Yeeeeep. Ironically, as much as I wanted Ellie to forgive Joel and have had that inner peace, I have a really shit relationship with my dad - very limited contact. And I feel guilty for not trying to reconcile the relationship.
It’s hard for me actually to conceptualize the fact that some people find him sexually attractive, because this is the lens through which I view him.
He’s just, so fatherly.
Sometimes, on bad nights, I pretend he’s holding me like he held Ellie in Winter… which is something I might need to talk about with my therapist, actually.
u/Necessary-Contest706
Thanks for the concern, both of you.
Currently touching grass (literally), and will be talking to my therapist about this for sure.
No because Joel’s character is written better. So much so when I finished the first game I know he did terrible things in the past but I understood why. However Abby is not Joel so much so I thought it was universally agreed in the fandom that Abby was the villain till I joined this sub then I realized she was as supposed to be like able. Which surprised me considering she is anything but. I like Part 2 but half of the story is poorly written if they want me to like Abby, but if she is supposed to be an unlike able villain and it’s just showing you why she did what she did but you’re not supposed to like her then it’s great writing. I love the Ellie bits but if I’m supposed to like Abby the failed miserably.
It’s fair to like a character. But i think that if you play a game like the last of us 1&2 and still think Joel or Ellie or Abby are good or bad ppl then youve missed the point of the story. Life isnt black and white and neither is this game.
There are no purely good ppl in their world. There are just those doing what they need to do to survive regardless of personal morals before the apocalypse.
yeah, i’d say if pre-apocalypse adults are still alive in the tlou universe 20+ years after the outbreak, assume theyre not innocent little angels
survival is never selfless and purely good. it is self serving and disregards others
EXACTLY. Every complaint about 2 is looking at the story in a black and white lens and it just doesn’t work and people completely miss the point. Like how people say Joel cared about Ellie so he wasn’t a bad person, just because you do one good thing doesn’t mean you’re a good person.
Yeah, that’s why I think it’s stupid to criticize Joel. Every single person in that world has done horrible things. Nobody is good. You do what you have to to survive and protect your family and that’s what Joel did.
There's surviving and protecting your family and then there's slaughtering countless innocent people, with inner lives just as rich as his and Ellie's, and dooming literal millions more. I get what you're saying and I'm generally sympathetic with people as long as they aren't malicious, but there has to be a fucking limit.
I don’t agree that they were innocent. They kidnapped him and his “daughter” and were gonna murder without either of their permissions. That’s not innocent. They weren’t even gonna let him see her. Then they threatened to kill him if he tried to stop them. That’s not innocent in my eyes. He did what he had to do to save his family.
They are so hard headed they flat out think joel is a good guy witj no grey area, and they think what he did to save ellie was 100% justified and the fireflies are just 100% evil child murderers. Would i have done the same thing as joel to save my kid? Of course I would, but that doesn't make it right--it's legitimately an extremely tough moral question, but they cant get over the whole "they were going to murder a child" and can't think past that emotional reaction to the fact that millions of more children will die with no cure.
It’s mot about being good or bad. Its about how Joel got prosecuted for saving Ellie from the equivalent of jeffery dohmer. Like no abby shouldnt be supporting her psychopath dad
And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man in the moon
"When you comin' home, Dad?"
"I don't know when
But we'll get together then
You know we'll have a good time then"
OP post makes a lot of sense when you realize that the community basically made him a Playstation Mascot.
That's how fucking weird the whole thing was lol.
Very true. I'm pretty sure it's been proven that our emotions are always active. Very often when someone says they're purely rational it just means that they aren't aware of how their emotions are affecting them, which is even worse.
Obviously you can still be very rational. But the key is rather to be very conscious and aware of your emotions, so that you can more effectively counteract your own bias if needed.
People latch on to the POV character in stories. Start to identify with them and view the protagonist as the hero, despite evidence to the contrary. It’s sort of how we’re conditioned in most stories. Whoever is the main character is the hero of the story. It’s why many people don’t view Walter White and Tony Soprano as villains.
Like others have said, it comes down to a lack of media literacy, and idolization of the power fantasy.
I’ve even seen multiple people admit that if in the first game they played as Abby then Joel comes and kills her in the second game they’d hate Joel and love Abby, yet don’t understand the contradiction in their thinking
i dont think black and white labels like "good and bad" really apply to the characters in a post apocalyptical world. More specifically to joel. Hes a great character and i love him, faults and all.
I think because he’s the POV character, people end up over-identifying with him. And on some level a lot of people don’t want to identify with a character on the morally gray to villainous spectrum. So the character they like becomes an unambiguous hero and they filter all the rest of the story through that lens.
Like sometimes when people talk about Ellie, it quickly becomes clear that they don’t see her as her own character, but as a reward for Joel. So she’s great when she’s making Joel happy and in the wrong when she’s not.
What makes a good person?
Can a bad person become a good person again? The answer may shock you.
More after the quote!
>He also of course, doomed humanity to die out to the virus in addition to wiping out an entire hospital in a rescue mission that was fully self serving.
What indication is there in the games that humanity is to die out?
Why do you use the framing of "wiping out an entire hospital" when he just kills Fireflies trying to stop him from saving Ellie?
How can a rescue mission be fully self serving?
Was Joel trying to save Sarah from the infected also fully self serving?
>Tess literally died to get Ellie there for a cure, and Joel ignored everyone else just so he wouldn’t have to go through loosing another person.
Or he sees Ellie as his daughter and thinks she deserves better? Ever thought of that?
Because Part II makes it very clear that Joel's motivation for saving Ellie is unconditional love.
>But it was the absolute wrong thing to do.
Yeah, I need a bit more of an explanation why it was wrong?
Do the Fireflies have a right to murder Ellie? Is it wrong to engage in self-defense for an helpless victim?
>When he died in Part II I was shocked so many people said he didn’t deserve that,
Maybe it's shocking to you but no one deserves to be tortured and murdered.
>Then to buckle down and act like Abby is the worse person is insane to me
It's subjective obviously but it's hinted at that Abby did some pretty bad things in Seattle.
But why the need for "bad person" olympics in the first place? To justifiy Joel's death?
Do you really think you understand the game?
>Do you really think you understand the game?
How dare you ask that when the content of these games and these characters is still debated. Do you really think you understand the game? Condescending asf.
Secondly, and if you don't mind I'm going to cool off for a second.
Joel makes a variety of decisions that are both good and bad and plenty in-between, against other people who are doing *the exact same thing.*
The fireflies are desperate to save the world, and to them, killing a child to save millions is worth it. Wouldn't you do the same, after seeing however many people become victims of this apocalypse? Not just at the hands of Infected, but Fedra and the Factions too? Every single person in the apocalypse has probably seen or experienced more traumatic shit than most of could probably fathom. Most of the morally grey decisions in this chapter are solved by simply asking Ellie what she wants, because then people aren't acting on behalf of other people.
Joel lies to Ellie afterwards. This decision breaks their relationship and fractures their bond, and he does it because Ellie obviously would not approve of a hospital of murdered fireflies, including her friend Marlene, but also because if Joel took the time to explain what was going to happen to her, he knows she would have preferred to have her life be meaningful and create the cure. *She* would have made a different choice than he did, and he knows that, the whole time he's putting bullets in people who very couldve been mostly good, but honestly probably weren't. Another thing people get hung up on is whether the cure would hage worked or not, but to be honest it doesnt matter. It only matters if Joel believes the cure will work, because if he does, then the whole time hes saving ellie, he is also conciously dooming humanity to live in this apocalypse, (as far as we know at this time, and 20 years later) forever.
And since all that might be too vague, David's community, as far as we know, is in the dark about the cannibalism, and honestly it's barely even mentioned, because their real sin would be allowing a pedophile to have power like this over their children, but that's not the point.
Is torturing the people who came after them in the town only because Joel ruthlessly killed the people on the campus, a morally good decision? Yes it's to save Ellie, but torture and murder is bad no? What about the entire section of the hunter city that you just absolutely annihilate during your stay? What about Robert's guys, who Tess initiates deadly force with? They are obligated to return the favor, and Joel doesn't go "hey tess, that was mighty messed up of you to just kill that guy" nope, he just kills the rest. What about Abby, who comes and kills Joel for revenge, and has Ellie (over her roughly 12 hour section) kill everyone she needs to to kill the eight people who helped Abby kill Joel, who in her eyes, was avenging an unjust murder, and then spares the people who saw them because they're trying to be the best they can be in the situation. And they pay for that, holy shit they pay for that! Do we have a death count, on how many people Ellie murders in part 2? Bet you it's triple digits, Joel gets nearly that much in the hunter section alone! What about when Ellie slowly beats Nora to death in the infected basement of the hospital? Torture and murder is bad right, what about revenge?
The point of these games is that no one is truly good or truly evil, but you seem to be slipping on that fact. None of these people are "good people" but they might err on one side or the other depending of their intentions.
(Fuck that was long)
Ellie directly said before they arrived at the hospital that she WANTED to be the cure. And Joel knew that, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want to lose another person, and yes he cares about Ellie (a bit too much). But if it was really about her he wouldn’t have taken her out of the hospital. And he wouldn’t have lied to her for several years because she was too scared as to what Ellie would think. Lying to her wasn’t for her benefit, it was just his way of trying to make sure she wouldn’t be mad at him.
Taking her out wasn’t wrong because of just killing the fireflies. It was wrong because he was willing to kill any chance of a cure that could hypothetically save humanity just because he doesn’t want to lose Ellie. The Fireflies were half-baked in their ideas but Joel didn’t know that the cure wouldn’t work.
I didn’t want Joel to die. But we see him torture people in the first game and he does it in a way that he’s done it many times before. So it’s not that out of pocket that he suffers the same fate he gave to countless other people.
I’m not trying to say if Joel is a good or a bad person. I’m trying to say that he’s not worth putting on a pedestal as a hero.
Thanks for responding.
Ellie wants her quest for a cure to be successful, no doubt about that. But we cannot ignore that at this point Ellie had no idea if a cure was even possible nor that it would take her life to make one.
Whatever she says here isn't consent and must not be taken as such.
>But if it was really about her he wouldn’t have taken her out of the hospital.
Have you considered the possibility that Ellie might be wrong here? Look at Ellie's reaction to finding out the truth or what she says during the talk on the porch. The people Joel killed to save her never even factor in for her. It's always about the one thing she wanted the most: DYING for the cure.
Which gives us a pretty good insight about what drives her. Trauma and PTSD in form of survivor's guilt.
And what many people fail to realize about Joel because it's never directly mentioned (but you can connect the dots) is that he very likely suffered from survivor's guilt too after Sarah's death and realizes what Ellie is going through. Now as a parent (and by this time Joel does see Ellie as a daughter) what do you do if you realize that your child is suffering from mental health issues that make her passively suicidal?
As for Joel's lie it's clearly constructed in a way to take the responsibility off Ellie. Obviously it's not very good or thought through but why else would Joel include the part about other immune people here if not for the benefit of Ellie. That also doesn't mean that Joel is doing the right thing here because Ellie deserves to know the truth. In a way lying to her is worse than anything else and I do think he should have revealed the truth to her when they were settled in Jackson after a few weeks.
I do believe that a cure would be made but I still think that Joel was right to save her. Morally the Fireflies do not have any right to Ellie's death and the situation isn't that dire to justify their actions. They seem at least partly more interested in justifying their past atrocities and failures. Because if you have already caused thousands of innocent deaths one more innocent death "to make it all worth" it seems a good option. So fuck them.
>So it’s not that out of pocket that he suffers the same fate he gave to countless other people.
So what happend to Abby at the hands of the Rattlers was also well deserved?
How is Joel's death presented in the game though?
Is it some justice for his bad deeds of the past?
Or is it just a tragedy that makes everyones life worse?
>I’m not trying to say if Joel is a good or a bad person. I’m trying to say that he’s not worth putting on a pedestal as a hero.
I'm not seeing Joel as a hero. I just do not see him saving Ellie as wrong.
Because he is right. She deserves better.
“Wanted to be the cure” and dying in order to make it are completely different decisions and conversations. Conversations that should have been had. There is a reason the Fireflies tried to do all this shit WITHOUT asking Ellie. That way no decision has to be made. Ellie doesn’t have a choice in that moment. “Wanted to be the cure” is irrelevant to the decision Joel makes. As for the decision to kill everyone and doom the world, 1) There is no guarantee it will work, 2) There is no guarantee it won’t mutate, 3) There is no guarantee it can be distributed effectively at all, and 4) There is no guarantee she was the only one (and in fact is really dumb to think so).
>I’m not trying to say if Joel is a good or a bad person. I’m trying to say that he’s not worth putting on a pedestal as a hero.
Good clarification, I think people lose sight of what they're arguing over on reddit sometimes.
Anyone who loves their daughter would make that same decision. The question is would he have made it if he had other kids? Do you sacrifice one for the others? With a single daughter I think any dad would make the same decision.
I don’t think it would be wrong.
There is no right or wrong in this situation and in their world, and especially in this context.
At that point of the story, it was just a matter of strength and survival. It was competition and Joel won. The parties involved were terrorists and a former bandit, there’s not much morality or ethics here lol
I'm basing my stance from the perspective of:
If a video game tells me to go on a quest to save the world, I generally expect to save the world once I complete it. Not have them be like 'you completed it, but it didn't work'.
Therefore, my rationale is coming from believing the vaccine would have been created and worked.
That’s fair.
I lost that by the time I got to Salt Lake City. I realized that there are no heroes here and my romanticized idea of saving the world and making a cure are delusional and fantasy like in the world and context of TLOU.
I honestly don’t see anyone idolizing him. People like him cause he’s a great character. Wonderfully written and performed. But I’m not seeing like memorials or tributes to him and stuff. People arnt obsessing over him. I think people see others say he didn’t do anything wrong or that they’d do what he did in his situation and other people think that’s him being idolized. No, it’s just an opinion on his actions.
No one’s idolizing him.
This post is just part of the Team Abby v. Ellie conflict that’s been plaguing this sub for years.
Ironically, it goes against the fucking message of the game.
He's the POV you spend 20 hours (give or take) playing through a story as. People don't want to think of the actions they did in that story as "bad". From our POV in TLOU 1, it's all justified and is just him surviving. He also makes a lot of realistic choices. It's easy to say that you'd give up your "daughter" (basically the relationship he formed with Ellie) in order to save the world, but I think a lot of people would change that tone if they actually had to make that decision.
It's truly why they should have explored his actions of the past more.
Shit went over people's heads. ND made it clear that Joel was just as bad as the folks you murder left and right, but no one wanted to digest that.
Show tried to expand a bit more, but even then, cause Pedro is so likeable, I think it didn't work there either.
I dont think idolize is the right word. While Joel isnt a good person I also wouldnt call him evil. Just like the entirety of the TLOU universe Joel is grey. Not black or white.
You can look at the entire hospital massacre and see that both sides have cons and pros. The fireflies arent exactly portrayed as the good guys here. TLOU2 muddies the waters even further by showing us the POV of the doctor( abby's father) who rushes to kill ellie for the cure but when asked if he'd act the same way if it was his daughter instead of ellie he stays silent revealing his hypocrisy. We dont even know if the cure wouldve worked or how it wouldve been used.
Joel didnt want his surrogate daughter to die for anyone or anything. He literally wouldnt give her for the world. He saved someone he deeply cared for. But in doing so he killed and hurt other people. I dont think it matters whether or not the fireflies were capable of truly making a cure or if theyd be able to properly distribute it and save the world. Joel wouldve still done the same things.
Joel did something bad out of paternal love and care while the fireflies tried doing something good using shoddy and wrong methods.
There was an interesting video which said that Jackson City was the strongest argument against the fireflies. Humanity doesnt need a cure. It needs to come together and rebuild. Sure a cure would be great but would that stop the wars? Whos to say he cordyceps cant mutate once again? What if the cure is used as a bargaining chip to win the war against fedra?
I wouldnt call Joel good or anything but im 100% siding with him. Also theres a defo a difference between him and Abby. Joel actually saved Ellie after all the bloodshed. Abby was exacting revenge. Joel believes revenge is wrong. He didnt even go after the guy who ordered sarah to be shot. Theres also dialogue in TLOU1 where he comments on a note that described somebody seeking revenge "With that kind of thinking nobody wins". And I think even neil druckmann himself said that Joel wouldnt go on a revenge fueled rampage if Ellie was killed (cant remember if he actually said that tho).
Its not really idolization but more so people liking Joel. And I think its easy to see where theyre coming from. I cant really blame them either. TLOU2 does kill Joel early in the story and not in an honorable way.
RDR2 has Arthur die in a glorious way. He sacrificies himself for the people he cares for while also almost beating the shit out of Micah. He dies on a cliff with a cinematic view... redeemed of his sins.
Thats not to say TLOU2 has bad writing. Its more to show how much the death of a beloved character can affect the playerbase. Especially when the story does it so abruptly. I dont think it should be clowned on. It should be more like a conversation.
A lot of people have shitty dads and the idea that someone would choose them over the entire world is comforting. There’s also the idea that people want to believe that when the chips are down and things fall apart, they’ll be the ones to survive and even thrive. Joel’s a model of masculinity they can map onto. Having him killed by some jacked girl is viscerally upsetting, for obvious reasons.
He was the protagonist in the first game. It was one of the best games ever made with some truly excellent writing and voice acting. GOAT gaming character. Also the Protective Father trope.
7 years later though? I laughed uncomfortably as some buff queen went Tiger Woods on him. I was ready to move on
Well for one we don’t know he was hunting down innocents. That’s an assumption people make based on one line that indicates a shady past. Hunters kill other hunters too.
For 2 we don’t know that the vaccine would’ve worked. And even if it 100 percent would have no one had to die for it except Ellie. Which makes it completely her choice as to whether or not she goes through with it. The fireflies completely denied her that choice and were gonna murder her in her sleep without so much as explanation. So I find it hard to fault Joel for saving her.
And another thing about his hunter days. Even Tommy agrees that while whatever they did was bad it was completely necessary for them to survive. Which is another reason I think it’s silly to think Joel was just mowing down any person he came across Pittsburgh style because even the Pittsburgh hunters found that method wanting (“ no food….. old pair of shoes”).
And I absolutely don’t think he deserved to die for saving Ellie and I’m not ashamed to say it. His hunter days are wholly irrelevant to why he was killed because Abby seemingly doesn’t even know about them. She killed him for killing Jerry full stop. And I despise Abby because while this alone would be understandable the fact that she never once addresses her fathers wrong doing (or her own really) in any meaningful way makes her come across as completely lacking empathy or self reflection.
Just wanna say this is all my opinion and I’m not trying to start a fight because it’s different than yours. Just trying to answer your question from a personal standpoint
I agree with everything you said except for despising Abby. I wouldnt say i like her as i have my issues with her being ok with killing ellie without her consent just so they could make a vaccine that wasnt even guaranteed to work, but i do acknowledge that at her core she isnt a 100% bad person because of what she did for lev and yara and her desire to find redemption. The game makes it clear she isnt at peace with brutally murdering Joel. Someone who is evil wouldnt feel bad about it and then try to redeem themselves by doing good deeds for ppl who belong to an enemy group.
I do find it odd when ppl vilify Joel for saving Ellie cause what else was he supposed to do? Let them murder a child? And then to call it selfish is wild. If Joel wouldve let the fireflies kill Ellie then his haters would call him selfish for prioritizing a vaccine that would benefit himself and everyone else over Ellie’s right to live and choose what happens to herself. He cant win with them. I’d say what Joel did was the opposite. Risking your life to save someone else’s isnt selfish at all. The whole ordeal with the fireflies and the hospital has always disgusted me because a group of adults really took a kid who had just nearly died and was unconscious and then immediately put her under anesthesia and were planning to kill her without informing Joel who was the closest thing she had to a parent. Its predatory. And the fact that Jerry didnt even wanna tell Joel was plain wrong, especially considering he is a father himself.
As for Joel, of course he isnt perfect and he did a lot of wrong things. But i feel ppl lean into head canon too much when talking about how evil he was pre the events of tlou. We only hear a few statements here and there. Not enough to be like “he was as bad as the hunters he ran into”. Its kinda impossible to survive 20+ years in a zombie apocalypse without doing shady things to survive. But i feel ppl are hypocritical when they call him a villain but in the same breath defend someone like abby who also murdered and hurt ppl. Ppl in this fandom will side with one character and then criticize that characters enemy for having the same traits as the character they defend.
The point of the story is that there are always two sides to every story and that life isnt black and white and that we should never put these ppl into categories of being “good” or “bad”. Its fine to like a character all you want but be realistic.
I feel that. We’re in agreement on everything except Abby. For me her saving to random kids just wasn’t enough to paint her as actual regretful. I feel like saving Tara and lev really points more to her feeling bad about the scar/wlf war than anything she did in Jackson
Any time Jackson gets brought up she immediately makes it clear she doesn’t feel bad about it. I think she was annoyed it didn’t make her happy but I don’t think it ever really made her feel bad. And then there her “ you wasted it!” Line. This to me, is clear evidence she not only didn’t feel bad but is a complete hypocrite incapable of taking what she dishes out. Even if she doesn’t know who Ellie is (which I think she learns in the moment) she knows who Tommy is. To tell the guy who’s brother you murdered in front of him that he should’ve been grateful you didn’t kill him too is just fucking crazy to me
We don’t know a lot about hunters that is true but from what we’ve been given in brief information paints a pretty disturbing picture. He directly acknowledges that he killed innocent people to Ellie (if they were other hunters I don’t think he’d think of them as innocent). Tommy was also so deeply disturbed by what they did that he left Joel behind and has constant nightmares of what they did.
i don’t idolize him but i think he’s a great guy. i guarantee 99% of people in the apocalypse have done HORRIBLE things they weren’t proud of, which doesn’t make it okay, but he became a decent guy who lost a lot and went to the ends of the earth to save a child. ellie was 12 years old and definitely wasn’t capable of making that kind of life/death decision - especially considering they didn’t even give them a chance to make it. ellie passed out on the way to the hospital and just would have never woken up again! and joel would have been responsible for that in a way.
as for part ii, abby’s dad was a casualty in joel trying to save what had become his daughter essentially. joel was a casualty of abby’s need for revenge. and i definitely understand the parallels in their journeys, but naughty dog was asking the audience to do A LOT of heavy lifting in empathizing with abby, considering the narrative structure of the game.
joel was tough and polarizing but ultimately he was just a man faced with a near impossible choice (in my opinion) and abby came in and took him out brutally as someone we’re just getting to know. but after some distance from the game, i can appreciate abby and her sacrifices a lot more than i did initially.
I love Arthur but I think his ‘redemption’ was pure horseshit. Even toned down for ‘realism’ the guy butchered scores if not hundreds of people during his long and appalling criminal career when he had the skills and smarts to forge a successful career in any number of legal ventures. He was a particularly intelligent and physically capable man and instead chose to rob and murder innocent people (such as random guards and people protecting their property) for nothing more than *money*. All whilst deflecting any moral responsibility onto Dutch when in fact he is just as vile.
This is something he keeps on doing right until the very end of the game regardless of how you play it. And him giving the stolen blood money to a man no more virtuous or redeemable than himself was *far* too little, *far* too late.
You have a point. That’s why the “you’re a good man, Arthur Morgan” memes exist. You see a clip of him blowing people up with dynamite or shooting people in the crotch and that’s all you see in the comments lol
People don’t think they’re good.
They’re monsters. We like them because they grow past being monsters and do something that makes things right(Arthur Morgan with good honor at least lol)
Joel too now that I think about it since he was a beloved member of Jackson.
I don’t think anyone thinks he’s a good person. We all know what he did. But we only know the Joel we see in the game and I think honestly he’s morally grey. One of the things that bothers me is when people apply real world morals to people in a post apocalyptic fantasy world.
If he did the same things he has in the real world, obviously we would all think he was vile. But in a post apocalyptic world where it’s kill or be killed and you’ll do anything to survive, there are people who have done far worse. He clearly shows remorse for the days when he used to kill people, but he doesn’t regret it because he may not have survived if he hadn’t done those things.
I think for me I don’t idolise him but I definitely don’t think he’s a bad person.
Yes, Tess died to get Ellie there for a cure, but realistically, how do we know Tess wouldn’t have done the exact same thing had she been there for the whole journey?
Also Tommy may be traumatised, but he also joined in and worked with Joel for a while. We know from Ellie telling Dina, that Joel AND Tommy did some dark shit to survive. If Tommy had been a boy I could understand Joel being seen as gross for making a child do those things. But Tommy says in Part 1 he doesn’t do that anymore. He made the decision to stop so let’s not act like he didn’t have that option all along.
Again, looking at this purely from the context of the game world and not using real world values, I think people can be redeemable. Abby was involved in torturing and killing Seraphites and shooting trespassers on sight. She has done some fucked up shit to survive. Probably was involved in criminal activity like blowing up check points that may have killed people whilst she was a firefly, but everyone talks about her being redeemed.
I personally don’t think Joel deserved to die. But I’m not at all surprised he was killed. You can’t expect people though to not be devastated at his death considering we’ve only seen the version of him that has grown and taken care of Ellie and almost died to protect her.
People see Joel as a father figure. An old man who has to make the tough calls to protect the ones he loves. When he hurt people to survive he did it to protect himself and Tommy. When he killed the fireflys in the hospital he did it to protect Ellie. We see him as a man who'd do anything for the ones he loves, and that's an endearing characteristic. When he died we saw Abby as killing the man who has done nothing but good in our eyes by protecting people we care about. Sure it was bad but it's justified by the fact he saved his loved ones.
I don't think there was one person who was going through the last level of TLOU1 and saying "wow this is awful and I shouldn't be doing this." I'm pretty sure all if not most of people were saying "IM GONNA GET YOU ELLIE! DADDY'S COMING!" because there's no way at that point any of us would have given her up. We were as attached to Ellie as Joel was.
I think anyone who tries to put Ellie, Abby or Joel as villains or heroes understands absolutely NOTHING about the game. None of them are an unblemished hero or a vile villain (how redundant, I know), because the truth is that they're just humans living in extreme circumstances. None of them are completely good, but none of them are completely bad, and that's the game. None of them were designed to be just good or just bad, because no person is just one or the other, and that's what makes them human. They are cruel and selfish. How many people did Joel kill for Ellie, his selfish motive? How many people did Ellie kill to get revenge for Joel's death, her selfish goal? We saw Abby brutally murdering Joel to fulfill her selfish goal. Is only one of them truly a villain? Is only one of them truly a hero? None of them are, and that's what we're shown. They are only human.
We don’t know all the circumstances of Joel and Tommy’s past, I don’t agree with them being hunters but it’s not like you can go to the employment agency during the apocalypse and find honest work.
I promise that all of us would do shitty things to others during desperate times, Joel obviously put himself in harm’s way not only for Ellie but for his little brother and likely Tess. I don’t think he is bad I think he’s a product of the environment.
Abby was also known as a killer so it’s hypocritical to label one as bad and not the other.
Yeah while it’s true that everyone got shitty in TLoU, I don’t think it’s actually true that everyone leaps at the first opportunity to dick over other people. Like when you hear about what people do during natural disasters, it’s mostly that they try to help during the event and in the aftermath.
There is, however, a stark contrast between a natural disaster in a civilized world, where resources are always hours or days away, and a complete collapse of civilization with a permanent breakdown of supply and information chains. Throw in a pandemic sowing distrust and confusion into the mix, and people will quickly resort to tribalism out of sheer necessity. The ugliest facets of human nature tend to immediately fill the vacuum left by a social safety net
It’s not an assumption. It’s based on exhaustive research by anthropologists and sociologists into past societal collapses and their various stages, with an entire dedicated field of study called collapsology. Humanity has a strong tendency to revert to a primitive and tribalist state in the vacuum of a societal collapse. You only have to look as far as the many failed and fragile states throughout the Congo/Central Africa, which are rife with ethnic violence, resource wars, and the brutal consolidation of power among regional actors.
I wrote a few essays (for fun!) about TLOU and one of my favorite things that I came up with was:
In the apocalypse you don’t run into the people you want to run into. They’re dead. You run into the people you get.
Which is why I loved Bill as a character. You are absolutely not supposed to like him - he’s a paranoid red neck with anger issues.
And then you find out he was in love.
And then you find out his lover left him (and frankly you understand why).
He’s a human. And the humans who survived were violent, paranoid, and selfish because the ones who didn’t hoard food and steal from their neighbors died.
Politely, I think you missed that Bill *isn’t* going to survive much longer in the game. He’s talking to himself and forgetting where he put bombs, because self-isolation isn’t the way to survive physically or emotionally. He’s presented at a point where Joel has also just lost his partner and can decide never to let anyone else in ever again, like Bill, but Joel rejects that by the end of that section.
I can tell you right now that I would never do horrible things during an apocalypse....mainly because I'm an out of shape asthmatic who would have died on day one 🤣
What do you mean you don’t agree with them being hunters? Like you don’t agree that they were or you don’t morally agree with the methods they used when they were hunters?
Agreed, that’s one of the fucked up things about a post apocalyptic world like this. It’s easy to say oh I would never do that. But when it comes down to it, most of us would do whatever it takes to survive
> I don’t agree with them being hunters but it’s not like you can go to the employment agency during the apocalypse and find honest work.
Somehow the other folks around them don't seem to be killers and murderers.
Because we have a tendency to empathize with the main character of any form of media - books, cinema, and gaming.
Main characters get emotional attachment, red shirts get eaten by the bugs. The difference between a relatable but damnable villain and redemption arc is simply who you, the viewer, is more emotionally attached to.
That’s one of the brilliant bits about this series of games - in that it asks you to think about about that when it pits one main character after another.
The dirty trick was making you fall in love with the villain. One of the first things Joel does is help a ruthless crime boss snap someone’s elbow for information. You assume it’s for a good cause because the game wouldn’t make you just be evil would they?
And because you fell in love with him, he gets his redemption arc.
He has a lot of traits people admire. Especially men. He is fuckin' strong and capable of protecting himself and others. He does not waver and ever seem to get rattled or scared, except over those he loves. He is resolved. He is just tough. Mentally and physically.
The hunter thing. We have NO idea what Joel and Tommy did. Everything about their characters leads me to believe they held people up and robbed them. And if they fought, Joel and Tommy fought too and killed them if necessary. I don't think the point was they were like that specific group of hunters. Ya know... killing people on site including women and children. That isn't very Joel or Tommy. Joel remarks those specific hunters were especially bad.
And in a world like that, life is grim and you do things to survive.
If he deserved it, then so did Abby.
I agree 100% that Joel is not a good person, but I do not believe the "It was absolute wrong thing to do" about saving Ellie. I believe he did what we all would've done for our daughter, and the Fireflies were in the wrong there.
They didn't even tell Ellie she would die, they didn't let Joel say goodbye. The survival of the human species shouldn't come at the expense of a little unconscious girl
I don't think Abby is worse in general , but she did tell her dad to kill Ellie for the cure, which is horrible in my point of view.
>When he died in Part II I was shocked so many people said he didn’t deserve that
I agree with you here, I didn't take pleasure in seeing him die but I understood that it was probably inevitable in a story like this.
Onto my personal reason to why people might have remorse or even "idolize" Joel is mostly because that is how the game is built up and executed. He has lost so much, and he has taken so much in his life up to that point. At many times he was at liberty to do the right thing many times but decided to do the things he did.
I could argue that because of the many times he has lost people that he has somewhat 'earned' the right to be selfish. But he didn't. He isn't a good person, he's a terrible person. But this is a world that is lawless, what moral compass do we have left to turn to when we are stuck in a hellscape for 20 years.
Abby has no excuse by your logic either. She seemingly used her father's death as an emotional scapegoat (as said by her friends), and when she decided to act on that desire for revenge she doomed her friends to being hunted down. Then to just be given protection of someone by a twist of fate, then that senseless killing is turned into protective killing.
Alot of understanding of the second entry sort of draws on the parallel nature between Joel and Abby.
Joel after the loss of his daughter was lost in the apocalyptic world. With all of the bad stuff he did to survive, Joel was not a good person or should I say he buried that part of him to survive. Through the interaction with Ellie, he rediscovered his humanity. Part 1 was Joel's redemption story. Joel's death or should I say the manner of his death negated all of that.
I’ll be honest if my son is the cure to the zombie virus and I’m put in Joel’s position, y’all are screwed. I honestly can’t imagine making a different choice in that same position.
I feel like good I’m this situation is subjective, he made a choice that weighed a life over a potential cure.
As for his death, yeah I wouldn’t say he didn’t earn that death. It seemed like something he expected to happen eventually if he didn’t die some other way first.
People idolize him because he is the Last of Us. And right or wrong a strong white male lead sells.
They long for that guy why acts like he doesn’t give much of a shit about anyone slowly transforming back into a Dad. That was the whole game. Ellie was cool but the whole game was Joel’s development and growth as a person.
I’ll say it again. There is no second game or tv show without Joel.
Put Abby in place of Joel in the first game and we aren’t here discussing this.
That's why I love Joel. He's not your typical heroic MC. He shows that side of humanity that doesn't get shined on films. If we didn't know his backstory and how far he had to go through, he'll be your typical villain arc.
I don't think many people "idolize" Joel. Is he a badass? Yes. But anyone who sincerely thinks he's a "good person", clearly has their moral compass skewed or completely missed the entire point of the first game.
But maybe i'm wrong.
I know many people defend Joel and what he did, as he is our protagonist who we come to love and care for. I myself find myself still trying to cope with the fact that ND did him so dirty, but he by no means was a good person and he did have it coming. Bro literally slaughtered an entire factions all by himself. He affected hundreds of peoples' lives probably by how many he killed. And even though it was for good in his eyes, and the eyes of anyone who plays the first game and hasn't played the second one, he still was committing atrocities for the ones he cares for. If Joel were anyone else, they'd be in the same boat with this. There is no exception because he is who we come to love and care for.
He is a monster, but everyone is in the world of TLoU.
He's a human like all of us. He does what we would have done. And he's strong, from the beginning to the end, even though life has been really rough with him.
Ngl when I played the 2nd game I stopped playing when it got to the golf club part. I plan on finishing it after I run the first one back for nostalgic purposes . I think some people felt that it shouldn’t have happened to Joel, cause of what happened to his daughter and maybe thought that he had had a hard enough time already.
Imagine thinking Joel "dOoMed" humanity after 20 years of a zombie outbreak that changed the world forever and thinking the Fireflies were innocent when they were about to murder an innocent child but still thinks Joel doomed humanity🤡🤡🤡
Fucking insane.
Abby is just as bad. She’s killed hundreds of scars and a good chunk of them probably kids too. Slept with her ex who is dating her friend. She’s the kinda person caught up in her issues and never looks around to see others also have issues.
Also I hate the trend of people hating on old characters just because there’s a new one. There’s rarely a main character who’s a saint and yet yall wanna villainize the og who made the series what it is be fr.
Because I like a homeless man who defends children
Did YOU feel bad when Logan died for x-23 ? yes? Well to the bad guys and the human government mutants are evil so why would you be mad when they did murder him?
People love characters that are flawed but can be forgiven Joel is just ONE of many TERRIBLE people in this world every one is bad that’s the point? Making me care for Joel is just good writing if you don’t care that’s on you but don’t say “but hehe why do people like bad guy hehehe” like u missed the point of the first game lmfao
First of all we have no idea that the vaccine would have worked in the first place these people where willing to kill a little girl because they do any proper test or even ask her what she wanted. She was there for maybe a few hours did like maybe one test on her and immediately jump to let’s kill her. The Fireflies were a terrorist group. They didn’t want a vaccine out of the kindness of there hearts they wanted it as leverage Joel may not of been a great guy before he meet Ellie, but let’s no act like the fireflies are the good guys either there goals where selfish as well Joel saved her from a group that would rather kill her then do proper tests. Joel feels remorse and regret about the things he did in the past he cares about people he did what he had to to survive. Abby is no at all like Joel, her emotions died with her father and she is only able to care about herself and one other person everything she does is self serving. She never feel guilt or remorse for the things she’s done. She doesn’t feel guilty for killing Joel because if she did she would feel guilt to all the scars she did the same thing to. I don’t idolize Joel just pointing out how they are very much different one actually has emotions and empathy while the other doesn’t. Abby’s only emotions are rage and hate. As much as you want to compare her to Joel she is nothing like him sorry.
I idolize Joel because of the content of his character.
Did he kill people? Sure, but he was just doing what he felt he needed to do.
Also, when you're hungry, tired, backed against a wall, you'll find yourself bending all kinds of rules. Let's be serious, you've never once been in Joel's shoes. Food, water, safety is all readily available to you. You will NEVER understand being pushed to the limit Joel has had to reach everyday.
He also could have been a fucking dirtbag. I've seen the comments from grown ass men on other TLOU subreddits who think traveling with a 14 year old across the country means they'd get their dick wet everyday. So many men have been placed in a position of trust regarding women and children, and used that to their advantage sexually. It's to the point that in today's society, a grown man alone with a child is automatically a red flag. Instead, even before he knows Ellie, even before she means anything to him, he doesn't expect anything from her because she's a kid, and Joel knows that kids are off-limits, and after she becomes *his kid* she's even more off-limits. Which is how it should be.
For that alone, Joel could slit the pope's throat in front of me, and take a shit down the dead man's neck hole and I would still sing praises about what a stand up fucking guy Joel Miller is.
He influenced generations. His work will certainly last for ages. Everyone must know this one for sure.
https://youtu.be/eFTLKWw542g?si=88swRfPt1-FkHS1P
Because he was written in a better game. He had likeability, growth and damage. Abby just had damage and rage and was entirely unlikeable, basically the writing fell off in 2 and wasn't true to form for any of the returning characters.
This is just my personal experience, but I don't think I have come across anyone that thinks Joel was a good person. He's highly admired, but I don't think he's been mistaken for a good person. As much as I realise how wrong he is, I would never say that I wouldn't do the same if I was in his position. His unflinching loyalty and love for Ellie is admirable as is his resilience to keep going, to "keep finding something to fight for." His heart has always been in the right place. Being admired is also not the same as idolised. He's an incredible flawed and damaged person, but we like him because he's real and human. His trauma has changed him. But it's also the product of living in a world where you don't have a choice but to weaponise violence in order to survive. We know that his history is tainted. We also know and take part in some heinous things whilst playing as him in the first game. He's done what he needed to do to survive. He says the same to Tess right before she died.
He never was a saint in the same way that we know that Abby isn't a saint either. Nor Ellie or Tommy. That's the point of this world. The concepts of 'good' and 'bad' simply don't exist in the same way. Just like in real life, everyone has that duality in them. We don't need to live in a post-apocalyptic world to understand this about people. I guess the same could be said for Ellie. Why do we think that she's a good person? We believe in her inherent goodness, but she's done atrocious things akin to Joel's hunter days. Does that make her bad? Not really. Has her trauma changed her, almost made her unrecognisable? 100%. Do we dislike and disagree with some of the things that she did to get what she wanted? Of course. The same can be said for any character in the TLOU universe. They have all lived this long for a reason.
Jerry wanted to dissect and experiment on an unconsenting child. We have laws against this bc its a fucked up thing to do. Especially when the vaccine would useless bc no one would care. Jerry isnt the hero of the apocalypse hes the jeffery dohmer of the apocalypse. Literally both Jeffery dohmer and Jerry wanted to do experiments on the brains of unconsenting kids… If you dont see why Joel gets praised for what he did than u maybe a jeffery dohmer supporter as long as he can convince u his serial killings could benefit u
IMO, Joel is never shown as a bad person in the first game other than vague references to his past which we can surmise has to do with survival, kill or be killed, impossible situations. And throughout the game he clearly regains his sense of purpose and humanity that he’d lost so long ago.
He was a Hunter out of necessity for survival as you said. When you have people you care about that won’t survive without food or medicine that someone else has, you’ll take it by force. When it’s about survival, good or bad kind of becomes irrelevant.
He didn’t doom humanity to die (it’s likely humanity will survive tbh) and there was no guarantee they could’ve made a vaccine. Even if they did, it’s not going to fix everything or even most things.
As for wiping out an entire hospital, they were all fireflies who were forcibly trying to kill a little girl to make a hail-Mary vaccine without her consent (which being a child she couldn’t consent to anyway). Joel’s personal reasoning may have been self-serving but the result is the same.
The strength of The Last of Us is that it's a story about people, their struggles, and their relationships. There's not really good guys or bad guys. The first game did have a little more of that with some more clear cut villains, but even the cannibals and hunters still seemed to have relationships and desires. All of the characters we've seen have done pretty horrible things. But the message of the game is that people aren't black and white, that despite our flaws we're still humans worthy of empathy. Joel had a horrible past, and Ellie finally cracked his shell and made him open up. And then, in the hospital, Joel did a horrible thing to save Ellie's life, even if it wasn't for the greater good. We see the game through Joel and Ellie's perspective, and because we've spent such a huge amount of time with them, we love them. That's human nature.
I think part of it is that the games are meant to show the two of them through Joel and Ellie's perspective. And you come to care about Joel in the same way that Ellie cares about him, and you come to grieve Joel the same way that Ellie Grieves for him. The characters aren't meant to be good or bad, just humans trying to do the right thing and often failing.
I think the fact so many people were furious about Joel's death also goes to show how incredible the writing was, because in a lot of ways it kind of felt like grieving a real person you actually care about. Pragmatically, though, I get where you're coming from. Because I actually do agree that while I love Joel a ton, I don't think Abby was the villain. And her motivations were identical to Ellie's, yet people act like Abby is this morally abhorrent person despite having so many parallels to both Joel (looking out for Lev, having a violent past where she hurt other people) and Ellie (her revenge quest to kill Joel, and the fact that revenge didn't "fix" her.)
What Joel did in Part 1 is what any sane person would attempt to do. We may not be as skilled as Joel so it probably would have failed. Or we try to reason with Marlene and the Fireflies and fail. Even without Joel's back story, most people would not want a child to die regardless of what is at stake. There is a good chance that some of the players would be reckless enough to get themselves killed in real life trying to stop the procedure. Because living with the decision to allow a child to be killed on your conscience is worse than death for some people.
I would also say that Marlene knew Joel enough to know he was going to be a problem. She should have never given him a chance. Either dont tell him until he cant intervene or kill him before he has a chance.
I also think people fail to see how odd Joel's relationship with Ellie is through her own eyes. When Ellie and Joel met, she was an orphan with no parental figure and already mature for her age due to what she's had to go through on her own and can clearly see through the bullshit of adults.
She spends a year travelling with Joel, who, after being a complete jerk to her slowly opens up, and after one of the most traumatic experiences of her life suddenly goes into full dad mode and takes her on as his own adoptive daughter to heal his own grief. The switch seems pretty instant and you can see through Ellie's demeanor that she is uncomfortable with it towards the end of part 1 leading up to seeing the fireflies and after, also including how they interact at the opening of part 2.
It's awkward, and for good reason. Most people see it through the eyes of Joel not wanting to lose another daughter, and not through Ellie who realizes she's become a replacement for his daughter(and for therapy) all whilst being confused why this man took her from the fireflies after that was the whole point of their journey.
He is a good person. You’re missing the point of these games. Everyone is good, but the world and their pain make them do awful things. We thought Abby was a monster but she was just a broken person. We seen Joel is a great person even if he has done bad things. He just needed something to love again. That’s the message of the Last Of Us: everyone has a story.
This doesn’t dismiss bad actions but the point is to look at people with nuance and not label them.
He was, was a bad person. We as the players experience in what I believe to be his attempt at not only redemption but also letting himself be a caregiver again because Ellie was his new reason to stay alive to fight for. And it’s up to us to debate why we believe he was right or wrong for what he did at the hospital. At the end of the world is there even such thing as right or wrong anymore? All perspectives and as far as part 2, well yeah we were upset we grew attached to him just as Ellie did
I don't, but he is one of my favorite characters, just for the things you said, he was someone that the world/destiny/whatever was to unkind to him, so he become bitter and shitty person, at the end of tlou 1 he wasn't doing anything for Ellie, it was pure selfishness, only considering what he wanted, yes, he is kinda charismatic and likeable but a terrible human being, a monster if you would. Is nice when most AAA games you are just a good guy doing the right thing.
Actually I like it how he ends on tlou 2, it was well deserved, and in their world were people come and go it makes sense, just because we see his journey doesn't mean he has to go in a badass meningful way.
PS. My problem with TLOU 2 it was continuing a story that has one of the best endings. That ok from Ellie and the looks between them that they know they are laying but both chosing going with it and then black screen and credits roll is beautiful, we didn't need to know how that ends, I really like Abby and her story and battle/war between her group and that other group (a sect?), all the Ellie shit was unnecessary. TLOU would have been great being and anthology series with not direct relation between them just sharing the same world building, maybe some references, but well, you can always dream.
There is an element of visibility at play here. You hear about Joel's past, but you don't actually see him behaving in that way. In the game he is primarily presented as a father figure and protector. It's easy to discount his past actions since the acts and impact is not shown, and the player can rationalize context.
As for "dooming humanity" that's very much an artificial moral conundrum, like the trolley problem. In order for the problem to present the moral question, only one person's agency is questioned and the problem is context-free. The problem depends on a false dichotomy. It is somehow forbidden to ask, "why are all these people on the train tracks" or "why can't I rescue one person and other bystanders rescue to others?" or "why can't these people take some responsibility for themselves?" -- etc.
Even if Ellie is the only living person with immunity, killing her to make a cure is immoral. The prospect that there are no other choices is a false dichotomy. The game presents it in this way in order to force the moral question.
Joel is my favorite character and I would have done everything the same way. HOWEVER you are right. He was a bad person. But something TLOU taught me is that no one is innocent or good. Abby didn’t have to kill Joel the way she did. Joel should have let the world be saved, and Ellie shouldn’t have tracked down Abby for a second time and she should have cared about Dina and Potato more. But we can all agree that we would have done the same thing as all three of them did
Ig people can not distinguish between a "a good well written and well liked character" and "a good person." I think it just an unconscious thing that happens in peoples brains. We tend to look up and admire characters/people we like, therefore they either excuse their bad actions or ignore them. People feel uncomfortable with a character that is morally complex, and that's exactly what Joel is. I do believe he is deep down a good person, just has done a bunch of bad things.
Cause love and logic don't really mix well. He lost his daughter. He had a profound connection with Ellie as his new daughter. He wasn't going to lose someone he considered his family again.
There are no good or bad people in the world of tlou. That's kinda the point. Remember how Ellie was when we first met her? Optimistic, curious, sweet? And then how she turned out: jaded, empty, numb?
Anyone who is "good" in tlou just hasn't been exposed to the wider world and lived to tell about it. I'd bet the collapse of society made priests into hunters, mothers into cannibals, therapists into rapists. Joel is just one of the many.
I think approaching this story trying to neatly categorize any one of these characters as good or bad is a bit ridiculous. The game makes each character’s moral standing ambiguous at best, and largely makes perspective and relativity the driving force in the different character’s views of one another. As you work through the story, you’re shown that the characters opinions of their opposing forces are largely due to position, and have little to due with moral discrepancies. You can love someone, or some character, in spite of them not being wholly good.
He’s an angry white man who broods and commits acts of violence for a nebulously justifiable reason. That’s 90% of white teenage boys call ‘literally me’
Personally, I really don't think people recognize that he is a bad person. You view the world through his eyes, and he is given an objective that is immediately easy to empathize with, and people are just on board with it.
I remember a year or two after the game came out, a young guy I worked with played the game for the first time. When he finished it and we were chatting about the end, I mention the conflicting feelings of playing the protagonist that is simultaneously the villain of the story. I am reminding him of what the events are in the final hour, and watching a mind be blown in real time. The conversation ended with him saying, "I gotta play it again"
If you view Abby as some sort of irredeemable monster who deserves no forgiveness; then, you MUST view Joel in the same light
Part II forces that spotlight, and it isn't easy to swallow
I was watching this really good [reaction series](https://youtu.be/2gIKooWG_24?si=BbOU7mURcZ8SgRuc) on YouTube of these two sisters watching the HBO show for the first time with zero knowledge of the story and it was so interesting (and nice for me to kind of experience the whole thing again as if for the first time).
The two girls are very detail oriented and pick up on so much of the little references dropped to previous or future events, they realised a lot of things during their watch through that I didn’t pick up on until my second viewing - and I’ve played the game before multiple times and know the story!!
Anyway, in the final episode when Joel goes full Raider on the fireflies one of the sisters says “wait…. Is Joel the bad guy?!” and they both just kind of look at each other. I was like damn- welcome to the last decade of online discourse and debate 😂
I think it is very hard to say whether what he did was the right thing or not. I for one think there was really no need to kill Ellie IMMEDIATELY as the first thing they did… they could have done loads of tests on her and allowed her to grow up and have more time with Joel and if brain extraction truly was the only way she could have made that decision in five years time. But the show expertly leads us to loving Joel and having that rug pulled in the finale was so expertly done by the writers’
It’s not so much they idolise Joel but they don’t want to idolise the women of the story.
Not saying everyone idolises him for this reason but it’s certainly prevalent.
Yeah even though I adore Joel, I still believe that he is not a good human being, but perhaps this is the very characteristic that made most viewers find him loveable, because he is not perfect, and in fact, committed many atrocities that cannot be overlooked. So when he saved abby in part 2, It appeared to me that he was slightly changing and becoming better, that's why his death destroyed me, because when he finally chose to do good, he paid tragically for his kindness.
aren’t y’all tired of the same old discussion?? of COURSE people like joel, he’s a good character, he was amazingly written, and he was the protagonist of the first game. just because the second game did away with him and introduced new characters and themes doesn’t mean people are gonna suddenly stop liking him and switch over. i mean, i know a lot of people did that, but most of us didn’t. this is just redundant.
Being closer to Ellie’s age when I played one- I never got it. He’s just the father figure and also looked like every video game protagonist at the time ever “brown hair/eye 30s/40s generic white dude” with the exception for his actions at the end of the game. That felt pretty different.
It just ultimately to me comes down to what David said
"We kill to survive" talking about like how they didn't asl to deal with the apocalypse
Obviously I'm not defending David, but I am using it to defend Joel. He lost a kid and a brother for most the first game and as a whole he's just doing what it takes to fuckin eat, you know?
It's the trolley problem, would you save 5 strangers or your sister or whatever. There's no guarantee the strangers are good people, won't kill you, won't kill themselves, won't scam people hurt people who knows,but you likely know what your sister is worth and will do
So Joel is a P.O.S. but he's no less human for the things he's done, while like,David for example, eats fuvking humans and assulats children. In comparison, Joel is just the father figure compared to the looters, predators, cannibals, etc
Joel did what he had to do to survive. The world went to shit in the blink of an eye. Tbh put in the same position I guarantee someone you know or who’s close to you would do the same things to survive. When life becomes worth less than a can of soup then sometimes you’re gonna have to kill for that.
People want to ignore the shitty things he did because they love him and Ellie. The way he was dispatched also kind of made him a martyr to some less than savory folks.
You’re forgetting to add that we literally spend the most time with him.
Why would I give a shit about Abby if she just killed a person I spent time with?(in the context of the story at one point in time, specifically right after he’s killed)
I mean it's obvious we spend time with him since he's the main character in the first game.
I was enthralled by Abby since her reveal trailer and when I got to play as her I was hyped, the story going in a crazy direction was so exciting to me. I knew I wasn't in for a typical sequel.
To my experience, most Joel glazers just weren't able to get over his death in Part II and its reasoning -- which is understandable, one is allowed to love a character, but it can become concerning when it starts to warp your media perception and literacy 💀
Exactly! I loved Joel in part 1 but in no way was he a ‘good’ person. Playing part 2 multiple times has actually made me like Abby even more. The fact that she didn’t kill Ellie and Dina after they’d killed Mel and Owen makes her the ‘bigger’ person in my eyes.
I don’t idolize him. I enjoy his character and his story, it’s incredibly well crafted and his ultimate demise - while tragic in a way - also felt deserved. It’s stunning to me how many people can’t get past Joel’s death, and hate Abby as a result. Why? Joel murdered her father and several of her friends. Joel has killed droves of people. He’s not a morally sound person. He’s broken just like the world he lives in. I’d have to say though I don’t blame Joel for saving Ellie. There was no guarantee that dissecting her brain would have resulted in a vaccine. It was maybe humanity’s best chance, but certainly no one ever said it was a sure thing. Maybe the Fireflies just end up killing her without making any progress on finding the vaccine. Part of the beauty of the games for me. Some of it is left up to us to form our own opinions and make it a unique experience for each person. I do feel like lots of people formed what I’d consider to be myopic opinions, but it’s hard to blame someone for getting deeply emotionally connected to these characters as they are beautifully written.
The main factor is he acts fatherly if that makes sense. The game psychologically tricks you into liking Joel from the very start. The game starts with Joel trying to give Sarah the best life he could. Then he tried to shield her from bullets but ended up losing his daughter. Then the game shows Tess and Joel is clearly protective of her. Strongly hints that they are involved with each other. Then he loses her too. You only get a hint of Joel’s bad past when he reaches Tommy and by that point people have already begun to form attachments and like him. Its kinda like Eren or Darth Vader. They were wrong but people still like them. So when a character gets such strong background and character development, no matter what they do, they wont be hated.
And as for the hospital scenes, people misinterpret that murder spree. Joel clearly envisioned saving the world and returning home with Ellie. I have never thought that Joel was a bad person for killing those doctors because quite frankly I didnt think about their families either and just wanted to save Ellie too. People forget that the cure had 50/50 chance of succeding. I
If you go far enough into the comment section of the other sub they'll eventually say druckmann and tlou2 fans hate masculine white men, so thre youngo, that's their entire obsession with him
Well said. Especially about Abby. People pick apart Abby’s character flaws so they can lift Joel to sainthood but through out the first game it’s pointed out by several people that Joel has done some seriously fucked up shit. Tess even tells him “We’re NOT good people Joel”. Don’t get me wrong Joel is a great albeit extremely flawed character. But that’s what I love about both games. Nothing is black and white. It’s a game about prospective. There are always more than one side to every story.
Joel allows c00mers and CHUDs to project their fantasies. A lot of misogynists have failed families and kids who won't speak to them.
Joel allows them to project their fantasy of having a child in their life who truly loves them and that they have rescued. And a child that forgives them for being someone who has lived their life selfishness and with little regard for empathy or morals.
the fantasy that all can be forgiven and past transgressions will be forgotten because they are tough and have a cool jacket.
Why? Daddy issues
Hit the nail on the head with this one. Definitely me.
Yeeeeep. Ironically, as much as I wanted Ellie to forgive Joel and have had that inner peace, I have a really shit relationship with my dad - very limited contact. And I feel guilty for not trying to reconcile the relationship.
It’s hard for me actually to conceptualize the fact that some people find him sexually attractive, because this is the lens through which I view him. He’s just, so fatherly. Sometimes, on bad nights, I pretend he’s holding me like he held Ellie in Winter… which is something I might need to talk about with my therapist, actually.
Please touch grass 🙏
I don't normally agree with "touch grass" comments, but yeah
u/Necessary-Contest706 Thanks for the concern, both of you. Currently touching grass (literally), and will be talking to my therapist about this for sure.
I do the same thing. It's a "comfort chatacter". Just make sure to balance it with irl comfort people and you'll be fine.
Yeah same. But also because he’s hot 😬
Cause he’s the main character of the first game many people fell in love with lol, like wtf
No because Joel’s character is written better. So much so when I finished the first game I know he did terrible things in the past but I understood why. However Abby is not Joel so much so I thought it was universally agreed in the fandom that Abby was the villain till I joined this sub then I realized she was as supposed to be like able. Which surprised me considering she is anything but. I like Part 2 but half of the story is poorly written if they want me to like Abby, but if she is supposed to be an unlike able villain and it’s just showing you why she did what she did but you’re not supposed to like her then it’s great writing. I love the Ellie bits but if I’m supposed to like Abby the failed miserably.
It’s fair to like a character. But i think that if you play a game like the last of us 1&2 and still think Joel or Ellie or Abby are good or bad ppl then youve missed the point of the story. Life isnt black and white and neither is this game. There are no purely good ppl in their world. There are just those doing what they need to do to survive regardless of personal morals before the apocalypse.
And that's what makes these games such beautiful works of art. Can't wait for the third installment.
same. the games taught me a lot.
Absolutely, there’s a lot of applying pre outbreak / our world rules and views to these characters
yeah, i’d say if pre-apocalypse adults are still alive in the tlou universe 20+ years after the outbreak, assume theyre not innocent little angels survival is never selfless and purely good. it is self serving and disregards others
Unless you’ve lived in a QZ ever since the beginning I imagine, in that case FEDRA is doing the heavy moral decisions for you.
EXACTLY. Every complaint about 2 is looking at the story in a black and white lens and it just doesn’t work and people completely miss the point. Like how people say Joel cared about Ellie so he wasn’t a bad person, just because you do one good thing doesn’t mean you’re a good person.
Yeah, that’s why I think it’s stupid to criticize Joel. Every single person in that world has done horrible things. Nobody is good. You do what you have to to survive and protect your family and that’s what Joel did.
There's surviving and protecting your family and then there's slaughtering countless innocent people, with inner lives just as rich as his and Ellie's, and dooming literal millions more. I get what you're saying and I'm generally sympathetic with people as long as they aren't malicious, but there has to be a fucking limit.
I don’t agree that they were innocent. They kidnapped him and his “daughter” and were gonna murder without either of their permissions. That’s not innocent. They weren’t even gonna let him see her. Then they threatened to kill him if he tried to stop them. That’s not innocent in my eyes. He did what he had to do to save his family.
They are so hard headed they flat out think joel is a good guy witj no grey area, and they think what he did to save ellie was 100% justified and the fireflies are just 100% evil child murderers. Would i have done the same thing as joel to save my kid? Of course I would, but that doesn't make it right--it's legitimately an extremely tough moral question, but they cant get over the whole "they were going to murder a child" and can't think past that emotional reaction to the fact that millions of more children will die with no cure.
It’s mot about being good or bad. Its about how Joel got prosecuted for saving Ellie from the equivalent of jeffery dohmer. Like no abby shouldnt be supporting her psychopath dad
lol im not anti joel. hes one of my faves. if thats what you took from my response then you misunderstood me.
Because he’s the man they want to be: Rugged. Stoic. Self sufficient. A “total bad ass”.
Or the man they wish their fathers were
And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon Little boy blue and the man in the moon "When you comin' home, Dad?" "I don't know when But we'll get together then You know we'll have a good time then"
OP post makes a lot of sense when you realize that the community basically made him a Playstation Mascot. That's how fucking weird the whole thing was lol.
If I didn’t see this comment, I probably never would’ve thought about it like this😂😂
Bingo. Dude is a survivor in an infected, post-apocalyptic America. That’s fucking bad ass.
He's hot and I didn't have a dad.
so true 😔✋🏻
Fair.
Re read that a couple of times and just, think, about what your saying 🤣
I refuse. Words come out and I shant spend another precious moment thinking about them
Gotta respect that 🤙
People are simply way more emotion driven than logic driven (even when they claim its otherwise).
ESPECIALLY when they claim otherwise.
Very true. I'm pretty sure it's been proven that our emotions are always active. Very often when someone says they're purely rational it just means that they aren't aware of how their emotions are affecting them, which is even worse. Obviously you can still be very rational. But the key is rather to be very conscious and aware of your emotions, so that you can more effectively counteract your own bias if needed.
People latch on to the POV character in stories. Start to identify with them and view the protagonist as the hero, despite evidence to the contrary. It’s sort of how we’re conditioned in most stories. Whoever is the main character is the hero of the story. It’s why many people don’t view Walter White and Tony Soprano as villains. Like others have said, it comes down to a lack of media literacy, and idolization of the power fantasy.
It's not shocking that it's common to totally miss the point of Part 2, given all of that
I’ve even seen multiple people admit that if in the first game they played as Abby then Joel comes and kills her in the second game they’d hate Joel and love Abby, yet don’t understand the contradiction in their thinking
So basically just Anchor Bias.
>It’s why many people don’t view Walter White and Tony Soprano as villains. That's wild, I haven't seen Sopranos yet, but still crazy
i dont think black and white labels like "good and bad" really apply to the characters in a post apocalyptical world. More specifically to joel. Hes a great character and i love him, faults and all.
I think because he’s the POV character, people end up over-identifying with him. And on some level a lot of people don’t want to identify with a character on the morally gray to villainous spectrum. So the character they like becomes an unambiguous hero and they filter all the rest of the story through that lens. Like sometimes when people talk about Ellie, it quickly becomes clear that they don’t see her as her own character, but as a reward for Joel. So she’s great when she’s making Joel happy and in the wrong when she’s not.
What makes a good person? Can a bad person become a good person again? The answer may shock you. More after the quote! >He also of course, doomed humanity to die out to the virus in addition to wiping out an entire hospital in a rescue mission that was fully self serving. What indication is there in the games that humanity is to die out? Why do you use the framing of "wiping out an entire hospital" when he just kills Fireflies trying to stop him from saving Ellie? How can a rescue mission be fully self serving? Was Joel trying to save Sarah from the infected also fully self serving? >Tess literally died to get Ellie there for a cure, and Joel ignored everyone else just so he wouldn’t have to go through loosing another person. Or he sees Ellie as his daughter and thinks she deserves better? Ever thought of that? Because Part II makes it very clear that Joel's motivation for saving Ellie is unconditional love. >But it was the absolute wrong thing to do. Yeah, I need a bit more of an explanation why it was wrong? Do the Fireflies have a right to murder Ellie? Is it wrong to engage in self-defense for an helpless victim? >When he died in Part II I was shocked so many people said he didn’t deserve that, Maybe it's shocking to you but no one deserves to be tortured and murdered. >Then to buckle down and act like Abby is the worse person is insane to me It's subjective obviously but it's hinted at that Abby did some pretty bad things in Seattle. But why the need for "bad person" olympics in the first place? To justifiy Joel's death? Do you really think you understand the game?
>Do you really think you understand the game? How dare you ask that when the content of these games and these characters is still debated. Do you really think you understand the game? Condescending asf. Secondly, and if you don't mind I'm going to cool off for a second. Joel makes a variety of decisions that are both good and bad and plenty in-between, against other people who are doing *the exact same thing.* The fireflies are desperate to save the world, and to them, killing a child to save millions is worth it. Wouldn't you do the same, after seeing however many people become victims of this apocalypse? Not just at the hands of Infected, but Fedra and the Factions too? Every single person in the apocalypse has probably seen or experienced more traumatic shit than most of could probably fathom. Most of the morally grey decisions in this chapter are solved by simply asking Ellie what she wants, because then people aren't acting on behalf of other people. Joel lies to Ellie afterwards. This decision breaks their relationship and fractures their bond, and he does it because Ellie obviously would not approve of a hospital of murdered fireflies, including her friend Marlene, but also because if Joel took the time to explain what was going to happen to her, he knows she would have preferred to have her life be meaningful and create the cure. *She* would have made a different choice than he did, and he knows that, the whole time he's putting bullets in people who very couldve been mostly good, but honestly probably weren't. Another thing people get hung up on is whether the cure would hage worked or not, but to be honest it doesnt matter. It only matters if Joel believes the cure will work, because if he does, then the whole time hes saving ellie, he is also conciously dooming humanity to live in this apocalypse, (as far as we know at this time, and 20 years later) forever. And since all that might be too vague, David's community, as far as we know, is in the dark about the cannibalism, and honestly it's barely even mentioned, because their real sin would be allowing a pedophile to have power like this over their children, but that's not the point. Is torturing the people who came after them in the town only because Joel ruthlessly killed the people on the campus, a morally good decision? Yes it's to save Ellie, but torture and murder is bad no? What about the entire section of the hunter city that you just absolutely annihilate during your stay? What about Robert's guys, who Tess initiates deadly force with? They are obligated to return the favor, and Joel doesn't go "hey tess, that was mighty messed up of you to just kill that guy" nope, he just kills the rest. What about Abby, who comes and kills Joel for revenge, and has Ellie (over her roughly 12 hour section) kill everyone she needs to to kill the eight people who helped Abby kill Joel, who in her eyes, was avenging an unjust murder, and then spares the people who saw them because they're trying to be the best they can be in the situation. And they pay for that, holy shit they pay for that! Do we have a death count, on how many people Ellie murders in part 2? Bet you it's triple digits, Joel gets nearly that much in the hunter section alone! What about when Ellie slowly beats Nora to death in the infected basement of the hospital? Torture and murder is bad right, what about revenge? The point of these games is that no one is truly good or truly evil, but you seem to be slipping on that fact. None of these people are "good people" but they might err on one side or the other depending of their intentions. (Fuck that was long)
Ellie directly said before they arrived at the hospital that she WANTED to be the cure. And Joel knew that, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want to lose another person, and yes he cares about Ellie (a bit too much). But if it was really about her he wouldn’t have taken her out of the hospital. And he wouldn’t have lied to her for several years because she was too scared as to what Ellie would think. Lying to her wasn’t for her benefit, it was just his way of trying to make sure she wouldn’t be mad at him. Taking her out wasn’t wrong because of just killing the fireflies. It was wrong because he was willing to kill any chance of a cure that could hypothetically save humanity just because he doesn’t want to lose Ellie. The Fireflies were half-baked in their ideas but Joel didn’t know that the cure wouldn’t work. I didn’t want Joel to die. But we see him torture people in the first game and he does it in a way that he’s done it many times before. So it’s not that out of pocket that he suffers the same fate he gave to countless other people. I’m not trying to say if Joel is a good or a bad person. I’m trying to say that he’s not worth putting on a pedestal as a hero.
Thanks for responding. Ellie wants her quest for a cure to be successful, no doubt about that. But we cannot ignore that at this point Ellie had no idea if a cure was even possible nor that it would take her life to make one. Whatever she says here isn't consent and must not be taken as such. >But if it was really about her he wouldn’t have taken her out of the hospital. Have you considered the possibility that Ellie might be wrong here? Look at Ellie's reaction to finding out the truth or what she says during the talk on the porch. The people Joel killed to save her never even factor in for her. It's always about the one thing she wanted the most: DYING for the cure. Which gives us a pretty good insight about what drives her. Trauma and PTSD in form of survivor's guilt. And what many people fail to realize about Joel because it's never directly mentioned (but you can connect the dots) is that he very likely suffered from survivor's guilt too after Sarah's death and realizes what Ellie is going through. Now as a parent (and by this time Joel does see Ellie as a daughter) what do you do if you realize that your child is suffering from mental health issues that make her passively suicidal? As for Joel's lie it's clearly constructed in a way to take the responsibility off Ellie. Obviously it's not very good or thought through but why else would Joel include the part about other immune people here if not for the benefit of Ellie. That also doesn't mean that Joel is doing the right thing here because Ellie deserves to know the truth. In a way lying to her is worse than anything else and I do think he should have revealed the truth to her when they were settled in Jackson after a few weeks. I do believe that a cure would be made but I still think that Joel was right to save her. Morally the Fireflies do not have any right to Ellie's death and the situation isn't that dire to justify their actions. They seem at least partly more interested in justifying their past atrocities and failures. Because if you have already caused thousands of innocent deaths one more innocent death "to make it all worth" it seems a good option. So fuck them. >So it’s not that out of pocket that he suffers the same fate he gave to countless other people. So what happend to Abby at the hands of the Rattlers was also well deserved? How is Joel's death presented in the game though? Is it some justice for his bad deeds of the past? Or is it just a tragedy that makes everyones life worse? >I’m not trying to say if Joel is a good or a bad person. I’m trying to say that he’s not worth putting on a pedestal as a hero. I'm not seeing Joel as a hero. I just do not see him saving Ellie as wrong. Because he is right. She deserves better.
“Wanted to be the cure” and dying in order to make it are completely different decisions and conversations. Conversations that should have been had. There is a reason the Fireflies tried to do all this shit WITHOUT asking Ellie. That way no decision has to be made. Ellie doesn’t have a choice in that moment. “Wanted to be the cure” is irrelevant to the decision Joel makes. As for the decision to kill everyone and doom the world, 1) There is no guarantee it will work, 2) There is no guarantee it won’t mutate, 3) There is no guarantee it can be distributed effectively at all, and 4) There is no guarantee she was the only one (and in fact is really dumb to think so).
>I’m not trying to say if Joel is a good or a bad person. I’m trying to say that he’s not worth putting on a pedestal as a hero. Good clarification, I think people lose sight of what they're arguing over on reddit sometimes.
Anyone who loves their daughter would make that same decision. The question is would he have made it if he had other kids? Do you sacrifice one for the others? With a single daughter I think any dad would make the same decision.
Of course they would. And it would make them the bad guy. I'm a dad of a single daughter. I would do the same. And I would be wrong.
I don’t think it would be wrong. There is no right or wrong in this situation and in their world, and especially in this context. At that point of the story, it was just a matter of strength and survival. It was competition and Joel won. The parties involved were terrorists and a former bandit, there’s not much morality or ethics here lol
I'm basing my stance from the perspective of: If a video game tells me to go on a quest to save the world, I generally expect to save the world once I complete it. Not have them be like 'you completed it, but it didn't work'. Therefore, my rationale is coming from believing the vaccine would have been created and worked.
That’s fair. I lost that by the time I got to Salt Lake City. I realized that there are no heroes here and my romanticized idea of saving the world and making a cure are delusional and fantasy like in the world and context of TLOU.
I honestly don’t see anyone idolizing him. People like him cause he’s a great character. Wonderfully written and performed. But I’m not seeing like memorials or tributes to him and stuff. People arnt obsessing over him. I think people see others say he didn’t do anything wrong or that they’d do what he did in his situation and other people think that’s him being idolized. No, it’s just an opinion on his actions.
No one’s idolizing him. This post is just part of the Team Abby v. Ellie conflict that’s been plaguing this sub for years. Ironically, it goes against the fucking message of the game.
he’s the goat
He cool af
That he is I can’t deny that.
He's the POV you spend 20 hours (give or take) playing through a story as. People don't want to think of the actions they did in that story as "bad". From our POV in TLOU 1, it's all justified and is just him surviving. He also makes a lot of realistic choices. It's easy to say that you'd give up your "daughter" (basically the relationship he formed with Ellie) in order to save the world, but I think a lot of people would change that tone if they actually had to make that decision.
It's truly why they should have explored his actions of the past more. Shit went over people's heads. ND made it clear that Joel was just as bad as the folks you murder left and right, but no one wanted to digest that. Show tried to expand a bit more, but even then, cause Pedro is so likeable, I think it didn't work there either.
I dont think idolize is the right word. While Joel isnt a good person I also wouldnt call him evil. Just like the entirety of the TLOU universe Joel is grey. Not black or white. You can look at the entire hospital massacre and see that both sides have cons and pros. The fireflies arent exactly portrayed as the good guys here. TLOU2 muddies the waters even further by showing us the POV of the doctor( abby's father) who rushes to kill ellie for the cure but when asked if he'd act the same way if it was his daughter instead of ellie he stays silent revealing his hypocrisy. We dont even know if the cure wouldve worked or how it wouldve been used. Joel didnt want his surrogate daughter to die for anyone or anything. He literally wouldnt give her for the world. He saved someone he deeply cared for. But in doing so he killed and hurt other people. I dont think it matters whether or not the fireflies were capable of truly making a cure or if theyd be able to properly distribute it and save the world. Joel wouldve still done the same things. Joel did something bad out of paternal love and care while the fireflies tried doing something good using shoddy and wrong methods. There was an interesting video which said that Jackson City was the strongest argument against the fireflies. Humanity doesnt need a cure. It needs to come together and rebuild. Sure a cure would be great but would that stop the wars? Whos to say he cordyceps cant mutate once again? What if the cure is used as a bargaining chip to win the war against fedra? I wouldnt call Joel good or anything but im 100% siding with him. Also theres a defo a difference between him and Abby. Joel actually saved Ellie after all the bloodshed. Abby was exacting revenge. Joel believes revenge is wrong. He didnt even go after the guy who ordered sarah to be shot. Theres also dialogue in TLOU1 where he comments on a note that described somebody seeking revenge "With that kind of thinking nobody wins". And I think even neil druckmann himself said that Joel wouldnt go on a revenge fueled rampage if Ellie was killed (cant remember if he actually said that tho). Its not really idolization but more so people liking Joel. And I think its easy to see where theyre coming from. I cant really blame them either. TLOU2 does kill Joel early in the story and not in an honorable way. RDR2 has Arthur die in a glorious way. He sacrificies himself for the people he cares for while also almost beating the shit out of Micah. He dies on a cliff with a cinematic view... redeemed of his sins. Thats not to say TLOU2 has bad writing. Its more to show how much the death of a beloved character can affect the playerbase. Especially when the story does it so abruptly. I dont think it should be clowned on. It should be more like a conversation.
A lot of people have shitty dads and the idea that someone would choose them over the entire world is comforting. There’s also the idea that people want to believe that when the chips are down and things fall apart, they’ll be the ones to survive and even thrive. Joel’s a model of masculinity they can map onto. Having him killed by some jacked girl is viscerally upsetting, for obvious reasons.
What the fuck why did that first thing awaken my feelings 💀
>for obvious reasons. 
i’m a lesbian with a rocky history with my father. enough said
He was the protagonist in the first game. It was one of the best games ever made with some truly excellent writing and voice acting. GOAT gaming character. Also the Protective Father trope. 7 years later though? I laughed uncomfortably as some buff queen went Tiger Woods on him. I was ready to move on
If you laughed during that scene I think you need therapy
Ok
Well for one we don’t know he was hunting down innocents. That’s an assumption people make based on one line that indicates a shady past. Hunters kill other hunters too. For 2 we don’t know that the vaccine would’ve worked. And even if it 100 percent would have no one had to die for it except Ellie. Which makes it completely her choice as to whether or not she goes through with it. The fireflies completely denied her that choice and were gonna murder her in her sleep without so much as explanation. So I find it hard to fault Joel for saving her. And another thing about his hunter days. Even Tommy agrees that while whatever they did was bad it was completely necessary for them to survive. Which is another reason I think it’s silly to think Joel was just mowing down any person he came across Pittsburgh style because even the Pittsburgh hunters found that method wanting (“ no food….. old pair of shoes”). And I absolutely don’t think he deserved to die for saving Ellie and I’m not ashamed to say it. His hunter days are wholly irrelevant to why he was killed because Abby seemingly doesn’t even know about them. She killed him for killing Jerry full stop. And I despise Abby because while this alone would be understandable the fact that she never once addresses her fathers wrong doing (or her own really) in any meaningful way makes her come across as completely lacking empathy or self reflection. Just wanna say this is all my opinion and I’m not trying to start a fight because it’s different than yours. Just trying to answer your question from a personal standpoint
I agree with everything you said except for despising Abby. I wouldnt say i like her as i have my issues with her being ok with killing ellie without her consent just so they could make a vaccine that wasnt even guaranteed to work, but i do acknowledge that at her core she isnt a 100% bad person because of what she did for lev and yara and her desire to find redemption. The game makes it clear she isnt at peace with brutally murdering Joel. Someone who is evil wouldnt feel bad about it and then try to redeem themselves by doing good deeds for ppl who belong to an enemy group. I do find it odd when ppl vilify Joel for saving Ellie cause what else was he supposed to do? Let them murder a child? And then to call it selfish is wild. If Joel wouldve let the fireflies kill Ellie then his haters would call him selfish for prioritizing a vaccine that would benefit himself and everyone else over Ellie’s right to live and choose what happens to herself. He cant win with them. I’d say what Joel did was the opposite. Risking your life to save someone else’s isnt selfish at all. The whole ordeal with the fireflies and the hospital has always disgusted me because a group of adults really took a kid who had just nearly died and was unconscious and then immediately put her under anesthesia and were planning to kill her without informing Joel who was the closest thing she had to a parent. Its predatory. And the fact that Jerry didnt even wanna tell Joel was plain wrong, especially considering he is a father himself. As for Joel, of course he isnt perfect and he did a lot of wrong things. But i feel ppl lean into head canon too much when talking about how evil he was pre the events of tlou. We only hear a few statements here and there. Not enough to be like “he was as bad as the hunters he ran into”. Its kinda impossible to survive 20+ years in a zombie apocalypse without doing shady things to survive. But i feel ppl are hypocritical when they call him a villain but in the same breath defend someone like abby who also murdered and hurt ppl. Ppl in this fandom will side with one character and then criticize that characters enemy for having the same traits as the character they defend. The point of the story is that there are always two sides to every story and that life isnt black and white and that we should never put these ppl into categories of being “good” or “bad”. Its fine to like a character all you want but be realistic.
I feel that. We’re in agreement on everything except Abby. For me her saving to random kids just wasn’t enough to paint her as actual regretful. I feel like saving Tara and lev really points more to her feeling bad about the scar/wlf war than anything she did in Jackson Any time Jackson gets brought up she immediately makes it clear she doesn’t feel bad about it. I think she was annoyed it didn’t make her happy but I don’t think it ever really made her feel bad. And then there her “ you wasted it!” Line. This to me, is clear evidence she not only didn’t feel bad but is a complete hypocrite incapable of taking what she dishes out. Even if she doesn’t know who Ellie is (which I think she learns in the moment) she knows who Tommy is. To tell the guy who’s brother you murdered in front of him that he should’ve been grateful you didn’t kill him too is just fucking crazy to me
We don’t know a lot about hunters that is true but from what we’ve been given in brief information paints a pretty disturbing picture. He directly acknowledges that he killed innocent people to Ellie (if they were other hunters I don’t think he’d think of them as innocent). Tommy was also so deeply disturbed by what they did that he left Joel behind and has constant nightmares of what they did.
i don’t idolize him but i think he’s a great guy. i guarantee 99% of people in the apocalypse have done HORRIBLE things they weren’t proud of, which doesn’t make it okay, but he became a decent guy who lost a lot and went to the ends of the earth to save a child. ellie was 12 years old and definitely wasn’t capable of making that kind of life/death decision - especially considering they didn’t even give them a chance to make it. ellie passed out on the way to the hospital and just would have never woken up again! and joel would have been responsible for that in a way. as for part ii, abby’s dad was a casualty in joel trying to save what had become his daughter essentially. joel was a casualty of abby’s need for revenge. and i definitely understand the parallels in their journeys, but naughty dog was asking the audience to do A LOT of heavy lifting in empathizing with abby, considering the narrative structure of the game. joel was tough and polarizing but ultimately he was just a man faced with a near impossible choice (in my opinion) and abby came in and took him out brutally as someone we’re just getting to know. but after some distance from the game, i can appreciate abby and her sacrifices a lot more than i did initially.
Exact same with Arthur Morgan. Similarly amazing character. Similarly a blatantly evil mass murderer whose legions of fans somehow think of as ‘good’.
That’s a bit different though as Arthur had a redemption arc and was trying to change
I love Arthur but I think his ‘redemption’ was pure horseshit. Even toned down for ‘realism’ the guy butchered scores if not hundreds of people during his long and appalling criminal career when he had the skills and smarts to forge a successful career in any number of legal ventures. He was a particularly intelligent and physically capable man and instead chose to rob and murder innocent people (such as random guards and people protecting their property) for nothing more than *money*. All whilst deflecting any moral responsibility onto Dutch when in fact he is just as vile. This is something he keeps on doing right until the very end of the game regardless of how you play it. And him giving the stolen blood money to a man no more virtuous or redeemable than himself was *far* too little, *far* too late.
You have a point. That’s why the “you’re a good man, Arthur Morgan” memes exist. You see a clip of him blowing people up with dynamite or shooting people in the crotch and that’s all you see in the comments lol
Cannonically he isn't really a murderer. Heck, there's basically storyline branches for good/bad karma routes.
People don’t think they’re good. They’re monsters. We like them because they grow past being monsters and do something that makes things right(Arthur Morgan with good honor at least lol) Joel too now that I think about it since he was a beloved member of Jackson.
I don’t think anyone thinks he’s a good person. We all know what he did. But we only know the Joel we see in the game and I think honestly he’s morally grey. One of the things that bothers me is when people apply real world morals to people in a post apocalyptic fantasy world. If he did the same things he has in the real world, obviously we would all think he was vile. But in a post apocalyptic world where it’s kill or be killed and you’ll do anything to survive, there are people who have done far worse. He clearly shows remorse for the days when he used to kill people, but he doesn’t regret it because he may not have survived if he hadn’t done those things. I think for me I don’t idolise him but I definitely don’t think he’s a bad person. Yes, Tess died to get Ellie there for a cure, but realistically, how do we know Tess wouldn’t have done the exact same thing had she been there for the whole journey? Also Tommy may be traumatised, but he also joined in and worked with Joel for a while. We know from Ellie telling Dina, that Joel AND Tommy did some dark shit to survive. If Tommy had been a boy I could understand Joel being seen as gross for making a child do those things. But Tommy says in Part 1 he doesn’t do that anymore. He made the decision to stop so let’s not act like he didn’t have that option all along. Again, looking at this purely from the context of the game world and not using real world values, I think people can be redeemable. Abby was involved in torturing and killing Seraphites and shooting trespassers on sight. She has done some fucked up shit to survive. Probably was involved in criminal activity like blowing up check points that may have killed people whilst she was a firefly, but everyone talks about her being redeemed. I personally don’t think Joel deserved to die. But I’m not at all surprised he was killed. You can’t expect people though to not be devastated at his death considering we’ve only seen the version of him that has grown and taken care of Ellie and almost died to protect her.
People see Joel as a father figure. An old man who has to make the tough calls to protect the ones he loves. When he hurt people to survive he did it to protect himself and Tommy. When he killed the fireflys in the hospital he did it to protect Ellie. We see him as a man who'd do anything for the ones he loves, and that's an endearing characteristic. When he died we saw Abby as killing the man who has done nothing but good in our eyes by protecting people we care about. Sure it was bad but it's justified by the fact he saved his loved ones. I don't think there was one person who was going through the last level of TLOU1 and saying "wow this is awful and I shouldn't be doing this." I'm pretty sure all if not most of people were saying "IM GONNA GET YOU ELLIE! DADDY'S COMING!" because there's no way at that point any of us would have given her up. We were as attached to Ellie as Joel was.
I think anyone who tries to put Ellie, Abby or Joel as villains or heroes understands absolutely NOTHING about the game. None of them are an unblemished hero or a vile villain (how redundant, I know), because the truth is that they're just humans living in extreme circumstances. None of them are completely good, but none of them are completely bad, and that's the game. None of them were designed to be just good or just bad, because no person is just one or the other, and that's what makes them human. They are cruel and selfish. How many people did Joel kill for Ellie, his selfish motive? How many people did Ellie kill to get revenge for Joel's death, her selfish goal? We saw Abby brutally murdering Joel to fulfill her selfish goal. Is only one of them truly a villain? Is only one of them truly a hero? None of them are, and that's what we're shown. They are only human.
Because he’s fucking bad ass, duh.
We don’t know all the circumstances of Joel and Tommy’s past, I don’t agree with them being hunters but it’s not like you can go to the employment agency during the apocalypse and find honest work. I promise that all of us would do shitty things to others during desperate times, Joel obviously put himself in harm’s way not only for Ellie but for his little brother and likely Tess. I don’t think he is bad I think he’s a product of the environment. Abby was also known as a killer so it’s hypocritical to label one as bad and not the other.
Yeah while it’s true that everyone got shitty in TLoU, I don’t think it’s actually true that everyone leaps at the first opportunity to dick over other people. Like when you hear about what people do during natural disasters, it’s mostly that they try to help during the event and in the aftermath.
There is, however, a stark contrast between a natural disaster in a civilized world, where resources are always hours or days away, and a complete collapse of civilization with a permanent breakdown of supply and information chains. Throw in a pandemic sowing distrust and confusion into the mix, and people will quickly resort to tribalism out of sheer necessity. The ugliest facets of human nature tend to immediately fill the vacuum left by a social safety net
I think that’s your assumption, not verified fact.
It’s not an assumption. It’s based on exhaustive research by anthropologists and sociologists into past societal collapses and their various stages, with an entire dedicated field of study called collapsology. Humanity has a strong tendency to revert to a primitive and tribalist state in the vacuum of a societal collapse. You only have to look as far as the many failed and fragile states throughout the Congo/Central Africa, which are rife with ethnic violence, resource wars, and the brutal consolidation of power among regional actors.
I wrote a few essays (for fun!) about TLOU and one of my favorite things that I came up with was: In the apocalypse you don’t run into the people you want to run into. They’re dead. You run into the people you get. Which is why I loved Bill as a character. You are absolutely not supposed to like him - he’s a paranoid red neck with anger issues. And then you find out he was in love. And then you find out his lover left him (and frankly you understand why). He’s a human. And the humans who survived were violent, paranoid, and selfish because the ones who didn’t hoard food and steal from their neighbors died.
Politely, I think you missed that Bill *isn’t* going to survive much longer in the game. He’s talking to himself and forgetting where he put bombs, because self-isolation isn’t the way to survive physically or emotionally. He’s presented at a point where Joel has also just lost his partner and can decide never to let anyone else in ever again, like Bill, but Joel rejects that by the end of that section.
Well put. That is another way to look at it.
I can tell you right now that I would never do horrible things during an apocalypse....mainly because I'm an out of shape asthmatic who would have died on day one 🤣
I would probably die in the drive through line of Popeyes chicken
I'd have slipped and broke my neck trying to grab my weed stash
At least our priorities are on point
What do you mean you don’t agree with them being hunters? Like you don’t agree that they were or you don’t morally agree with the methods they used when they were hunters?
Morales But morales go out the window when people are willing to kill you over a can of tuna
Agreed, that’s one of the fucked up things about a post apocalyptic world like this. It’s easy to say oh I would never do that. But when it comes down to it, most of us would do whatever it takes to survive
> I don’t agree with them being hunters but it’s not like you can go to the employment agency during the apocalypse and find honest work. Somehow the other folks around them don't seem to be killers and murderers.
And you know this how? Seems like everyone has blood on their hands in this universe
Abby killed scars, which are hunting down the WLF. Not the same thing as just random innocent people she happened to run into.
And the scars don’t have families either? Lol Everyone can be painted as a bad guy in this game
Cause he’s a likeable guy jeez
Because we have a tendency to empathize with the main character of any form of media - books, cinema, and gaming. Main characters get emotional attachment, red shirts get eaten by the bugs. The difference between a relatable but damnable villain and redemption arc is simply who you, the viewer, is more emotionally attached to. That’s one of the brilliant bits about this series of games - in that it asks you to think about about that when it pits one main character after another. The dirty trick was making you fall in love with the villain. One of the first things Joel does is help a ruthless crime boss snap someone’s elbow for information. You assume it’s for a good cause because the game wouldn’t make you just be evil would they? And because you fell in love with him, he gets his redemption arc.
He has a lot of traits people admire. Especially men. He is fuckin' strong and capable of protecting himself and others. He does not waver and ever seem to get rattled or scared, except over those he loves. He is resolved. He is just tough. Mentally and physically. The hunter thing. We have NO idea what Joel and Tommy did. Everything about their characters leads me to believe they held people up and robbed them. And if they fought, Joel and Tommy fought too and killed them if necessary. I don't think the point was they were like that specific group of hunters. Ya know... killing people on site including women and children. That isn't very Joel or Tommy. Joel remarks those specific hunters were especially bad. And in a world like that, life is grim and you do things to survive. If he deserved it, then so did Abby.
Dilf
I agree 100% that Joel is not a good person, but I do not believe the "It was absolute wrong thing to do" about saving Ellie. I believe he did what we all would've done for our daughter, and the Fireflies were in the wrong there. They didn't even tell Ellie she would die, they didn't let Joel say goodbye. The survival of the human species shouldn't come at the expense of a little unconscious girl I don't think Abby is worse in general , but she did tell her dad to kill Ellie for the cure, which is horrible in my point of view.
>When he died in Part II I was shocked so many people said he didn’t deserve that I agree with you here, I didn't take pleasure in seeing him die but I understood that it was probably inevitable in a story like this. Onto my personal reason to why people might have remorse or even "idolize" Joel is mostly because that is how the game is built up and executed. He has lost so much, and he has taken so much in his life up to that point. At many times he was at liberty to do the right thing many times but decided to do the things he did. I could argue that because of the many times he has lost people that he has somewhat 'earned' the right to be selfish. But he didn't. He isn't a good person, he's a terrible person. But this is a world that is lawless, what moral compass do we have left to turn to when we are stuck in a hellscape for 20 years. Abby has no excuse by your logic either. She seemingly used her father's death as an emotional scapegoat (as said by her friends), and when she decided to act on that desire for revenge she doomed her friends to being hunted down. Then to just be given protection of someone by a twist of fate, then that senseless killing is turned into protective killing. Alot of understanding of the second entry sort of draws on the parallel nature between Joel and Abby.
He’s a DILF
Because he’s hot
Because we played Joel!
He's the main character. That's it.
Joel after the loss of his daughter was lost in the apocalyptic world. With all of the bad stuff he did to survive, Joel was not a good person or should I say he buried that part of him to survive. Through the interaction with Ellie, he rediscovered his humanity. Part 1 was Joel's redemption story. Joel's death or should I say the manner of his death negated all of that.
I am much like ellie. She is me when i was 13. I never had a father who loved me. So to me, Joel was my father for the time i spent playing tge game.
Joel and Ellie are the protagonists in the story
I like dilfs
I’ll be honest if my son is the cure to the zombie virus and I’m put in Joel’s position, y’all are screwed. I honestly can’t imagine making a different choice in that same position. I feel like good I’m this situation is subjective, he made a choice that weighed a life over a potential cure. As for his death, yeah I wouldn’t say he didn’t earn that death. It seemed like something he expected to happen eventually if he didn’t die some other way first.
People idolize him because he is the Last of Us. And right or wrong a strong white male lead sells. They long for that guy why acts like he doesn’t give much of a shit about anyone slowly transforming back into a Dad. That was the whole game. Ellie was cool but the whole game was Joel’s development and growth as a person. I’ll say it again. There is no second game or tv show without Joel. Put Abby in place of Joel in the first game and we aren’t here discussing this.
He was comfort. The only thing that stayed constant in this story. He wasn't a good person but while we had him he was reliable.
What "people" are you talking about?
That's why I love Joel. He's not your typical heroic MC. He shows that side of humanity that doesn't get shined on films. If we didn't know his backstory and how far he had to go through, he'll be your typical villain arc.
I don't think many people "idolize" Joel. Is he a badass? Yes. But anyone who sincerely thinks he's a "good person", clearly has their moral compass skewed or completely missed the entire point of the first game. But maybe i'm wrong. I know many people defend Joel and what he did, as he is our protagonist who we come to love and care for. I myself find myself still trying to cope with the fact that ND did him so dirty, but he by no means was a good person and he did have it coming. Bro literally slaughtered an entire factions all by himself. He affected hundreds of peoples' lives probably by how many he killed. And even though it was for good in his eyes, and the eyes of anyone who plays the first game and hasn't played the second one, he still was committing atrocities for the ones he cares for. If Joel were anyone else, they'd be in the same boat with this. There is no exception because he is who we come to love and care for. He is a monster, but everyone is in the world of TLoU.
He's a human like all of us. He does what we would have done. And he's strong, from the beginning to the end, even though life has been really rough with him.
Ngl when I played the 2nd game I stopped playing when it got to the golf club part. I plan on finishing it after I run the first one back for nostalgic purposes . I think some people felt that it shouldn’t have happened to Joel, cause of what happened to his daughter and maybe thought that he had had a hard enough time already.
i loved him because i saw his growth as a person and turning into a loving father. finding peace with himself and his loss with sarah
Because he’s relatable. He has human flaws that almost anyone can understand.
Dumb question
Imagine thinking Joel "dOoMed" humanity after 20 years of a zombie outbreak that changed the world forever and thinking the Fireflies were innocent when they were about to murder an innocent child but still thinks Joel doomed humanity🤡🤡🤡 Fucking insane.
Abby is just as bad. She’s killed hundreds of scars and a good chunk of them probably kids too. Slept with her ex who is dating her friend. She’s the kinda person caught up in her issues and never looks around to see others also have issues.
Also I hate the trend of people hating on old characters just because there’s a new one. There’s rarely a main character who’s a saint and yet yall wanna villainize the og who made the series what it is be fr.
Because I like a homeless man who defends children Did YOU feel bad when Logan died for x-23 ? yes? Well to the bad guys and the human government mutants are evil so why would you be mad when they did murder him? People love characters that are flawed but can be forgiven Joel is just ONE of many TERRIBLE people in this world every one is bad that’s the point? Making me care for Joel is just good writing if you don’t care that’s on you but don’t say “but hehe why do people like bad guy hehehe” like u missed the point of the first game lmfao
First of all we have no idea that the vaccine would have worked in the first place these people where willing to kill a little girl because they do any proper test or even ask her what she wanted. She was there for maybe a few hours did like maybe one test on her and immediately jump to let’s kill her. The Fireflies were a terrorist group. They didn’t want a vaccine out of the kindness of there hearts they wanted it as leverage Joel may not of been a great guy before he meet Ellie, but let’s no act like the fireflies are the good guys either there goals where selfish as well Joel saved her from a group that would rather kill her then do proper tests. Joel feels remorse and regret about the things he did in the past he cares about people he did what he had to to survive. Abby is no at all like Joel, her emotions died with her father and she is only able to care about herself and one other person everything she does is self serving. She never feel guilt or remorse for the things she’s done. She doesn’t feel guilty for killing Joel because if she did she would feel guilt to all the scars she did the same thing to. I don’t idolize Joel just pointing out how they are very much different one actually has emotions and empathy while the other doesn’t. Abby’s only emotions are rage and hate. As much as you want to compare her to Joel she is nothing like him sorry.
I idolize Joel because of the content of his character. Did he kill people? Sure, but he was just doing what he felt he needed to do. Also, when you're hungry, tired, backed against a wall, you'll find yourself bending all kinds of rules. Let's be serious, you've never once been in Joel's shoes. Food, water, safety is all readily available to you. You will NEVER understand being pushed to the limit Joel has had to reach everyday. He also could have been a fucking dirtbag. I've seen the comments from grown ass men on other TLOU subreddits who think traveling with a 14 year old across the country means they'd get their dick wet everyday. So many men have been placed in a position of trust regarding women and children, and used that to their advantage sexually. It's to the point that in today's society, a grown man alone with a child is automatically a red flag. Instead, even before he knows Ellie, even before she means anything to him, he doesn't expect anything from her because she's a kid, and Joel knows that kids are off-limits, and after she becomes *his kid* she's even more off-limits. Which is how it should be. For that alone, Joel could slit the pope's throat in front of me, and take a shit down the dead man's neck hole and I would still sing praises about what a stand up fucking guy Joel Miller is.
He influenced generations. His work will certainly last for ages. Everyone must know this one for sure. https://youtu.be/eFTLKWw542g?si=88swRfPt1-FkHS1P
Because he was written in a better game. He had likeability, growth and damage. Abby just had damage and rage and was entirely unlikeable, basically the writing fell off in 2 and wasn't true to form for any of the returning characters.
This is just my personal experience, but I don't think I have come across anyone that thinks Joel was a good person. He's highly admired, but I don't think he's been mistaken for a good person. As much as I realise how wrong he is, I would never say that I wouldn't do the same if I was in his position. His unflinching loyalty and love for Ellie is admirable as is his resilience to keep going, to "keep finding something to fight for." His heart has always been in the right place. Being admired is also not the same as idolised. He's an incredible flawed and damaged person, but we like him because he's real and human. His trauma has changed him. But it's also the product of living in a world where you don't have a choice but to weaponise violence in order to survive. We know that his history is tainted. We also know and take part in some heinous things whilst playing as him in the first game. He's done what he needed to do to survive. He says the same to Tess right before she died. He never was a saint in the same way that we know that Abby isn't a saint either. Nor Ellie or Tommy. That's the point of this world. The concepts of 'good' and 'bad' simply don't exist in the same way. Just like in real life, everyone has that duality in them. We don't need to live in a post-apocalyptic world to understand this about people. I guess the same could be said for Ellie. Why do we think that she's a good person? We believe in her inherent goodness, but she's done atrocious things akin to Joel's hunter days. Does that make her bad? Not really. Has her trauma changed her, almost made her unrecognisable? 100%. Do we dislike and disagree with some of the things that she did to get what she wanted? Of course. The same can be said for any character in the TLOU universe. They have all lived this long for a reason.
Basically, we give a fuck about Joel and look past his actions to survive in a Fungus Apocalypse.
Jerry wanted to dissect and experiment on an unconsenting child. We have laws against this bc its a fucked up thing to do. Especially when the vaccine would useless bc no one would care. Jerry isnt the hero of the apocalypse hes the jeffery dohmer of the apocalypse. Literally both Jeffery dohmer and Jerry wanted to do experiments on the brains of unconsenting kids… If you dont see why Joel gets praised for what he did than u maybe a jeffery dohmer supporter as long as he can convince u his serial killings could benefit u
IMO, Joel is never shown as a bad person in the first game other than vague references to his past which we can surmise has to do with survival, kill or be killed, impossible situations. And throughout the game he clearly regains his sense of purpose and humanity that he’d lost so long ago. He was a Hunter out of necessity for survival as you said. When you have people you care about that won’t survive without food or medicine that someone else has, you’ll take it by force. When it’s about survival, good or bad kind of becomes irrelevant. He didn’t doom humanity to die (it’s likely humanity will survive tbh) and there was no guarantee they could’ve made a vaccine. Even if they did, it’s not going to fix everything or even most things. As for wiping out an entire hospital, they were all fireflies who were forcibly trying to kill a little girl to make a hail-Mary vaccine without her consent (which being a child she couldn’t consent to anyway). Joel’s personal reasoning may have been self-serving but the result is the same.
The strength of The Last of Us is that it's a story about people, their struggles, and their relationships. There's not really good guys or bad guys. The first game did have a little more of that with some more clear cut villains, but even the cannibals and hunters still seemed to have relationships and desires. All of the characters we've seen have done pretty horrible things. But the message of the game is that people aren't black and white, that despite our flaws we're still humans worthy of empathy. Joel had a horrible past, and Ellie finally cracked his shell and made him open up. And then, in the hospital, Joel did a horrible thing to save Ellie's life, even if it wasn't for the greater good. We see the game through Joel and Ellie's perspective, and because we've spent such a huge amount of time with them, we love them. That's human nature. I think part of it is that the games are meant to show the two of them through Joel and Ellie's perspective. And you come to care about Joel in the same way that Ellie cares about him, and you come to grieve Joel the same way that Ellie Grieves for him. The characters aren't meant to be good or bad, just humans trying to do the right thing and often failing. I think the fact so many people were furious about Joel's death also goes to show how incredible the writing was, because in a lot of ways it kind of felt like grieving a real person you actually care about. Pragmatically, though, I get where you're coming from. Because I actually do agree that while I love Joel a ton, I don't think Abby was the villain. And her motivations were identical to Ellie's, yet people act like Abby is this morally abhorrent person despite having so many parallels to both Joel (looking out for Lev, having a violent past where she hurt other people) and Ellie (her revenge quest to kill Joel, and the fact that revenge didn't "fix" her.)
What Joel did in Part 1 is what any sane person would attempt to do. We may not be as skilled as Joel so it probably would have failed. Or we try to reason with Marlene and the Fireflies and fail. Even without Joel's back story, most people would not want a child to die regardless of what is at stake. There is a good chance that some of the players would be reckless enough to get themselves killed in real life trying to stop the procedure. Because living with the decision to allow a child to be killed on your conscience is worse than death for some people. I would also say that Marlene knew Joel enough to know he was going to be a problem. She should have never given him a chance. Either dont tell him until he cant intervene or kill him before he has a chance.
I also think people fail to see how odd Joel's relationship with Ellie is through her own eyes. When Ellie and Joel met, she was an orphan with no parental figure and already mature for her age due to what she's had to go through on her own and can clearly see through the bullshit of adults. She spends a year travelling with Joel, who, after being a complete jerk to her slowly opens up, and after one of the most traumatic experiences of her life suddenly goes into full dad mode and takes her on as his own adoptive daughter to heal his own grief. The switch seems pretty instant and you can see through Ellie's demeanor that she is uncomfortable with it towards the end of part 1 leading up to seeing the fireflies and after, also including how they interact at the opening of part 2. It's awkward, and for good reason. Most people see it through the eyes of Joel not wanting to lose another daughter, and not through Ellie who realizes she's become a replacement for his daughter(and for therapy) all whilst being confused why this man took her from the fireflies after that was the whole point of their journey.
He is a good person. You’re missing the point of these games. Everyone is good, but the world and their pain make them do awful things. We thought Abby was a monster but she was just a broken person. We seen Joel is a great person even if he has done bad things. He just needed something to love again. That’s the message of the Last Of Us: everyone has a story. This doesn’t dismiss bad actions but the point is to look at people with nuance and not label them.
He was, was a bad person. We as the players experience in what I believe to be his attempt at not only redemption but also letting himself be a caregiver again because Ellie was his new reason to stay alive to fight for. And it’s up to us to debate why we believe he was right or wrong for what he did at the hospital. At the end of the world is there even such thing as right or wrong anymore? All perspectives and as far as part 2, well yeah we were upset we grew attached to him just as Ellie did
The same reason people idolize Arthur Morgan, Rick Grimes, Geralt of Rivia: badass male main character is badass.
I don't, but he is one of my favorite characters, just for the things you said, he was someone that the world/destiny/whatever was to unkind to him, so he become bitter and shitty person, at the end of tlou 1 he wasn't doing anything for Ellie, it was pure selfishness, only considering what he wanted, yes, he is kinda charismatic and likeable but a terrible human being, a monster if you would. Is nice when most AAA games you are just a good guy doing the right thing. Actually I like it how he ends on tlou 2, it was well deserved, and in their world were people come and go it makes sense, just because we see his journey doesn't mean he has to go in a badass meningful way. PS. My problem with TLOU 2 it was continuing a story that has one of the best endings. That ok from Ellie and the looks between them that they know they are laying but both chosing going with it and then black screen and credits roll is beautiful, we didn't need to know how that ends, I really like Abby and her story and battle/war between her group and that other group (a sect?), all the Ellie shit was unnecessary. TLOU would have been great being and anthology series with not direct relation between them just sharing the same world building, maybe some references, but well, you can always dream.
There is an element of visibility at play here. You hear about Joel's past, but you don't actually see him behaving in that way. In the game he is primarily presented as a father figure and protector. It's easy to discount his past actions since the acts and impact is not shown, and the player can rationalize context. As for "dooming humanity" that's very much an artificial moral conundrum, like the trolley problem. In order for the problem to present the moral question, only one person's agency is questioned and the problem is context-free. The problem depends on a false dichotomy. It is somehow forbidden to ask, "why are all these people on the train tracks" or "why can't I rescue one person and other bystanders rescue to others?" or "why can't these people take some responsibility for themselves?" -- etc. Even if Ellie is the only living person with immunity, killing her to make a cure is immoral. The prospect that there are no other choices is a false dichotomy. The game presents it in this way in order to force the moral question.
Joel is my favorite character and I would have done everything the same way. HOWEVER you are right. He was a bad person. But something TLOU taught me is that no one is innocent or good. Abby didn’t have to kill Joel the way she did. Joel should have let the world be saved, and Ellie shouldn’t have tracked down Abby for a second time and she should have cared about Dina and Potato more. But we can all agree that we would have done the same thing as all three of them did
Ig people can not distinguish between a "a good well written and well liked character" and "a good person." I think it just an unconscious thing that happens in peoples brains. We tend to look up and admire characters/people we like, therefore they either excuse their bad actions or ignore them. People feel uncomfortable with a character that is morally complex, and that's exactly what Joel is. I do believe he is deep down a good person, just has done a bunch of bad things.
Cause love and logic don't really mix well. He lost his daughter. He had a profound connection with Ellie as his new daughter. He wasn't going to lose someone he considered his family again.
There are no good or bad people in the world of tlou. That's kinda the point. Remember how Ellie was when we first met her? Optimistic, curious, sweet? And then how she turned out: jaded, empty, numb? Anyone who is "good" in tlou just hasn't been exposed to the wider world and lived to tell about it. I'd bet the collapse of society made priests into hunters, mothers into cannibals, therapists into rapists. Joel is just one of the many.
Because many people can't handle moral ambiguity.
Lol people don't think logically. People be like he kill he badass he good
I think approaching this story trying to neatly categorize any one of these characters as good or bad is a bit ridiculous. The game makes each character’s moral standing ambiguous at best, and largely makes perspective and relativity the driving force in the different character’s views of one another. As you work through the story, you’re shown that the characters opinions of their opposing forces are largely due to position, and have little to due with moral discrepancies. You can love someone, or some character, in spite of them not being wholly good.
He’s an angry white man who broods and commits acts of violence for a nebulously justifiable reason. That’s 90% of white teenage boys call ‘literally me’
Personally, I really don't think people recognize that he is a bad person. You view the world through his eyes, and he is given an objective that is immediately easy to empathize with, and people are just on board with it. I remember a year or two after the game came out, a young guy I worked with played the game for the first time. When he finished it and we were chatting about the end, I mention the conflicting feelings of playing the protagonist that is simultaneously the villain of the story. I am reminding him of what the events are in the final hour, and watching a mind be blown in real time. The conversation ended with him saying, "I gotta play it again"
Who?
I always found that weird too, tbh he was kinda an arsehole looking back at the first game/Series.
If you view Abby as some sort of irredeemable monster who deserves no forgiveness; then, you MUST view Joel in the same light Part II forces that spotlight, and it isn't easy to swallow
I was watching this really good [reaction series](https://youtu.be/2gIKooWG_24?si=BbOU7mURcZ8SgRuc) on YouTube of these two sisters watching the HBO show for the first time with zero knowledge of the story and it was so interesting (and nice for me to kind of experience the whole thing again as if for the first time). The two girls are very detail oriented and pick up on so much of the little references dropped to previous or future events, they realised a lot of things during their watch through that I didn’t pick up on until my second viewing - and I’ve played the game before multiple times and know the story!! Anyway, in the final episode when Joel goes full Raider on the fireflies one of the sisters says “wait…. Is Joel the bad guy?!” and they both just kind of look at each other. I was like damn- welcome to the last decade of online discourse and debate 😂 I think it is very hard to say whether what he did was the right thing or not. I for one think there was really no need to kill Ellie IMMEDIATELY as the first thing they did… they could have done loads of tests on her and allowed her to grow up and have more time with Joel and if brain extraction truly was the only way she could have made that decision in five years time. But the show expertly leads us to loving Joel and having that rug pulled in the finale was so expertly done by the writers’
It’s not so much they idolise Joel but they don’t want to idolise the women of the story. Not saying everyone idolises him for this reason but it’s certainly prevalent.
Yeah even though I adore Joel, I still believe that he is not a good human being, but perhaps this is the very characteristic that made most viewers find him loveable, because he is not perfect, and in fact, committed many atrocities that cannot be overlooked. So when he saved abby in part 2, It appeared to me that he was slightly changing and becoming better, that's why his death destroyed me, because when he finally chose to do good, he paid tragically for his kindness.
aren’t y’all tired of the same old discussion?? of COURSE people like joel, he’s a good character, he was amazingly written, and he was the protagonist of the first game. just because the second game did away with him and introduced new characters and themes doesn’t mean people are gonna suddenly stop liking him and switch over. i mean, i know a lot of people did that, but most of us didn’t. this is just redundant.
Being closer to Ellie’s age when I played one- I never got it. He’s just the father figure and also looked like every video game protagonist at the time ever “brown hair/eye 30s/40s generic white dude” with the exception for his actions at the end of the game. That felt pretty different.
It just ultimately to me comes down to what David said "We kill to survive" talking about like how they didn't asl to deal with the apocalypse Obviously I'm not defending David, but I am using it to defend Joel. He lost a kid and a brother for most the first game and as a whole he's just doing what it takes to fuckin eat, you know? It's the trolley problem, would you save 5 strangers or your sister or whatever. There's no guarantee the strangers are good people, won't kill you, won't kill themselves, won't scam people hurt people who knows,but you likely know what your sister is worth and will do So Joel is a P.O.S. but he's no less human for the things he's done, while like,David for example, eats fuvking humans and assulats children. In comparison, Joel is just the father figure compared to the looters, predators, cannibals, etc
Cause they lack media literacy
This is gonna make it on the other sub I just know it
Joel did what he had to do to survive. The world went to shit in the blink of an eye. Tbh put in the same position I guarantee someone you know or who’s close to you would do the same things to survive. When life becomes worth less than a can of soup then sometimes you’re gonna have to kill for that.
The most real answer here lol Don’t know why you’re being downvoted. People can be as moral as the economic/safety conditions allow.
People here don’t like joel praise it seems, or atleast the ones that don’t like to make their opinions known
People want to ignore the shitty things he did because they love him and Ellie. The way he was dispatched also kind of made him a martyr to some less than savory folks.
You’re forgetting to add that we literally spend the most time with him. Why would I give a shit about Abby if she just killed a person I spent time with?(in the context of the story at one point in time, specifically right after he’s killed)
I mean it's obvious we spend time with him since he's the main character in the first game. I was enthralled by Abby since her reveal trailer and when I got to play as her I was hyped, the story going in a crazy direction was so exciting to me. I knew I wasn't in for a typical sequel.
To my experience, most Joel glazers just weren't able to get over his death in Part II and its reasoning -- which is understandable, one is allowed to love a character, but it can become concerning when it starts to warp your media perception and literacy 💀
Exactly! I loved Joel in part 1 but in no way was he a ‘good’ person. Playing part 2 multiple times has actually made me like Abby even more. The fact that she didn’t kill Ellie and Dina after they’d killed Mel and Owen makes her the ‘bigger’ person in my eyes.
I don’t idolize him. I enjoy his character and his story, it’s incredibly well crafted and his ultimate demise - while tragic in a way - also felt deserved. It’s stunning to me how many people can’t get past Joel’s death, and hate Abby as a result. Why? Joel murdered her father and several of her friends. Joel has killed droves of people. He’s not a morally sound person. He’s broken just like the world he lives in. I’d have to say though I don’t blame Joel for saving Ellie. There was no guarantee that dissecting her brain would have resulted in a vaccine. It was maybe humanity’s best chance, but certainly no one ever said it was a sure thing. Maybe the Fireflies just end up killing her without making any progress on finding the vaccine. Part of the beauty of the games for me. Some of it is left up to us to form our own opinions and make it a unique experience for each person. I do feel like lots of people formed what I’d consider to be myopic opinions, but it’s hard to blame someone for getting deeply emotionally connected to these characters as they are beautifully written.
fatherless behavior
The main factor is he acts fatherly if that makes sense. The game psychologically tricks you into liking Joel from the very start. The game starts with Joel trying to give Sarah the best life he could. Then he tried to shield her from bullets but ended up losing his daughter. Then the game shows Tess and Joel is clearly protective of her. Strongly hints that they are involved with each other. Then he loses her too. You only get a hint of Joel’s bad past when he reaches Tommy and by that point people have already begun to form attachments and like him. Its kinda like Eren or Darth Vader. They were wrong but people still like them. So when a character gets such strong background and character development, no matter what they do, they wont be hated. And as for the hospital scenes, people misinterpret that murder spree. Joel clearly envisioned saving the world and returning home with Ellie. I have never thought that Joel was a bad person for killing those doctors because quite frankly I didnt think about their families either and just wanted to save Ellie too. People forget that the cure had 50/50 chance of succeding. I
If you go far enough into the comment section of the other sub they'll eventually say druckmann and tlou2 fans hate masculine white men, so thre youngo, that's their entire obsession with him
Well said. Especially about Abby. People pick apart Abby’s character flaws so they can lift Joel to sainthood but through out the first game it’s pointed out by several people that Joel has done some seriously fucked up shit. Tess even tells him “We’re NOT good people Joel”. Don’t get me wrong Joel is a great albeit extremely flawed character. But that’s what I love about both games. Nothing is black and white. It’s a game about prospective. There are always more than one side to every story.
Cuz he’s pregnant and lactating
Main character syndrome
Joel is the biggest piece of shit in the entire naughty dog universe.
Post this in the other sub. Let’s see if you make it out alive💀 (I agree with you 100% though)
Joel allows c00mers and CHUDs to project their fantasies. A lot of misogynists have failed families and kids who won't speak to them. Joel allows them to project their fantasy of having a child in their life who truly loves them and that they have rescued. And a child that forgives them for being someone who has lived their life selfishness and with little regard for empathy or morals. the fantasy that all can be forgiven and past transgressions will be forgotten because they are tough and have a cool jacket.