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The Last of Us Coming to HBO from Chernobyl’s Craig Mazin

Ford Prefect said:
Even setting aside that her justification is that 'my father was killed while in the process of saving the entire world' lol, suggesting that a person should be at peace with the death of their father because of the laws of combat or whatever is just a touch silly.
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Ford Prefect said:
This is not a story about who has the most moral justification for their killing spree or who would win in a military tribunal, it's about the seductive force of hatred and how violence can't protect you from grief. Real missing the forest for the trees vibe here.
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If one of my family members was killed in the middle of murdering someone, I would not be particularly upset about it actually. It's extremely hard to have sympathy for Abby's vendetta.
 
Arthur Frayn said:
Also like I seriously doubt Abby is aware of the full context and has made a measured, reasoned decision after carefully weighing every piece of evidence and has come to the logical conclusion that Joel Bad Man.

All she cares about is a) some guy killed her Dad while he was trying to help people and b) said Dad killer rode off into the sunset.
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Actually, abby knew what her father was doing the whole time. She knew the potential death of the surgery of ellie. She even told her father "if it was me, I would have you do the surgery." She heard about Joel when it was happening that day too. So the fact that she knew the consequence of such a thing, and did not think really hard, after 4 years, as to why her father was killed by Joel in the first place, is beyond logic and reason for me.
 
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Kingcrusader said:
Actually, abby knew what her father was doing the whole time. She knew the potential death of the surgery of ellie. She even told her father "if it was me, I would have you do the surgery." She heard about Joel when it was happening that day too. So the fact that she knew the consequence of such a thing, and did not think really hard, after 4 years, as to why her father was killed by Joel in the first place, is beyond logic and reason for me.
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It might make more sense to you if you stop avoiding the words 'cure for the cordyceps infection'
 
Kingcrusader said:
You forgot to include "possible", if it even would work, given how they have been trying to find a cure and they have been failing again, again, again, and again to even find one.
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It's not really presented as that remote a chance, and the consequence of not taking that chance at all is quite literally extinction. Even if some small settlements like Jackson manage to outlast the infected, cordyceps doesn't just go away. Without an inoculation against the infection, the world will be effectively poisoned, forever.
 
Ford Prefect said:
It's not really presented as that remote a chance, and the consequence of not taking that chance at all is quite literally extinction. Even if some small settlements like Jackson manage to outlast the infected, cordyceps doesn't just go away. Without an inoculation against the infection, the world will be effectively poisoned, forever.
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It's the moment where self-specialists in surgery and mycology and others specialties, enter the fray and say : "The result of this surgery will not work because *inserts reasons*"

Let's hope this discussion will not happen here this time....
 
Really? We're getting hung up on the realism of people developing a vaccine to a fungus that develops the ability to control mammals (something that's never been seen before), can survive in seemingly every environment (something funguses can't do), has seemingly no natural predators or diseases (guess what real cordyceps has?), is seemingly immune to all anti-fungals (it would be brought up if it weren't!), and which gives humans superhuman hearing and can turn infected humans into bullet proof monsters? That's what we're getting hung up on? The thing that makes the plot of the first game something other than a wet fart?

The Last of Us would be a pointless exercise in tedium and waste if the story supposed the Fireflies couldn't make a vaccine and that actually Joel was clearly in the right. Imagine if Return of the Jedi ended with George Lucas turning to the camera and saying that it's bad Luke won and evil was defeated, lmao.
 
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I've certainly seen the argument, and it is true that in principle some kind of vaccination against a fungal infection is medically unprecedented in the real world. But my understanding is that fungal vaccine research is ongoing and the WHO has a list of priority infections that they want addressed. So it's not some completely outrageous thing.

In saying that, I actually do think the events at Saint Mary's are too much in the way of moral theatre, it's all very convenient for Joel's rampage to be structured around an imminent surgery when the pressing need for immediately beginning work is not well established. Part II does not really square that circle, but the way it plays into Ellie's relationship with Joel and her survivor's guilt is good, so.
 
Ford Prefect said:
I've certainly seen the argument, and it is true that in principle some kind of vaccination against a fungal infection is medically unprecedented in the real world. But my understanding is that fungal vaccine research is ongoing and the WHO has a list of priority infections that they want addressed. So it's not some completely outrageous thing.

In saying that, I actually do think the events at Saint Mary's are too much in the way of moral theatre, it's all very convenient for Joel's rampage to be structured around an imminent surgery when the pressing need for immediately beginning work is not well established. Part II does not really square that circle, but the way it plays into Ellie's relationship with Joel and her survivor's guilt is good, so.
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The actual vaccine part is all a bit goofy, yeah.
 
Ford Prefect said:
It might make more sense to you if you stop avoiding the words 'cure for the cordyceps infection'
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Kingcrusader said:
You forgot to include "possible", if it even would work, given how they have been trying to find a cure and they have been failing again, again, again, and again to even find one.
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Even if you accept that it's a 100% chance of cure, it would still go something like:

"Family member was shot while trying to save the world!"

"...what!? Who would do something so awful!?"

"The father of the girl he was vivisecting."

"Oh. That makes sense."

Again, the ongoing murder makes attempts at sympathy for the vendetta silly.

Jcogginsa said:
That's a very wrong thing to believe.
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How so? The presence of armed guards to a murder doesn't lend it any legitimacy except if it's the government, and frankly if someone busted into a legal execution to rescue someone from hanging/firing squad/electric chair, I also wouldn't have any sympathy for the guards. They weren't forced to defend killing people, they choose to.
 
Cloak&Dagger said:
How so? The presence of armed guards to a murder doesn't lend it any legitimacy except if it's the government, and frankly if someone busted into a legal execution to rescue someone from hanging/firing squad/electric chair, I also wouldn't have any sympathy for the guards. They weren't forced to defend killing people, they choose to.
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Because Joel is ending the lives of multiple people.

How much sympathy you have for him or his victims has impact whatsoever on whether his actions constitute murder.
 
Corti said:
It's the moment where self-specialists in surgery and mycology and others specialties, enter the fray and say : "The result of this surgery will not work because *inserts reasons*"

Let's hope this discussion will not happen here this time....
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"They wouldn't have found a cure anyway" is just refusing to engage with the story as presented. I always found it strange. It's definitely heavily implied that a cure could have been found.
 
Jcogginsa said:
Because Joel is ending the lives of multiple people.

How much sympathy you have for him or his victims has impact whatsoever on whether his actions constitute murder.
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Yes, and it doesn't matter how many accomplices he goes through, it isn't murder.

Capital crimes with multiple perpetrators are a solved question, the number of people who are guilty only determines the number of people sent to the gallows.

There's no rule saying if you have multiple people doing a murder, only one can be held responsible.
 
It's irrelevant whether or not the cure could have really worked. The Fireflies thought it could work, which is why they did what they did. Ellie thinks it could work, which is why she spends five years doing what she does. Joel doesn't give a flying fuck whether or not it woul work, and would have done exactly the same thing if Jesus, Muhammed, and the Buddha came down from on high to tell him the cure will 100% work and show him the adorable baby pictures of the billions who will be born in the future if and only if he lets Ellie die.

Any position you take in the plausibility of the cure is unfalsifiable, and focusing on it means not paying attention to what the story is actually ABOUT. (Hint: the story isn't about epidemiology.)
 
As Ford said, I cannot believe we are having this discussion again, but "The cure wouldn't work" is also a stupid criticism because the story already deals with a goof-ass, impossible, semi-sentient super-fungus that behaves unlike any fungus that has ever existed anywhere. It's an impossible cure to an impossible disease, both of which are just creations to serve the story.

It's like saying garlic wouldn't repel vampires because allicin only works on bacteria, not viruses.
 
The whole point of the Salt Lake Massacre is that both sides made wrong choices. We, the gamers and/or viewers have more knowledge and insight as observers as to what is actually happening.

The Fireflies made the decision to lie to Ellie about what the surgery entails (aka it would kill her). Marlene especially gets the brunt of the blame as apparently feeling guilty about killing her best friend's kid is not enough to prevent her from making the cold caculated answer to the trolley problem. While the chance of a cure is probability higher in the show as opposed to the game, that fact is irrelevant. There's also the fact that they entrusted of all people, Joel with everything his reputation entails, to escort/deliver a kid who he totally wouldn't empathtize and imprint on to do his job and totally not kill them should the deal be altered, reigned on, or otherwise.

Joel's decision to save Ellie has more straightforward consequences. The cure, whether it works or not, is now lost period. Rampaging what is presumably the HQ of the Fireflies has decapitated them so thoroughly that they effectively don't exist. And Joel lying to Ellie about the whole situation ends up causing the rift between the two prior to his untimely (whether he deserves it or not is immaterial) death by said remnants; one of them who is arguably also making the same mistake as he did by pursuing revenge at all costs towards him.

I have more thoughts about this in regards to the show versus the game, but I hope this makes sense.
 
zezia said:
What are you talking about? The Fireflies never even told Ellie about the surgery. At least in the games, she was knocked out due to nearly drowning.
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In the show they did. Or at least Marelene did. Ellie was already unconscious in the game as you stated. In the show, Ellie came to and Marlene lied to her about how the surgery's gonna go to make her feel at ease.
 
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