Neil Druckmann Ends The Last Of Us ‘Cure’ Debate, Is Wrong

It seems strange to argue with the creator of a game in terms of whether the explanation of his story is correct, but that’s where we are, once again, as Neil Druckmann has addressed an infamous The Last of Us debate.

This is all coming up again because Joel fully confessed to Ellie what he did to the Fireflies to save her in the last episode, adapting a scene from the game. Druckmann was asked about the idea that the Fireflies could have definitely made a cure, and he said the following on the Sacred Symbols podcast:

“Could the Fireflies make a cure? Our intent was that, yes, they could.“

“Now, is our science a little shaky that now people are questioning it? Yeah, it was a little shaky and now people are questioning that. I can’t say anything. All I can say is that our intent is that they would have made a cure. That makes it a more interesting philosophical question for what Joel does.”

Again, it’s weird to argue with the guy who wrote this, but it just does not make sense in the context of the game, nor do I think he should even be explaining the “intent” of something that was purposefully open to interpretation.

There is a difference between Joel believing they would have made a cure by killing Ellie, and the idea that Druckmann is saying that would happen. The philosophical question is about what Joel believes, not that it’s literally confirmed true the Fireflies would have made a cure, which Joel couldn’t possibly know.

There are of course logistical debates about all of this too. How could the Fireflies make a cure with one doctor and a tiny amount of lab equipment, much less distribute it? What does a cure even do at this point? Preventing bites from turning people, I suppose, but it’s not like you’re injecting clickers to turn them back or erasing spore colonies with a hypodermic injection.

But I care less about that argument and more about the so-called philosophical debate here. You can turn it into a literal trolly problem, save someone you know, or killing 100 people you don’t know, but the idea is that Joel doesn’t know, and can’t know. He is doing the “wrong” thing with you know, mass murder of a group trying to find a cure, but you can see how he (or you, even) would make that same decision in the same context if it was your kid on the operating table.

Confirming a cure would have worked is just not something you should say. It should be ambiguous because if it’s not, this entire thing doesn’t work as a narrative choice. This is not the first time he’s done this, and I truly do not understand why he keeps blasting this narrative out there.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.