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[Critical Drinker] Joel Did Nothing Wrong - The Importance Of Ambiguity

You're asserting your own views on morality as superior without properly explaining why. Killing children is wrong? Under many contexts, I'm sure. But killing a child to save billions? You need to explain the morality behind valuing a single individual over many. You're also portraying the Fireflies' decision as morally inferior to Joel's despite Ellie's continued existence only serving Joel in particular while simply leaving her to the Fireflies benefits billions.
Man. This is wild. You're genuinely asking me to support my assertion that it's wrong to kill children.

Wild.
You're projecting your personal feelings. The ending was made to be morally ambiguous so there's no possible way that it cuts through anything. If it was all for the "wrong" decision, then they wouldn't even try saving the world. Ellie was capable of making the decision herself and Joel made sure she wasn't able to. The innocent child narrative to give your argument weight doesn't work. Ellie is her own person and she could make the decision herself.
& you seem to be suggesting that it's ok to kill innocent children "for the greater good" as long as the child has lived through some horrors, is suffering from extreme PTSD & has survivor's guilt to the extent that they think there is no other answer.

Wild.

Have you guys ever heard of a sociopath? It's a person with a dangerous personality disorder that you may want to read up on.
 

GustavoLT

Member
He could have told the truth:

1 - you´re dying
2 - they black me out
3- a wake up and was told you´re going to be killed
4 - i killed everyone and saved you
5 - the end!
 

Kholinar

Banned
Man. This is wild. You're genuinely asking me to support my assertion that it's wrong to kill children.

Wild.
Lmao, stop with this rhetoric bullshit. And stop misquoting me too. Shit like this makes you look like an absolute novice at debating.
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
As long as Ellie isn't a mind reader, no. She was sceptical about his story, hence the confrontation in Part 2. He had to spell it out to her.

She didn't need to be a mind reader.

What you clearly missed from both games is that she didn't ask the questions to get the truth, she asked the questions to see if he would lie to her. In the second game, she threatened to leave if he lied again and that means she knew the answer well before asking the question.

& you seem to be suggesting that it's ok to kill innocent children "for the greater good" as long as the child has lived through some horrors, is suffering from extreme PTSD & has survivor's guilt to the extent that they think there is no other answer.

Wild.

Have you guys ever heard of a sociopath? It's a person with a dangerous personality disorder that you may want to read up on.
Because it's what Ellie wanted....a person who is capable of making her own decision.
 

Maxwell Jacob Friedman

leads to fear. Fear leads to xbox.
How does it make sense for Joel to leave out that he wanted to see Ellie and that they wouldn't allow it and that they threatened his life(and hers)?

It's comment sense to share such information between people who care for each other.

Yes, Ellie becomes less likeable when even she doesn't question that the Fireflies were going to kill her under those conditions.
Because in the end she wouldnt give a shit. He lied to her year over year, said there are more immune people like her when thats not true at all, he said the fireflies stopped caring about a vaccine. Much like joel in the beginning monolgue he said "she needed her immunity to mean something" and he kept downplaying it and down playing her. When she found out the only person who could make a vaccine was dead, once joels confession hit, she realized he murdered everyone in that hospital. In that point in time nothing else mattered to her.
 
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Ulysses 31

Member
Because in the end she wouldnt give a shit. He lied to her year over year, said there are more immune people like her when thats not true at all, he said the fireflies stopped caring about a vaccine. Much like joel in the beginning monolgue he said "she needed her immunity to mean something" and he kept downplaying it and down playing her. When she found out the only person who could make a vaccine was dead, once joels confession hit, she realized he murdered everyone in that hospital. In that point in time nothing else mattered to her.
I can see the bitter TLOU2 Ellie saying that he should've let her die like that, I still have my doubts about the TLOU1 Ellie being OK with it.
 
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Maxwell Jacob Friedman

leads to fear. Fear leads to xbox.
I can see the bitter TLOU2 Ellie saying that he should've let her die like that, I still have my doubts about the TLOU1 Ellie being OK with it.
Thats the point of the sequel and being lied to year over year about the foreflies, her immunity, other imune kids etc. This is what caused the rift between them. People also forget in the end the reason why the theme of the game is Hate is because Ellie was sloooooowly forgiving Joel, the speech on the patio at the end of the game happened the day right before Joel got killed. She was slowly warming up to him again and before she could forgive him and build their relationship back up, it was taken away from her by abby. Ellie is a victim of things being taken away from her no matter the intention.
 

Ulysses 31

Member
It hadn't changed anything. Joel knew he had fucked up in her eyes.
He said he would do it again, hence he has no regrets. He just feels bad/pitty for her.
I'm not so sure, yeah she'd remain pissed that he lied for all these years but I'd think she'd resent him less if she knew what kind of people the Fireflies really were.
 
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GymWolf

Member
Ellie was desperate for being helpfull, she would have probably accepted to be killed to save humanity anyway.
 
Lmao, stop with this rhetoric bullshit. And stop misquoting me too. Shit like this makes you look like an absolute novice at debating.
family guy bruce GIF

Because it's what Ellie wanted....a person who is capable of making her own decision.
Ellie...a 14 year old child suffering from extreme PTSD & survivor's guilt.
 

Ulysses 31

Member
Ellie was desperate for being helpfull, she would have probably accepted to be killed to save humanity anyway.
I can buy that she'd say yes and go through with the operation after tying loose ends with Joel and others first.(Still raises questions how sincere she feels about the daughter-father relationship)

What I don't buy is that she would've been OK with the operation in a way that throws Joel to the side-line like that as the Fireflies were planning to do. The game shows that Joel and Ellie care too much for each other to accept involuntary separations.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Sure, but that doesn't mean that you can't judge the events on your own given the information you can gather. Abby reacts to a partial insight into what really happend. She has a distorted picture of the events, Ellie as well. Only we as players can judge the whole picture.
To say x or y is the bad guy/girl is just to simplistic for the complexity of what is happening.

Well the issue is that the way the story is told shapes our impression of the events. As I wrote the first game does a ton of work to make Joel relatable, but doesn't spend much time at all on Marlenes's perspective. Which is key in really grappling with the morality in play at the climax, Marlene gets to lay down how she's known and cared about Ellie for far longer than Joel has, and how many losses she's needed to endure to get to this point and how she is painfully aware of the tragedy of the sacrifice.... But obviously telling is less impactful on the audience than showing, or allowing them to take part in gameplay.

From the player's perspective Joel's actions are made to seem more reasonable because we aren't shown the other side of the story. Basically this is what they try to do in the sequel (Abby is essentially the same as Joel, and likely destined to share the same fate) and ironically its still gotten rejected by those who place their affection for Joel above literally everything else!
 

Ulysses 31

Member
Thats the point of the sequel and being lied to year over year about the foreflies, her immunity, other imune kids etc. This is what caused the rift between them. People also forget in the end the reason why the theme of the game is Hate is because Ellie was sloooooowly forgiving Joel, the speech on the patio at the end of the game happened the day right before Joel got killed. She was slowly warming up to him again and before she could forgive him and build their relationship back up, it was taken away from her by abby. Ellie is a victim of things being taken away from her no matter the intention.
I don't see how that changes anything, if I'm correct, TLOU1 Ellie wouldn't have wanted to part with Joel as the Fireflies were planning to part them.

She gets bitter from the lies over the years but she can't retroactively overwrite the feelings of the more optimistic TLOU1 Ellie who wasn't angry at Joel yet. In other words, TLOU2 Ellie saying that she should've died at the hospital doesn't mean the TLOU1 Ellie felt that way at the time.
 

Self

Member
She didn't need to be a mind reader.

What you clearly missed from both games is that she didn't ask the questions to get the truth, she asked the questions to see if he would lie to her. In the second game, she threatened to leave if he lied again and that means she knew the answer well before asking the question.

I don't think so. Ellie was suspecting correctly that Joel was indeed lying about the events, but there is no way she knew what actually happend. It was not just an emotional thing, but also a informational thing. She needed to know the whole truth, that's why she confronted him at last.
 

Self

Member
She gets bitter from the lies over the years but she can't retroactively overwrite the feelings of the more optimistic TLOU1 Ellie who wasn't angry at Joel yet. In other words, TLOU2 Ellie saying that she should've died at the hospital doesn't mean the TLOU1 Ellie felt that way at the time.

Crucial point many, many people get completely wrong. Very good point mate.
 
Saying that someone who made questionable ethics choices did "nothing wrong" and calling out the lack of ambiguity is kind of self defeating.

Anyway, I don't think that this is the right angle if you want to criticize the story and the ramifications of what happens in the last of Us 2. Saying that Joel made the wrong choice when he saved Ellie is not even inherently wrong, those in charge of the story make the call on this, if they decide that in the case Ellie was sacrificed then after that everything would be rosy, the cure would save everyone and everything would be even better than before within months, so on and so forth...

Well that doesn't put you in the shoes of anyone in his position, he has no reason to trust the fireflies, no reason to believe that the doctors aren't overconfident or even sadist people who like to experiment on others, probably doesn't want the death of a kid for such a long shot. Also, the fireflies detained him, that doesn't build trust at all.

There's no way I would have acted differently, actually I would just have cried like a baby and begged for my life if I was attached in the chair whith the armed fireflies around me.
 

Ulysses 31

Member
Well that doesn't put you in the shoes of anyone in his position, he has no reason to trust the fireflies, no reason to believe that the doctors aren't overconfident or even sadist people who like to experiment on others, probably doesn't want the death of a kid for such a long shot. Also, the fireflies detained him, that doesn't build trust at all.
Getting knocked out because you're too concerned with the girl you're giving CPR to doesn't really give a good impression either. :p
 
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If you knew why I timestamped the video
Because you can cite but can't argue.
TLOU 2 fanboys are actually empirically worse than Rick and Morty fans at this point.
In their eyes TLOU 2 is this high brow cerebral 400 IQ story for super smart people, but at the same time they're scared shitless to read it differently from sacred dogmatic postulates of our lord and savior Druckman or, heaven forbid, admit logical inconsistencies therein.
Smart stories spark arguments about the message, not the execution.
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
Because you can cite but can't argue.
TLOU 2 fanboys are actually empirically worse than Rick and Morty fans at this point.
In their eyes TLOU 2 is this high brow cerebral 400 IQ story for super smart people, but at the same time they're scared shitless to read it differently from sacred dogmatic postulates of our lord and savior Druckman or, heaven forbid, admit logical inconsistencies therein.
Smart stories spark arguments about the message, not the execution.





You guys just repeat the same stuff over and over again. I haven't seen this line used before. :messenger_tears_of_joy:


It's not about having a high IQ because the story is very easy to understand. It's the people who are saying Joel saved Ellie because the cure wasn't guaranteed and he was stopping a murder because there was no way surgeons could create a vaccine or develop one in a rundown hospital. That, based on your logic, would qualify them as "the Rick and Morty fans". The timestamped video is pointing to show that Ellie believes Joel lied, the same thing fans have been saying for years and that's it.

That's what the story tells us and nothing more. It's obvious you don't know the story as well as you think and you need help people explaining it to you.
 

Stooky

Member
Because you can cite but can't argue.
TLOU 2 fanboys are actually empirically worse than Rick and Morty fans at this point.
In their eyes TLOU 2 is this high brow cerebral 400 IQ story for super smart people, but at the same time they're scared shitless to read it differently from sacred dogmatic postulates of our lord and savior Druckman or, heaven forbid, admit logical inconsistencies therein.
Awesome you don't like TLOU2 and Rick and Morty. Cant a talk about this game with out one of these showing up.
 
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Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Because you can cite but can't argue.
TLOU 2 fanboys are actually empirically worse than Rick and Morty fans at this point.
In their eyes TLOU 2 is this high brow cerebral 400 IQ story for super smart people, but at the same time they're scared shitless to read it differently from sacred dogmatic postulates of our lord and savior Druckman or, heaven forbid, admit logical inconsistencies therein.
Smart stories spark arguments about the message, not the execution.
Who's quoting Druckman? It seems to me that the people talking positively are just citing what's actually in the game in order to prove their points.

Why should we "read it differently"? Is this some sort of "feelings over facts"-ism?
 
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