With the release of The Last of Us Part 1, fans of the iconic original game can now experience it again with impressively improved visuals, greater detail, and even some gameplay changes. The Last of Us is well-known for its engaging characters and emotional story, but new and old fans alike may find themselves wondering about the motivations of Joel, the game's main protagonist. In the final scenes of The Last of Us, Joel lies to Ellie about what happened at the Firefly lab. After the game's tense, abrupt ending, Joel's reason for doing so remains ambiguous.
Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us Part 1.Towards the end of The Last of Us, it's revealed that in order to manufacture a vaccine for the Cordyceps brain infection, Ellie will have to undergo fatal brain surgery. After hearing this, in one of The Last of Us' most iconic story moments, Joel takes it upon himself to fight his way through the Fireflies' hospital, kill the doctor operating on Ellie, kill Marlene - the leader of the Fireflies and Ellie's former guardian - and leave with the unconscious Ellie. When Ellie regains consciousness, Joel claims that the Fireflies had already found others who were immune to the infection and determined that a cure was impossible. This brutal series of events are the culmination of Joel's growth throughout the game, and perfectly align with his gray morality.
Joel's actions during The Last of Us' finale were chiefly born of desperation. Having already lost his own daughter during the initial outbreak, Joel was unwilling to lose Ellie, who he'd come to view as a surrogate daughter. Then, when faced with Ellie's ultimatum, the obvious implication of which being that she would be outraged by his lie, Joel doubled down and reasserted his cover story. What Joel did in The Last of Us was arguably extremely wrong, but his paternal instincts and reluctance to lose one of his last living loved ones - even for a potential cure - ruled his actions.
Joel's Lie In TLOU Part 1's Ending Was A Selfish Act Of Love
Despite The Last of Us ending with Ellie verbally accepting Joel's story, her tone and expression convey that she doesn't fully believe him. In the years that followed, the two drifted farther apart as Ellie's suspicions grew, eventually leading her to go back to the hospital herself and find proof of Joel's deception. From Ellie's point of view, dying to create a vaccine was maybe her only opportunity to make a real difference, and Joel robbed her of that. Not to mention, Joel killed a number of Fireflies on the way to Ellie, all of them genuinely trying to help humanity. Because of this, some view Joel as The Last of Us' villain, but many still consider Joel's actions to be justified. This is just as well, as Joel's story isn't meant to be black-and-white, and his choices are fittingly complex.
In the end, it's impossible to know whether the Fireflies' plan would have even worked. Even if they could've created a cure, The Last of Us went to great lengths to illustrate how selfish and depraved many pockets of society had become, in addition to the country's effectively destroyed infrastructure. The Fireflies could very well have ended up killing Ellie with nothing to show for it. Either way, what is known for certain is that Joel took away Ellie's agency and worsened her survivor's guilt to fulfill his own desires. For better or worse, The Last of Us Part 1 is defined by its complex characters and grim story, and Joel's deception is a perfect example of both.