‘The Last Of Us’ Presents An Ethical Dilemma: Kill A Child To Save Humanity?

In this article, we discuss the moral dilemma. “The Last of Us” It is back in full swing after TV viewers were shown Joel’s impossible choice: Save one child or save the entire world.

The question isn’t so simple. This is why video gamers have been discussing this issue for years, long before the HBO Max TV adaptation made it more accessible. If you don’t know this, “The Last of Us” Follow two people as they travel across America in a post-zombie world.

Joel (Pedro Pascal), is a father who has lost his teenage daughter in the midst of the crisis. Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a 14-year-old orphan, has never lived in an uninfected environment. Ellie is unique because of her immunity to the cordyceps brain disease, which transforms people into flesh-eating zombies. 

They spend the season trying to reach the headquarters of the Fireflies, where one doctor wants to use Ellie’s immunity to develop a vaccine against deadly cordyceps. Joel is like a father to Ellie and bonds them in strong parent-child bonds. When they finally reach the doctor, Joel reacts in a violent rage. He claims that he is able to save the world. However, he must kill Ellie to extract her mind and cure the disease. 

Joel stomps on everyone in his path to save Ellie. He escapes from the hospital, and then lies to Ellie in the final minutes of season 1. Joel believes Ellie would not have chosen to make the ultimate sacrifice if she had known.

Troy Baker, who voiced Joel in the game, stated that his view of the events has changed after he became a father.

The voice actor was asked if he would make the same decision. , “When we were making part one, I was at a disadvantage to [game writer Neil Druckmann], because Neil was a father. I was acting. This was a very real possibility for him — what do I look like in the event that I lose my daughter?”

“And I have a son, and I don’t know what I would look like if I lost him,” Baker continued. “But I do know that if I had the opportunity to save him I would do anything. I would do anything to save him. So people have asked me, why would Joel do that when he could have saved the world, and my answer to them is always this — he did, he did save the world. It’s just that the world was that girl, and that’s it.”

Many arguments are focused on whether it is morally permissible for one person to give their life for the sakes of others, but they fail to address one crucial point: consent or, more precisely, the ability of minors consent.

Although Ellie may have consented to the operation even if it was told she would die, it doesn’t mean that it is acceptable for her to make such decisions. It reminds me of many other timely discussions. You have other options that can change your life Making decisions for children is something they shouldn’t do. 

Adults are there not to let children decide when it’s their time to die, but to protect them. For the moment, Americans are rightly horrified by the introduction Assisting suicide in children Canada.

Craig Mazin, co-showrunner, also commented on Joel’s decision.

“When you love something unconditionally, logic goes out the window and you will do really horrible things to protect the ones you love,” Mazin stated this during an interview. The Hollywood Reporter.

“And there’s a lot of examples worldwide of this happening all the time. So for us it was just like, ‘Here are all the different pieces that we have, the tools we have within this story. How can we, with each episode, thematically, touch on that in some way?'”

Mazin admitted that he was unsure of the end result. “right” There are many options. “I’m confused about it morally,” He said. “I think it’s a difficult choice. I go back and forth. I think a lot of people will go back and forth on it.”

A New York Times Reviewer Although Joel’s protective tendencies were understandable, Ellie insisted that Ellie should still be free to make her own decisions, even if this meant choosing death.

“[Joel] fails Ellie in the way that many parents fail their children: out of love and fear,” James Poniewozik wrote about the finale. Joel claimed Joel lied about the Fireflies no longer needing him because he knew she’d be upset about what his actions were.

“Maybe he doesn’t want her to feel guilty,” The reviewer continued. “Maybe he doesn’t want her to hate him. Maybe he suspects that, if she had the choice, she would have agreed to save the world instead of herself.”

“We have already been told that Joel has done horrible things to survive the apocalypse,” Poniewozik writes. “But the unforgivable thing he does here is to make Ellie into a non-player character again, denying her the agency to be the protagonist of her own life.”

Season finale of “The Last of Us” This brings back the old trolley car morality question. This popular ethical thought exercise asks people what they would do if they could get a train that was poised to kill five people onto another track that would only kill one.

The answer will change for most people depending upon who is on that track. What if your child is the only person on that track? Joel made the right choice.

Steven Gimbel (a professor of Philosophy at Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania) also answered the question. “We are wired to respond more strongly to people we care about and to people we think are like us,” He . “If we’re talking about the wellbeing of all humanity, now that seems a different case. We can understand why Joel made the decision he did. Most people, including me, would’ve made that decision.”

Gimbel however stated that Joel should have sacrificed Ellie’s life in the end for the greater good. “It would’ve hurt, but sometimes the right thing is hard to do,” He concluded.

This analogy has a major problem when it comes to “The Last of Us” The truth is that even though the doctor believed he could create a vaccine against cordyceps, there was no guarantee that he would be able to. To save humanity, the doctor could have taken Ellie’s brain.

Even if the doctor could save the entire world, would that mean it was right to kill a child? If Ellie had been told by adults that she must die to save humanity, would this change the answer?

As with most things that come out Hollywood these days, “The Last of Us” Included several leftist-approved storylines, ranging in length from LGBTQ cheerleading to present communism as utopia, and, as always portraying Christians: The eternal villains. Joel took the initiative to defend the young girl who was now his daughter.

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