Oh, God, I hope Neil makes the next game about the love between two women and not about 'lesbianism and societal rejection'. I don't think I could stand the analysis. That is my biggest fear and this thread shows exactly why he's got to be very careful. Come on, Neil, be true to the characters!

I'd save Ellie for sure. Imagine how high was the chance for failure at a dirty, post-apocalyptic hospital with bare supplies and probably with medical personnel handling stuff that was way out of their league.

That is a horrible decision to take I admit. BUT that still changes NOTHING to what I said. I am talking about MURDERING someone to make others live and that is wrong whether you see it or not.

In a situation where you must choose who lives and who dies as a direct result of choice. Example this movie called The Good Son where this woman is hanging by a cliff with two children hanging each on one of her hands. In this case the story is that she does not have the strength to pull them up both, one only can be saved and the other sacrificed...

Horrible as such a choice will be, it's either save one or kill both. So in a way it's not a choice as she CANNOT choose to save them both. she does not have the strength to pull them up both and one must die to save the other. NO CHOICE other than which lives and which dies...

I don't know the game but I assume you mean to say there is a similar situation? Well ok but again this is VERY VERY EXTREMELY different from what happens in The Last of US. Where Ellie can go on living healthy if you don't kill her cause you don't have to kill her and if you do you are a murderer of the worst kind.

The question in this thread is Ellie or the vaccine. Anyone who chooses the vaccine is wrong, like evil wrong.

Why do you feel it's necessary to justify what Joel did? There was NO choice. This wasn't a story about saving humanity, it was a story about the road to redemption and Fatherhood. Joel just did what any Father would do and that's it. There's nothing beyond that other than the question of whether the lie was the right thing to do. 

Sorry for cherrypicking just one sentence of your reply (and sorry for just rumbling in unasked), but how many lives has Joel taken throughout his journey? Tens if not hundreds of healthy and reasonable people who all had backgrounds. But they don't count, right?

Fact is that Joel has to kill the doctor to save Ellie.

Well out of curiosity, should you have the choice: Humanity or Ellie, which would you go for?  Me Ellie again and again and again... U don't murder someone to save someone else, period and I explained this in detail in my previous posts.

As for the other issue here: The lie. If Joel had told the truth to Ellie, she could have gone into a guilt trip that could have ended up badly. By lying to Ellie, Joel saved her from the moral dilemma, a dilemma that no child should have to be stuck with. Joel took upon his shoulders the weight of his choice of saving her with the consequences to humanity this choice entailed. That is extremely noble of him and an act of love. Not only did he save her from death that the Fireflies would have forced upon Ellie but he also saved her from the moral consequences of that choice. He allowed her to both live and while living, not feel guilt for her being alive and healthy. Joel being the one that must live with the guilt that comes with such knowledge. That's what love is in my book.

Also, this kind of storytelling is nothing new.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

Which is not bad per se. All stories have been told some way or another already, as all stories can be boiled to down to just a handful different kinds. But this one is terrible because the game sets out a goal that you follow 95% of the time, but suddenly in the last hour or two Joel decides to flip everything upside down just because. His decision destroys every purpose of his entire trip. In the end they still travel around through the world, just the two of them, nothing was gained, no progress was made, except that he murdered hundreds of people in the meantime. So after everything is said and done, this story is nothing but a waste of time. And THAT'S what annoyed the fuck out of me.

No problem if you wish to respond to part of what I said, picking one line out of the rest is fine.

First what people that Joel killed are you talking about?

If you mean those who would have killed him during the game play then he kills them in self-defense, they were all part of militias that impose a rule of terror and dominion upon the weaker people and if Joel wouldn't kill them they would kill him and Ellie so that's self defense.

If you mean people Joel killed in his past when it is implied that Joel himself was like those bad people that kill, then yes such killings are wrong and murder. But that's what this game is all about: Redemption. Joel was a bad person before and he changed like changed SO MUCH that he saves Ellie when it was so much easier to let her die in the hands of the Fireflies especially to save all of mankind...

Joel went from bad guy to extremely good guy. I guess one could say the main theme of this game is REDEMPTION.

Oh I almost forgot, the doctor. Well if that doctor threatens to kill Ellie then Joel must save Ellie from a murderer. No different than when Joel kills militia that threatens to kill him and Ellie.

Calm down. I'm not attacking you.

Before The Walking Dead video game released, I had no interest in the series. After playing the game, I was so impressed, I went back and watched the entire series up to that point and proceeded to buy all of the comics. I'm not trying to change your stance on murder. I'm not even going on about the subject of The Last of Us. I just saw that a fellow gamer had missed out on one of my fondest gaming experiences and I was suggesting you see the story unfold. I still think Season One of that game is better than every season of the show and more impactful than much of the comic.

Now, give me a kiss.

Oh I see. I'll consider playing the game then. The episodic genre is not really for me but I could give it a try why not