Why Joel Is A Terrible Person But A Great Character (The Last Of Us Video Essay)

because he’s from texas

The reason why I like Joel is because he is a terrible person. He just feels real. He's not your generic good guy character. Just a guy forced to do horrible things to stay alive in the apocalypse

Joel: Kills and mutilates zombies and people in front of Ellie Also Joel: “Ellie, that magazine isn’t for kids”

Tbh i think Joel was a real depiction of what a person could become in apocalypse

“You’d just come after her” Is my favorite quote and scene in gaming history

for me Joel is the perfect example of an anti hero. a villain would have killed ellie to doom the world, a hero would have sacrificed the girl to save the world. the anti hero said fuck you to the world and protected the only thing that was left for him to care for. the world took everything from him, so he took everything from the world.

I just like how real Joel is. He’s flawed and he’s selfish to an extent. Ellie mentioned about a dream where she was in a crashing plane full of people. The absent pilot is a metaphor for the missing cure. Ellie wants to save mankind, but obviously "she didn't know how to fly a plane". That can also be a metaphor that the Fireflies will not be able to synthesize a cure despite Ellie's sacrifice. Thus, crashing the plane with no certainty if there would be any survivors. That is some heavy foreshadowing. Personally, this is what heavily drove me (or in this case, Joel) into saving Ellie. This game never has coincidences. Extracting Ellie's brain would've been in vain. Besides it’s not like all the cannibals and hunter’s would stop just because there would be a cure. Is the moral choice of the world to sacrifice one life for the sake of many? Yes. But remember this is an unforgiving world where morals have been more or less thrown out the window. Joel is likable because I think a lot of us would make that same decision he did were we in his shoes.

I think it’s somewhat silly to describe a character as “a terrible person” in a universe like the last of us. You would be extremely hard pressed to find any person still alive in tlou universe that we wouldn’t define as a terrible person. He’s likely gone further than many others, but still he hasn’t completely lost himself, evident in his connection with Eliie. And while Joel may have made a selfish decision, you can’t definitively say it was wrong.

8:42, I think Tommy didn't just have a change of heart because of the attack. After the attack, he sees how much Joel has started to care about Ellie. Joel told him earlier in that conversation 'Tommy I need this'. He now sees why Joel needs him to take Ellie to the fireflies. Joel doesn't want to go trough the same pain of losing a daughter again and just wants to stay numb. Tommy knows this like no other.

The tape recording Ellie finds at the hospital wasn’t actually of Marlene, as she wouldn’t have had time to make it before dying. It was actually Mel, who was a student of Abby’s father

I don't think he's a terrible person because he don't do bad things for fun, he does for surviving or protect those he loves

I’m glad someone else brought up Tess’ last wish. For him to deliver her to the fireflies. “You must feel some kind of obligation to me.” I’ve thought of that too but no one else seemed to bring it up, like, ever which is so weird bc it’s one of her last words to Joel and last words ever. But I see how having a daughter might change that by the end. And I think that if Tess were to survive, she would also be a parental figure for Ellie also. I could tell before she died

just like what troy said, joel saw ellie as his daughter by the time while taking her to the fireflies, he said "joel did save the world because the world is that girl"

I like to think that Joel did feel guilty towards his actions at the hospital. Doesn't mean he would go back and change things but I'm sure the guilt of dooming the rest of humanity is still there. During the segment where Ellie is exploring his house after he died, she goes into the bathroom that's connected to his room. Inside, the mirror seems to have been removed. It's been theorized that Joel removed it himself due to not being able to look at himself in the mirror after what he did. This is all just speculation of course but I just thought I'd bring it up. Really enjoyed the video.

One of my favorite lines in the whole game is the part where Ellie asks Joel how he knew about the “injured” man being an ambush and he replies with “I’ve been on both sides.” That one line gives us so much about his character. The things he has done to survive must’ve been so brutal, and that makes him such an intriguing character. I really want to know everything he did during that time jump from the opening.

I love Joel so much because despite how he was a horrible person, he feels very real, relatable and he is the perfect example of how most people would turn out to be if they were to fully adapt to the apocalypse in order to survive. Nobody in this series is 100% pure. Not even Ellie, Tommy, or Abby!

Being with Joel is one of the safest place you can be in TLOU world

Joel did terrible things but he still remains relatable and most importantly, human. I would not describe him as bloodthirsty as I do not see any hint of joy when he is fighting. But without a doubt, he's a hardened killer. You'd have to be to survive in such a world. Most importantly, any argument that Joel should have surrendered Ellie to the Fireflies overlooks the existence of one crucial character in TLOU: Sarah. If we gloss over Sarah's story and the profound effect she had on Joel, it'd be easy to dismiss Joel's decision at the hospital as sheer selfishness. But the entire game follows Joel's inner struggle against bonding with Ellie but forming a surrogate parent relationship nonetheless. Tell me, what kind of insane, demented, inhuman kind of father, would give his own daughter up to die? No father at all. In the same shoes, I'd do the same. As a father, nothing less is expected for your child.

Every time I watch the ending encounter at the hospital in part 1 I think all of this could have very possibly been solved it they let Joel talk to Ellie and didn’t treat him so damn hostile . I know they needed an ending level for the game but the firefly’s had no reason to be so hostile to Joel from the jump .

what scares me about joel is how anyone can turn into him. if you push someone to the point where they have to survive whilst dealing with losing the only thing they cared about…. you can create evil. I hate how I described joel as evil… tbh he was just a conflicted man who made a selfish decision that honestly anyone can understand.