THE LAST OF US Ending Explained: Was Joel Right Or Wrong?

all right so the Last of Us comes with an ending that I think will stick with everyone long after they experience it whether you watch the events play out in the game of show I think that it leaves a lasting impression due to the situation that the two protagonists find themselves in towards the end of the story Joel finally reaches the fireflies with Ellie but he discovers that in order to make a vaccine that she has to die Joel is someone who lost his daughter and rather than going through the pain of this again he decides to murder all of the fireflies and take her back to his brother and Jackson Joe lies to her about what really happened and he makes Ellie believe that everything was all for nothing well not for nothing as he now has a surrogate daughter and she has the father figure that she's always wanted in her life he tells her in the show that writers arrived at the hospital and though he leaves out this detail in the game he makes a believe that they've given up on finding a cure the gaming show also closed out on the exact same moment with Ali asking Joel to swear that everything he said is true swear to me that everything that you've said about the fireflies is true [Music] I swear [Music] okay now was Joel right or wrong well firstly I think we have to discuss the two sides of the argument and how Marlene and Joel are actually pretty similar Bell who are tasked with guarding Ellie and they made a promise to protect her both knew she was immune and both were told there was a way to manufacture a cure from her however where they differentiate is that Joel's not willing to kill for this or as Marlene is Joel is a lone wolf who's seen the worst in humanity and he's been a closed Buck since the death of his daughter he knows what it's like to lose a child and doesn't think that it's worth sacrificing a kid like this on a cause Moline on the other hand is looking at the greater good or as Jill tended to work on his own she's been part of a group she sees Ellie's immunity as something that could help humanity and believes in the best of us as the collective Joel believes in the best of us as individuals and he refuses to give up the needs of the few to help the needs of the many a Joel throughout the series in game was a very closed off man who refused to open up to anyone because he he knew what true loss was as a parent I can't imagine how painful it would be losing a child and going off what I've heard from other people it's the most difficult thing you can go through he simply refuses to do this again and Views taking Ali to the fireflies as throwing her to the Wolves it's safe to say that Ali you also brought something out of him that he thought was long gone throughout the series in game we see Joel glancing at his watch from time to time and this is a reminder of the life he had with Sarah given to him as a birthday present it broke during the fall in which he was shot and since then it's been frozen in time like he has however he started to grow with Ellie or as he refused to talk about his past we see him opening up about it in episode 9. now they do things differently in the episode and game but they carry the same meaning in the game during the Jackson chapter Tommy tried to give him a photo of him and Sarah but he refused to acknowledge it we learned that Ellie ended up stealing this and taking it on their Journey she presented it to him at the end and he finally ignored knowledge that you can't outrun your past in the show he says that Ellie has helped them to move on finally and to put it plainly he doesn't want to go through this again Joel knows how bad that loss like that can be and also what it can do to a person little is known about the 20 years between outbreak day and when we catch him in Boston but we do know that bad things happened due to what he says about Brian he's clearly killed people like him before and he's run through the hospital shows just how merciless he is he's very much sparing himself from becoming this person again or something even worse going through this twice in one lifetime would completely break him and he sees Ali as a way out of the darkness the Firefly saying is of course luck for the light and this is very much what Ellie represents Sarah's ghost still haunts him and in many ways even just seeing a woman with the same hair as hair is enough to set him off he can instantly get lost in a daydream Imagining the life she should have had and this is why he's so dead set on saving Ellie she's a new channel sense the life that he and Sarah should have had together and it's all that he cares about Joel very much represents an individual's needs and how one can justify putting themselves above all else now throughout the HBO podcast show they've constantly talked about how love is a theme in the series Angel represents the positives and negatives of it when you love someone you can do lots of great things however you can also do bad things in order to keep that love giola is an embodiment of this with him murdering an entire group of people who in their hearts just wanted to save Humanity on paper Joel is the bad guy and when people are discussing the game they'll always be the idea that when you're playing as Joel you are playing as the bad guy however the last of us is never as black and white as that and because we played as him we can completely see things from his point of view like him we've grown a bond with Ellie and therefore we want to save her and right off into the sunset now he lies to Ellie not only for himself but because he doesn't want to destroy the image he has of his self and himself in her eyes it's important to bear in mind that Ali carries a lot of survivor's guilt and this is due to the deaths that she's seen happen Riley Tess Henry and Sam all died whilst she lived and would crush her further learning exactly what Joel did in the end she's also concerning to this idea too as she accepts his version of events even though they sound suspect they are both living this lie with each other in which they can go off and be father and daughter together even though they probably know that things aren't that cut and dry they have to constantly keep lying to themselves because the truth's too difficult to face up to and Ellie saying okay carries a lot with it it's not an acceptance that that's what actually happened it's an acceptance of Joel's version of it and deep down Ellie might even know that something bad could have happened which he was spared from now on the other side of this is Marlene and she's very much the antithesis to Joel in both ideology and personality whereas he was someone who tried to keep himself to himself Marlene did the opposite she actively saw people out in order to build the following and as the leader of the fireflies she's rallied hundreds to her cause oppressed by Federer these down beaten and Overlook people have managed to escape the confines of fascism that they were subjected to and though they're labeled as terrorists they can also be seen as Freedom Fighters Marlene sees Ellie is a way to lead Humanity out of the darkness and into the light much like how Jill does however whereas that's for his personal life Moline sees a being as something that can help Humanity as a whole creating a vaccine will stop the grip the cordyceps have on the planet and it means that the species can finally recover this entire part of human history could be looked back on like how we look at the black death and in hundreds of years time it's possible that we could at least get back to where we were Moline sees his potential and she believes that the fireflies will distribute the vaccine fairly she thinks that Federer would hold people to Ransom because again fascists whereas the fireflies having it would be for the better but is that really the case well I actually think that's pretty unlikely Kathleen is the perfect example of what happens when Pedra are overthrown and the alternative is often just as bad I feel like the fireflies would be like this too as their happy to bomb civilians and create Warfare in order to get their point across Marlene's heart is in the right place but whether things actually happened the way she imagined is pretty unlikely what would probably happen is that the fireflies would require people to join them in order to get the Cure and then there'd be a power struggle now you shouldn't judge a book by its cover but but I also don't think that the fireflies have the facilities to mass produce a vaccine if we look at our own world there were shortages in them after the pandemic and that was with the worldwide effort to create them so I don't really think that the fireflies would be able to carry this out either and in the waiting times people would get frustrated those in federal camps would likely hear of the Cure and then tensions would start to flare us better try to keep them in check whilst the fireflies spread it this would also take a while well and likely cause further conflict in the zones leading to more deaths people would start to eat themselves just to get a hold of this thing and the fireflies could run out of resources when trying to mass produce it fedra could also spread misinformation and say that the Cure doesn't actually work and then they may rally people to their cause which would cause further fighting in war so lots of things to think about however Marlene's hot in the right place even if things aren't practical where the Marley gray area comes from though is whether it's okay to kill a child in order to do this Marlene is alright killing someone else's kid to do it but whether she would do it for her own child is something else entirely if you're a parent then ask yourself right now would you kill your own child to give a group like the fireflies the chance to produce a cure personally I don't think that many would and I know for a fact that if it came down to In the Heat of the Moment that I'd say no this is something that really struck me when making this video as over the years I've often been someone who was rooted solely in the idea that Joel was in the wrong I was an idealist who thought that the ends Justified the means and that killing one person was worth it in my head I was Marlene making the tough choice in order to carry out the greater good sure had played as Joel and even though I could definitely see things from his point of view I thought that he was the bad guy however since having children myself I've now began to ask myself would I hand them over like this knowing that they'd die just so that the fireflies could carry out their goals and I don't think I could add to this fact that Joel's already gone through something like this and I really start to see why he did what he did this is a man who's already lost his daughter and faced with the prospect of losing someone else he cares about he simply refuses to do it again knowing all of this though I presented it as there being two sides the one person that we haven't talked about is Ellie they make a big point in the finale of talking about what she would have wanted and I think it's important to discuss that too using the ending as hindsight it seems like she's just happy to go along with whatever Joel tells her however part 2 does expand on her feelings quite a lot in that she goes to Saint Mary's Hospital herself and discovers the truth about what really went down there horrified she decides to cut Joel out of her life and later on we learn that she's devastated her life could have meant so something in this moment we see that Ali was happy to die if it meant that a cure could be manufactured she wanted all the deaths that happened to get her to the hospital to mean something but because of Joel's actions they no longer did I think Joel knows this too which is why he decides to lie in the end he knows it will break out his heart and is doing this to spare himself even more than he's trying to spare her so in the end I think that if we look at this as being black and white and yes Joel is in the wrong he went against Ellie's wishes and also doomed Humanity to eventual Extinction the species in the show is on its last legs and being pushed further down this road will only lead to more deaths and also division there's a reason that all of the kids in the game outside of Ellie end up dead and that's because it's near impossible for a child to make it to adulthood in this world so the species will die eventually due to kids not growing old enough to have them themselves and will slowly dwindle into Oblivion therefore I think that when looked at like this a Joel is in the wrong but and it's a big but as a father I can also see why he did the right thing and honestly if I was in the same position I'd probably do that too we would like to think that we are Marlene but when pushed into a situation like this imagine that most people will react exactly the same whether it's your mother father grandparents sister brother or child when it comes down to making that choice it's impossible to say you'd happily hand them over so I can totally see why Joel did what he did and why I think I do the same thing going back to the question of whether Joel is right or wrong well I honestly can't say though I'm like 90 80s let's say 70 sure he was wrong because of what we discussed there's still a little bit of that in my mind and that might be enough to make me side with Joel I think when we think about this situation theoretically that we as people would all like to believe that we do it for the greater good however if it actually happened and I was forced to make the choice between my kids and helping out these I think I know deep down exactly what I do now as many of you know I get sent stuff early and I actually wrote and recorded this video before the finale aired and after listening to the podcast I decided to hold off the release so we could go and add this extra bit in about what the showrunner said they actually bring up some of the points that I did about being a parrot and also give their thoughts on the choice at the end and people have been debating the end of The Last of Us since it came out 10 years ago and I can only assume that people are debating it now I know we sound innocent because we haven't gotten there yet there may be riots in the streets but people will debate this and people may look to this podcast for some sort of answer and an answer will not be forthcoming because the truth is you can make an excellent argument either way well we debate it even like as we were working on we were debating it whether like it's the right thing or not then it's beyond right or not it comes down to there is an instinct within all of us to do it this way and there's an instinct within all of us to do it this way and there's a lot of discourse about that tries to rationalize why one decision would be better than another and I have no problem with people engaging it it's kind of fun to do as a party game but the reality is it's a dilemma and the point of a dilemma is it ain't easy and there isn't one right answer and I can make an outstanding argument that Joel should have done exactly what he did and said exactly what he said to Ellie after and I can make an outstanding argument that he shouldn't have done any of that and that's kind of the point that as flawed human beings this is one of the prices we pay for loving people loving people tends to Trump simple morality and that's where Joel finds himself with Ellie well yeah intellectually you can make the argument this choice would save the most people yes but this is not an intellectual exercise when you're a parent just a quick anecdote because when I was working on the story of The Last of Us I was talking with my dad you know we're from Israel so seeped in Israeli politics there was this guy that was kidnapped an Israeli soldier he was held hostage for several years and to get him back Israel traded hundreds of prisoners in return some of which I were tried for like pretty horrible crimes so I asked my dad like do you think they did the right thing and my dad goes are you asking me as the prime minister of Israel or is the kid's father because I could give you two very different answers as the prime minister of Israel I think it was a mistake they made Israel weaker as the kid's dad I would have traded the entire country for my son and that is sort of what it comes down to what was was fun is when we were making the game we would um play test the game and usually we do that to make sure like people aren't getting stuck and what we're trying to convey needs to convey and then at the end one of the questions we would ask if they finished the game like what did you think of Joel's choice in this moment if the player was not a parent it was 50 50 whether they like they say oh I think Joel was the villain that was the twist or like no I totally agree with what he did if the player was a parent a hundred percent with zero exceptions they agreed with Joel yeah zero exceptions now I think the most important thing to bear in mind is that Jill saved Ellie but in many ways Ali saved Joel he's not gonna abandon her to die even if we think that he should because he's acting like a parent who thinks he knows best but there's still a cost that comes with us and shows that no decision is without its consequences so it's a Marley gray area in which sadly there's no right or wrong answer and I think that's what gives the ending of The Last of Us it's staying power we can argue over it forever and really go back and forth over what we would do so that's what I'm gonna let happen yeah in the comments below I'd love to hear your thoughts on the ending so make sure you let me know if you enjoy the video please hit the thumb bit any climactic end of the video but if you eventually join it please hit the Thumbs Up Button make sure you subscribe as we're doing more Last of Us coverage over the next couple of weeks we're also running in competition right now giving away the rocky 4K box set to three subscribers on the 15th of March and all you have to do to be on the chance of winning is like the video make sure you subscribe with notifications on and drop a comment below with your thoughts on the video we pick the comments at random on the 15th and the winners of the last one are on screen right now save that to you then message me on Twitter at heavy spoilers now if you want some ballots to watch we've got another hotly debated topic can we forgive Abby if you've played the second game you know exactly what I'm talking about if you want to see that debated then head over there right after this by the way thanks for clicking the video I've been four I'll see you next time take care peace

Channel: Heavy Spoilers

Views: 198,615

Keywords: The Last Of Us, The Last Of Us Ending Explained, The Last Of Us Breakdown, The Last Of Us Explained, Joel, Ellie, HBO, TLOU, Last Of Us, Ending Explained, Joel Explained, Episode Breakdown, Clickers, The Last Of Us Characters, episode 9 breakdown, The Last Of Us episode 9, The Last Of Us episode 9 breakdown, The Last Of Us episode 9 explained, trailer breakdown, Joel And Ellie, all cutscenes, ending, joel death, the last of us trailer, hbo, the last of us part 2, the last of us 2

Id: Lvoz5kqomR4

Length: 17min 38sec (1058 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 13 2023