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Originally Posted by GGG
I think you are attributing game Joel traits to TV Joel which leads to the different assessment of the mora character of Joel.
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It’s the same character in the same story. They hit almost all the same beats and every major plot point. The arcs of both main characters is exactly the same.
I think what’s actually happened is that people who played the game are less prone to a complete misfire when it comes to understanding the development of the characters, like you’ve done here, because there are even more details that affirm the development.
The point of Joel’s arc doesn’t have anything to do with him learning to be less selfish or less of a murderer (don’t know how much you followed the show, but “killing people” doesn’t really appear to be a rare trait among survivors).
Regardless of the read, saying that Joel doesn’t really love Ellie is probably the worst take I’ve ever heard on the story, and it’s been around for a decade. He very obviously does. The entire point of his arc is him re-learning to do exactly that. And when faced with the choice of losing his daughter a second time, he makes the same choice he would have made the first time and saves her, because she’s his entire world at that point and a reminder of what it feels like to live for someone else.
They’ve been living through this world for 20 years, and to choose between continuing to live through it with someone you love like your own child or letting them die (again) on the off chance it could eventually lead to the end of “the threat” or whatever, leaving a whole world to still be rebuild yet while raiders, rival factions, and violence continues on despite the lack of infected? I don’t know, doesn’t seem hard to imagine doing the same thing Joel did.