Where is the hope?

Joel's decision not to sacrifice his surrogate daughter to a room full of hack surgeons signals a desire to protect the young at the expense of the old. It is the personification of the Old World Dying and the New World Struggling To Be Born.

His inability to treat Ellie as an actual person with agency leads him to tragedy, that's what the last scene is cementing. That one conversation destroys the relationship they've built over the entire story. His willingness to double down on a lie they both know isn't true.

I think you can see it as Joel stripping Elle of her agency. But I can also see it as Joel liberating Elle from a duty foisted on her by her elders. She's raised to believe that she is supposed to sacrifice herself for the greater good and Joel is tasked with leading her to the slaughter house.

LOU2 has it's problems sure but fuck that's an awful pitch.

LOU1 can get away with being a tragedy that subverts the narrative of traditional survival horror games. But LOU2 just repeating "humans are fallible" line never gets us to a story about how societies form or these strong social ties build thriving communities. At some point, you need to get to the other side of tragedy or its just Shepard Tone: The Video Game.