Neil Druckmann finally confirms - "Joel was right"

Madflavor

Member
Dude was watching the second season of The Last of Us and going


drake.gif

Yeah no shit, like "Oh. That's what I did?"
 
Abby did nothing wrong.


Abby did literally nothing to convince or get Ellie, bearer of the cure and the reason why her dad was killed. More so, when Ellie told her "I am the reason why your father died" , she doesnt react. She doesnt care, which contradicts everything shown in the first flashback scene. TLOU 2 is a mess full of contradictions.

This is because in Neil Druckmann's head, the argument of the cure was always pointless and just an excuse to get things moving. That's also why this topic is forgotten in the second game, as if everybody forgot about something that important.

The same crap happens in Blade 2, where none remember that the female doctor designed a serum in the first movie. That's a huge plot hole that the writer made everyone forget just because.

That could be the case. What part of that makes the premise flawed?


The game tries to create a dilemma of "one life versus the world salvation" and that's a flawed premise. It's not true, not by a country mile.

You just need to look at the WORLD TODAY to realize how wrong this premise is. This argument might be pushed right after the global crisis, but not 20 years later, where the world has moved on and established new regimes that wouldn't go back to the pre-crisis era just because someone found a cure.

TLOU society is even more savage than the one in Mad Max (the original movie). The premise is impossible.

Just a brief note on the dilemma itself. There's no moral defense in killing an innocent for the sake of a larger group of people. This is immoral under every circumstance. A society that needs to sacrifice children to survive is a society that deserves to go extinct. This is not the way of humankind. It shocks me how many people would gladly kill others to save their asses and still believe they are in the right.
 

Madflavor

Member
I think the only thing about TLOU2 that actually rubs me the wrong way, is that there really was no Come to Jesus moment for Abby. I mean you can speculate that she internalized most of it, but we really needed a scene of her coming to terms with how badly she fucked up, and that she's ultimately responsible for getting a lot of her friends killed. The fact that she doesn't makes her a lesser character imo.

Characters like Guts and Thorfinn didn't become some of the best protagonists in fiction because they stayed Edgelords their whole life. At some point they grew the fuck up, and became better men. Abby was kind of a cunt throughout the whole game. Her actions were understandable, and I sympathized with her, but I think Neil was so focused on getting us to like and sympathize with her, that he didn't put enough attention on her own faults.

Maybe the show will rectify this.
 
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FeralEcho

Member
I woulnd't say he was right, its one life vs millions, i just dont hate him for doing something wrong.
Imagine thinking a rag tag group of rebels in a decrepyt hospital will find the cure for a zombie virus 😂😂😂

I wonder how many little girls they experimented on to "find" the cure until Joel got around to ending their dumb bullshit.

The fact that people actually believe the fireflies of all people would be able to find a cure in the middle of a goddamn zombie Apocalypse is both sad and hilarious and shows just how little logic people use when playing these stories.

But then again people actually believe a woman can get as buff as Abby through just "motivation and hard work" in an apocalypse where food is in short supply. It's not like she's eating her daily chicken meals.

Edit: Hell even in the game,the fireflies are almost extinct,no one in the world had any confidence in them.

It's like going to a private research lab that has half a star rating and saying "Yes,they will definitely find the cure for cancer here".
 
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SuperC

Neo Member
The true message of TLOU2 is the same as most postmodern entertainment, Hate your father or father figure
and love this group of progressive people and even at that Druckmann failed to deliver because he is a terrible
writer, No need to discuss the specifics because it's all nonsense in a postapocalyptic world
 

Saber

Newd Member
Joel kills the surgeon in a cutscene, it can't be avoided.

I don't remember the first one having a cutscene though.


Abby did literally nothing to convince or get Ellie, bearer of the cure and the reason why her dad was killed. More so, when Ellie told her "I am the reason why your father died" , she doesnt react. She doesnt care, which contradicts everything shown in the first flashback scene. TLOU 2 is a mess full of contradictions.

This is because in Neil Druckmann's head, the argument of the cure was always pointless and just an excuse to get things moving. That's also why this topic is forgotten in the second game, as if everybody forgot about something that important.

This is a result of physicological strategy bullshit where he did this on purpose to pin the blame on Joel by make you feel bad for like him while making that thing Abby impervious from be hated.
The same strategy was adopted for random npcs that Ellie kills.
 
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proandrad

Member
Ppl still wont give a fuck about his intergalactic bald blasian stud, but i bet he can finally feel the heat now :D

Edit:
If he really wants to make it good, he should do tlou2 remake with its story/totally remade, golfclub treatment shouldnt happen there, not saying joel should survive but lets give him a proper hero's dead at the end of the game where he sacrifices himself in some big hero shoutout to save ellie one last time, and that biatch on male hormones defo should die in a nasty way be it by joel or ellie :)
That would be hilarious. Replace the golf scene with Dina, redesign Abby's body to look like the face model, and give the player the final choice to kill Abby or not. The Last of Us Part 2.5, Gamers Cut.
 

PeteBull

Member
The true message of TLOU2 is the same as most postmodern entertainment, Hate your father or father figure
and love this group of progressive people and even at that Druckmann failed to deliver because he is a terrible
writer, No need to discuss the specifics because it's all nonsense in a postapocalyptic world
Indeed, cuckman like the rest of progressive delusional left has only one msg for whole world:
kamala-we-have-to-stay-woke.gif
 
I am telling you that one day, when Sony will be in a dire situation and would need to gain their old customers back (and money), they will ask some director to remake the true sequel of TLOU with both characters alive.

The one we deserve, telling the story of those characters many loved and set in the realistic (ish) world of TLOU1, not 2. Obviously when Druckmann will have left the studio to make his movies about "subverting expectations" nonsense elsewhere.
 
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Atrus

Gold Member
Of course Joel was right. Humanity had its chance and couldn’t beat one man despite outnumbering and outgunning him. The failure was entirely on the fireflies.
 

QLQ

Neo Member
The game tries to create a dilemma of "one life versus the world salvation" and that's a flawed premise. It's not true, not by a country mile.
What's flawed about it?
What's "not true" ? That some people even after 20 years may still have hope they can at least get rid of that terrible infection. Even if that's not the end of all problems why wouldn't they pursue it? What's there to lose? Is that's so unrealistic? What's flawed about that?
You just need to look at the WORLD TODAY to realize how wrong this premise is. This argument might be pushed right after the global crisis, but not 20 years later, where the world has moved on and established new regimes that wouldn't go back to the pre-crisis era just because someone found a cure.
So what? Why not 20, 50, 100 years later? Who are you to tell? It's a plausible scenario. And again, it would be a start? a change maybe? you can't predict anything in absolute terms, who knows how a cure and the end of the pandemic helps change the power dynamics.
TLOU society is even more savage than the one in Mad Max (the original movie). The premise is impossible.
You can't say for sure. It's very possible. You made up your mind that the premise involves finding a cure that will assuredly lead to healing everyone and have the whole world together sing kumbaya, and I don't know where do you get that and has you tied in a knot.
Just a brief note on the dilemma itself. There's no moral defense in killing an innocent for the sake of a larger group of people. This is immoral under every circumstance.
It may be so, but plenty of immoral actions have shaped and keep shaping the course of history whether we like it or not and he haven't gone extinct.

A society that needs to sacrifice children to survive is a society that deserves to go extinct. This is not the way of humankind. It shocks me how many people would gladly kill others to save their asses and still believe they are in the right.
 

digdug2

Member
You guys are way to caught up in the Soap Opera that is The Last Of Us lol

I believe this series has more grown men emotionally invested than any other video game & that is an Art , if only Roger Ebert was still around to witness what has taken place 😭.
Right? I'm not sure which is worse... the ridiculous revenge storyline(s) in TLOU2 or all of the real-life drama surrounding it.
 

Lethal01

Member
Imagine thinking a rag tag group of rebels in a decrepyt hospital will find the cure for a zombie virus 😂😂😂

I wonder how many little girls they experimented on to "find" the cure until Joel got around to ending their dumb bullshit.

Again, this does not seem to be what to story is framing the dilemma at all, yes we can try to apply real world logic to cartoon but the writers are framing the moral dilemma here as "Joel is choosing between a cure and a child he loves who's never before seen immunity finally put us on a fast track to the cure".

If you wanna wave away the actual set of of the story then sure we can just go "well it wouldnt work anyway so there's no real reason to actually think about the issues the story puts forth.

Even now the writer is saying Joel wasn't wrong because he "did it for love" not because "well realistically the fireflies could have failed" it's not real, its a story.

again people actually believe a woman can get as buff as Abby through just "motivation and hard work" in an apocalypse where food is in short supply. It's not like she's eating her daily chicken meals.,

What's with the forum these days, you gotta bring up some random people you hate cause of politics just to really drive home you think my opinion on a game characters actions are dumb? Please just eat shit and go donate some organs
 
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Arachnid

Member
He probably would, shit I would and even I agree with Joels actions...

You can agree with someone's actions from their perspective and still understand why someone else disagrees with him enough to murder him.

So I would do Joel worse if he killed my father, we would be in that basement for days lol Tommy would get it, Ellie would get it just before being there lol
That's what I've been fkn saying since the beginning lmao

Abby did nothing wrong. In fact, she was genuinely a saint in my eyes for letting Ellie off the hook twice, AND letting everyone else go. Especially after Ellie started killing off her friends. Abby lost her actual dad. Not some surrogate she knew for like 4 years. I get people hate the fact that Joel died, and the manner of him being killed could have been better written, but the hate against Abby has always been overblown.
 

Raven117

Member
I loved my father, but if my father was going to murder a young girl without her consent for an experiment that probably wouldn't work,, and that girl's father murdered him to prevent him from doing so... then yeah...I'd say "i hate you, but I understand..."
Wasn’t without her consent either.

Either way, the fact we are talking about part 1 and 2 so many years later is because it’s impactful storytelling.

This is opposed to just bad storytelling (Ie, game of thrones ending… where it faded from memory)
 

Raven117

Member
That's what I've been fkn saying since the beginning lmao

Abby did nothing wrong. In fact, she was genuinely a saint in my eyes for letting Ellie off the hook twice, AND letting everyone else go. Especially after Ellie started killing off her friends. Abby lost her actual dad. Not some surrogate she knew for like 4 years. I get people hate the fact that Joel died, and the manner of him being killed could have been better written, but the hate against Abby has always been overblown.
The hate is overblown for sure.

I liked Abby way more than Elllie (in part 2)
 
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Source: https://www.ign.com/articles/the-la...r-whether-or-not-joel-was-right-to-save-ellie

“I believe Joel was right,” Druckmann admits. “If I were in Joel's position, I hope I would be able to do what he did to save my daughter.”


Another rare victory
Didn't he say the opposite a couple of years ago?

Morally, in the context of the game, he was right.

Even in the unlikely event that the nice dr. The fireflies had would have found a cure, we just didn't know this in advance.
 

Raven117

Member
When did she give consent?
Had to refresh my memory. You are right, it was never explicitly given.

However, impliedly, throughout the game and even after the hospital, she would have given it. She viewed that as giving her life purpose. That’s why she was accusing Joel (in her own way) at the end. That’s why the ending of part one is so impactful.

Love or hate Druckkman, in some (but not all) ways, part 1 and 2 may be the most emotionally complex stories in video games ever told.

Note, I didn’t say best story.
 
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CLW

Member
Time for a Walking Dead style Ellie Wakes up from the NIGHTMARE (TLOU 2) to find she still lives happily with Joel
 

CLW

Member
Had to refresh my memory. You are right, it was never explicitly given.

However, impliedly, throughout the game and even after the hospital, she would have given it. She viewed that as giving her life purpose. That’s why she was accusing Joel (in her own way) at the end. That’s why the ending of part one is so impactful.

Love or hate Druckkman, in some (but not all) ways, part 1 and 2 may be the most emotionally complex stories in video games ever told.

Note, I didn’t say best story.
Wrong minors such as Ellie in TLOU 1 are generally incapable of giving informed consent for medical procedures especially life ending ones thus Joel (her “guardian”) is the only decision that ultimately matters
 

calico

Member
Had to refresh my memory. You are right, it was never explicitly given.

However, impliedly, throughout the game and even after the hospital, she would have given it. She viewed that as giving her life purpose. That’s why she was accusing Joel (in her own way) at the end. That’s why the ending of part one is so impactful.

Love or hate Druckkman, in some (but not all) ways, part 1 and 2 may be the most emotionally complex stories in video games ever told.

Note, I didn’t say best story.

Yeah, after the fact doesn't matter, and giving retroactive hypothetical 'consent' is much easier once the risk has shifted from being a real consideration to a hypothetical one.

Ellie couldn't give consent (even if we ignore her being a child), her kidnappers couldn't assume consent and I don't think it's reasonable (of Ellie or an outside observer) to expect Joel to just assume she would consent.

Joel's actions were heroic and just, and broadly in line with what we would expect 'the good guys' to do in a situation where somebody has been kidnapped for purposes of medical experimentation, no matter how important the kidnappers consider their experiment to be.
 
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SirTerry-T

Member
You guys are way to caught up in the Soap Opera that is The Last Of Us lol

I believe this series has more grown men emotionally invested than any other video game & that is an Art , if only Roger Ebert was still around to witness what has taken place 😭.
See, NeoGaf...this is sarcasm done right!
 
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yurinka

Member
Any doctor in a post-apocalyptic hellhole would take a chance to save as much people as possible.
Any doctor would know that in such conditions they wouldn't have the resources and logistics to find and produce any cure.

And even more: even if they'd have it, in theory people would do many things but being realistic on practice nobody would kill her own daughter for that. Specially knowing that killing her daughter pretty likely wouldn't help to save anyone. And specially doctors, who want to save -not kill- people.
 

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
I would have sold her for the highest bidder.
Get rich and spend all the money on hookers and blow. Oh and get better at fucking playing golf
 

OuterLimits

Member
Yeah, after the fact doesn't matter, and giving retroactive hypothetical 'consent' is much easier once the risk has shifted from being a real consideration to a hypothetical one.

Ellie couldn't give consent (even if we ignore her being a child), her kidnappers couldn't assume consent and I don't think it's reasonable (of Ellie or an outside observer) to expect Joel to just assume she would consent.

Joel's actions were heroic and just, and broadly in line with what we would expect 'the good guys' to do in a situation where somebody has been kidnapped for purposes of medical experimentation, no matter how important the kidnappers consider their experiment to be.

Joel was a pretty shitty person though apparently during much of the apocalypse. The reason he saved Ellie is because he viewed her as a replacement for his dead daughter. He probably says "sucks to be you" if he had been escorting an adult with a potential cure or even a 14 year old boy that doesn't remind him of his daughter.
 

Thabass

Member
I wonder if he would agree with Abby the way she killed Joel. If he agrees with her, I wouldn't be too surprised.
 

Killer8

Member
I kind of wish he'd kept his mouth shut. The beauty of The Last of Us's story is the ambiguity in the way it doesn't spell out whether Joel was right and defers that judgement to the player's own morality. By 'confirming' that there should be a canon way to feel about it kind of taints that.

That said, I still need to play Part II. I was in the camp thinking Part I really didn't need a sequel to such a perfect ending, but a lot of people I respect have spoken highly of Part II in the years since release.
 

Woggleman

Member
If Joel never bonded with Ellie he probably would have supported the doctors decision.

Also if the message is hating your father why does Abby go to such lengths to avenge hers.
 

Raven117

Member
Wrong minors such as Ellie in TLOU 1 are generally incapable of giving informed consent for medical procedures especially life ending ones thus Joel (her “guardian”) is the only decision that ultimately matters
If you want to bring in “real world” rule law (which is beyond silly), Joel was never adjudicated her guardian or ever signed over medical or durable power of attorney.

Legally, Joel was just some guy. His opinion didn’t matter at all.

Ellie couldn't give consent (even if we ignore her being a child), her kidnappers couldn't assume consent and I don't think it's reasonable (of Ellie or an outside observer) to expect Joel to just assume she would consent.

Joel's actions were heroic and just, and broadly in line with what we would expect 'the good guys' to do in a situation where somebody has been kidnapped for purposes of medical experimentation, no matter how important the kidnappers consider their experiment to be.
I don’t disagree with Joel’s actions (it’s not supposed to be necessarily heroic, but also a self-serving act) but the point of the tension in the last scene was the fact that (1) Ellie didn’t believe Joel, and (2) that he took her life’s purpose (as she believed at the time) due to his selfishness.

This is a story to reflect themes you morons, not some literal interpretation.
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
The problem never was about establishing if he was right. Some people will say he was (especially those with their own children and understanding how it could feel like to lose a kid and potentially lose another), some that he wasn't. Problem was how Druckmann thought that more people would want to play as Abby immediately after Joel's scene and learn and accept her reasoning. And how awfully some scenes and story bits were handled.

Also - a similar idea for the twist and the revenge story might have worked in some indie series, not when the sequel to an AAA game is supposed to reach millions of customers (who were also already attached to Joel after the first game).
Tbh, that sounds like an indictment on the "fans". We're always hearing about how tired everyone is of the repetitive AAA formula and how they want "risks", but it's evidently not what they actually want.

The idea that fans of a grimdark game like TLOU would be so allergic to playing as someone who killed Joel for killing her father and eternally damning humanity is nuts. I think the writing leaned too much on the emotionalism without addressing that whole damning humanity part nearly enough, but ultimately, I think the leaks, Abby's physique and Daddy Joel dying were all too much. I'm not saying they executed perfectly, or even that I would have made Part 2 with the same premise.
 

rkofan87

Gold Member
Cuckman decided to kill Joel the way he did while also having a character that looks just like him spit on his corpse because that's how he feels towards white men in general.

Remember that his original idea for stroy had Tess hunting him down across the county and killing before it was thrown away by people around him because of how stupid it was. Then he got rid of those people and had full control over the direction of the second game and the first thing he does is kill off one of the most popular characters in gaming.
and f over ellie in the process.
 
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StueyDuck

Member
well, he created the first game (along with Bruce).

The story beat wouldn't be in the game if it's not something they agreed with or felt they would do themselves.
 
Is he laying the foundation for retconning the second game so that they can keep Pedro Pascal around?

I must admit I've been looking forward to this for a while, because either way he's screwed. They can retcon Joel's death and he has to admit he was wrong to kill him off, or they can go through with it and kill the show because Pascal is carrying it solely on his shoulders right now.
Good point. He's hopefully regretting now how dirty he did my boy.
 
All this, reminded me of how in the Halo universe, Master Chief could have literally saved the world if he just allowed himself to be medically examined for how he is immune to the Flood.

The game tried to make it a heroic choice that he get sent to the front lines instead and HIDDEN his Flood immunuty, when he could have just saved the world and skipped all the mass destruction by getting his body examined for a year or two. No one is even suggesting that he was going to die from the examinations either; he just wanted to be a front line soldier so bad that it was more important that we have him as a protagonist in the war that never ends, than him just ending the Flood threat entirely.

Basically "screw the world, I want what I want" is very American. it is only slightly more heroic in TloU because it was about saving someone else.
 
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