Joel did the right thing

This is just a quick note to say that I think Joel did the right thing in The Last of Us when he rescued Ellie from the hospital and did not allow the doctor to take a Cordyceps sample from her brain, which would (supposedly) lead to a vaccine for the infection but would kill Ellie.

 

People talk about the “trolley problem,” an exercise where you basically have to decide if you’ll allow some person or people to die in order to save the lives of some other people. I guess this is an interesting moral quandary that forces people to think about issues like which lives outweigh which other lives. It’s easy to make those decisions when you’re playing this game and no actual person you know is at stake.

 

But once you introduce the life of a loved one into this equation, there is no choice—you save them from being murdered. The whole point of this show is that the two characters had bonded and Joel had begun to think of Ellie as a surrogate daughter. You’d save her brain from being sacrificed for the slight chance of a vaccine, too. Ellie didn’t even consent to that—she wanted to play a part in treating the infected but she certainly didn’t know she’d die on the operating table for it.

 

Plus, the plan to take samples from Ellie’s brain to develop a vaccine for Cordyceps was really dopey and based on shaky science. I had pictured Joel and Ellie making their way to a more advanced medical facility, an island of technology holding out in a devastated world, where top scientists had been working on a cure. But no, it’s just some hospital that barely has electricity. You think some rando surgeon is going to produce a vaccine in that setting? Who was that guy, anyway? Did he have any background in immunology or infectious disease, or was he just available and had an MD after his name?

 

I mean, come on.

 

And how would they produce and distribute this vaccine? What infrastructure is available that would make it available to the masses? There are no cars and no phones. How does this busted hospital even contact anyone about the miracle cure? Think of how much research and manpower it took to get a COVID vaccine, and the months-long rollout, and then try to imagine that in this shattered country. These Fireflies are delusional.

 

But that’s the point. The show was that much better for this ending, where you finally get to the place where they promise a cure and it’s as empty as Al Capone’s vault. It’s depressing but America after Cordyceps needs to focus less on a vaccine and more on adapting to it and rebuilding some sort of society. The infected are less of a threat than fellow humans, and there’s no easy cure for that.

 

So since they’d be sacrificing a loved one for a vaccine that might not even work, I believe Joel was morally and practically correct in rescuing Ellie from the surgeon. The other questions raised by the finale—if Joel rescued Ellie so he could have a companion, the toll massacring the people at the hospital took on Joel’s humanity, if Ellie can trust Joel—can be answered another time. I really liked The Last of Us.