"The Last of Us": Ethics

The Game Room
1

The Last of Us is a three year old game, widely considered one of the best console games, ever. I only got around to playing it a couple of weeks ago, when my wife and daughter were out of town.

Like many good works of fiction, the game asks fundamental questions about morality and human nature, and leaves open multiple interpretations.

One example is the ending.

The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, where a human-adapted strain of Cordycepshas killed most of the world’s population, and turned many of the rest of us into monstrous, mindless killers.

In the beginning, Joel is a working-class, single father. He attempts to escape Austin, Texas, which has been quarantined, only to watch his young daughter die after getting shot by a soldier, who is apparently under orders to prevent anyone from leaving.

The story then jumps ahead 20 years. Joel lives in Boston, along with his partner Tess, in a miniaturized police state, where soldiers act as judge, jury, and executioners. Tess and Joel are smugglers, as well as hardened - and accomplished - killers.

Meanwhile, a group calling itself the “Fireflies” has taken up arms against this remnant of the US government. It claims, among other things, to still be looking for a cure.

The military, however, gains the upper hand, and begins wiping out the rebels.

Joel, unwittingly, becomes the guardian of a girl named Ellie, who is infected, but immune from the effects of the disease. After his partner, Tess, gets killed by soldiers, Joel and Ellie begin a brutal, cross-country trek to locate the Fireflies HQ, under the belief that Ellie might be the key to finding a cure. Along the way, the relationship between Ellie and Joel inevitably grows into a surrogate father-daughter relationship.

Unfortunately, when they finally find the Fireflies, they take Joel prisoner and begin prepping Ellie for surgery - a surgery that involves removing Ellie’s brain from her body, and therefore killing her.

Joel escapes, and begins killing Fireflies - each and every one who stands between him and Ellie - up to and including the doctor who was set to perform the surgery.

The first question is: Is it right to kill any number of people - including people who might theoretically be cured - to save someone you love?

The second question also has to do with the ending. Joel lies to Ellie, and tells her the Fireflies didn’t need her after all, and that they have in fact “given up” looking for a cure. Ellie eventually asks him to swear that everything he said about the Fireflies was true. He does. Was it right for Joel to lie to Ellie?

Bonus question: Does Ellie believe him?

2

deleted by user.

3

Why were they going to remove Ellie’s brain? that seems like a stupid thing to do to the only immune person.

4

Whatever it was that they needed to analyze needed to be extracted from her brain tissue. The story doesn’t go into it further than that.

5

Not sure what the right answer is, but note that Joel and the Fireflies were each doing the same thing – killing other people who stood in the way of protecting others that they cared about.

6

No, they weren’t. The Fireflies were trying to steal something vitally important to Ellie that was rightfully hers - her life. Even if their plan was guaranteed to work, which it wasn’t, there is an important moral distinction between killing an innocent person because you “need” to steal their organs and killing a bunch of organ thieves to save an innocent life.

7

It’s not right - but it’s what you do. That’s what love means. Holding that person or persons above everything, and everyone, else. It’s not something you can help, either.

Nope. I think, in this case, that was Joel being selfish and robbing Ellie of her agency - he doesn’t tell her because Ellie’s good enough a person that she might just have sacrificed herself for the rest of the world. But that would have meant for Joel to lose his daughter again, and he just can’t do it.
It’s wrong, but understandable.

I don’t think she did, no. Besides, you don’t ask somebody to swear if you believe them, and the swearing doesn’t change a thing does it ? Joel doesn’t really have a poker face, anyway :). But she’s OK with pretending she does, so they can both live with Joel’s choice. Besides, what else could she do ?

8

Moving this to the Game Room.

9

No. it’s understandable, but it’s not right.

Not really, no. But if it was just done to make her feel better about something already done, then it’s not a big lie, it’s more a “your doggy is on a farm upstate chasing rabbits”-kind of lie.

I haven’t finished the game (just started it) so can’t say, but does she have reason not to believe him e.g. are Fireflies still jumping out of the corridors going “Stop, we need your… blam Aaargh!” as they leave?

10

Yes and no. The fireflies are all dead at that point. Ellie’s unconscious through most of it - basically she almost-drowns right as they’re reaching the compound, then is put under for the brain removal operation, then wakes up somewhere else wearing a hospital gown with Joel saying to her that there were actually dozens of immune people in the camp and the Fireflies didn’t need her after all.

But he’s very bad at not emoting, and it’s quite an obvious lie anyway.

11

it wasn’t entirely a lie, though (if you picked up the various diaries & whatnot) - the Fireflies had vivisected a dozen or more other “immune” people over the years, and learned nothing whatsoever.

Ellie might have been willing to sacrifice her life for the greater good…but the odds of them accomplishing anything though her death was virtually nonexistent.

12

I didn’t know this. This makes Joel’s decision slightly more justifiable.

And I don’t think Ellie believes Joel’s lie.

13

My impression is that Joel isn’t killing innocent people to keep himself and Ellie alive. He’s defending them against mutant zombies, homicidal bandits and fascist soldiers.

And when did it become ok to perform experiments on humans without their consent?

14

oh, they had her consent - if you believe that a 13 year old has sufficient judgement to allow someone to kill her. Which most people would find quite iffy.

15

Did they? After the fact she implies she would have been willing, but I don’t think it’s ever revealed that Ellie knew what would happen once she made it to the Fireflies.

She didn’t consent at the time because she was unconscious the entire time she was at the Firefly compound.

16

Tthe recordings say that Ellie is not the same as the past people they have experimented on. I don’t think there’s any real reason to think the surgery is hopeless.

I think Joel was wrong to save her, and wrong to lie to her. I’m less sure on whether Ellie believed him, probably not.

17

I think Joel was right to save her. I have a daughter, and I’d rather let the whole world burn than let someone murder her… No matter how much good it would do. And he was right to lie to her. I mean, he just killed all the Fireflies, so there is no possible good that could be done by telling her the truth.

The idea of purely utilitarian morality is unacceptable and it inevitably results in rapacious violation of the individual.

18

Yeah, this was part of my problem with the Fireflies. To me the most likely solution is that the people immune to the virus pass that on to their descendants - a slow but sure answer to the problem. With the Fireflies dissecting every immune person they can get their hands on, only to come up empty, they’re throwing away the actual cure to work on a possible one.

19

You’re remembering incorrectly. Ellie was the only immune person they ever worked on.

20

Were the Allies wrong to stop the Nazi’s? Imagine how much more we could have learned from their human experimentation!