Forgiving Joel and My Take on The Last of Us

The unedited post as it was on 8/24/2013.

I finished The Last of Us on Friday, then went to bed and couldn’t sleep because I was playing out this moral dilemma in my head. Since I couldn’t sleep anyway, I got up and put all of my thoughts into this long-winded summary. I was going to just leave it on my computer, but I put a bit of work into it so I thought maybe I’d polish it up and post it on line somewhere, maybe put it on the Naughty Dog forums or send it to a Naughty Dog rep. Then I thought, Reddit is awesome, I’ll just put it there. Hopefully I can provoke you to think about some things you may not have considered yet.
I just finished The Last of Us and, while I didn’t like the ending at first, it was magnificent. The clash of interests was complex enough to paint a very real picture and the last few scenes don’t just present a moral quandary, they tear the very fabric of right and wrong. Not long after finishing the game, I stumbled on this Polygon review [url at end] and realized just how controversial the ending has been. Like any great work of art, the beholder can read meaning into the piece that the designer never imagined. Because you read yourself into the characters, you slip into their shoes, no two people walk away from a great story with exactly the same interpretation. I hope that you’ll take a few moments to consider my take on this magnificent feat of storytelling, and maybe share yours as well.
I put a lot of thought behind trying to figure out who this game is about. It certainly doesn’t seem like it’s about Joel at the start. He’s so shallow and calloused that you can’t help but hate him, yet you’re stuck playing as him. As the game progresses, Ellie’s character develops into this very self sufficient, slightly suicidal girl who just so happens to be humanity’s sarcastic savior. After Joel’s injury, I think it’s pretty clear that she doesn’t need Joel, so what purpose does he even serve? Then Joel’s character starts to come around in David’s compound and you can’t help but sympathize with him. You even get a bit of a wildcard character in Marlene, a woman who has fought so long and hard to save humanity that she’s willing to break a promise to her best friend and sacrifice an innocent girl so that it’s not all in vain. And all of these personalities clash so beautifully in the operating room.
What I realized is that none of these characters are the focus of this game any more than the others, just as none is more right or wrong than any of the others. They all had perfectly valid reasons behind their choices and they all did a lot of wrong to get to that operating room. Instead of giving us a hero, Naughty Dog just painted this portrait of conflict and let us find ourselves in the characters. Maybe you’re a Marlene, willing to make any sacrifice for the greater good. I think Danielle from the Polygon article sees herself as Ellie, and I probably would have at one time. She’s this kid who believes she can save the world (just like those comic books she likes to read) but also wants to find the childhood that was so cruelly taken from her. I think there is a little bit of that kid in all of us, but I’m not Ellie. Personally, I’m Joel. Or I could be at some point in life. I may not share his skills and tendencies, but add a few decades to my age and place me in a post apocalyptic world where my daughter is humanity’s only hope and I would do exactly what Joel did. I’d kill all three doctors and shoot Marlene too, anything to give my kid a chance in life. Then I’d lie to her. She can’t go back to the hospital now, and I wouldn’t want her to if she could. I might as well not make her carry that burden of guilt.
I don’t think there’s much question about whether Joel did the right thing in his mind. The real question, is whether Ellie is now his daughter against her will, as Danielle suggests. I think it’s pretty clear that she cares deeply about Joel. He wasn’t just a way to the fireflies; Tommy could have gotten her there. She carried Joel through the winter when she really didn’t need him. She definitely shows apprehension about going to the hospital, but she pushes on with Joel leading the way. She risked drowning to save him when she was already at the facility. But, she had also seen how terrible the world had become firsthand and knew she was the only way to save it. She never got the chance to choose between herself and the world. Joel made that choice for her, and Marlene would have if he hadn’t.
Ellie risks her life, and humanities only hope for a cure, to save Joel’s on several occasions. Joel simply did the same for her. The kicker is, he has also taken something from Ellie in the process. After Ellie talks about being bitten, it becomes pretty clear that she just wants a way out of that terrible world. Marlene had given her a way, built on broken promises. Maybe Joel has given her another, built on a lie. If there is a sequel, this lie has to take center stage. Let Joel teach Ellie how to swim and play the guitar. Let Ellie meet some other teens. Let her enjoy that childhood she never had, but it’s all built on a lie, so it has to be bitter sweet. Ellie will find out the truth, and it can’t be easy for either of them. Honestly, I think Ellie knows the truth right now. She woke up in a speeding car while wearing a hospital gown, not in a hospital waiting room surrounded by fireflies. She’s just reluctantly following Joel because she trusts him, even if he is a liar. But how long can that hold out? Despite living in a world where she cannot afford to be a teenager, Ellie is one. At some point, what she wants in life and what Joel wants are going to clash. Also, Ellie doesn’t need Joel anymore. I think he should die at some point in the sequel if not before it. Maybe they have an argument because of this lie and don’t get the chance to work things out. Fast forward a few years, give Ellie a family of her own, and maybe she can sympathize with Joel. Or maybe this is too simple and shallow. I never saw that ending coming, and anything I throw out for the sequel is probably going to come way short of whatever Naughty Dog cooks up. Not many games leave you lying awake at night pondering the morality of what you’ve seen play out, of the decision that you, on some level, have just made.
Another thing that I want to cover is how appropriate the title, The Last of Us, is. The game shows us plenty of people who have allowed this post-apocalyptic world to make them something other than human, and I’m not just talking infected. From the people in the city where you meet Henry who were willing to get rid of every women and child to improve their odds, to David’s cannibals, right down to the military and fireflies; this games shows us plenty of people who no longer understand the difference between living and surviving. Then, it shows us two people who are clearly still capable of compassion and a tiny haven where people still live with some amount of normalcy. Even if it can be interpreted as a bit cruel, the game had to end the way it did. It’s a game about us, and a game about life, which is bittersweet by its very nature. Everyone can picture themselves somewhere in this game, even if you don’t always like to, and that is why Naughty Dog did such an awesome job on this one.
One last thing I would like to throw out, just to provoke your thoughts. Perhaps Marlene is not as shallow as I am painting her. Why didn’t she just kill Joel before he came around? She knows he is a danger to her operation and it seems awfully cruel to take Ellie from him and make him walk. Perhaps letting Joel live is Marlene’s way of struggling with taking Ellie’s life, “I can’t kill the one man in this facility who understands the magnitude of this decision.” She knows the right thing to do on the large scale and she has way to much invested in this to just let Ellie walk, but she made a promise. In letting Joel live, maybe she was giving Elli one last fighting chance, through him. Putting this decision in someone else’s hands. Then, before Joel kills her, she say “Let me go.” Maybe this wasn’t so much “let me live” as it was “take me with you.”
On a totally unrelated note, how could they cast Nolan North as a cannibal! I remember thinking early in the that game it would have been cool to run into a former treasure hunter who lost the only real treasures he ever had and was now just fighting to survive. Drake definitely would have been a survivor in this world. He had even seen something very similar in El Dorado. But, this would have been way too cliché and would have taken something from the tone of the game. Maybe they could have at least hidden a note that appeared to have been written by him, left it to the player to decide whether he survived.
URL for Polygon review: http://www.polygon.com/2013/7/24/4548992/the-ending-of-the-last-of-us
Just adding a few things based on the comments I've gotten so far. Ellie does definitely still need Joel. I was speaking in a more literal sense; Ellie can take care of herself. You guys are absolutely correct that she does still need him in an emotional sense, which is just as important when viewing this story from the living vs. surviving standpoint. Actually, its more important. Still, Joel wont live forever. Also, unlike the Polygon reviewer, I don't believe that Joel is holding Ellie as his captive daughter. I think he wants what is best for her. For her to "keep finding something to fight for." This will eventually mean both her and Joel letting go. Whether Joel dies in the sequel really needs to depend on whether Ellie can handle it. At this point, she couldn't. But, I would have to imagine that the world of The Last of Us forces you to grow up rather fast.
Whatever happens to these characters in the sequel, we aren't going to have the luxury of being detached from the consequences. Since I've already leveled with Joel's decision, I'm really hoping that he doesn't come to regret that decision. It should come back to haunt him, but he can't regret it. Otherwise, we are as wrong as he is. What I'm trying to say is that there is going to be a lot of pressure on Naughty Dog to do a sequel right, if they go down that road.
I was also thinking about the scene where Joel falls of his horse. It didn't seem like Ellie was going to be able to pull him back up. Obviously, she got him out somehow. Maybe she found a way, but I like to think it was something a bit more surreal. When Ellie was telling him to get up, maybe he heard Sarah's voice. When he was mumbling in the cellar, maybe he was talking to Sarah. Maybe she convinced him to move on, find a reason to live. ("I know she would'a liked you.") Personally, I think that would be a great way to open a sequel.
There is one other thing that might be appropriate in a later game. If something does happen to Joel, Ellie should keep his watch.