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and i think there's something to be said be here about the medical system and how it's reflected in marlene.
doctors, whether they mean to or not, have an amazing knack for dehumanizing you and corroding your attachment to your body
Silver Lake already severed some of that attachment and ownership she feels over her body (just based off the disassociation we see and logic)
so if Joel, say, insisted on waking her up and trying more tests first. or if he wanted the situation explained to ellie before she made the decision. i think we would have ended up with the same problem
if marlene, someone ellie trusts to keep her safe and has that connection to her mother, reaffirmed the idea that ellies body was a commodity, she would have chosen to die
even if joels decision making process wasn't this layered (which it wasnt), the situation still had a lot of nuance that is ignored typically
tw for pretty in-depth discussion of fictional suicide attempts/suicidal ideation ///
i just. think a Lot about how the idea of “well ellie should have had a choice!” often ignores the implied fact that ellie, on the day she was entering the hospital, was struggling with some degree of suciidal ideation to the point where joel opened up about his attempt and ellie’s immediate response was:
“i know why you’re telling me this”
because she’d been so nonresponsive, so far removed from her usual self in her depression, that joel was worried for her and thought the story of him recovering from his attempt, feeling that hopeless, would resonate with her.
“yeah, i reckon you do” – that’s….yeah.
and she goes for the “time heals all wounds” to wrap it in a bow– the cliche of “it gets better, you just have to give it time” that we give to people struggling especially with suicidial thoughts and joel in a moment of rare vulnerability says “it wasn’t time that did it” – him telling her that he loves her and cares about her, that that is what healed him, that that is why he’s opening himself up because he doesn’t want her to hurt like he did. that it’s not just going to be time, he’s here and he’s not going anywhere whatever healing looks like for her. and it hits her like a gut punch because it’s the last thing she’s expecting and the thing that breaks through to her.
so if you’re asking the teenager with sucidial ideation, who has spent her entire life being told by an institution that she is inherently expendable and her life is worth nothing, coupled with her mom’s friend echoing that same sentiment – of course she would have said yes. marlene with the “what would she want?” gee i wonder how putting her in a system that sees her as expendable would affect like worldview on top of countless traumas! and joel is the one person in her life who does not see her as worth sacrificing, who would mourn her and care about her to the point where he’s unwilling to mourn her even if it means she hates him.
when people we love and care about go through something like that, we don’t go “oh i guess it’s your choice”. it’s “i will drag you kicking and screaming to go on with me if i have to because i love you and i don’t want to do this without you, because you are worth more than how you’re feeling right now.” it’s what tommy did for joel. he dragged him out of that ditch, took him to a medic camp even though joel swears up and down it’s what he wants and never lets him do it again and he can’t go on and do this. it’s what joel does later for ellie.
so yeah.
no i don’t think joel should’ve woken up ellie like
“r u sure?”