The essay below appears as Chapter 2 of The Last of Us and Philosophy.

Justifying Joel: In Defense of Love and Favoritism

Daniel Irwin and William Irwin

“To me, he did the right thing for him,” video game and show co-creator Neil Druckman said in an interview with Todd Martens of the Los Angeles Times. When explaining Joel’s decision, Druckman said, “As a parent, if I found myself in that same situation, I would hope I could do what Joel did.”[1] Joel’s defining choice to save his surrogate daughter, Ellie, at the cost of humanity’s future has sparked debate among fans of The Last of Us for over a decade. Yet the single most prominent voice behind the story firmly believes Joel’s decision was correct. The video game, after all, only has one ending—the player must murder a hospital full of Fireflies to save Ellie.

Series co-creator and co-writer, Craig Mazin, echoed Druckman’s sentiment saying that “If I were in that situation as a parent, I would try really hard not to, but I probably would.”[2] Of course, the appeal of The Last of Us is that a player/viewer can take away a different conclusion—one that doesn’t align with the creators’ own opinions. Ashley Johnson, the actress who played Ellie in the video game, has a more conflicted reaction to Joel’s decision. She says, “it’s harder to sort of take in the decision that Joel makes … I don’t know if I could give somebody away that I love so much for this cause, but I don’t know if I would be able to go on a rampage like that.”[3] Druckman and Mazin are both parents, whereas Johnson is not. So maybe Joel’s instinctual reaction to Ellie’s peril is paternal—a decision only another parent could understand. After all, the video game actor who played Joel, Troy Baker, claimed that he was at a “disadvantage” when making the first video game in not being a father. Yet after having a son of his own, Baker now believes, “If I had the opportunity to save [my son] … I would do anything to save him.”[4]

The strength of Joel’s paternal bond is surprising when we consider that he’s only Ellie’s father figure for about a year. He met her when she was 14, and he had no relationship with her mother. Unlike Marlene, Joel hasn’t known Ellie since birth and didn’t see her grow up. Ellie’s Mom, Anna, was her lifelong friend, and her dying wish to Marlene upon having Ellie was to “make sure that she’s safe.” In the series premiere, Ellie even asks Marlene, “You my fucking mom or something?” Marlene’s job is to be a mother to Ellie just as much as to be a leader of the Fireflies. Yet when she’s faced with the same choice as Joel, Marlene values her obligation to the world over her promise to Anna.

So who’s the villain? Marlene for cutting off her human feelings or Joel for dooming humanity? By framing Joel as the story’s protagonist, the video game and show creators make Marlene the obstacle, the antagonist, which reflects Druckman and Mazin’s own beliefs. But Joel’s decision isn’t just appealing because of the framing of the narrative or his role as a father. Joel’s choice is appealing because his unparalleled care, favoritism, and empathy toward Ellie are a product of his love. And such love is profoundly human.

Utilitarian Leaders

Let’s first look at Joel’s decision from a utilitarian perspective. Utilitarianism is a moral philosophy that says we should always act to produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Marlene is clearly a utilitarian. As Druckman says, she’s “a leader that can make the hard sacrifices for the betterment of humanity.”[5] When discussing Marlene’s goal to eradicate the virus and re-democratize America, Mazin said that “she has to be a utilitarian” to achieve it. When it comes to sacrificing Ellie for the world’s greater good, that’s what Marlene precisely is—not a mother or even a human, but rather, a utilitarian leader.[6] When faced with the same decision as Joel, Marlene sacrificed Ellie like a good utilitarian.

The decision Joel faces can be seen in terms of the trolley problem, a classic thought experiment in philosophy, devised by Philippa Foot (1920-2010) and developed by Judith Jarvis Thomson (1929-2020).[7] The problem considers a scenario like this: you watch as a trolley hurtles down a track that will collide with and kill five people. In front of you is a lever that can switch the trolley to a different track with only one person on it. You can’t get anyone off the track in time to save them or stop the trolley from moving. Your only choice is whether to pull the lever. What is the morally right action? If all you know is the number of people involved, then the utilitarian answer is clear: pull the lever to save more lives, because it allows you to maximize goodness and minimize suffering. Joel’s dilemma is similar, but more complicated. He must choose between saving one person and saving many, but that one person is Ellie. Instead of five people at a distance with a lever, he must kill a hospital full of people to save the one, and he is effectively killing countless more by removing the world’s chance for a vaccine. Of course, as we will discuss later, Joel’s not a utilitarian. But Marlene is. She promised Anna to protect Ellie, but, as Mazin says, “she’s willing to sacrifice her own morality and what she believes is right” [8] to ensure a brighter future for humanity.

Marlene overrides her emotions in the name of the greater good, but she isn’t cold and calculating. In fact, Marlene expresses guilt, telling Joel, “I promised her mother that I would save her child. I promised. So, I do understand. I’m the only one who understands.” If she can empathize with Joel, why doesn’t she come to the same conclusion? Most obviously, because she hasn’t just traveled across the country with Ellie and formed a lifelong bond. As a result, Marlene isn’t conflicted because of her attachment to Ellie. She’s conflicted because of her attachment to Anna and the promise made to her.

In the first season’s finale, Marlene promises her dying best friend, Anna, to find someone to look after her infant daughter. But, as Mazin puts it, “Marlene didn’t pick a person to raise Ellie. She picked FEDRA,” her enemies. Distancing herself from Ellie in this way is a prime example of Marlene’s instincts as a utilitarian leader. As Johnson puts it, Marlene “doesn’t fully have the maternal thing,” because being a mother would directly conflict with her role as a leader.[9] In the video game, a hardened Bill, bitter over the death of Frank, says something that could provide insight into Marlene’s psyche, as well as his own. Bill explains that “Once upon a time, I had somebody that I cared about. It was a partner. Somebody I had to look after. And in this world, that sort of shit’s good for one thing: gettin’ you killed.” While this is a warning to Joel, it also applies to Marlene. She distances herself from Ellie while still doing everything possible to ensure her safety. Marlene keeps her promise but avoids the attachment.

At the end of the video game, the player can find two voice recordings from Marlene in Saint Mary’s Hospital. The recordings are personal logs that shed light on what was going through Marlene’s mind when the Fireflies found Ellie. In one recording, Marlene speaks directly to Anna, Ellie’s deceased mother. Marlene says, “I need you to know that I’ve kept my promise all these years… despite everything that I was in charge of, I looked after her. I would’ve done anything for her, and at times….” In this recording, Marlene never once refers to Ellie by her name, further supporting the idea that Marlene’s attachment to her is limited. The recording depicts Marlene coming to terms with her decision. She claims it was the doctor’s choice, and that their “asking [her] was more of a formality.” Like most of her recording’s contents, this claim is a case of self-deception. (For more on the role of self-deception in The Last of Us, check out Chapter %.) In The Last of Us Part II, we see a flashback conversation between Marlene and Dr. Anderson that occurs soon after the Fireflies find Ellie. Dr. Anderson is “begging” Marlene to allow him to perform the surgery, but she has the final decision. While she struggles to forsake her promise to Anna, Marlene sees Abby, Anderson’s daughter, enter and drop off dinner for her dad. At this moment, Marlene lets go of her obligation to one dead person, in favor of her obligation to the greatest number of the living. She gives Anderson a decisive “do it.”

Loving Protectors

Marlene’s utilitarianism leads her to sacrifice Ellie, but why does Joel choose to save Ellie? When discussing Joel’s identity and his desire to protect Tommy, Sarah, and later Ellie, Mazin says, “this is Joel’s purpose: he has to have somebody to save.”[10] TLOU depicts many protectors. Bill protects Frank, Henry protects Sam, and Abby protects Lev. All these pairings serve as reflections of Joel and Ellie. The protectors are willing to sacrifice everything to save one person they care about. Henry steals valuable medicine to treat one person with a near-untreatable case of leukemia, and for her part, Abby turns on and murders her own faction to protect a member of that faction’s sworn enemy. Should such actions be condemned as immoral? No, not necessarily, because Joel and these other protectors are deeply human in favoring the ones they love.

In “The Myth of Universal Love,” the contemporary philosopher Stephen T. Asma argues that “Empathy is not a concept, but a natural biological event.”[11] Citing current research in neuroscience, Asma explains that empathy is not a “limitless reserve” for humans to pull from, but is instead a very “limited resource.”[12] In TLOU, Joel exhibits a lack of empathy right from the prologue. Before and during the outbreak, Sarah is the one person he cares for above all others. We see Joel’s favoritism when he, Tommy, and Sarah try to make it to the highway exit. They pass a group of strangers, and Tommy slows down to help them. He says, “They’ve got a kid, Joel.” Joel responds, “So do we,” and urges Tommy to keep driving. Joel’s so concerned with his daughter’s safety that he can’t empathize with a family much like his own in need of help.

As another example of the human capacity to empathize, consider the part of the video game when Joel and Ellie escape Pittsburgh with Henry and Sam. Chased by hunters, the group must climb a ladder onto some shipping containers to get out of the city. Henry gets up first, followed by Sam. As Ellie climbs the ladder, it detaches from the shipping container, leaving Joel stranded. Instead of finding another way for Joel to get up, Henry grabs Sam and runs to safety, unconcerned about whether Ellie comes along. This action may be selfish, but it also expresses simple human favoritism. Henry’s a protector, and just like Joel and every other survivor in the world, he values the life of his favorite over anything else. Ellie returns to save Joel, and they later reunite with Henry and Sam. Fending off a furious Joel, Henry explains, “You had a good chance of making it, and you did. But coming back for you meant putting him at risk … If it was the other way around, would you have come back for us?” In his book Against Fairness, Asma writes, “It is human to prefer. Love is discriminatory.”[13] Henry acted out of love for his kin, and Joel would do the same. Love overrides utilitarian calculations of the greatest good for the greatest number.

Like any human, Joel only has so much empathetic reserve. But what determines who he loves and protects? Sarah is Joel’s daughter, and he’s bonded tightly with her. Much of the science behind human attachment involves oxytocin, “the love hormone.”[14] As Asma says, oxytocin is a hormone “absolutely vital in human bonding” that “helps the brain form attachments.”[15] While oxytocin levels are higher in women, both men and women experience its effects, especially when bonding with children. “Our brains are actually biased toward our families,” Asma says, regardless of our other relationships.[16] At its core, Joel’s profound connection to Sarah is a product of the human pursuit of social bonds and the pleasure we receive from forming relationships with our kin—”the main ingredient in human happiness is not wealth, property, pleasure, or fame, but strong social bonds,” Asma says.[17]

But what about Ellie? Joel’s attachment to his surrogate daughter has two concurrent explanations. The first cause behind Joel’s attachment is compelling for anyone who’s watched the show or played the video game. When discussing how we create bonds outside immediate family members, Asma says that “favorites (friends) can only be created by spending time together, sharing experiences, and immersing in each other’s lives—and time, sadly, is a finite resource.”[18] Finite time goes along with finite empathy. Asma explains, “Biology can bond people together, but so can history—so can shared habits, emotions, and values, as we respond to life events.”[19] As Joel spends time with Ellie, so does the audience, and we grow to care for her in a way that Marlene, by her own volition, never does.

The additional catalyst for Joel and Ellie’s mutual love involves “the flexibility of biological bias,” as Asma discusses.[20] When we find the characters 20 years into the apocalypse, despite having lost their biological parent and daughter, respectively, Joel and Ellie need that kind of connection. The canon prequel comic, American Dreams, which follows a younger Ellie as she arrives in Boston, depicts her restless desire for a parent. The comic starts with Ellie asking a soldier, with whom she’s built a relationship, to take her with him. The soldier maintains, “I got my own family to look after,” and leaves Ellie alone in the QZ. In response, Ellie tells herself, “I can manage just fine on my own.” However, upon meeting Riley, Ellie can’t help but look up to her. The comic illustrates Ellie’s desire for someone to lean on and trust. Riley is the closest thing to a parent Ellie has, though later their relationship will evolve into a romantic one.[21] We can assume that Ellie has been searching for a protector her entire life before this, as she famously says to Joel, “Everyone I have cared for has either died or left me.” Ellie’s desire for a parent is explained by Asma when he says that even when a child doesn’t have a relationship with their parents, “someone else in close proximity … may have unknowingly built the ability (to bond) in the otherwise deprived infant.”[22] Whether she recognizes it or not, Ellie has been searching for a protector her whole life, and Joel’s the one to satisfy that need.

Joel, it turns out, needs Ellie just as much as she needs him. Joel tragically lost his daughter, but “our bias defaults do not set like cement” they “remain open to new experiences,” as Asma says.[23] The protector still needs someone to protect, someone to extend his empathy towards, but that doesn’t mean that Joel just moved on after Sarah. It wasn’t until he met Ellie, that Joel became a father again. Joel’s scar on the side of his face represents his ability to heal and bond again. In the Season One finale, Joel reveals to Ellie that he “was the guy who shot and missed,” leaving the scar. Joel “couldn’t see the point anymore” after Sarah’s death and decided to end his life. But as he pulled the trigger, he flinched. Sarah’s death left a scar on Joel, but part of him wasn’t ready to die. Twenty years later, Joel begins to heal and find purpose, but as he tells Ellie, “It wasn’t time that did it.” Joel and Ellie were drawn to each other because “Strong friendships and family bonds are unparalleled in providing people with happiness.”[24] In a desperate world, Joel attests that “you keep going for family,” and when faced with the choice between saving Ellie or everyone else, Joel saves his surrogate daughter.

In Favor of Favoritism

Favoritism is out of fashion in contemporary America where we try to be as fair and impartial as possible. But that is not the way it has been in all times and places. For example, Asma explains that “Favoritism is the groundwork of Confucian culture. The model of the good person is not the saintly world-saver, but the devoted family member.”[25] So is it possible to argue that saving Ellie makes Joel a good person? [26]

Druckman and Mazin are candid about their favoritism towards their children, so it makes sense that TLOU expresses approval of human bias. Nonetheless, the video game and show depict the ugly consequences of favoritism. Joel’s rampage through the hospital to rescue Ellie isn’t portrayed as a heroic act. It’s tragic, violent, and relentless.

The show also explores this theme in “When We Are in Need,” the episode with cannibalistic narcissist, David. Toward the end of the episode, David explains to Ellie that he was shown the world’s truth not by God, but “by Cordyceps.” He asks her, “What does Cordyceps do? Is it evil? No. It’s fruitful. It multiplies. It feeds and protects its children, and it secures its future with violence, if it must. It loves.” David isn’t just describing Cordyceps; he’s describing a protector. Cordyceps represents the often-ugly reality of our nature. From the opening scene of the series, TLOU depicts the conflict between Cordyceps and humanity over dominance of the planet. It was likely global warming that caused Cordyceps to mutate and be able to infect humans. The fungal virus, like Joel, isn’t killing people because it’s evil; it’s ensuring its survival by its natural impulse to love.

The shot of Tess being kissed by an infected illustrates this theme. At the end of episode two, an infected runner turns Tess not by biting her, but by gently kissing her. It’s horrifying, but Druckman, who directed the episode, wanted to “shoot it in the most beautiful way.”[27] In response to this shot, Mazin says “the fungus loves too. It makes more of itself. That’s what we do when we love each other.”[28] Like Joel, the infected discriminates against others for the survival of its own kind. For Cordyceps and humanity, discriminatory love is natural and good.

Of course, David is among the least redeemable antagonists in an otherwise morally grey universe. We shouldn’t accept his words as gospel. That said, the idea of the beauty and horror of Cordyceps pervades TLOU. The opening credits sequence played at the beginning of every episode is a stunning animation of Cordyceps sprouting and blossoming as it spreads across America. The opening is paired with Gustavo Santaolalla’s haunting and beautiful main theme. The idea that this virus is taking over the country is disturbing for any human, yet the sequence doesn’t portray the fungi’s flourishing that way. The sequence ends with two sprouts of fungus, one a bit taller than the other, standing alone against the rest of the country—a representation of Joel and Ellie. TLOU illustrates the persistence of the Cordyceps virus as reflective of our human compulsion to endure and survive.

TLOU tells us that we survive to love, and we love to survive. No matter how hard we fight it, nature wins. Cordyceps wins over humanity, and Joel’s love triumphs over Marlene’s utilitarian righteousness. Joel’s love for Ellie preserves the world’s humanity. The consequences are costly, but that’s what the world of TLOU and love is—beautiful, painful, and horrifying. Sometimes all at once.

Paradoxical

When playtesting the original Last of Us video game, Druckman would end the session by asking players, “What did you think of Joel’s choice?” According to Druckman, “If the player was not a parent, it was 50/50 as to whether they agreed with what Joel did.”[29] However, “If the player was a parent, a hundred percent, with zero exceptions, they agreed with Joel.”[30] While we’ve tried to highlight the complexity of Joel’s choice, chances are that if you’re a caring parent, you understand Joel. Does that make the 50% of non-parent players wrong in their assessment of Joel’s choice? Of course not. The fact that there was such an even split between those players speaks to how impossible the ethical quandary is to reconcile for human beings. “The point of a dilemma,” Mazin says, “is it ain’t easy, and there isn’t one right answer.”[31] That’s why we continue to debate The Last of Us. Sometimes, nature is paradoxical. Just as Cordyceps need a human host to survive, we need love. And for both cordyceps and humanity, that one thing we need in life is the one thing that might get us killed.[32]

Daniel Irwin is an aspiring screenwriter and filmmaker. In his free time, he loves building Lego sets, hunting for collectibles around the neighborhood with his dog Duncan, and (of course) playing video games. When he played The Last of Us Part I, he was younger than Ellie in that game, and now he’s older than Ellie from Part II.

William Irwin is Professor of Philosophy at King’s College in Pennsylvania and is the General Editor of the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series. In addition to his work on popular culture, Irwin has published the novel Little Siddhartha and two books of poetry, Always Dao and Both/And. Like Joel, Bill loves music, has a goofy sense of humor, and maybe shows a bit of bias towards his family.

 

[1] Tracy Brown, “‘The Last of Us’ game ending divided fans. Here’s why it feels different on TV,” Los Angeles Times, March 13, 2023 at https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2023-03-13/last-of-us-finale-video-game-reaction.

[2] Roxana Hadadi, ”’We Have to Interrogate How We Feel About Our Heroes’ The Last of Us co-Creator Craig Mazin Questions the Inherent Positivity of Love,” Vulture, March 12, 2023, at https://www.vulture.com/article/last-of-us-craig-mazin-season-finale-ending-interview.html.

[3] Louise Griffin, “The Last of Us Star Ashley Johnson ‘devastated’ by Final Episode,” Radio Times, March 13, 2023, at https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/the-last-of-us-ending-newsupdate/.

[4] Anthony Wood, “Troy Baker’s Perspective on The Last of Us Ending Changed After Having a Child,” IGN, November 28, 2022, at https://www.ign.com/articles/troy-baker-joel-miller-the-last-of-us-ending-daredevil-game.

[5] Troy Baker, host, “Episode 9 ‘Look For The Light,’” HBO’s The Last of Us Podcast, from HBO, March 13, 2023, at https://listen.hbo.com/the-last-of-us-podcast?c=3Z9AtEp-R4F_xkzpvfSlKg&h=111e969fbd0c35d10.

[6] Troy Baker, host, “Episode 9 ‘Look For The Light,’” HBO’s The Last of Us Podcast, from HBO, March 13, 2023, at https://listen.hbo.com/the-last-of-us-podcast?c=3Z9AtEp-R4F_xkzpvfSlKg&h=111e969fbd0c35d10.

[7] Philippa Foot, “The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect,” Oxford Review 5 (1967), 5-15 and Judith Jarvis Thomson, “Killing, Letting Die, and The Trolley Problem,” The Monist 59 (1976), 204–217.

[8] Baker, Episode 9 (2023).

[9] Ibid.

[10] Troy Baker, host, “Episode 4 ‘Please Hold To My Hand,’” HBO’s The Last of Us Podcast, from HBO, February 6, 2023, at https://listen.hbo.com/the-last-of-us-podcast.

[11] Stephen T. Asma, “The Myth of Universal Love,” The New York Times, January 5, 2013, at https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/05/the-myth-of-universal-love/.

[12] Asma, “The Myth of Universal Love,” (2013).

[13] Stephen T. Asma, Against Fairness (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013), 7.

[14] Ibid., 27.

[15] Ibid., 29.

[16] Ibid., 32.

[17] Ibid., 154.

[18] Ibid., 96.

[19] Ibid., 63.

[20] Ibid., 35.

[21] The Last of Us: American Dreams, #1 (April 2013).

[22] Asma, Against Fairness (2013), 35.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid., 154.

[25] Ibid., 102.

[26] For another defense of Joel’s decision in terms of his role as father, see Charles Joshua Horn, “The Last of Us as Moral Philosophy: Teleological Particularism and Why Joel Is Not a Villain,” in David Kyle Johnson ed., The Palgrave Handbook of Popular Culture as Philosophy (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), 1-16.

[27] Troy Baker, host, “Episode 2 ‘Infected,’” HBO’s The Last of Us Podcast, from HBO, January 23, 2023, at https://listen.hbo.com/the-last-of-us-podcast,

[28] Baker, Episode 2 (2023).

[29] Baker, Episode 9 (2023).

[30]  Baker, Episode 9 (2023).

[31] Baker, Episode 9 (2023).

[32] We thank Stephen Asma and Joshua Horn for their feedback that helped us to improve this chapter.