fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #6168 ]

[ SECRET POST #6168 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6168 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 36 secrets from Secret Submission Post #882.
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I don't think that's it at all.

Would you be able to hand over a child that you'd come to care for? I'm not sure I'd be able to hand over my son. Maybe that makes me terrible, I'm not sure. It's a kind of terrible I think I'm willing to be.

Yes.

I would hand over my child, my mom, my wife, myself. If the ONLY HOPE of ending a mass casualty event and possible the extinction of the species was the death of one person, absolutely. Not only does Joel prioritize his feelings over the lives of all of humanity, he also invalidates Ellie's choice. He lies to her that there are others, that the hope of humanity does not rest on her. He's a horrible person both in the course of events and inter-personally. How many other people's children are going to die because Joel never could be bothered to process Sarah's death?

It's very easy to say that if you're not in that situation. The fact is that none of us actually have any idea what we'd do. We like to imagine we'd do the noble thing, but if everyone who imagined they'd always do the noble thing was truly capable of it, we'd live in a very different world.

Many people who think they'd be strong and do the "right" thing find that they can't, when the time comes for it. Or, they find that what counts as the "right" thing has changed for them.

Pray you aren't judged as harshly as you judge others when your moment of weakness arrives.

Dude, I'm already tired of life and I haven't been in a 20 year martial-law disease ridden hell. Being able to go out possibly saving the entirety of mankind? It would be a blessing.

DA edgy, got it

No, just tired.

In this case, you'd be killing a loved one and surviving yourself afterwards.

More likely sacrificing a loved one and then surviving for a hot minute before the fungus gets you, or surviving long enough to see their sacrifice save the world and feeling so damn happy to see that it was worth it.

It's not the "right" thing. It's the right thing. Full stop. Sure, a lot of people, if they come to a choice like that, will find that they can't do it. And guess what? They're bad people.

It's not fair to say they're bad people. They're human.

Again, it's easy to make these sorts of pronouncements when it's all a hypothetical. It's very likely you'd find that you're the bad, terrible, selfish person you accuse others of being.

AYRT

Entirely possible. I'm not excusing myself from these hypotheticals as you all seem to think. All my instincts say do it. Like, my mind rebels at not doing it, which is why I feel so strongly about it. But it is entirely possible that, if I were to ever be in that situation, I just couldn't do it. And after, I probably won't be able to live with myself.

Also, y'all are treating this never-gonna-happen post apocalyptic mushroom plague very seriously. Like, are you guys okay? You're projecting some massive daddy issues onto Joel here when he is objectively, in the story, by the writers, not a good person. They even say it like that in the game. You guys good???

DA sure you would.

I don't tend to think of characters who make the selfish human choice as terrible people, though. It makes them not perfect, but it doesn't make them evil, even if all of humanity rests on them. Hell, personally I'd rather humanity live and die based on humane options and we don't choose to make an Omelas based solely on a numbers game.

Who said anything about evil? They can be selfish and terrible without being evil. Joel is selfish. And terrible. And a horrible human being. And has been so since before the main events of the game (leaving the family with the child by the side of the road because "someone else will come along". Sarah even mutters that they should have helped.) I wouldn't call him evil.

That's a good point, bringing up Omelas. Anon apparently would not be one of those who walks away.

I am sorry, I do not go there but are you saying that person not sacrificing a child he is responsible for for a small chance of saving the whole world is a bad thing? Caring about everyone over individual doesn't make you a good person because individuals and their relationship also matter. It's impossible choice

He was using her as a substitute Sara or whatever his daughter's name was, not as Ellie. his "relationship" was him projecting his dead daughter over a different girl entirely.

So? I'm not going to begrudge someone taking a second chance to NOT have someone they care about die to another human's shitty logic.

DA

Is it though? It's been twenty years and humanity is losing to this fungus. They've NEVER seen anyone immune before. Ellie is the only hope. It's definitely not shitty logic.

da but I don't recall it ever being said that there was any sort of guarantee that they would be able to find a cure from Ellie?

Because if there was a chance that it all might amount to nothing, then no, I don't blame him one bit for not wanting to hand over a child in the HOPES that MAYBE they might be able to find a cure.

I guess that's where we differ, because that there was no guarantee of a cure is no reason to stop someone from having the procedure. It was the first chance they'd seen in over a decade. So the options were No Chance Of a Vaccine and Possible Chance of a Vaccine.

I don't blame him one bit for not wanting to hand over a child in the HOPES that MAYBE they might be able to find a cure.

That's not why he does it. He doesn't care if there was a guarantee. He would have done the same even if there was a 100% chance of a cure. He does it for purely selfish reasons, which is why he lies to her at the end. He knows that she would have been angry with him and gone right back. It wasn't about "oh you immoral people, killing a child in the hopes of saving humanity." It was "I don't want to feel the emotional pain of losing my dead-daughter replacement because I never dealt with her death in the first place." It's purely selfish.

And really, "Guarantee of hundreds of child deaths" vs "Guarantee of one child death that may stop the hundreds of child deaths" is a no-brainer. I hope you people are never in charge of others.

Given that I would never sacrifice a living child in the faint hope that it might somehow be useful, I don't want to be in charge of others.

Re: Who is Your Least Favorite Character?

(Anonymous) - 2023-11-27 01:43 (UTC) - Expand

He was responsible for delivering her to the scientists.... So, yeah...

I don't believe you would. But if you really would, and if people like that make up the majority of humanity, then humanity would deserve to die out. Love them or not, sacrificing someone else who has no say is never the ethical choice (no matter what the leader woman said Ellie would want, the girl was asleep; she could not speak for herself on whether giving her life is really what she would have wanted), and if we believe it is, then we've failed as a species.

+100

If that's the way you feel about it, then we have bigger problems. A good portion of the world and a majority of the US believe that Abraham was morally correct to sacrifice Isaac to god just because god asked. We're already screwed from your point of view.

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