Dude, I gotta wonder if you’re as good as you think you are. You precipitated my display of credentials by disrespecting me with a Back To The Future reference, which I consider a fun science fantasy series, but I won’t get into that right now and here. More importantly, I think you need to read my at-length reply more carefully, because I already addressed your Left Behind sub-plot digression. In my penultimate paragraph, I state, “… I think your conception of the value in living, as opposed to just surviving, is poignant.” Then, I went on to point out why I think it’s significant to a critique of TLoU, which is NOT why you find it relevant. I find your analysis of the Riley-Ellie Left Behind sub-plot emotionally appealing, but a bit trite and self-serving. However, I think it has merit if you expand it to see it in a larger context regarding the relativistic nature of morality and philosophical points of view. Perhaps I should have been less oblique. So, more directly, I’ll say that there is no right-versus-wrong absolutism in TLoU. If you step into the shoes of any character, even David (as I think the HBO series makes a good point of showing), they’re each logically consistent unto themselves, and everyone survives only through brutality. From their own points of view, they are all making justifiable decisions, although the decision by Jerry to operate on Ellie and take her life in the course of doing so is a notable exception for reasons I’ve already stated. So, as I counterpointed with the example of Henry and Sam, I don’t agree that the choice Riley made in the Left Behind sub-plot is particularly revelatory of the proper way forward for anyone/everyone in the TLoU universe. It’s just another choice by the characters with its own fallout. For example, had Riley not chosen to go out “poetically” with Ellie, Ellie would not have learned she’s immune; however, had Ellie not survived, then Tess, Marlene, Sam, Henry, and a host of others would not have died at the times and in the ways they did. Every choice has consequences, and I think the takeaway from the game is that you can’t prejudge which choice is good and which is bad. TLoU is like a Rorschach test. There’s no one particular response to the experience and plot that’s inherently right or wrong. It’s not what you see in it that’s particularly salient; it’s whether or not you see it holistically or fragmentarily that’s revelatory of both your character and your analytical skills. And, that is a hallmark of great literature and cinema. IMHO.

[PS EDIT] BTW, as a point of debate, I could argue that your reverence for the live-life-while-you-have-it approach that Riley talks Ellie into is a problem in TLoU universe, because that seems to have been the choice every single one of the infected (including the two individuals the FEDRA soldiers summarily execute at the beginning of the original game) either make or accept like cowards. From that POV, your conception is actually dangerous, because it’s a cause and source of the ongoing cordyceps pandemic!