The Last of Us - How To Write A Moral Dilemma

the first season of The Last of Us has officially ended and that famous final twist has left viewers shocked and in some cases appalled Joel's cold ruthless self-serving decision is uncomfortable viewing and it's impossible to watch without feeling at least some sense of internal conflict logically we think he's making the wrong choice but emotionally there is a part of us that secretly wants him to do it and those mixed feelings don't just appear because of the high stakes of the situation whether we realize it or not we've been subtly conditioned into it over the course of the Season through great writing and that's the skill of Storytelling just like a magic trick the audience can usually only describe the end results or how it made them feel but they don't fully understand how it was done so let's take a deeper look at Joel's decision and how writer is Craig Mason and Neil druckman planted the necessary seeds in our minds so that this controversial moment could pay off in the strongest way possible and yes the last of us is based on a video game but in this video I'm only going to focus on the TV writing foreign the first step is establishing a protagonist with trauma in the very first episode once the virus begins to spread Joel tries to escape with his daughter Sarah and his brother Tommy and he ends up trying to carry his injured daughter across the city's border to safety but even though they're not sick they get stopped by a soldier who's just following orders and he shoots them Tommy saves Joel just in time but Sarah Is tragically shot in the belly and dies in her father's arms so from the very beginning Joel has the person he loves most stolen away from him for what was understood at the time to be the greater good of not risking the virus spreading outside the city this experience hardens Joel so that he no longer trusts Authority and his attitude towards human life has become calloused and while wounds do heal so that we can carry on with life they also leave a permanent scar that's going to influence how we think and react to certain situations and the writers show us this by placing Joel in a similar situation to how he lost Sarah 20 years later at the end of the first episode when another Soldier tries to stop Joel Tess and Ellie from leaving the city Joel's protective rage takes over and he beats him to death this teaches us that Joel has neither forgiven nor forgotten what happened to Sarah and will clearly do anything to avoid it happening again his trauma doesn't just shine through his actions but his physical appearance for instance he still wears the broken watch that Sarah had fixed for his birthday I'm not sure there's a greater metaphor for a character not fully moving on from a certain moment in time than wearing a broken watch [Music] next is thematic continuity throughout the last of us we're consistently being given two key messages firstly that dedicating Our Lives to someone else is how we derive true meaning and secondly that we all need to make painful sacrifices for the greater good even in the first episode check out what initially appears to just be passing dialogue oh he loves you he's dependent on me not the same I think it's the same it's definitely the same but really this is subtly setting up questions that will then be answered over the course of the season if someone needs you to survive does this mean they're just using you or can there still be real love there this theme is expanded on fully through Bill and Frank's story bill was a prepper who couldn't survive on his own and then Frank shows up hungry and vulnerable to The Wills of this world the two begin a romantic relationship that at first could be mistaken as transactional that Frank needs a safe place to live and bill needs to finally explore his sexuality but really what gets demonstrated is that all relationships involve a degree of dependence as in order for us to fully attach to someone we need to trust them and it's the little acts of reciprocated supporting kindness that affirm our commitment we're always sacrificing something whether it be our time ability affection or resources as Frank says paying attention to things is how we show love Frank brings color and meaning to Bill's otherwise isolated existence he forces him to socialize and seek Beauty Beyond The Bare Essentials and although he may not be able to survive without bill bill would not be able to truly live without him and this is why when Frank becomes too ill to carry on and wants one final perfect day together before ending his life Bill decides that he wants to go with him as Frank isn't just His companion he's the purpose of his life his reason to keep going as really life is barely worth anything if you can't share it with someone else just like he States in his final letter to Joel I used to hate the world and I was happy when everyone died but I was wrong because there was one person worth saving that's what I did I saved him then I protected him that's why men like you and me are here we have a job to do and God help any that stand in our way we see a similar pattern with Henry and Sam Henry's sole purpose in life is to protect his little brother who's especially vulnerable because he's deaf Henry was willing to sell out someone in his community for the chance to get his brother the medicine he needs to survive so again we see this natural human instinct to dedicate your life to one person to Value them cherish them and be willing to prioritize their life over everyone else's including your own after Sarah Joel seems to derive his purpose from his brother Tommy as he's willing to risk his own life to find him and make sure he's safe but when he gets there he discovers that Tommy didn't disappear because he was in trouble but actually just moved on found his new person and is starting his own family all of these smaller story lines don't just happen at random the writer is intentionally constructs them to influence your thinking the same way they influence Joel's thank you and given Ellie has also lost everyone she's ever loved through their journey together they naturally begin to bond they both save one another's lives and look out for each other which not only gives their life purpose but makes them feel valued as they finally have someone else reciprocating that rare feeling that's so absent in this world as we must remember that by setting the story in a bleak post-apocalyptic hellscape where every situation is life or death just the slightest bit of joy is a rare gift something scarce that needs to be treasured but while the story is showing us how we find meaning through our relationships it's also constantly suggesting that we have a responsibility to make sacrifices for the greater good as if the species is at risk of going extinct we all need to do whatever it takes to save the human race even if sometimes that means losing our Humanity for example when the Indonesian scientist discovers the infection she suggests the only solution to stop the spread is to bomb this city and kill everyone currently inside it including her own family when Tess gets bitten she sacrifices her own life so that Joel and Ellie can survive after getting bitten Ellie's mother asks her best friend Marlene to shoot her when Sam gets infected even though he's the purpose of Henry's life he still takes on the responsibility of killing his own brother to save Ellie groups eliminate any risk they can including innocent people that were shot dead not because they were infected but because they didn't even want to risk them becoming infected later all of these Horrors are committed in service of the greater good and time and time again we see characters stepping up burying their personal feelings and doing what's right but in each of those scenarios the loved one is infected there is no bright future for them to inhabit only pain and darkness which brings us to Joel's decision once Joel gets Ellie to the hospital he wakes up to discover that she's being prepped for surgery and in order to have a chance of creating a vaccine they'll have to take the cordyceps from her brain killing her in the process but rather than sacrificing Italy for the potential benefits of the entire human race he lashes out to protect her killing everyone who stands in his way echoing the final message in Bill's letter at this stage of the story Ellie literally means more to Joel than the whole world this may be a flawed way of thinking but it's also the natural human response ultimately the story is presenting the philosophical theory of the trolley problem in a new format the ethical dilemma of whether it's right to sacrifice one person to save many others and although it may initially seem easy to tick a box and say yeah it makes sense to sacrifice one person to save let's say 50. the question becomes increasingly difficult when that one person is someone you know and love like a family member friend or partner now suddenly these 50 people don't seem to matter as much as this one person and we become less attached to rationality and more attached to sentimentality and loyalty this is where the Thematic writing up until this point comes into play if we hadn't been exposed to any of those messages or storylines then the scene would feel totally different for example let's say this was the first episode and this moment was how we were meeting Joel for the first time as he drops this random girl that isn't his daughter off at the hospital we would expect him to be upset but also expect him to hand her over peacefully and move on as in this high-stake situation with the potential upside this seems logical and we're less emotionally invested but instead the themes of the show subtly planned both sides of the argument in your mind at the same time so that when Joel has to make his decision as a viewer it's no longer simple for you either part of you wants him to do whatever it takes to protect Ellie it's a complicated moral quandary the ultimate head versus heart debate Logic the euro is expected to land on one answer but it's completely understandable that you wouldn't want to and there are so many important factors like did they tell Ellie she was going to die in the surgery if not then is this deception acceptable for the greater good is there literally anything that would make it unacceptable or are we saying that all ethics go out the window when it comes to human survival if so then Joel can argue the exact same thing for Ellie that she has just as much of a right to survive and he has just as much of a rise to betray all his ethics to protect her also there's no guarantee that this cure works and it seems that it has been tried many times before to no avail and whatever happened to me is defined in the vaccine that's what this is we've heard this a million times vaccines miracle cures none of it works what if the doctor isn't as capable as they think he is what if she's not the right candidate there are so many possibilities that would make it not worth it just like every other time they tried before so really they're forcing Ellie to donate her body to science while she's still alive and healthy for a potential long shot the writers have intentionally shown us every other character making the necessary sacrifice when their moment came to condition us into a certain expectation so that just like a magician they shock us with something we never saw coming but secretly wanted him to do even though we don't think we would have done it ourselves but that's what makes Joel a great character he's a vessel to vicariously explore our own morality now if you thought his reaction was too shocking and horrifying let's imagine that Joel didn't put up a fight that he just accepted the answer and walked out the door hoping for a cure the story would feel cold clinical inhumane and somewhat insignificant yet another human sacrifice in a show where everyone dies it needed to show us something new it needed to show us something raw flawed and human that valued human life on an emotional level not a scientific one that way the audience get to explore these themes in a more complete and honest way as ugly as the decision feels in the moment in hindsight by establishing Joel's trauma so early and exposing him to each lesson along the way it would actually go against his character for him to have done anything else as without Ali what does he have to live for just look at what happens to Henry or Bill when they lost their loved one they couldn't continue as it's the people in our lives that make life worth living ever since losing Sarah Ellie is the first person that makes him want to Envision a future for himself again that inspires him to not just want to survive but live even if it's only for another day another week or another year as far as he's concerned he sacrificed more than enough already so to hell with morality to hell with science to hell with the human race but if you just keep going you find something new to fight for in protecting Ellie Joel found his purpose and in Great Character writing purpose trumps morality as we don't always have to agree with what a character does to empathize with them we simply need to understand it as in a world overrun by The Walking Dead Joel found the one person that makes him feel alive [Music] [Applause] now if you made it this far firstly thank you for watching but I need you to give the video a like perhaps even drop a comment depending on your mood and definitely subscribe so the algorithm will do its thing and if you want to support the channel personally you can check out my patreon

Channel: Just an Observation

Views: 45,370

Keywords: the last of us joel, the last of us video essay, the last of us finale analysis, the last of us review, the last of us, the last of us ending explained, the last of us joel's decision explained, pedro pascal, bella ramsey, hbo, last of us moral dilemma, last of us morality, last of us twist, last of us writing, last of us joel evil, last of us how to write a moral dilemma, just an observation, Last of us finale twist explained

Id: ZHP56_--Pw4

Length: 14min 36sec (876 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 29 2023