Current Events > Was Joel justified in his actions? (Last of Us Spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

I think he was more justified in the show since they made it clear that Ellie was given no choice in the matter. In the game its a little more ambiguous

If some fungus expert in Jakarta with the entire knowledge of humanity before it collapsed couldn't make a cure, how could some hack in a basement with limited knowledge do it?

Episode 1 opening: There is no vaccine. There is no cure. If this happens, humanity dies.

Episode 2 opening: Fungal expert witnesses the infection starting within 12 hours. "What do we do about this?" She responds with "Bomb. Bomb this city and everyone in it." Which basically means, there's nothing they can do outside trying to kill all the infected. She doesn't even consider studying the corpse for a solution, because there isn't one.

Then, by some miracle, Ellie proves immunity is possible. So, these fairly incompetent terrorists decide to use outdated machinery which only halfway functions to and they aren't even sure will function through the procedure at all... To do what was already established as impossible.

Yet, we're supposed to ignore all of that because Joel didn't know. That's true, but it poses it to us as the viewer and player to decide. And we know more than any of the characters. Joel acted impulsively and selfishly, for wrong reasons for sure. But his actions resulted in preserving the last hope humanity had.

Ellie's immunity isn't engineered. It seems to be a strain of the fungus that gives her immunity. So if other people are infected with that same strain then logically they would also have immunity.

Yes. Exactly. So why kill her instead of test if she can pass her immunity along through blood and saliva?

Even though I personally disagree with what Joel does in the "possibility for greater good" sense, he's also completely justified because it's kinda clear the fireflies have no actual idea what the fuck they're doing.

I'd also like to point out that Joel did the most dangerous job imaginable, never got paid, and might reasonably have assumed that being "taken out to the road" was going to be a one-way trip for him. So they've cheated Joel, might still be planning to kill him, and even if you are dumb as a stump you'd have noticed they aren't particularly effective. And even if he cared nothing for Ellie on a personal level, she was part of his group and was making up for his weaknesses (she's fast, has good hearing, etc.).

Unless you 100% believe in the cure and that the Fireflies are secretly very competent--to the point that you'd risk dying yourself to let them try for a cure--I don't see a case as a show-only viewer where any type of person with Joel's skills would act differently than he did. Even if you don't get the vibe that they were planning on offing him after he left the hospital, he'd be alone in the middle of a city he doesn't know well trying to escape raiders and infected. Yeah...no.

Morally he was right. Scientifically for the greater good he was wrong. More so i think the fireflies were wrong not to kill joel too because theyre aware of his nature and they were already fine killing a child.

He wasn;t right morally, the show even went out of his way to show how Ellie was resolved into doing this and why they would not just do any half-shit. This is why he lied to her.

It's also a hell of a leap to go from "I want to help however I can" to "I will gladly die for the cause the second I'm asked." One is a nice platitude, the other us a genuine consequence.

If I say "I want to help victims of X hurricane however I can," that doesn't give the relief fund the right to seize all of my assets and force me into slavery to help the relief effort for the rest of my life.

We already know she can't pass on her immunity with her blood.

We don't. Sam was already infected before she tried. Also, she just kind of smeared her blood on his wound.

If she had previously given him a blood transfusion before he got infected, it may have worked. It did feel like her doing that was their way brushing that idea aside, but it really didn't prove anything. She even tells David she infected him when she bit him, so the writers are aware of the possibility that it can be tried.

If only they had one voice log, or mentioned in the show that they had even tried the most basic options before resorting to just murdering her. But no, it's presented as if they only want a solution if it kills her.

He wasn;t right morally, the show even went out of his way to show how Ellie was resolved into doing this and why they would not just do any half-shit. This is why he lied to her.

The reality is the Fireflies have established that it isn't Ellie's blood or saliva that is unique but the parasite lodged around her brain.

We can look for loopholes all we like but we know what the intention is.

Which is still Cordyceps. The testers still registered her as infected when scanning her neck(blood I assume). So, it is present in her system the same as the other form of Cordyceps. The fireflies didn't establish anything about her blood or saliva, in the show or game. And the reason her infection gives immunity, is because it signals that she's already infected. Same with Sam, his infection was likely signaling to hers to not affect him. Its what stops the infected from attacking each other. Sam was too far gone to be helped by the time she tried. It'd be the same as taking a vaccine while already sick with a virus, it won't do anything at that point.

The intention was for it to be an ambiguous choice, with neither side being right or wrong.

Besides, both the first 2 episodes explicitly stated that there was no cure. No way to fix it. No way to synthesize a fix. But now, a barely functioning group, with broken and outdated equipment is supposed to do it in a day.

There's no evidence it would work outside the fireflies wanting to do it. And it's not only the tendrils that infect people... Otherwise I don't think the initial outbreak would've happened. I don't think many people would be eating biscuits with big wormy tendrils wiggling out of it.

Yes it's the cordyceps. Which is in her brain. If that type of cordyceps does not travel by blood or saliva it will need to be directly ingested.

If the Fireflies were idiots who were completely wrong then one choice is explicitly wrong.

If it's the cordyceps that is specifically the cure (and honestly I think at this point that can be inferred for both the show and the game) all they'd need to do is get it out of her brain, cultivate it where it can grow and be harvested and feed it to people.

The tendrils were meshed in with the grain.

Which again is probably them giving a hint on what the cure is supposed to be.

Who says it doesn't travel throughout her system? There's enough in her blood to immediately trigger an alarm on one of those testers Fedra uses. Takes like 1 second to detect it in her system. It's not a brain scan, her cordyceps is unique, but it is all throughout her system. It simply didn't replace her flesh with its own, but it's still there.

I'm not saying they're wrong. I'm saying they were desperate, and were making the worst possible decision that they could. Yes, they were stupid, but not wrong.

Joel is the opposite. He made the right decision for the wrong reason. He was saving Ellie, but he actually saved the world's only hope.

If investing her cordyceps is the only way, then David and his group were just as close to saving humanity as the Fireflies were. And any cannibal group has just as good of a chance as they did. >_>

Well, again, I don't think many people would like eating wiggling, wormy, tendriled food.

Plus, by that logic all they'd have to have done is blow Ellie's brains out into some flour or wheat or something. Why the big journey to get her to a medical facility? Just for a scan to tell them that? It was all for nothing then. Any random cannibal or raider was just as close to making the cure as the Fireflies.

That alarm could be detecting the recent infection she was immune from. But yeah we don't know what those things are detecting.

We'll see. If it is eventually determined that the cure is located from the cordyceps and not her blood than they weren't making the wrong decision.

It was processed into it so they didn't know.

They also needed the surgeon to extract the cordyceps to keep it sustainable presumably.

A random cannibal or raider would need to specifically crack her skull open to eat her brains and then risk eating the cordyceps to figure out that it was the cure and then also figure out how to grow it.

Joel also read report about the 6 people they murdered that resulted in failed cures.

The infection she was immune to? The one that didn't infect her? From 3 weeks earlier. Joel was concerned that they'd detect her infection several months into their journey. Her unique infection is 100% treated as a Cordyceps infection. By Joel, Tess, Ellie, Marlene, all the fireflies, even the detectors. Everything but the dogs. There's no reason at all the assume it behaves like an entirely new entity, when it's still just a different strain.

hat's what I'm saying. Nothing points to them even trying that. Like, at all. It's straight to child murder with no other considerations of possibilities. Separation made them stupid

Or... It's a basic fungus until gets into a host and can grow. Like we see in the opening credits, it's more like a slime mold. Assuming that's representing Cordyceps. Which, why wouldn't it be

Why? If they just need to crack her open and ingest the fungus?

Well, you pointed out she has no tendrils. So would the slimy brain fungus look much different from regular slimy brain goo? They'd eat it, gain her immunity, or toss even toss it out and it's just grow into the ground right? We've seen that it does that until it can infect more hosts. Heck, it's looking more and more like just slaughtering her at any point would be a better option that bringing her to the fireflies.

Are we assuming that she was never tested for infection previously? Even after her birth?

In the show we only have one conversation from their perspective.

If they detect there's no traces of cordyceps in her blood and saliva then logically there is no point trying to do anything with it.

The unique factor which everyone is focused on is the cordyceps implanted in her brain.

We don't know what the extracting process is or what happens with cordyceps when it is removed from the brain.

Why would he constantly be testing healthy people who've had no exposure to it? People travelling into and out of the city, sure. A student whose pretty much under constant supervision who shows no signs of infection? Nah, I don't see why they'd waste time on that. So it's certainly possible that she had never been tested.

Besides, both Fedra and the Fireflies don't exactly make smart moves. Fedra is even more incompetent than the Fireflies. What makes you think they have regular city wide screenings of every individual, rather than just testing the ones at risk by going out of the city?

Which means, the only conclusion is that they immediately jumped to killing her as soon as she arrived. They didn't have time to test any of the basic stuff, which would logically take at least a day, probably weeks to do.

This never happened, and we have evidence to the contrary. Since she does test positive. There's no reason to think it's detecting the bite that was nullified rather than her own infection. She's infected, she's tests positive, it's in her system. That's how it's presented to us, and every character that knows about her. There's no reason at all to think otherwise.

The brain extends down through the spine. There are also non lethal brain surgeries which could get the cultures they need. Test the blood, if no good. Test a bite. If no good, test spinal fluid and cultures. If no good, perform non lethal surgery to access it. If no good, then there's really only 2 choices left at that point, take the whole brain and try or accept it won't work. They skipped literally every sound option. That's why I think a quick Convo saying they tested her blood or something before sending her would've gone a MASSIVE way to having people side with them and make it more of a moral conundrum rather than us seeing how stupid they were and siding with Joel simply because he's the only competent person in the room. >_>

Well first they kill Ellie and remove the brain. Besides neither do they. He was a brain surgeon, not a fungus expert. They were literally just taking a shot in the dark, and that shot just happens to be through a little girl's skull because they can.

What do you think is more likely though? That she was never tested for her entire life (even though she was an obvious risk as a baby) and she would always register as infected or that her recent bite that she was immune against registered her as infected?

Sure we do. That happens shortly after she is bitten. Then it never comes up again. It can go either way.

we also have to assume that the Fireflies didn't test her blood at all (which isn't a complicated process at all)

If the blood is no good then why would a bite be any good? Why wouldn't they just test the saliva and blood and establish that isn't a possibility?

Every conversation emphasizes they need the parasite in her brain to get the cure and it's a fatal operation to get it out. There is no information anywhere that contradicts that hypothesis and we both know there isn't going to be one.

Like I said, I doubt Fedra has the manpower and supplies to constantly be checking everyone.

3 weeks is a pretty long time. Plus, the bite you say triggered the alarm was the one she was immune to. Plus, Occam's razor, the simpler explanation is often the right one. She had an existing infection, it was detected. No need to complicate it by trying to explain that another bite, which didn't affect her, and she is immune to, is still lingering in her system to the point that tests positive, but not really because of her pre-existing infection also blocked it. That's just too complicated and convoluted to be the intuitive assumption we're expected to make. She just tested positive because it's in her system, that's all.

She was in Fedra protection until the show starts. They were on the run, hiding, and then wiped out. I don't think they'd have the supplies and ability to test anything there. Which is exactly why we trust Marlene when she decides to send her to a medical facility. It's that when she gets there they've already got a game plan on what to do. They just disregard safer options for a quicker one. Probably due to how long it took for Ellie to arrive and not wanting to risk missing the opportunity again, but also due to their dwindling numbers and having to scramble. Desparation made them hasty and dumb, and led directly to the conflict with Joel.

I was just saying those were all things that should've been tested for viability first.

That is that we see her journey, from only just meeting Marlene to arriving at the facility to be killed. There's just no way that they determined every other option was invalid with what we see, or what they say. So again, Occam's razor. Was it ignored because they sneakily tested everything behind the scenes and his that information from literally everyone, characters and viewers... Or that they jumped the gun because none of them really knew what was going on?

she way too young to be burden with this decision this big. Joel did the adult thing and took that burden on his own. Joel also read report about the 6 people they murdered that resulted in failed cures.

It's not a constant check. It's a simple machine that does some sort of scan. All it takes is one scan from one single machine in the entirety of Ellie's life.

Do you honestly think that's likely she never had one done before?

Can you not apply Occam's razor here? All of this is just theorizing a way for them to be wrong instead of simply using the information that we are provided to be valid.

simply using the information that we are provided to be valid.

You have no evidence that it wasn't. You're just deciding they didn't have time and that's that.

That moment is solely from the perspective of Joel. He gets knocked out, time passes and he finds out they're prepping her for surgery.

We do not know what happened while she was knocked out.

We do not know what information the Fireflies are working on in the lead up to that moment.

This is why that I hate Abby just gets off. From the things we heard Joel is a horrible person. However he is killed for saving someone.

Yes, because why would they just go around testing random people for no reason?

For infectious diseases, do they test you for those at regular check ups? Do they test you for COVID at every doctor visit? No, they don't. They test when you've been exposed

When were they done then? When Marlene had Ellie chained up? With her guards afraid to even approach her? With no medical knowledge, or facility to test? While on the run from Fedra?

But if she had tested the viability of the other options, and sent Ellie to a brain surgeon... Then she knew before we ever even meet Ellie and was sending her to die the entire time. it can't be both ways, she was either surprised and upset that Ellie had to die, or it was her plan from the start. And she sure looked upset to me. So I'm leaning towards it being a surprise to her too.

Have Marlene mention them ruling out the other options.

You're saying it has to have happened, because there's no evidence it didn't. I'm saying it likely didn't happen because they no opportunity, and if they could test her from within the QZ there's no reason to ship her off to a medical site to do exactly that. it's literally the reason Joel and Ellie are travelling. To get her to the site, and see how they can make a cure. If that had already been determined prior, then it undermines Marlene's and the Fireflies entire plot.

No reason? An infected woman gave birth to her.

Then she was transported to FEMA from the outside world.

Sure? Why not? Don't they have her held for weeks?

It's a blood and saliva sample. You don't need a facility or medical knowledge to get those. Assuming they didn't have anyone there who could do that anyway. We know she travels to Salt Lake City and arrives before Joel and Ellie. From there they have samples to work off for potentially weeks before they arrive. That seems logical no?

Again the only thing that needs to be ruled out is that her blood doesn't work. Something that shouldn't require extensive resources and time and something we see directly implied by the show already.

I never said she tested it herself. She arrives to the facility before Ellie and Joel do. If she has blood and saliva samples for them to study before they arrive then there you go. Jerry decides they need to operate after he scans Ellie on the day and realizes there's no other option. Nothing is contradicted. Marlene isn't the doctor. Jerry is.

I think deep down everyone knew it wasn't going to be happy times for Ellie when she got there though yeah.

We don't see Marlene's perspective of the day. We only see Joel and Abby's.

By the time we do see the latter conversation they are well into talking about how extracting the cordyceps specimen out of her brain is the only option.

I'm not saying anything 'has' to have happened. I'm saying there's no reason not to take what is told to us by the game at face value. There's enough room for all sorts of explanations and we never see the direct perspective of the doctors or Fireflies that could easily explain their logic outside of "They were stupid and rushing" which automatically gives a defense for Joel that clearly isn't intended by the narrative.

The logistics of why that conclusion is reached is overall heavily implied with information that is already provided to us as the viewers. We don't need characters to sit down and explain specific details that people will just poke more holes in anyway. It's a fictional parasite that doesn't have a real world parallel.

I doubt they advertised that. It was just Marlene and that other guy that knew. I don't think Marlene would march her straight to Fedra and announce that she was infected. So, to Fedra. Healthy baby is a healthy baby. Becomes a healthy kid, becomes a healthy teen. Who has had no risk of infection to their knowledge. So yes, no reason for Fedra to test.

Why would she take samples and transport them herself when Ellie is going to be there in person?

literally watched the episode like an hour ago.

Except we have a fairly complete timeline of what happened

So why are we putting so much faith into a random brain surgeon who most likely knows nothing about fungi?

you guys really love spoiling this shit for people who haven't played the games

the fucking entitlement is worse than people who read GoT before it was a TV show

Druckmann's intent for the ending of the first game was for Joel to be 100% wrong