In case you clicked on this and haven't finished playing The Last of Us yet, be warned that I'm going to spoil the ending in the next paragraph so don't say you haven't been warned.

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Alright, I've just finished playing The Last of Us for the first time (I know I'm waaaay late) and the events at the end gave me pause. As you know, when Joel reaches St-Mary's hospital, he wakes up to find out Ellie is about to undergo surgery in order for the Fireflies to be able to engineer a vaccine for the infected.  The catch is that the surgery will be lethal to Ellie so Joel does what he does best and kills everyone to save Ellie.

That's the part where I'm not sure I would have done the same. I actually stood in the operating room and walked up to the surgeon hoping he'd cut me down (but in the end he took some shotgun to the face).  I understand the strong bond that was formed between Joel and Ellie during the year or so they travelled together. I know he sees her as a daughter but if you have the chance to save the entire human race wouldn't make the excruciating hard choice of letting her go?

This discussion started on my wall (which I will delete since someone might stumble on some spoilers by accident) and Hynad brought a very valid question, asking me if I was a father. Since I am not, I can only imagine how strong the parent-child bond is. I tried substituting Ellie for my husband in this scenario and it does make the decision a whole lot harder and I bet it's a thousand times worst with your own child.

On the other hand, the world Joel and Ellie are living in is cruel as unforgiving. They could walk down a street the next day and Ellie could get killed by a clicker and then Joel robbed the human race of a cure for the infection for absolutely nothing.

In the end I'm still not sure what I'd choose in a situation like this (I certainly never want to have that kind of decision to make)  but I thought the matter could make for an interesting discussion.

Would you follow Spocks' advice that "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" or would you save the person that's the most dear to you?

I thought the ending was perfect, even though it felt very uncomfortable to kill these innocent doctors who were just trying to save themselves and the whole world. Which is good, because Joel probably felt uncomfortable himself. Having to live with such a giant burden for selfish reasons.

It opened up an interesting situation in the very end. You couldn't really be sure if Ellie would've wanted to be killed for the good of humanity. Joel wouldn't even give her that option so even though they both knew that they probably did the wrong thing they went with it.

Either way the ending opens up a giant potential for interesting stories in the sequel and I can't wait for that to see.

Well, everything depends on a context. Think about it from a different angle. Joel is a man who has suffered enough throughout his life. It's not a matter of being selfish; he was just tired of losing everything he'd cared for. When Ellie was taken away from him, it didn't matter that it was for the greatest good - Joel, in a moment of weakness (or maybe not, maybe he simply didn't care at that point) chose not to do the "good" thing, but rather, prevent Ellie's death because he's tired from suffering, but also the ties between both are so intense he can't simply allow that to happen.

You should watch The Road. There's a powerful scene on which the main character (slight spoiler, but spoiler still) points a gun at his own son in order to shoot him and avoid him suffering at the hands of cannibal bandits. We never get to see the result, but would he have been able to press the trigger? Hewas doing it out of mercy, but is mercy always the right choice?The morally "good" thing to do?

Why should Joel give a damn about the rest of mankind? What has mankind do for him?

I felt no remorse blowing the surgeon's brain off.

I'd question how any type of surgery, in this day and age, could be lethal. Are they using an ice cream scooper for surgery? I never did understand what it was that was so dangerous, they don't need to cut out her brain nor would any argument for such make any sense. To generate a cure or otherwise would require a small cellular sample.

I would save her and there are a few reasons why.

1.The fireflies, to me, are not as pure and caring as they want to be. They spoke noble and whatever, but at the beginning of the game, they launched an attack on the military (when Joel and Tess were trying to exit the QZ) They also wanted to kill Joel after he took Ellie all the way to them (granted, marlene said otherwise)

2. Is the world truly worth saving at this point? It has been 20 years since this happened. So far, people have been killing, murdering, eating each other, raping and etc. Even with a cure, you think they can ever go back to bein civilized? The exception to this is Tommy's camp, who actually got electricity, a gated community, etc but that is a tiny minority. The rest of the people, in my opinion, are too far gone.

3. I don't think they fireflies had the means to distribute the cure. Also, they are in direct conflict with the military. Do you really believe they would simple hand them the cure wrapped with a bow and everything? Of course, they would use it as leverage to get what they want.

I'm probably over analyzing, but either way, I felt a bond with Ellie that I could not have let go just like that. Joel is no hero and the ending shows it perfectly.

I would have probably done the same. There was no guarantee they would actually develop a vaccine. Just look at their equipment and the operating room and who knows if those doctors were actually brain surgeons.

So you killed multiple people who wanted to kill a single girl to safe the girl just so you could save yourself. That doesn't seem fair.

Of course it's anyone's gues how we would've acted if we were in the same situation but we weren't. We had the privilige to overlook the situation in all its objectivity and decide for the best course. That's why I felt bad in that moment because I knew it was the wrongest thing to do. If I was in the same situation I probably would've blown them up too but I wasn't.

Just to let you know, you only have to shoot the surgeon, which is what I did. There's no need in killing the rest of the medical team.

It's still one death for 1 life vs 1 death for millions of lives.