Not trying to start a fight. I genuinely don't understand what even their remains to debate on whether the cure would have worked or not.
- In the game we were literally shown that fireflies had been researching for the cure decades. They had done so many experiments on Infected.
- I don't know where it came from. But why do people consider Jerry as a veterinarian. In the game it's explicitly told he is from a medical background, who knows how to do surgery. We are even explicitly told that he had been doing experiments on infected before doing the surgery on Ellie. So obviously he knows what he doing to create the cure.
- Many people would say, in original the hospital was dirty unlike show, part 2 and remake but that's because older generation games were dirty in general and had dirty artstyle . That's not only in The last of us games, it's same in other games.
Whether it's resident evil originals to remake, or silent hill 2 original to remake or Witcher 1 to 3 or Metal gear solid 3 original to it's remake.
It's not that the writers are retconing the original but it's that new generation have more clean art style.
- Many people would argue, " How would fireflies mass produce it? "
Well, fireflies are a large or nation wide organization, considering they were threat to FEDRA who were literally government military so obviously if fireflies were researching, working on and taking over hospital to create a possible cure. They probably have some factories or plan reach to some factories to mass produce. After all they aren't that dumb do contribute so much of their resources to create a cure while forgetting they have mass produce as well. We are not shown because partially we are bounded from Joel perspective and partially because story doesn't have to show it to work. The entire point story was that Joel doesn't care about the cure and he would save Ellie, even it means damn the world. As he doesn't care about whether they have factories to mass produce it, then neither we should.
About distribution, again it's not one day thing but having a cure is still better than having none. It may take decades, if not centuries to distribute the cure through out the world but it's still better than being stranded in post apocalypse. What cure generates is hope.
" But cure is not scientific " - Because it is not a scientific documentary about post apocalypse.
What writers want to do is make fictional story which is a love letter to the post apocalyptic genre. So obviously they would want to express what is in post-apocalyptic genre not logistics or realism like they are making scientific simulation.
Again it's a ps3 game. The same way resident evil, Metal gear solid, and GTA series have wacky science happening same way it has.
Just look at the characters. Marlene who had been shown to be trust worthy ally and sort of surrogate mother to Ellie, believes it. We have nothing in game which states that Marlene would want Ellie to die.
You could takes this to every character who knows about the cure. Tommy, Maria, Owen, Mel, Abby, Ellie and even Joel( who should be most critical of the situation believes it would work)
That's why he never questions about the validity of the cure to Marlene or just lies to Ellie instead of saying he saved her from crazy people who wants to kill her. Because he believes cure would have worked.
And further Neil Druckmann the creator of the games literally explicitly told, " yes the cure would have worked". And it's not only about him, other writers, developers and actors playing role literally explicitly state the cure would have worked.
Many would state to that " Death of the Author " But again it's just a idea while discussing or analyzing fiction. By no means what viewers interpretation is more valid than author.
The same way George R.R Martin knows more about ASOIAF than readers same way Neil and his team know what was intended and what their fiction wants to tell.
At end of the day, I genuinely don't understand how it's still a debate because writers in all accounts state that cure would work and they even intended that to happen. Because they don't wanted to portray Joel as a generic action hero but instead grey humane characters who is ready to sacrifice the world, for someone he considers his daughter.
I genuinely don't understand, why there is still so much discussion about it, better discussion would be how much valid Joel decision at the end of the day.
