[chaosprophet]

One thing that really made me frown at Marlene was:

Spoiler for near end:

When you look at the artifacts from her on the very end of the game, it did annoy me that she referred at Joel and Tess as just "those smugglers" rather than their names. I understand they weren't really close, but in the beginning when they meet and get the mission, it did seems to me as they at least knew each other better. Those artifacts made me think Marlene just saw them as nothing, a mean to and end and didn't really care the least about them.

So I really didn't feel anything bad when Joel killed her.

And about Joel character and personality:

Spoiler for all around the game:

After the breakdown, I think most people who weren't willing do get their hands dirty to survive either died or just become paws living of a Q.Z. somewhere and hoping nothing serious would happen there. And between those who were willing, you had those who enjoyed doing so or learned to enjoy, and those who didn't. Now i think the former have a higher chance of survival than the latter, as they won't have a good amount of things pulling up on their conscience.

I think one appeal Joel has to the player, is that while he often kill for necessity, and sometimes for anger and possibly revenge, he never during the game shows to feel pleasure on the act. That does makes he look better on my eyes then many people like David and a good bunch of the Hunters.

Although it's true that many times you fight enemies that were just "doing their job", or in a situation where it was either them or you. So there is definitely some moral issues there everywhere, but I find things like that that makes Joel and a few more characters really likeable even if they're also seasoned killer and the like.

Now just a random musing on those stories we only learn about reading artifacts. I wonder if Ish did survive or not. I remember we do get an artifact and a body that shows that Kyle did die, but as far as I remember we know Ish was able to escape with some people from there, but never know what happened to them afterwards.