My quick thoughts:
Joel technically is a ‘bad guy’, but what makes the story so interesting is how you see him come to the final decision to rescue Ellie. I don’t think many players would have done anything differently at the end if they had the choice.
One thing that’s clear is that Joel holds no stock in humanity (or the salvation of it). He distanced himself over the 20 years and trusts/cares about no one (except Ellie). He began this transformation when the solider kills his daughter in the intro. It’s really clever how the situation is reversed at the end. He’s helpless in the intro and ends up losing his daughter. At the end he is the one that does the killing and shows no mercy. He absolutely refuses to lose his daughter again.
Joel isn’t really an outlier. He is no different than most of the people that are just trying to survive. It’s kill (without hesitation) or be killed. He knows firsthand which is why he doesn’t hold hope in humanity, and why he tells Ellie that you have to find something to live for. Maybe Ellie started to accept that idea and why she said “okay” when he lied to her. At this point she wasn’t an innocent girl.
On a side note, I must say the amount of detail in this game is incredible. Everything about the world is bleak, and I love it. It’s the most atmospheric game I have played since the original Bioshock. I didn’t notice any copied and pasted rooms, each was unique and many of them told a story.
At the end of the game I kept expecting that Ellie or Joel or both would die but was very surprised. Instead of the cliché sad ending (where a main character dies) we got a very dark ending founded on hopelessness. I hope the DLC stays away from Ellie and Joel and focuses on new characters in a new location.
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