Immense spoilers for The Last Of Us so stop reading RIGHT HERE unless you plan on not watching/playing the game :)
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| I miss Joel and Ellie so muchhh |
I think the ending to this game was a great one. It gets you thinking, and I love anything that gets me thinking. At first, I was kind of pissed off at Joel for being selfish, since I wanted Ellie's immunity to be sacrificed for the benefit of the world ('cause you know, that would've been an ideal, Hollywood ending), but then I thought about it, and I realized Joel's seemingly selfish decision was actually the best...
Joel realized that although the Infected was a big issue that plagued the world, the actual normal people were the bigger plague. Exasperated, tired, and power hungry people. (I think the writers of the game crafted Joel's daughter Sarah's death to impact Joel's ultimate decision with Ellie... the Infected did not kill Sarah, a military officer did, which is ironic since military officers are usually associated with trust and safety... therefore, the idea that the survivors of this zombie apocalypse were the bigger problem had already kindled in Joel's mind in some shape or form...)
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| Damn it Marlene |
First of all, it wasn't like Ellie was the first case of immunity. Many others had the same immunity, but died in the Fireflies' attempt to find a cure. So what would be the odds that Ellie would be the cure? What makes Ellie so different from the others? And if Ellie did hold the cure, what makes you think the Fireflies would've willingly shared that cure with the world? And second, Marlene, already leader of the Fireflies, was starting to become corrupted. I never thought Marlene seemed the type to give out a cure without something in return... she has a very "conditional" character. She is nice at heart, and I know that because she kept Joel alive, but there were hints of power greediness already in her... probably due to 20 years of dealing with the zombie bullshit. I feel like she wanted to stop feeling powerless. If the cure landed in her hands, she would've felt more power than anything. Ruler of the whole damn world.
It was basically a lose-lose situation... Either Ellie was going to die for nothing (even though the doctors said that every patient would not die in vain... that's all just cushiony bullshit to me), or for worse, aka human corruption under the Fireflies...
I mean, seriously, twenty years of trying to survive a zombie infested world definitely would not make a person a people-loving humanitarian.
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| Imagine dealing with this hot mess every day of your life. |
Under all this though, I know Joel kept Ellie because he loved her, too. Ellie is the closest thing Joel has to a daughter... she's almost the only thing he has. He had lost people he cared about-- his daughter Sarah and his (possibly romantic) partner Tess... Joel wasn't going lose someone he cares about again. I mean, in that place and time, humanity turned into a piece of shit, so why should Ellie be sacrificed for something shitty? It wasn't going to work out anyway.
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"Promise me that everything you said about the Fireflies was true."
"I swear." Oh, Joel... don't make me choke on my tears |
I'd probably be selfish and keep Ellie with me in the end. I need a friend to find the motivation to keep living, you know. And I'd like to think that the Infected world could cure itself knowing that there are others like Ellie... Just keep the immune quarantined in a safe environment... LET THEM MATE WITH EACH OTHER. It sounds nasty but what can you really do? :( And think about smallpox!! The Bubonic Plague!! Humans overcame that... Well, then again, there are spores involved with the zombies so.. it might not be so easy to wipe them out...
The ending is so open to discussion, which is why I love it. This game is beautiful in so many ways.
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