I remind you that the cicadas conducted research in the scientific center. There really can be equipment for the synthesis of serum, but not for its production in large quantities. Even if you have a sufficient amount of biological material, you need production sites and scientists who will work there. And in the second part of the "latest of us" we were clearly told that Ebbi’s father was the only specialist, quite qualified to work on creating a vaccine. You will develop to develop a vaccine, but who will produce it? One person?
And I am already silent that the qualifications of Jerry Anderson, Father Abby, is in doubt. I do not remember exactly how it was presented in the game itself, but I found a fan encyclopedia dedicated to Last of Us. It says that Anderson was a surgeon. Sorry, but surgery is not about creating vaccines at all. To understand how the vaccine works and how to synthesize it, you need to be at least a molecular biologist, or even better a virus. This means that if Joel gave Ellie, then the girl would most likely just be killed and that would be all over.
The third problem
But suppose the cicadas were able to develop and make a vaccine in sufficient quantities. How you will vaccinate people? Even in our time, there are a huge number of covid-dissidents who do not trust doctors and scientists, despite their qualifications, in sufficient quantities equipment and a serious scientific school. And this is within the framework of one country – that is, a single community of people.
And how to convince the survivors in the world of "the latter of us", where people live separate communities that fight each other for a few resources. How do you convince marauders or scars – frostbitten fanatics who hang strangers on trees and release guts to them?
The fourth and most important problem.
Vaccine is not at all the key to solving the problem. From which in 9 out of 10 cases scouts in the world Last of US die? They are killed by indiscriminate groups or zombies. Cases when a person became infected and preferred death (or turned that the death is tantamount to) – they can be counted on the fingers. Only the suicide of Riley, the suicidal act of Tess and the death of Nora – the girlfriend of Abby, who was breathing in disputes comes to my mind. And then, in the end she was not killed by disputes, but Ellie.
The vaccine will slightly increase the survival of people in the world Last of US, but the fundamental causes of high mortality, hunger and violence, it will not be able to win.
I came to the conclusion that the cicadas from the very beginning went in the wrong direction. The key to the salvation of mankind as a species is not a vaccine, but creating a safe environment. Eleat the walls, fortifications, grow cattle, cultivate the fields, give the blood to the people who are looking for shelter, make alliances with other fractions and breed. This is the only way humanity can be revived.
In addition, Ellie’s immunity is said that evolution has already begun attempts to adapt the human body to coexistence with cordyceps. She just needs to give time so that a useful mutation spreads among people. And no additional scientific research for this is generally necessary. As Dr. Jan Malkolm said in the "Jurassic Park": "Nature will always find a way out".
Summarizing all of the above, I would like to answer the question that is put into the title. Is Joel’s act is so terrible and the world is doomed in the Last of US Universe. Yes, Joel’s act is terrible, but not because he condemns humanity, but because he kills many people who are generally not to blame for anything. Another question is that Joel was originally put in a situation in which there is no good solution. After all, to sacrifice an innocent child for the sake of an illusory dream – that would also be terrible. As Geralt would say: “Of the two evils, I would prefer not to choose at all,” but, unfortunately, in life this rule does not always work. And you still have to choose.
But with the second question, everything is not so clear. The world is possibly doomed, but not at all because of the epidemic of cordyceps, but because of the endless cycle of violence, in which already a few people purposefully exterminate each other for food, things or revenge.
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We all lose sight of the other threat of Last of US – a virus that causes uncontrolled changes in the human body, a large growth of muscle mass, aggression and passion for golf. His name is the Ebbila virus
Given how conditionally (chopped, with blocks of contrasts) peace and society were displayed in The Last of Us (and in particular – in Part 2, where this is much larger), to seek realism in the question “Ellie’s death, humanity, would be saved by humanity?"It seems to me an extremely ambiguous venture, because this is not the question for which everything was started. When Joel made the decision that he made – he did not think about the vaccine, about the distrust of people, about life in communities and other. He knew that if he did not intervene, then Ellie would die, and at the moment it is the only thing he is attached to in this world, the only ray of light to which he reaches out of all his might.
The game is built around a completely different ideological series. And much more competently and intelligibly (what it was done by Life Is Strange) She poses the question before the player: “What is more important to a person – a person or surrounding world for him?"And he herself answers him in the only way: for Joel, in these conditions, in such a gloomy and cruel world there are no alternatives: he found his light and he will not let him go.
And you are sure that in TLOU this question about the real opportunity to create a vaccine thought out?
I just got the impression that in TLOU, especially in Part 2, there is such a tendency that common sense is sacrificed in order to convey some idea or cause the necessary emotions. And in this regard, the ending of TLOU is exactly the same as to cause conflicting emotions of the player, that on the one hand, the character acts selfishly and seemed wrong on the one hand, but on the other, I am attached to him and, given his story, you empathize and understand why he did just that, and could do this vaccine as if or not do not care.
In Spec Ops: The Line, the main character has committed war crimes, but a player. In Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, the main character decided to become a dark Messiah, but a player, and t.D. Enough deadly logic, in my opinion, since, yes, the character performs the actions of the character, but these actions also do not take from an empty place and occur because of the personality of the character. In this case, the absurd situation is obtained when no playable villain can be convicted, since everything was done by incredible power from above.
If you consider the examples you cited, then here the logic is completely collapsed. The character himself sets the goal, and the player only should. It was Joel who decided to kill some kind of soldier of cicades and break through to Ellie with a battle, and we already led the process. It is Artas in Katszen that says that we need to burn Stratholm, and we, again, lead the process.
So it turns out that it is foolish to condemn the player for making the only option provided by the game. In games with variability, you can already do something similar, but in them, often, the character and a hill are so woven with their characters that there is no difference in which of them to condemn.
Well, in general, TLOU scriptwriters show the world quite realistic. So I don’t think they donated common sense. It seems to me that they thought in the direction of "what people are ready to close their eyes for for the sake of crazy hope". But yes. They clearly tried to call certain emotions from the player. As in the second part)
The game unequivocally raises the question – a loved one or the life of thousands of the same children. The plot absolutely unambiguously makes it clear that it is about the chance of mankind to survive, and not about the technical side of the issue of creating and spreading a vaccine/medicine
I agree with the author in almost everything. The second part was the first time yesterday. In the first part, the plot seems plausible. In my opinion, the second part in this plan is worse than the first part.
The central idea of revenge and consequences is very interesting, and worked out. But the plot itself seemed implausible to me. In the first part, Joel survived for a long time after the start of the epidemic at the expense of smuggling, and people’s lives were difficult, despite the fact that the military retained many resources. It seemed reliable, since for survival in such a world people had to be more cruel and sacrifice moral values.
In the second part, the characters are needed only to develop the central idea, they do not ask questions: how to get food, weapons, find housing. The characters forget that you need to survive in this world. They spit on groups in which they consist and simply take and go for their personal interests, spitting on responsibility to the group, although I note that from the group they receive survival means: food, weapons, conditions for life. In the second part, no one seems to be worried about anyone.
I also do not really believe that in the conditions of the zombie apocalypse, you can build such communities that hundreds or thousands of people can calmly live peacefully in them.
I also did not understand Ellie’s motivation. She took revenge on everyone except Abby, and settled on the farm. She could not live there calmly, because she did not take revenge on Abby and went to take revenge, she overcame a bunch of kilometers to find her. And having beaten Abby, for some reason, she decided to stop taking revenge. Why? Because I realized that it only leads to the worst, or realized that I wanted to take revenge, because I did not have time to reconcile with Joel? Why couldn’t she draw such a conclusion while on a farm with her love, there she had such a lot of time?
Ellie’s explanation for some actions I was able to find only one thing, her mushroom grows in the brain.
Realistic? In the second https://www.popularslotgames.co.uk/popular-microgaming-slots part in the Ellie room there is a working electric clock, not even analog. Many of the characters go in good, as if new clothes. And this is all in the same world where Joel values every gram of his favorite drink – coffee. Comers it to the merchants from the caravan, which passes next to them. In a world where a Jewish woman does not shave armpits, but has perfectly smooth legs and plucked eyebrows, lol. E
The story of Tloe is emotional and, in many ways, beautiful, but does not withstand the simplest analysis in the point of view of "realism" and logic.
We figure out if Joel’s act is so terrible
Of course, terrible! If he had given Ellie to Vivisection, there would be no second part that caused massive drilling!
Zombies in a narrative about a zombie-apocalypse are indestructible against any laws of logic: they do not die from hunger, they do not die from old age, diseases, crap of infections, immune to pain, chopping off any limbs and any other deformations. This is a problem of any fairly global and long story about revived deaths. In the case of necromancy, you can at least poke a wand into the word "maaaaagiaii", but in all "walking" and similar "realistic" works any attempts to ask the question: "How is it possible?»Lead only to disappointments. However, this story is not about the amazing survivability of the zombies, so these issues are as appropriate as the breaking of the head over “what such pockets Duke Nyukem puts his weapon?"
In the magazine she has notes where she writes that she cannot remember Joel’s face, and all the time she remembers porridge after the club. As far as I understand, she stomped to finish Abby, for the most part because of this, to let this moment go-she did not want to kill Abby already in the theater (before Dina and Tommy shot it).
Well, actually at the moment when Elli drowsers Abby, Joel’s face flashes for a second, and Ellie disappears the last motivation to kill Abby.
And yes, even taking into account such a development of events – to hide the motivation of the character in his diary, which almost no one reads is such a thing, because the moments where it could be highlighted even in dialogue with Dina – full.
After Tlou 2, it seems quite strange to me after the first, well, well, after the second winter, all the infected did not go to the next world. We are clearly shown that their whole hordes move through the forests in the winter and some of them are sinking to the rocks and die. Therefore, after a couple of years, there would be no so much infected, although I agree that the crowds would remain in the houses. But here the moment. Shouldn’t Cordyceps be infected to take to the street to the sun?
It doesn’t matter that you are similar to the enemy – it is important that everyone considers his actions to be truly correct
It is clear that even the invention of the vaccine will not save the world from extinction. After all, it is not known in whose hands the vaccine will fall. Will this group of people be able to and want to spread the vaccine around the world? Will Cordyceps mate and resist the vaccine?
It is clear that anarchy is a mother of order. And only an ordered society with the rule of law will be able to ensure the survival of mankind.
But this does not mean that Cordyceps is not a problem that must be solved.
Cordyceps returned humanity for many centuries ago in development. Cordyceps is a serious problem.
And a victim in the form of one girl in the name of searching for a vaccine is not a high price. Even if this victim does not lead to the invention of the vaccine.
At a minimum, there will be the results of experiments and research of trial samples, which can be the next even a little step towards the invention of the vaccine.
Any problem is to be solved correctly, not in parts. Therefore, the motives of cicades are clear. These motives are true. And Joel’s act, the results of all the victims committed by the Cicadas, leveled.
Of course, the cicada was destroyed not only by Joel. Cicadas pursued and destroyed by the military Boston, and just bandits. However, Joel made his significant contribution.
This does not mean Joel the villain. This means that people, their actions and in general our world are very ambiguous. There is no truth in the last instance, and the winners write history.
The game raises cool questions. Against the background of many other triplei projects, works such as TLOU are very valuable.
No, I’m not talking about some total idiocy, but about the moments when you think: "They could do it and smarter here". But at the same time, you understand that then the scene would not be so spectacular. Well, yes, from my point of view, in the second part of such moments there is much more.
It seems to me that the main problem is that Ellie has not recognized Ebbi’s source. That is, if she found out what happened to her, that they were similar, and then spared her, it could be accepted, but only the player knows that, and for Ellie Ebbie the one who killed her loved ones remains, so Ellie, except for personal experiences inside, has no reason to spare her.
The first and second parts of the film shows both ways. But if humanity has tried the second way with the creation of fortified cities, then it is likely that the last opportunity to go along the second path with the search for a vaccine from humanity in the plot was pulled out by Joel.
The creation of a fortified base did not turn the life of the inhabitants of Boston from the first part to paradise. People massively fled from this fort, created the resistance cells to the military regime, flourished the smuggling of resources, the civil war and the disease gradually gradually destroyed this city.
In the same way, the life of the dogs did not become a paradise, although they managed to form a real Babylon among the ruins. The fortress of the dogs withstand any blows, but the war with scars was essentially destroyed by that Babylon.
The fact that the great many of the main characters of the game do not dies from Cordyceps does not mean that Cordyceps is not a threat to humanity.
This is exactly the threat that does not give and will never let humanity return to the civilized development path. So people will continue to destroy each other, actively helping Cordyceps to seize the world.
There are a lot of zombies in the game. And despite the fact that people destroy them massively, the number of walking is only growing. This suggests that the spread of the disease is progressing.
Is Joel to blame that there is no vaccine and there may be no chance of making it either either?
Of course not. After all, Cicada was not exterminated by Joel, but the bandits and military Boston. Why are the cicadas are forced to develop a vaccine secretly? Why do they hide Ellie and her possible gift from the inhabitants of Boston?
And it is more correct to ask the question: why is the civil war in Boston a civil war in the midst of a deadly pandemic and destroyed most of humanity?
Because the world is so arranged. War will exist exactly as much as humanity will exist. We will never stop killing each other in massive.
And not Joel is the fault that the inhabitants of Boston, instead of rallying at such a difficult hour, are divided into fractions and cut out each other, forgetting about the most important enemy – Cordyceps.
The merit of cicades at this time is that they did not forget about the main enemy, and judging by the plot they are ready to fold their heads in search of a vaccine.
This is a more correct way than creating a fortified city with total population control and hoping to save yourself from an incurable deadly and incredibly contagious disease.
However, Joel also made a big contribution to the fall of cicades, destroying the entire top and the scientific and medical staff important for research.
Why Joel was able to get to cicades, but the inhabitants of Boston?
Because Joel was trusted, albeit under escort, but launched to the secret base of cicades, entrusted secrets, gave access to the fate of this world.
And Joel made the choice wrong.
He is not a little boy, he perfectly understands what a study is and what the price can be.
And if he does not spit on Ellie’s life, then he had to leave with her to live with her brother initially, climb as far as possible from Bostonians and cicades. And raise her daughter.
And then he first leads her to the cicadas like a laboratory rat, and then “oh, I thought, thought and changed my mind”.
At the same time, I’m not saying that Joel is a monster.
Against the backdrop of his surroundings, Joel is still quite normal. He tries not to take someone else’s and only takes his. Tries not to kill people unnecessarily, although he does not trust anyone and prefers to shoot first, and only then understand.
And in the situation with the cycades, he acted as a person, listening to his heart. Yes, it was selfish. He did not discuss his decision with Ellie, although she can decide his fate in good. He spit on the fate of mankind and the life of cicades.
For the life of one girl, he without a doubt took a couple of dozen lives of cicades.
But this is the strong side of the scenario of the first part of the game. The world is ambiguous, people are ambiguous. And the truth is also ambiguous.
Nobody knows if Ellie could save the life of thousands or even millions. The experiment could well end in failure. Successful experiments need dozens and hundred and hundred attempts, and there is only one chance.
The decision itself first to bring it to the cicadas, and then it is not logical to kill cicadas. But understanding of Ellie’s value came to Joel late.
Only realizing that he could lose her, he suddenly realized that without her his life now does not make sense. And this is also very human. We cry often only by losing or on the verge of loss.
“Do you really not understand that we live like pigs and die like pigs only because we are no one for each other.»H/f fool 2014 Yuri Bykov
People from the Joel -Cattle camp are convinced that the main character sacrificed everyone exclusively from selfishness.
Rather, not from selfishness, but due to psycho -trauma from personal loss. Natural egoism leads those who argue from a warm chair in a cozy apartment when his relatives or favorite reception children are safe. Joel, as I understand it, led the horror of the possibility of repeating the tragedy with his daughter.
And this is the point. If we take into account the influence on Joel of his tragedy, then he can be understood and forgiven. But this is the manipulation! If the game gave a choice, this is one if there was no tragedy for Joel – this is another. A person who, without a tragedy, sacrifices the potential salvation of mankind for the sake of personal, is not the same as a cruel sufferer who cries in his soul in their former losses and therefore refuses to tear off the next piece from the heart for the sake of others. The drama, the tragedy of such a person is automatically a lever of pressure in order to persuade the viewer to understand, approve or forgiveness of a personal choice. And then the lever will not be necessary.
That the salvation of one close person outweighs the well -being of the faceless majority. And in general, humanity has rolled into such a shit that does not deserve salvation. So Joel well done, did everything right.
Well, for example, I am a cynic of a misanthropus, who in one Advenchur (maybe even someone will guess) donated a small and far from prosperity by a town to save a character, whose death in specific circumstances was unacceptable for me. But the question is precisely in circumstances and scale.
The problem of my fundamental rejection of those who, with all their souls for Joel, is that they, again, in principle, do not accept the possibility and need for the victim, when not the survival or well -being of the local community at stake, but much more, up to potential extinction. No one ever said that such a victim is simple and easy! Nobody ever. Such a victim is always a piece of meat, torn from the soul without anesthesia. A wound that will never heal, but.
I want to figure out in this blog whether Joel really condemned humanity to extinction and is his act really terrible.
Well, I even remember that there were no guarantees there. And this is just one of the arguments of Joel’s supporters that, they say, it makes no sense to sacrifice Ellie for the sake of a useless experiment. You might think, I would give the script a guarantee, they changed their minds all at once. No. Here the person correctly remembered the quote from the film "Fool". Why everything is in collapse? Because everyone spit on everyone! And such plots are just cultivating the very thing when nothing is important, only I and my near circle, and the rest is gorge. = e
Joel a villain because he deprived Ellie’s choice
I don’t know for whom, but the question is never in choosing. Ellie could with the same success as agree to sacrifice herself and convince Joel of this, and refuse, and rush to him, as a defender. The question is precisely in the survival and extinction of the type.
And even if you can “instill” several people in this way, then how to convey the “vaccine” further? Again kill "vaccinated" and transplant the cordyceps in a new medium?
Cruel, but yes, as an option. Desperate times require desperate dead and repeated victims until the victims are not needed.
Which means more? Express yourself as if they will sacrifice a majority for the sake of a minority, when in fact, on the contrary. Another thing is that in the conditions of the gap of each such unique one still needs to be found, persuaded or captured in order to conduct an experiment without errors and interference. Thus, each experimental will become not just valuable, but invaluable material, and each mistake can be almost or, in principle, it is equivalent to the canonical choice of Joel.
Even in our time there are a huge number of covid-dissidents who do not trust doctors and scientists
They said too! Now the anti -Vaxers are motivated not so much by ignorance or conspiracyology as with indifference and libertarianism. Such are the fruits of the policy of the last decades. The tops yelled so much about freedom that no one dares to oppress, which in case of danger to everyone to spit on everyone.
We need to wear a mask? You oppress my freedom. We must get vaccinated. And if I’m not khach? That’s not khach! You oppress my freedom. It is necessary to limit the contacts to protect yourself and others from the infection? How dare you oppress my freedom! No one owes anything to anyone! And the politicians know exploit the wave! Trump and Biden already called each other by the Communists! Yes, the crown was manifested in different ways (not everyone was sick hard), and not so that it was straight by a rampant pandemia. There were many patients, in some places and at other times even a lot, but there was no rampant nightmare. Therefore, people started again. You might think, they didn’t read comments on the network that, they say, a conditional person does not know and did not hear in his environment, so that at least someone got sick, and even hard, which means that the authorities are deceiving! There is no crown! All fiction and stupid fear of fools.
And according to the canon, the problem is more than convincing. Therefore, the latter does not have the incident, if there are arguments for resistance, then it will be easier to break.
How do you convince marauders or scars – frostbitten fanatics who hang strangers on trees and release guts to them?
If there is a truly effective way, then a lot can be solved by a simple issue. You want to live? But this is at least with relatively sane, and insane and vaccinated do not need.
Vaccine is not at all the key to solving the problem. From which in 9 out of 10 cases scouts in the world Last of US die?
So you can remember the world story. During the plague, people died far from only from the plague. And in time without epidemics, people gave birth to seven children, in order to equalize mortality, including from infections.
I came to the conclusion that the cicadas from the very beginning went in the wrong direction. The key to the salvation of mankind as a species is not a vaccine, but the creation of a safe environment.
One does not interfere with the other.
In addition, Ellie’s immunity is said that evolution has already begun attempts to adapt the human body to coexistence with cordyceps. She just needs to give time so that a useful mutation spreads among people
One little nuance. Man and humanity are not a super system that will suffer, balance on the verge of extinction, but is guaranteed to survive. Evolution, adaptability does not give anyone any guarantees. In the same way, one can imagine that the cycades began to increase both the standard of living and experiment in their protected cities, but the war of general or even natural disaster or mutation of the infection destroyed everything.