The Last of Us Series Creator Believes that “Joel Was Right”

While the original release of The Last of Us is over a decade old at this point, one of the game’s most discussed scenes has always been the ending. Now, however, speaking to IGN, series creator Neil Druckmann has given us his thoughts on the ending of the game. Please be warned as there are major spoilers ahead for the original The Last of Us, as well as the first season of its TV adaptation.

One of the biggest points of discussion for the original The Last of Us has been whether protagonist Joel was correct in making the decision that he made at the end of the game and the first series. For some context, a major part of The Last of Us revolves around Joel trying to escort Ellie to some doctors. Since Ellie is immune to the zombie apocalypse caused by the cordyceps, the doctors want to conduct surgery on her in order to try and find a cure.

Joel, having grown close to Ellie as he spent more and more time with her over the course of the game (and the first season of the show), decides that the fact that Ellie won’t survive the surgery is an unacceptable outcome, and murders his way through the Firefly base and kills the doctors that are about to operate on Ellie before they can get started.

“I believe Joel was right,” Druckmann said when asked about his thoughts on the matter during a press tour before the second season of The Last of Us premieres. “If I were in Joel’s position, I hope I would be able to do what he did to save my daughter.”

“But I’d like to think that I wouldn’t,” responded showrunner Craig Mazin. “That’s the interesting push and pull of the morality of it. And that’s why the ending of the first game is so provocative and so wonderful. It just doesn’t let you off the hook as a player.”

“People get to the end of [the game] and there is that question, what would you do? What should you do if faced with the opportunity to save the world, if you sacrifice your child. That goes back to Abraham and Isaac. It’s so profound. The notion of sacrifice to save the world.”

“It’s a difference between, OK, if I had to kill a random person to save who knows how many lives, in the abstract, you would say, well, yeah, that makes sense, of course,” said Druckmann, continuing on from Mazin. “But now, remove it from being a random person and it’s your kid. Now the answer is very different.”

Members of the TV adaptation’s cast have also offered up their own thoughts on whether Joel was ultimately correct in his decision. Interestingly, Bella Ramsey (who plays Ellie in the show) believes that Joel indeed saved a world. “Yeah, he saved his world, just not the world,” she said.

Season 2 of The Last of Us is all set to premiere on April 13. The show will feature Pedro Pascal reprising his role as Joel, along with Ramsey as Ellie, Gabriel Luna as Tommy, Rutina Wesley as Maria, and Kaitlyn Dever as Abby. In the meantime, The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered is also going to make its way on to PC later this week.