The Last of Us [SPOILERS]

Otacon

ShaneU wrote: »

Can we move all the spoiler discussion to another thread, it's far too easy to accidentally click on them on the mobile site

Done.

Please note that this thread will contain spoilers from The Last of Us.

cloud493

How about that ending huh? :pac:

Otacon

Yeah, like OMG

:pac:

cloud493

Can't believe Joel turns out to be Nathan Drake 20 years later/.

Otacon

http://www.edge-online.com/features/the-last-of-us-the-definitive-postmortem-spoilers-be-damned/

A really good read, especially Ashley Johnson's take on the ending.

C14N

cloud493 wrote: »

But we've seen what Joel went through, for 20 years. Yes he did questionable things. But he's a broken man, and he finally lets his guard down for this kid. I don't think its up to them to decide Ellie should die for a cure that might not even work. Maybe if it was her own choice, she'd have gone for it. But Joel thought he was acting in both their interests. It was a selfish act, no question. But I think justified.

Indeed, he initially shoved Ellie away because he knew she was vulnerable and he didn't want to be hurt again after both his daughter and Tess.

I really think it should have been Ellie's decision, I just think that she definitely would have been willing to go through with it (and Joel definitely does too). The problem with what Joel did for me was that he didn't give her that choice because he knew what she would say. He made up another story instead and killed Marlene so that Ellie would never find out.

What's really sad about the ending to me is that Ellie seems to distrust Joel now but she has nothing to do but play along because he's the only person she has left. It doesn't take a master of observation doubt him really ("oh there's dozens of test subjects and they gave up on the cure after less than a year so they just stuck me in some hospital clothes and piled me into the car without letting me say hi to my longtime friend Marlene or even just taking a break at the base of the group who have taken care of me since my mother died, makes sense"). She's like a prisoner and she'll never have the same love for Joel that she did throughout the game.

Otacon

C14N wrote: »

What's really sad about the ending to me is that Ellie seems to distrust Joel now

Read the interview in the link above - specifically, Ashley Johnson's take on the final 'OK' statement. It is something I didn't consider but makes sense.

mystic86

C14N wrote: »

She's like a prisoner and she'll never have the same love for Joel that she did throughout the game.

wow, that's some statement. Quite the exaggeration and assumption right there.

C14N

Otacon wrote: »

Read the interview in the link above - specifically, Ashley Johnson's take on the final 'OK' statement. It is something I didn't consider but makes sense.

I actually did and I think it was interesting. What I also thought was interesting was Stanley's part at the end though.

It could really be read in several different ways, and it is open-ended and it is a somewhat ironic ending.

I quite like it for that because it is clearly an ending open to interpretation. When I played I was horrified at what Joel was doing, I felt a bit sick afterward. I think it's a good thing though that they did it in such a way that other people read it differently and everything I said above is just my opinion, I'm not trying to argue it as a fact (sorry if it comes across like that). It's great to have a game that doesn't basically tell you how to feel at the end and clearly different people react to it very differently. It would have been a lot worse if it was just "yay, both our heroes are okay! Rainbows and lollipops for all" or if it was "Joel is now literally Hitler".

mystic86 wrote: »

wow, that's some statement. Quite the exaggeration and assumption right there.

It's not an exaggeration but of course it's an assumption, everything that the game doesn't just tell you is.

mystic86

C14N wrote: »

It's not an exaggeration

you're telling me you believe she is actually a prisoner now? That if Ellie said she was leaving that Joel would forceably stop her? I really think you've judged Joel wrong. Yes, I said wrong, like it's not a matter of opinion

cloud493

I think Joel thinks he's doing whats best for Ellie, keeping her alive. Its possible after her killing of David, and all the stuff she did keeping Joel alive when he was wounded, she wanted it to be for something, like a cure.

Otacon

As I mentioned in the other thread, I would have done exactly what Joel did. Perhaps it was selfishness, but the callous nature of the Fireflies and the experiences the characters went through up to that point, made it easy for me to go through the hospital.

C14N

mystic86 wrote: »

you're telling me you believe she is actually a prisoner now? That if Ellie said she was leaving that Joel would forceably stop her? I really think you've judged Joel wrong. Yes, I said wrong, like it's not a matter of opinion

I didn't mean literally a prisoner, I meant psychologically. There's nowhere else for her to go and she'll never know for sure what he did at the hospital so she'll never be fully committed to leaving. She's just stuck in this difficult place now where she'll always think there's something really terrible about Joel while he pretends that nothing ever happened.

But obviously that is all just interpretation and assumption. Not fact or even author's original intent. Honestly though, do you think if Ellie did try to leave that Joel would just let her?

cloud493

No I agree. Like I said on the other thread, what gives them the right to choose? A set of ideals they choose when and where to apply, like in the fact they order Joel to be killed, despite everything he did to get her to them. They were no different from the military, except you actually had to fight them

mystic86

C14N wrote: »

I didn't mean literally a prisoner, I meant psychologically. There's nowhere else for her to go and she'll never know for sure what he did at the hospital so she'll never be fully committed to leaving. She's just stuck in this difficult place now where she'll always think there's something really terrible about Joel while he pretends that nothing ever happened.

But obviously that is all just interpretation and assumption. Not fact or even author's original intent. Honestly though, do you think if Ellie did try to leave that Joel would just let her?

There IS nowhere else to go anyway, there is nowhere for anyone to go when you think about it. I fully belive that Ellie gets almost as much from Joel as Joel gets from Ellie. Look at those scenes about everyone she cared about/who cared about her eventually left her or died.

Not simply no, but ultimately he wouldn't force ably stop her.

mystic86

I'm not saying it's a straight forward interpretation. And I'm not saying Joel wasn't being very selfish. But I'm saying it's more complicated than that, and Joel is far from evil or a monster to my eyes.

C14N

mystic86 wrote: »

I fully belive that Ellie gets almost as much from Joel as Joel gets from Ellie. Look at those scenes about everyone she cared about/who cared about her eventually left her or died.

I agree, most of the way through the game it seemed like Ellie cared even more for Joel than he was willing to care back but that's why I found the ending so tragic, because I saw it as the bond being permanently damaged from Ellie's point of view.

mystic86 wrote: »

I'm not saying it's a straight forward interpretation. And I'm not saying Joel wasn't being very selfish. But I'm saying it's more complicated than that, and Joel is far from evil or a monster to my eyes.

It is indeed very complicated and a lot of people do sympathise with Joel but for me, this was the most effective game I've played at subverting everything and making me feel like the monster, even more so than in Spec Ops

when you kill the innocent crowd with white phosphorus

and that's what I thought was so great about it.

It's not another game that basically says "you're killing a load of people, but they're the bad guys so don't worry about it" and it does that earlier than the ending too.

NotorietyH

I think what's really interesting about Joel and what makes the ending just such a emotional sucker punch, is that for the whole game Joel has been protecting Ellie from physical dangers, primarily, and because it's tied into the gameplay, you are too.

Before you get to the fireflies, he has the conversation with her, offering her a choice, saying it's not too late to turn back, and she says no, that after all she's done, it can't have been for nothing. At the time, before the ending, I thought it was Joel still being protective of her, but really, by the end you realise that he was trying to protect himself. By the end Joel has really completely failed in protecting Ellie psychologically. I think part of her asking him again if what he said about the fireflies is true, is part that she doesn't really trust him, but also she's hoping his answer will change, as she is so burdened by the guilt of what she has done, that for it to be pointless, is soul-crushing. So for the 20 hours (for me) that Joel has been protecting Ellie from all these physical dangers, he failed at protecting her from the most crucial danger. That part that will eat away at her until there's nothing left.

Watched the ending again earlier, and there's the lovely bit where he briefly rubs his watch as he says "I struggled with surviving a long time," I think for Joel, he no longer feels any guilt, that all the violence has taken its toll, that all he has ever wanted is his daughter back, and he gave up the struggle, and gave in completely and utterly to self-interest.

I won't take credit, but I wanted to say I saw someone on another forum say that Joel did effectively die at the end of Fall, in a thematic sense, when he fell on the metal. That basically that's the point where he lost his soul. Where everything became purely about Ellie for him at the expense of everything else, including Ellie's wishes.

I'd say myself, that it's also the point where Ellie effectively "dies", as immediately after, she assumes the Joel role, and she starts killing, well in terms of killing while being controlled by the player. Especailly culminating in the showdown with David. Any lingering sense of innocence or naievty is lost then. As a sidenote I thought they did a great job of gradually getting Ellie more involved in combat up until the point when you take control of her, so that it did, for me at least, feel like a natural progression.

The only hope for her to recover any sense of being a 'good' person is for her to save humanity. That's taken away from her by Joel, and she's doomed to follow him down the path of complete self-interest.

It's a really interesting examination on what happens when society collapses, and people lose the inherent moral code, of right and wrong, that occurs in society, and reduces everyone back to the level of animals basically. How quickly or slowly people begin to compromise and abandon their morals to survive, and how for some, abandoning their morals is the only way they can survive with the guilt and shame over the things they've done. I think Joel is pretty much there in the end, and as a result, Ellie is closely following him down that path.

Kirby

Otacon wrote: »

http://www.edge-online.com/features/the-last-of-us-the-definitive-postmortem-spoilers-be-damned/

A really good read, especially Ashley Johnson's take on the ending.

A great read. Thanks for the link.

I read this bit and it made me laugh. For anybody who didn't read the article, the letters are Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley. They are directors at Naughty Dog and worked on the game.

ND: There were times where Bruce was so stressed out, he was like, “We have this girl here! And I don’t know how to make this layout fun! And how do you close off a street? It doesn’t make sense!”

BS: There were several lunches where I’m surprised Neil didn’t punch me because I just had to vent. Because you can’t vent to the team like that. You have to be the spearhead, but I’m over there ripping my hair out, going what the **** have we done, man?

ND: How do we get out of this? How do we get out of this?

BS: I’m giving somebody super powers today. Who’s getting them? Because somebody has to have super powers.

ND: We kept joking like, Ellie’s going to have powers where she can control plants and it’s going to open up all these new mechanics.

:P It would have been so easy to do. But I'm glad they didn't.

Grumpypants

cloud493 wrote: »

Can't believe Joel turns out to be Nathan Drake 20 years later/.

Nathan Drake is in the game well Nolan North anyway.

My take on the ending is that the Fireflies had tried this experiment with others and they had died or at least it didn't work so Joel wasn't totally lying, it was on one of the recorders found in an office in the hospital.

SouthTippBass

Grumpypants wrote: »

Nathan Drake is in the game well Nolan North anyway.

My take on the ending is that the Fireflies had tried this experiment with others and they had died or at least it didn't work so Joel wasn't totally lying, it was on one of the recorders found in an office in the hospital.

Was it in that last room you need a shiv to enter? Because thats the only one I missed in the game! Used all my blades for nailbambs for that final push. Was disgusted as I had 75% of a blade, but couldnt find any more

NotorietyH

Grumpypants wrote: »

Nathan Drake is in the game well Nolan North anyway.

My take on the ending is that the Fireflies had tried this experiment with others and they had died or at least it didn't work so Joel wasn't totally lying, it was on one of the recorders found in an office in the hospital.

No, that recorder stated that they studied several other cases but had never seen a case like Ellie. That the virus had mutated. I thought that initially at the start but I'm almost certain he said he'd never seen anything like Ellie's form of the virus. You can check all the articifcats in the main menu after completing the game. I think the recorder is there. I must give it a re-listen.

Just a bit more on what I wrote above too. I don't think Joel is the bad guy or anything, I think he's completely human. I know myself I'd more than likely make the choice he did. After losing so much over the 20 years, that he just wasn't willing to give one last thing. I think there's very few people who wouldn't fall back on acting in self-interest in a complete societal collapse.

Marlene maybe, but I think she struggled with it too. She says in one of teh recorders that some of her men survived and she should have taken Ellie herself. I think at the back of her mind, or maybe even closer to the front, she didn't just hand Ellie over to Joel out of necessity, that partly, she didn't want to be the one to hand her over. I think that she was hoping that when she got to the fireflies, it would all be done already, to take that decision out of her hands. Though for her ultimately there wasn't a choice really, she felt she absolutely had to go through it, whereas for Joel, there wasn't a choice either, for him he had absolutely had to let Ellie live.

Grumpypants

I found two recorders near the end I think one said they had been doing tests on others but had not had a break through then the second one talked about Ellie but that was the woman not a surgeon but then it was in a cut scene that they mention it had mutated and they had to reverse engineer it. Then Joel says but I thought it grows in the brain.

I might be remembering wrong. or getting it mixed up with the monkey scene recorder. Those test also failed. Need to play it again.

Anyway I was going in thinking it is not going to work all the other tests failed so I must have picked it up from somewhere. I went into that surgery and blasted those doctors without a second thought, even went over and got the one cowering on the ground lol.

I was thinking im getting her and getting out of here none of these pricks are going to stop me. .

Otacon

A good chat between Adam Sessler, Kirk Hamilton and Zac Minor on the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxDZh2fd4AU

richymcdermott

My interpretation was that Joel never wanted to be alone again and after all the things he went through with the loss of sarah all those years ago and the death of tess i feel as if he did not want to be alone and when he seen ellie on the bed in the medical room when he says baby girl , never said till the opening scene with his daughter sarah , right there you know he cares for her as a daughter.

Ellie Knew that he was lying but she needed to hear his side of the story so that she can lie to herself to choose her own narrative on how to carry on living.

We came across monkeys, giraffes and horses and at the university we seen plants were growing once again. As Joel said Its all about surviving another day.


While Joel is indeed a broken man , haunted by his past and what he done may have been selfish to not to live alone once again and relive the nightmare that 20 years ago , i feel as if i would do the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwDkutphzmU

SouthTippBass

Best use of a giraffe in a game.

Kirby

richymcdermott wrote: »

My interpretation was that Joel never wanted to be alone again and after all the things he went through with the loss of sarah all those years ago and the death of tess i feel as if he did not want to be alone and when he seen ellie on the bed in the medical room when he says baby girl , never said till the opening scene with his daughter sarah , right there you know he cares for her as a daughter.

I think that "baby girl" moment happens a little earlier. I might be wrong but I believe he calls her that as they hug in the burning building after she kills David. So basically that's the point he has fully committed to her as his daughter, a good bit before the hospital room.

Especially as the next scene in spring shows Joel telling her how he used to play his six string and how he will teach her how to play.......just like he was talking to his daughter.

Ellie's father moment happens before his though I think. We can see her care for him in increments more and more throughout the game. She kills for him when he is being drowned in the "him or me" moment. And then when she jumps from the safety of Henry down to the danger of Joel and says "We stick together, right?"

And then ofcourse her complete panic when he get's impaled in the hospital and her willingness to get him out of there. Her "baby girl" moment is definitely when she curls up to him as he lies dying on the bed after being impaled. She fought so hard to get him the medicine and she just lies there hoping it works. That hit it home for me.

NotorietyH

Yeah I'm not a hundred percent certain about that recording now, but I'm almost sure, because if there were other people who were immune and they knew about it would kind of undercut the impact of the ending. Joel keeps humanities last hope for survival to himself, or Joel keeps one of humanities last hopes of survival to himself. I think you'd lose a lot of the emotional weight of the lie Joel tells if Ellie isn't the only possibility of a cure.

richymcdermott

Kirby wrote: »

I think that "baby girl" moment happens a little earlier. I might be wrong but I believe he calls her that as they hug in the burning building after she kills David. So basically that's the point he has fully committed to her as his daughter, a good bit before the hospital room.

Especially as the next scene in spring shows Joel telling her how he used to play his six string and how he will teach her how to play.......just like he was talking to his daughter.

Ellie's father moment happens before his though I think. We can see her care for him in increments more and more throughout the game. She kills for him when he is being drowned in the "him or me" moment. And then when she jumps from the safety of Henry down to the danger of Joel and says "We stick together, right?"

And then ofcourse her complete panic when he get's impaled in the hospital and her willingness to get him out of there. Her "baby girl" moment is definitely when she curls up to him as he lies dying on the bed after being impaled. She fought so hard to get him the medicine and she just lies there hoping it works. That hit it home for me.

you are right , my bad .

just occurred to me their. :pac:

NotorietyH

For me all those recordings were about reinforcing the importance of Ellie just before Joel makes his decision. I think that was Naughty Dog just laying out the stakes. That's why Marlene's recording is there where she talks about the weight of the decision and how much she cares for Ellie, but still makes the choice to go through with it. It's a direct mirror of Joel's relationship with Ellie but with Marlene making the opposite conclusion to Joel.

Kirby

NotorietyH wrote: »

Yeah I'm not a hundred percent certain about that recording now, but I'm almost sure, because if there were other people who were immune and they knew about it would kind of undercut the impact of the ending. Joel keeps humanities last hope for survival to himself, or Joel keeps one of humanities last hopes of survival to himself. I think you'd lose a lot of the emotional weight of the lie Joel tells if Ellie isn't the only possibility of a cure.

To be honest, the more I think about it the more I think there really isn't a vital necessity for Ellie's Vaccine. Was she really the last hope? I'm not so sure. According to the doctors, Ellie's mutation would maybe enable them to find a vaccine....not a cure. They can't cure the currently infected, just stop more from becoming infected.

We know from one of the college student's journal entries that over 60% of the world had become infected.....and that estimate is way out of date. Would a vaccine really have made a difference? Surely it would be too late to help.

And remember, there is no guarantee that the Firefly's would have distributed it evenly or even at all. They were quite the military outfit. And even if they did want to, how could they? It's not as if they could pop it into FedEx. Society has broken down.

It seems to me that the world got on fine while humanity was crumbling. Plant life, animals, etc. Humanity would live on anyway without a cure anyway as the infected slowly die of old age, exposure or starvation, and isolated settlements in the middle of nowhere live on unmolested by the infestation.

SouthTippBass

You know what would have been nice? If the game gave us the choice weather to hand over Ellie to Marleane when the elevator opens in the carpark of the hospital. Or even just to leave her on the bed in the operating room instead.

I'm still happy with the ending we got, It'l probably stay with me for a long time.

Choice would have been nice though.

Kirby

NotorietyH wrote: »

For me all those recordings were about reinforcing the importance of Ellie just before Joel makes his decision. I think that was Naughty Dog just laying out the stakes. That's why Marlene's recording is there where she talks about the weight of the decision and how much she cares for Ellie, but still makes the choice to go through with it. It's a direct mirror of Joel's relationship with Ellie but with Marlene making the opposite conclusion to Joel.

But is their relationship similar? Marlene promised her mother she would take care of her and yet she abandoned her. Joel never abandoned her like Marlene did. Joel had his Marlene moment in the cabin after Ellie stole the horse....he wanted to dump her the same way and hand responsibility over to his brother.......but he stuck with her.

Marlene's insistence on killing Ellie for the greater good could be seen as guilt for not "doing the right thing" the first time round when she put herself first. I don't know what it is but I just find it hard to sympathise with her character at all. She turns up her nose at Joel and Tess at the start of their game and acts all noble when she really isn't. Bugged me.

SouthTippBass wrote: »

You know what would have been nice? If the game gave us the choice weather to hand over Ellie to Marleane when the elevator opens in the carpark of the hospital. Or even just to leave her on the bed in the operating room instead.

I'm still happy with the ending we got, It'l probably stay with me for a long time.

Choice would have been nice though.

They actually considered that quite heavily after playtesting before release. A lot of testers said the same thing as you did. But when Naughty Dog asked them "If given the choice, what would you have done?" nearly everybody said "Save Ellie anyway".....so they left it as it was.

Grumpypants

NotorietyH wrote: »

Yeah I'm not a hundred percent certain about that recording now, but I'm almost sure, because if there were other people who were immune and they knew about it would kind of undercut the impact of the ending. Joel keeps humanities last hope for survival to himself, or Joel keeps one of humanities last hopes of survival to himself. I think you'd lose a lot of the emotional weight of the lie Joel tells if Ellie isn't the only possibility of a cure.

I took it as they were "unsuccessful" tests and killed the other people (they had been infecting chimps to try cure them without success. I had the impression they had also done tests on people but the people died during the operations).

So Joel was telling a half "truth" when he said there were others but just left out the bit that they were now all dead.


So it is pretty much the same thing you think, that she was the last chance for a cure but Joel had no guarantee it would work and had no interest in losing her to save the human race.

When you look at Joel in the part where the giraffes are walking along and Joel is left starring at them and thinking. This comes after a brutal encounter with humans. I got the impression Joel pretty much made up his mind there and then that the Human race were not worth saving. When at the end of the game it was going to cost Ellie her life to save a race of horrible humans he had no interest.

richymcdermott

i know for certain i would watch my friend day while traveling that long just to sacrifice someone i grew to attach too just to be left alone.

NotorietyH

Kirby wrote: »

But is their relationship similar? Marlene promised her mother she would take care of her and yet she abandoned her. Joel never abandoned her like Marlene did. Joel had his Marlene moment in the cabin after Ellie stole the horse....he wanted to dump her the same way and hand responsibility over to his brother.......but he stuck with her.

Marlene's insistence on killing Ellie for the greater good could be seen as guilt for not "doing the right thing" the first time round when she put herself first. I don't know what it is but I just find it hard to sympathise with her character at all. She turns up her nose at Joel and Tess at the start of their game and acts all noble when she really isn't. Bugged me.

Yeah, that's what I meant by mirror. It's a common enough thing in movies, that you'll have a secondary character who shares a lot of traits in common with a character but will differ in key areas that reveal and strengthen aspects of the main character. Exactly as you said, she promised to take care of Ellie but abandoned her, unlike Joel, which reveals he is more noble than Marlene thinks she is, or how she's portrayed to the outside world. Shadow would be a better term than mirror I supposed. Maybe a fun house mirror. It's cleverly done though as it really reveals those aspects of reluctant nobility or even honour in Joel and simultaneously reveals the hypocrisy of Marlene and as a result the Fireflies.

I didn't sympathise with Marlene at all. I wanted Joel to save Ellie, for the same selfish reasons he did. That was just heightened by the fact that I'd no faith that the fireflies would put the vaccine, sorry meant to say vaccine above, to good use or use it as a tool, a means to end. Hold the world to ransom basically.

I had the same thought as well about would the vaccine really do anything. After twenty years of basically no society to speak of, how would people even begin to try to recreate what they had.

What I took from the edge interview too was how the symptoms of the virus itself is really a metaphor for the way nature is reclaiming the land. It's a real virus that effects ants. The virus infects the host, grows inside them before exploding out of the ant spreading spores and infecting more. Just like the way nature, with the trees and plants bursting through the concrete and the roads of the cities, is reclaiming and taking over what people had built.

Edit: Oh and I meant last hope as in from the point of view of the characters at that moment in time. There very well might be someone else in the future but as far as they know right there and then thinks the only person with an immunity that there is.

Grumpypants

The documentary called After Us (or something similar) is an influence. It shows nature reclaiming cities just like in the game. Pretty cool

The fungal thing is called Cordyceps

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordyceps

danthefan

Doubt I have anything to add that anyone hasn't said already but my view is that Joel spends most of the game as a survivor, but shows at the end he is a deeply flawed human being. He clearly hasn't gotten over the death of his daughter and will go to any length to protect Ellie including outright murder and foregoing any possible vaccine. Funnily enough I think the murders are a lot worse, there's a clear moral quandary over killing Ellie, no matter what can be achieved from her death. He kills the doctor and Marlene in cold blood. Lying to Ellie at the end so bluntly also suggests to me that he's comfortable with what he's done. Someone in the other thread described him as "evil" which I don't actually agree with, he's been shaped by events and probably been broken by them.

Kirby

danthefan wrote: »

He kills the doctor and Marlene in cold blood.

They were both armed. Call me heartless, but I would have done the same thing.

Mr.Prodston

I finished this last night and I loved it. Everything about it. The score. The fact I was tense and nervous throughout. The story. The little interactions and comments.

I was not expecting that ending at all. When we got out of the car right at the end as Ellie and you see her arm I thought the end was going to be her turning and then turning Joel too. Then when we got to the ridge whatever camera angle I had I thought for a second it was prompting Ellie to jump so that Joel wouldn't have to kill her. Then when Joel was lifting her up I thought he'd see her arm. All these different things and thought processes occurred in under 2 minutes. None of which lead me to that ending.

Joel was deeply flawed from the very beginning, yet the world is now deeply flawed. It took me a little time to figure that out and just when I'd made some peace with the brutal murder of so many people (who were for the most part going to kill Joel anyway) we get the torture scene just after David calling Joel a psycho (not the right term but I can't remember). Those men were terrified of him, in fact they were running away from him to an extent just before that, yet I/Joel gunned them all down.

He's certainly an anti-hero, at best. I have to credit ND for making my realise what Joel had become through David, a cannibal that was going to rape and murder Ellie before eating her :eek: I was sh!tng my pants running away from him before the last stab. (When he let Ellie go I knew she was going to be tracked, for all her savvyness she's still just a 14 year old who needed Joel. He wouldn't have made that mistake).

Ellie had to know Joel was lying, although I think she may have had more recollection in the hospital than was let on. Although any sympathy I had for the fireflies was gone out the window when they wouldn't even let Joel say goodbye.

I have no idea how I actually feel but my gut tells me that Ellie was in the process of finally turning. She's dead any which way. Dead if she was used for the cure. Dead if she turns, which looks likely now. Dead because this world will get you, they can't be that "lucky" forever. As for Joel while he's not quite dead on the inside he is a very broken man and the slightest thing will send him over the edge now.

Wow that's a pretty bleak assessment but the whole game was bleak. I'll probably feel different in a few days. But that was the saddest "happy ending" I've probably ever seen and I'm delighted that I feel that way. Absolute GOTY for me, GTA would have to do something ridiculously special to even consider it. I think it edges Uncharted 2 as well and as a massive fan that's not something I say lightly.

It's funny as I was talking to my friend about it, he's still only 30 odd % through at best and while he appreciates everything about the game he's not sure if he'll keep going with it because the story is just so brutal and everything is so tense, stating that he much prefers UC's more entertaining swash-buckle. I understand that view yet still wanted to call him a pussy :pac: . For me the story is the most important part of any creative entity I participate in. If the plot doesn't hook me it could be the best technical creation but it won't draw me in like this did. Spending 20 hours scared to go around every corner yet at the same time I couldn't wait to find out. Ahh I'll stop gushing for a while now :pac:

C14N

Just for reference, here is what the surgeon's recorder said:

April 28th. Marlene was right, the girl's infection is like nothing I've ever seen. The cause of her immunity is uncertain. As we've seen in all past cases, the antigenic titers of the patient's Cordyceps remain high in both the serum and the cerebrospinal fluid. Blood cultures taken from the patient rapidly grow Crodyceps in fungal-media in the lab...however white blood cell lines, including percentages and absolute-counts, are completely normal. There is no elevation of pro-inflammatory cytokines, and an MRI of the brain shows no evidence of fungal growth in the limbic regions, which would normally accompany the prodrome of aggression in infected patients. We must find a way to replicate this state under laboratory conditions. We're about to hit a milestone in human history equal to the discovery of penicillin. After years of wandering in circles, we're about to come home, make a difference and bring the human race back into control of it's own destiny. All of our sacrifices and the hundreds of men and women who've bled for this cause, or worse, will not be in vain.

Marlene's:

It's 5:30pm on...April 28th. I just finished speaking...more like yelling at our head surgeon. Apparently there's no way to extricate the parasite without eliminating the host. Fancy way of saying we gotta kill the f**king kid. And now they're asking for me go ahead. The tests just keep getting harder and harder, don't they? I'm so tired. I'm exhausted and I just want this to end...So be it.

Marlene 2:

Hey Anna...It's been a while since we spoke. I uh...I just gave the go ahead to proceed with the surgery. I really doubt I had much of a choice, asking me was more of a formality. I need you to know that I've kept my promise all these years...despite everything that I was in charge of, I looked after her. I would have done anything for her and at times...Here's a chance to save us...all of us. This is what we were after...what you were after. They asked me to kill the smuggler. I'm not about to kill the one man in this facility that might understand the weight of this choice. Maybe he can forgive me. Oh, I miss you Anna. Your daughter will be with you soon.

I've searched 5 different final level walkthroughs now and couldn't find another surgeon's recorder and I don't think I found it in my playthrough although I can check it when I get home. I also looked up artifact guides and they only ever mention these three recorders so I'm assuming that's all of them for now (although if someone else found one that the walkthrough makers on Youtube couldn't then please post a transcript).

C14N

Grumpypants wrote: »

My take on the ending is that the Fireflies had tried this experiment with others and they had died or at least it didn't work so Joel wasn't totally lying, it was on one of the recorders found in an office in the hospital.

Unless this was on another recorder, this just isn't true. The recorder says they never saw anyone else like Ellie and there isn't even any straight indication that they've had anyone else who seemed even partially immune. He mentions "past cases" but I took this to mean a standard infection that they've observed (one that created a runner, stalker or clicker).

Kirby wrote: »

To be honest, the more I think about it the more I think there really isn't a vital necessity for Ellie's Vaccine. Was she really the last hope? I'm not so sure. According to the doctors, Ellie's mutation would maybe enable them to find a vaccine....not a cure. They can't cure the currently infected, just stop more from becoming infected.

The doctor didn't even sound like there was a question of whether the vaccine would be made, it sounded like "this is it, no doubts whatsoever". I guess you can argue that it's an unreliable narrator but to me, it sounds like the game is simply saying "Ellie's death would have resulted in the vaccine". Also, not curing the currently infected doesn't really matter. They were hardly going to go lining up clickers to give them injections but they could have saved millions of people who live in fear every day of suddenly dying or suddenly killing everyone around them.

Kirby wrote: »

We know from one of the college student's journal entries that over 60% of the world had become infected.....and that estimate is way out of date. Would a vaccine really have made a difference? Surely it would be too late to help.

We don't know how out of date that was. The note could have been left fairly recently when the Fireflies were there. Either way, even if had been knocked down to just 10% of the population, that's 700 million people world wide and we at least know that there are some major cities that are still quarantine zones. I would say it's at all morally justified to just give up on that number of people.

Kirby wrote: »

And remember, there is no guarantee that the Firefly's would have distributed it evenly or even at all. They were quite the military outfit. And even if they did want to, how could they? It's not as if they could pop it into FedEx. Society has broken down.

NotorietyH wrote: »

That was just heightened by the fact that I'd no faith that the fireflies would put the vaccine, sorry meant to say vaccine above, to good use or use it as a tool, a means to end. Hold the world to ransom basically.

Being a military outfit makes it easier for them to distribute it since they can maintain order (people would no doubt be clamouring for a vaccine when they found it existed). It's true that we have no guarantee they will distribute it but from what the doctor said, it sure sounds like they planned to.

we're about to come home, make a difference and bring the human race back into control of it's own destiny

I can't see how they would use this to sieze power anyway. The Fireflies are no match for the military, especially now that their numbers had been decimated on their trip to the lab at the end. If the military found out they had a cure, they could take it by force. What exactly would they want to hold it ransom for? It's not like they want a load of money, the whole world has come to rely on absolute necessities which they already have.

Kirby wrote: »

It seems to me that the world got on fine while humanity was crumbling. Plant life, animals, etc. Humanity would live on anyway without a cure anyway as the infected slowly die of old age, exposure or starvation, and isolated settlements in the middle of nowhere live on unmolested by the infestation.

The infected keep infecting though. We see at the start of the game that the military are doing checks even 20 years later on people to see if they've become infected. The risk of getting infected is still very real, it's not just a case of waiting for them to die out. And we have no real idea how the natural world is taking this. Who knows how many species might have gone extinct because of it?

SouthTippBass wrote: »

You know what would have been nice? If the game gave us the choice weather to hand over Ellie to Marleane when the elevator opens in the carpark of the hospital. Or even just to leave her on the bed in the operating room instead.

I'm glad I didn't get the choice. I would have chosen to leave Ellie and then the ending would have lost a massive amount of impact on me.

Kirby wrote: »

They were both armed. Call me heartless, but I would have done the same thing.

Both armed but neither was willing to attack. The doctor won't touch you with his scalpel and Marlene tries to convince Joel to do "the right thing" peacefully when she lowers her gun, even though she could have just shot him and left Ellie back. Instead Joel is the one who shoots her so that he can get his own way. He can even leave her alone and still make off with Ellie but he turns to finish the job. At that point, it's completely cold blooded.

Also, for everyone taking shots at Marlene for "abandoning" Ellie and being a coward, remember that Ellie was completely willing to go along with Joel and Tess that time. That at least was a choice that Ellie got to make, Joel taking her from the hospital wasn't.

NotorietyH

Yeah I think it's my own cynical inference that made me not have faith in the fireflies. I think what was partly it, at the start of the game that I thought the big reveal would be that the fireflies were going to use the vaccine for some nefarious purposes. I thought that would be the big sucker punch, working all the time to get Ellie to them only to realise they are just as bad as everyone else. I'm really glad that wasn't the ending. It would be terribly cliched. I think I was watching out for signs for that ending though which might have made me view the fireflies more negatively than they're portrayed.

C14N

NotorietyH wrote: »

Yeah I think it's my own cynical inference that made me not have faith in the fireflies. I think what was partly it, at the start of the game that I thought the big reveal would be that the fireflies were going to use the vaccine for some nefarious purposes. I thought that would be the big sucker punch, working all the time to get Ellie to them only to realise they are just as bad as everyone else. I'm really glad that wasn't the ending. It would be terribly cliched. I think I was watching out for signs for that ending though which might have made me view the fireflies more negatively than they're portrayed.

I think a lot of people kind of want the Fireflies to be the bad guys. I don't think they're saints by any means (killing Joel, while actually a good idea, would have been pretty bad) but it still seems to me like their goals are generally pretty noble. I think the fact that the guy is pushing Joel around after he just lost Ellie makes a lot of people angry toward them as well.

mystic86

http://www.videogamer.com/ps3/the_last_of_us/features/article/the_last_of_us_final_hours_the_generations_perfect_ending.html

mystic86

http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2013/06/21/the-last-of-us-single-player-dlc-is-a-side-story-first-draft-of-the-campaign-included-a-dog/

cloud493

Mind blowing time.... Ish changed his name to David :eek:

Zero-Cool

cloud493 wrote: »

Mind blowing time.... Ish changed his name to David :eek:

I was thinking the exact same! Would be cool if the DLC put you in charge of Ish, maybe at the part of leaving the sewer.

Fantastic game. Kind of a hopeless ending. Still not as tragic as The Walking Dead. Clem and Lee's story hit me way more than Joel and Ellie.

I was fully expecting to be given a choice at the end to hand her over or kill marlene. I was waiting for the kill option but the game took over anyway which I'm glad it did.

One thing I was annoyed about was Ellies jokes thing? I never heard her reference a joke book and she never stopped to tell a joke. I would always check on her for convo options but no jokes. I will definitely have to play through it again with a collectibles guide.

Playthrough was 15 hours 30 minutes and collected 101 of 141 items.

James Forde

SouthTippBass wrote: »

Best use of a giraffe in a game.

Please tell me I wasn't the only one that tried to shoot them?

cloud493

You tried to shoot them lovely giraffes? :pac:

mystic86

James Forde wrote: »

Please tell me I wasn't the only one that tried to shoot them?

Scum... : )