The Cure Was Going To Work In The Last of Us
Spoiler Alert for both games and the TV series!
The cure was going to work in The Last of Us.
Click here to watch this explanation on TikTok
I’ve seen a lot of people online trying to justify Joel’s decision to save Ellie in the hospital and prevent a cure from being made by claiming that the Fireflies would not have been able to actually make a cure. I believe that’s a flawed perspective.
When some people raise the idea that the Fireflies couldn’t make a cure, it’s because they struggle to accept the real world implications of how a cure would work. They have issues with the idea of making a vaccine with limited resources, that the vaccine could be distributed effectively, etc.
To be clear, I am not debating any of that. I understand that the reality of making and distributing a cure would be a lot more complicated than the story implies. I would say that people who struggle with this have a problem with the suspension of disbelief the story requires. Just to make sure we’re on the same page:
Suspension of disbelief is the idea of temporarily accepting an idea that’s not realistic or probable to enjoy a story. Harry Potter requires you to accept that magic exists, right?
The Last of Us already asks us to suspend our disbelief in accepting that a cordyceps mutation would affect humans as it does here. Yes, cordyceps is real and has unique effects in some animals, but it doesn’t turn them into vicious monsters, so we’re already accepting some things that are not probable. But how much we’re willing to accept is purely a personal limit, so if it’s a logistics thing for you, I’m not arguing with you.
What I will push back against, is when people try to claim that Joel made the right decision because of this idea that a cure wouldn’t really work. That reasoning is incorrect because within the story, within the fictional narrative of The Last of Us, the cure was going to work. That’s how it’s presented to the audience, that’s what all the characters believe, and it’s never called into question by the story itself.
Everything in the narrative leads up to the decision Joel has to make at the hospital. He begins the story as a broken man, closed off to the world. He refuses to “look for the light” as the Fireflies say. But as he takes this journey with Ellie, she fills that void for him. She makes him feel like life is worth living again, and he loves her like a daughter. So when he gets to the hospital, the stakes are clearly presented:
If he allows the Fireflies to sacrifice Ellie, a cure can be made, and by extension humanity can be saved. If he chooses to stop them, he keeps Ellie alive but the hope for a cure is destroyed. I recently replayed the games just to be sure. I promise you, every bit of dialogue, every document you look at – it all strengthens the idea that a cure was possible.
Look at the scene when Marlene tells Joel what’s going on.
Joel doesn’t try to debate whether or not the procedure is going to work, his sole concern is that he’ll lose Ellie. He even says “find someone else” suggesting it’s really just a personal issue for him — that he cares about Ellie, not the concept of what the Fireflies are doing.
The rest of the conversation between Marlene and Joel has nothing to do with the possibility of success, it’s about the emotional toll of sacrificing Ellie. Marlene says, “This isn’t about me. Or her. There is no other choice here.” She’s referring to the larger stakes at play. Despite the individual sacrifices, this is something that could help everyone else, all of humanity. It’s bigger than them.
Joel then replies, “You keep telling yourself that.” This isn’t a comment indicating that he doesn’t think it’s going to work. It’s a look into Joel’s perspective. Ellie means enough to him that saving the whole of humanity is not worth losing her.
Moments later after Joel has taken out numerous Fireflies and the surgeon, he sees Marlene again in the garage and the moral debate is presented one more time. And yet again, there is NO debate about the viability of a cure. It’s entirely about whether or not the sacrifice would be worth it. Marlene points out that while Ellie might live, what kind of life will she be leading in the post apocalypse? She’ll have to contend with the desperation and danger of this world, surviving against infected and raiders, and who knows what else. Her and everyone else, but she could also save everyone from that.
Marlene even goes to the extent to claim that it’s what Ellie would want and here’s the interesting part – she can see on Joel’s face that he knows it’s true. Joel doesn’t try to deny it. Deep down, he knows that Ellie would be willing to sacrifice herself if it meant she could help everybody. And in all fairness, this is another bit of suspension of disbelief because at that moment there was no way to actually confirm what Ellie thought, because she was unconscious.
But Ellie has been talking the whole game about how much it would mean to her to be able to restore hope to this world. It’s in line with her character, and it’s in line with typical storytelling that Joel would know what she wants without her having to explicitly say it. By doing this, the story dispels any notion that the moral dilemma presented has anything to do with the idea of Ellie’s consent.
Which leads me to the main point. People seem to be trying to find little loopholes around the primary question the story is posing, instead of just taking it at face value. I don’t know exactly why people feel compelled to do this, I have a few theories, but either way, it’s doing a disservice to the story and its themes.
The choice Joel is making is unequivocally: Am I willing to sacrifice ONE person that I love for the benefit of everyone else? And for Joel the answer is NO. The needs of the many do not outweigh the needs of the few. In fact they don’t outweigh even his need.
Now, it might sound like I’m dragging Joel here. I’m not. Because the reason the story is so great, is because it present that question, right back at the audience. And who of us is going to pretend that this would be an easy decision?
If it were your loved one on the operating table, what would you do? And more importantly WHY would you do that? These kinds of questions are so important to think about because even though this is a fictional scenario and world, we face similar decisions every single day. Probably not with the same stakes, but our decisions affect those around us and the story asks us to confront why we make the choices that we do.
So, if someone says that Joel was right because the cure wouldn’t have worked – they’re skirting around the whole point of the story and avoiding a difficult moral question the story is trying to ask.
Without that moral dilemma, there is no story. What would be the point? It would just be a series of and then… Joel saves Ellie from infected, and then saves her from raiders, and then saves her from Fireflies. The end. What a cool tough guy Joel is. Okay.
There’s no point to that story. It doesn’t say anything about us as people, or cause any reflection, or raise any interesting questions. You don’t have to like any of what happens in the story, but you can’t just make up reasons that aren’t really there to pretend the story isn’t what it is.
And just to address a few lingering ideas…
In the immediate aftermath of the hospital, Ellie wakes up in the car and asks Joel what happened. It’s important to understand here, whether it’s the game or the TV show, what Joel tells Ellie here is a lie. That might seem obvious to some of you, but I’ve seen people repeating what he said, seemingly thinking it was true. It’s not. He’s lying because he knows Ellie would not be happy about the choice he made.
In case there was any doubt that Joel believed a cure was possible, the opening scene of Part II dispels that entirely when Joel tells Tommy, in no uncertain terms, that he understood the decision he was making. The TV series does a similar thing in the porch scene in Season 2, Episode 6.
And lastly, another big point people like to bring up to undercut the idea of a cure is that Abby’s dad wasn’t a real doctor. They claim he was a veterinarian, or only had a bachelor’s in Biology and thus wasn’t qualified to make a cure or perform the surgery.
He is not a vet. In one of the first scenes he’s in he’s trying to save a Zebra, so somehow people ran away with that and claim he’s a vet, but that is never suggested.
The idea of his credentials is not a thing the story goes out of its way to bring up. When you’re playing the game, you have cutscenes. The gameplay stops and you watch a little movie. These are where major plot points are delivered, and there’s never a detailed conversation about why or how Abby’s dad is the guy. He just is. The closest thing you get is somebody saying “he’s the only person on earth that could have made a cure.” And that’s because, once again, the idea of the cure not being viable is NOT AN ELEMENT of this story.
While you’re playing the game you can find additional artifacts – notes and other documents around the environment that shed light on events and the world. These are optional and could be missed. But this is where people get the idea that Abby’s dad only has a bachelor’s in Biology. Because there might be a note that mentions it or you can see his degree on the wall, or something like that.
This just an example document. Not THE document people refer to.
Like I said, I just replayed both games and tried finding every document I could and do not remember this in a significant way. And I was looking for documents. I took my time. Even if that exists, I think it would be a bit silly to assume that that’s the only education that Abby’s dad received or completed.
But it doesn’t really matter because I think it’s even sillier to think that the developers would undercut their entire story by hiding some random collectible deep within dozens of hours of gameplay that derails everything by suggesting the doctor wasn’t capable. If they wanted to bring that up as part of the moral question, I think it would be in a much more significant way.
And it’s worth noting that the idea of the doctor not being qualified was obviously not even an issue in the first game when the whole moral dilemma was presented. It was only raised when we got more information about him in the second game. Again, it seems like people have a need to skirt the difficult questions the story is raising.
I think some people would rather find obscure pieces of information to potentially defame a character so they can feel justified in hating them without acknowledging that’s the whole point of the story.
In conclusion – if you don’t like what happened in the story, that’s fine, that’s up to you. If you have trouble with the suspension of disbelief the story is asking for, that’s also fine, that’s a personal preference. But if you’re feeling inclined to disregard the primary thematic goals of the story so you can avoid the tough questions it raises, I would suggest taking a moment to examine why you feel that way.
But it’s always possible I’ve missed something. If you have any thoughts, let me know, I’d love to discuss it!
