Its the kind of ending that Mass Effect was going for but they didnt botch it up.

Ok here we go again.

Today over at polygon we have some depraved hipsters once again calling Joel a villain and even a psychopath.

http://www.polygon.com/2013/7/24/4548992/the-ending-of-the-last-of-us

I think i am beginning to understand where these people make their fundamental mistake in judging Joel.

Joel does not believe the cure will work.

Here is why

First off an attempt at a "cure" literally killed his daughter. At the start of the game a soldier shoots at Joel and his daughter because some order he received over his com. One can only assume it was to kill everyone in a given zone in an attempt to stop the spread of the disease.

Second pretty close to the start of the game Joel tells Tess that he does not think a cure will work. He says it has been tried and it never works.

Third if you listen to all the recordings at the hospital in salt lake Elle is just the best research candidate so far. Yes the fireflys obviously think Elle is the cure but they are reg tag group of post apocalyptic rebels/terrorists Joel didn't join them before why would he suddenly start thinking they had the secret to the cure when for 20 years no one could find a cure?

The cure is presented in he story as ambiguous. You as the player may think it will work but there is no reason why Joel should jump on that ship...and his experience and attitude through out the game not only points to his disbelief in a cure but in fact justifies it.

So when Joel bursts into the operating room we see three doctors trying to save the world...that is if we think the cure is real. Joel on the other hand sees a 13 year old girl about to scarified by the faithful to appease their angry god.

If some Aztek priest was about to murder your adopted daughter on an alter what would you do with that gun in your hand?

Would anyone call you a psychopath villain if you simply did what anyone would do?

Note: the article says Joel is a psychopath because he does not change...HuH? anyway he does change because at the start he tried to keep an emotional distance between him and Elle. Obviously that distance is broken at the end.

Note2: the lie. At the end Elle says the world is dark and horrible and at one point i wanted to die. Joel simply responds you should not want to die because of rainbows Santa clause and ponies. Elle may have wanted to die for a cure. Joel probably suspected that she would. If some dumb little girl wanted to off herself to some fanciful god what you would say? I don't know what i would say but Joel is portrayed at the beginning of the game as protective to his daughter...he tells his brother to not talk about the crazy stuff going on around them in front of his daughter....he also tells Elle early on not to look at the pile of burnt corpses....It is pretty obvious from the start to end Joel would lie to adopted daughter to keep her safe...even safe from herself.

That might make him imperfect..but a villain and a psychopath? not so much.

So I agree with you wholeheartedly, especially regarding the idea of player agency vs. the writer's story. But my god, it made me mad as a player. Because I'm so conditioned to make the "heroic" choices in games GÇö the "save the little sister, save the village, Jesus-or-******" binary choice that we always make fun of as gamers. I was expecting to have that choice, and the fact that I didn't actually shocked me. It's TLOU's boldest, brashest move, and it works so well.

Not to mention... this is 20 years after the devastating outbreak. the damage has been done, and even if they found a cure- how long would it take to distribute? Is that even viable?

more like the fireflies would use it for nefarious purposes. they already proved they were power hungry and would stop at nothing to win. no matter the cost.

Joel is pretty good to people he knows. Tess, Elle, Bob, his brother....he yells and gets angry (they do as well) but he doesn't abuse them physically. Joel in combat is a brute yet he is able to constrain his violence pretty easily among people he cares about. I don't think a psychopath with his physical prowess could be like that. A psychopath would use physical threat and abuse to get his way.

But yeah in our world he is an anti-hero were there is a civilization one can use a moral compass in....but in the post apocalyptic world he lives in? He comes pretty close to a hero as one can get.

I say that cuz i think in the polygon article and in other reviews Joel is not getting a fair shake. They condemn him pretty quick without looking at the world he lives in, and make sinister his character flaws. Also i think the cross county murder spree he goes on is literally the game. You run into ludonarrative dissonance in any game like this. Bioshock, Tomb raider ect. Basically to have a game you need Joel to kill a lot because killing things is the game while the story is mostly cut scenes They do not match up perfectly.

I imagine if game play was less important the narrative would have had Joel kill less people....and Elle probably would have been less of a ninja monkey assassin like she was when you got to play as her. Why wasn't she doing moves like that in the chapters before when she was an NPC?

Why do people complain about re-play value? Do books have re-read value? TLoU was like a book, you play (read) it and enjoy it. When you finished you were happy for the adventure and move on.

Also shouldn't this be in the locker room?

Dorks.