Joel Miller I TLOU
We are still human
Spoiler TLOU seaseon 2
No one is perfect... and that's not how it's supposed to be, because humans weren't created as machines that follow clear, mathematically calculated paths. You make decisions that are wrong, even if they feel right at the time, or you make decisions that have consequences. Not always immediately... but eventually. And sometimes they only catch up with you when you thought you had long since left them behind. When you lie awake at night and wonder at what exact point you stopped being the person you once were, because the world has gradually transformed you into something else. Joel might have said in the past that there are lines you don't cross... things you don't do, no matter how desperate the situation. And then came the day when he realized that those lines only exist as long as you still have something to lose that you love. After that, they become blurred.
He let people down because he wanted to survive, he lied because the truth would have destroyed someone he loved, he took lives out of fear of being left alone again, even though he had decided to remain alone. And none of these decisions felt wrong at the time.
That is perhaps the greatest flaw of human beings... that love does not always lead to something good, even if you imagine that you have the right to protect that love, that it can make you do things that you cannot justify to yourself. Joel did not decide to save the world, even though he could have. He could have tried to join those who thought they could bring structure back to the chaos, who might have had the answer that would save us all. But he decided to save a single person because he could not bear to lose someone who meant everything to him again.
Perfection would have meant letting go, being human meant holding on and being selfish. And no matter how much you later wish you had acted differently... or that you had put honesty above the fear of loss, sometimes you have no choice but to accept the consequences and make peace with them, even if you know that this peace could cause pain to others.
