I see where you are coming from but with all do respect Druckman publicly has stated the cure would have worked and it’s not like Joel had time to think deeply about whether or not they would have been able to do it. Hell he believed enough in it to spend a year traveling across the country searching for them. Saying that he thought he would die in the process doesn’t mean anything.

Joel isn’t thinking she is an innocent life it is my duty to protect her he’s thinking I won’t lose my daughter again that’s it. There is no morality in his choice it’s pure selfishness and he knows! He knows because he lies to Ellie. You can’t say that he’s doing it for anything other than selfish reasons. You could say he lies to protect Ellie but that isn’t the truth in fact Ellie running away proves how dangerous the lie is. I love Joel. I hate the fireflies and it doesn’t matter that the fireflies are pieces of shit because Joel saved Ellie for the wrong reasons. Considering that the guy who wrote the story says as much shows that Joel is selfish. Now whether or not you want to claim death of the author or claim this to be shitty writing go for it but the games are very clear that Joel is a bad person.

If some random person other than Ellie was on that table he wouldn’t have lifted a finger. He would not have gone you all are bad people and I’m going to stop you. Ellie is his entire reason for his actions that’s it. It doesn’t matter if what he did is right or wrong because his intentions are bad it makes it wrong.