There’s no doubt that The Last of Us Part II has become one of the most hotly debated video game releases of all time. There have been many heated discussions around character design, storytelling and the game’s controversial plot. However, one element of the game seems to have divided most fans, often getting the most resentment from fans: Abby.
We’ve seen the outrage online. Gamers on Twitter are spitting venom and calling for a boycott. “This game is garbage.” “How can they do this to the fans?” “Why did Joel have to die?”
They even went as far as to threaten the life of Abby voice actor, Laura Bailey.
All of the hate stems from the fact that the game’s new character, Abby, kills off one of the more popular characters, Joel. At the heart of the story, Ellie ventures off to get revenge for her father figure, killing everything and everyone in her way.
At the other end of the line, gamers are forced to play as Abby and playout all the events through her eyes, including putting an end to Ellie’s rampage.
While we initially only know her as Joel’s murderer, The Last of Us Part II shows us Abby’s motifs and backstory.
Unlike others, when I played through the game, I found myself drawn more to Abby, the antihero, than the game’s main protagonist, Ellie. And here’s why:
When we’re first introduced to Abby, we’re completely unaware of her intentions to kill Joel. This allows us to explore the world freely without apprehension. When she eventually does come face-to-face with her father’s killer, things become hectic pretty quickly.
And while there is some strong hate towards the character initially, playing her side of the story does reflect the old saying: there are two sides to every story.
Joel killed Abby’s father while rescuing Ellie from the fireflies. Once you’ve completed the game and you sit back and look at the story as a whole, you realise that Ellie and Abby’s journeys are actually very similar.
Both experience a lot of the same heartaches. They both have failed relationships with lovers. They have both lost their fathers in horrible circumstances. And they’re both forced to become ruthless, revenge-hungry people fighting their way for their own justice.
The great thing about playing with Abby in The Last of Us Part II is that she realises her flaws before Ellie ever does. She becomes a better person before our eyes when she rescues the Seraphite siblings. We journey with her as she turns against the very people she fought for and decides to make her own path. She starts off as a cold-hearted soldier but evolves into a human. We see her move from anger to tears and laughter.
For Ellie, that journey is much longer. It’s only until the very end when she is holding Abby in the clutches of her hands that she finally understands that revenge is not the way.
For me personally, playing through Abby’s journey was far more rewarding. In fact, Ellie’s tale is so dark and twisted that you begin losing hope for her through the game. She abandons her friends and becomes something of a monster herself.
Those who are angry about The Last of Us Part II‘s Abby or Naughty Dog’s decision to include the character, and make the character playable, have missed the entire point of the game completely:
1. Revenge isn’t worth it.
2. There are two sides to every story.
3. Your enemies might not be as evil as you might believe.
4. There is hope if you set aside your own hurt.
5. There is always light. Even in the darkness.
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I 100% agree. Abby let Ellie go twice, she was broken but she moved on. I just wish the game had 70% less Ellie.
I stopped playing the game early into Ellie’s part because she was acting out of character; i even deleted the game. Then i found out you play as Joel’s killer and i continued in anticipation. Lev and Abby are my favorite characters. If there is a part 3 it better be about them.
I’m so with you. It’s disheartening to read so much flack for this character (and Laura Bailey!?) as I also end up preferring her arc and her character. It’s a shit, dark world, and both protagonists do some abhorrent things. And I also found myself empathizing much more with Abby in the end. Awesome addition to the game/ world. Also, stellar performance by Laura Bailey.
Glad to see someone else got it. These girls were so similar. Not good, not bad. Just broken and hurt. Best game and story I played this generation.
I have to disagree.
I’m already aware that there are two sides to every story. I had gone over this back in the first game, thinking about David and his group, and even the guys that accost Joel and Ellie after Bill’s town. What led them to engage in cannibalism? What led them to be highwaymen?
The lesson that ND was forcing on us was redundant for me. I felt very little connection to Abby’s crew. When one of them died, I shrugged my shoulders and thought, “Let’s get on with it already!” IMO it took far too long to get to the resolution, and I was bored of the gameplay by that point – rushing to get to just *something* in the story that was halfway satisfying.
Reggie Fils-aime sums up things nicely: “If it’s not fun, why bother?”
I agree with u, i loved Abby story line and her vengence was more than justified. I hope they make a part 3
I agree Abbys story was better and her revenge for her father was justified.
To the little freaks directing faux rage & hate at actors portraying fictional characters, get a life and maybe sell your consoles. You’re clearly that group of unhinged maniacs who’ve blurred reality with fiction.
I loved it. Abby is a mirror for Ellie. I hope part 3 shows them maybe putting behind them even if a brief meeting. Lev would make a good character too.
You have to be a virtue signaling moron to not hate Abby. The ignorance and “slant” of this article is blatant in referring to Joel as “one of the more popular characters”. Joel is THE main character and patriarch of the original. Fans neither want nor need a lesson in civics from a bunch self affirming neckbeards. This game CLEARLY had 2 central themes that had no bearing in the original. First, committing to the idea of being unpredictable even if it meant shitting all over the original story, characters, and fans. Second, pushing the gay, trans, SJW agenda. Which would be fine if they did it in a seperate game and not at the expense of one with established characters and themes. The simple fact is Abby’s fad got what he deserved. He was going to break his oath as a physician to “do no harm” and take a girl’s life in nothing more than the hope they might find a cure. Ellie and Joel aside, Abby was a self serving morally bankrupt bully. A bro douchebag with girl parts. Even one of her own said she was always a piece of shit. How do you people not see what’s plainly in front of your faces??? Saying that people who didnt like the game somehow didnt get it is nothing but your own ridiculous self entitlement. The FACT is we dont need your agendas soon fed to us and this game would have flopped miserably if people knew ahead of time what was in it.
You’re definitely supposed to like Abby more. I suspect that’s why so many in the male gaming community hated the game so much. She’s the only reason the story worked for me. Felt like that was Druckmanns’ intent. Her story is more compelling, felt longer, more challenging, more involved. In fact, I would hope Ellie’s story is over from here and we at least get a DLC follow up with Abby, if not a full blown sequel.
Thanks for writing this. I feel the same way, and the most disheartening thing about the game to me has been the clueless reactions of the “fans”
Exactly. Spot on assessment. Initially very difficult to play Abby, but by the end, I felt so conflicted, and felt more for Abby, who showed to have more of a heart. The fighting scenes between the two however were dreadful, as I literally didn’t know what I was supposed to do. To force some preordained play out in the body of an actor whose intentions I still didn’t understand or support was just weird. I was strong armed into a play that didn’t feel right, as I wasn’t sure of the intended outcome so I kept dying and it got very frustrtating. To be honest, I would have preferred a video scene to achieve the end goal. Otherwise a great sequel, and still the only game franchise that draws one so deep into an emotional rollercoaster, with great apocalyptic scenery and, improved freedom of movement and heart stopping freak show to boot.
The Problem with Abby
First let me state clearly that the gameplay of TLOU2 was stupendous, a tour de force. But the story itself was awful. This was Druckman and Gross’s attempt to paint a morally gray LGBTQ themed world akin the Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto. The anti-heroes of those games were bad men, who all got the endings that they deserved no matter how much we loved them. Yet was Joel worthy of death because he saved a little girl from a fanatical paramilitary group seeking to murder a child? How can we paint Joel as a villain worthy of death when he sacrificed his wellbeing to save Ellie? Please remember Joel chose to live the rest of his life looking over his shoulder. Was it even fair for Ellie to shun Joel when she learned the truth?
“Thank you for saving me life on from a group of maniacs that were attempting to murder me to make an uncertain vaccine. Now I hate you forever?
What type of gratitude is that? Let me tell you, surly teenager, that I was, I would love anyone forever that gunned down a horde of soldiers to save my life.
A Nazi by any other name is still a Nazi. I am sure Nazis, Klansmen, and Colombian drug lords have a side to their story also. But should I be forced, to understand their point of view? Should gamers be forced to play as the murderer of a beloved and iconic video game character? In my point of view, that answer is no. If Neil Druckman and Hailey Gross’ true intentions were to garner my sympathy for Abby and her friends, they failed miserably to move me.
Let us not forget, this “good” woman tortured Joel to death. She did not give him the clean death he gave her father. A death Joel administered not only in self-defense, but to save the life of an innocent child. Why must I remind you of this?
Therefore, I eagerly awaited her death as I played through her portion of the game. I felt no sympathy for the Wolves once I knew their side of the story. In this game, as written by Druckman and Gross the pair are literally asking gamers to root for the daughter of a Nazi war criminal seeking revenge against an allegorical Jewish father who saved his daughter from the hands of unscrupulous government scientists. I as a gamer am supposed to believe in Abby’s redemption because she ran across a couple of kids? One of them with gender identity issues? Abby’s “good” father and every Firefly that supported the attempted murder of Ellie deserved death end of story. Abby was the one that unleashed the wrathful Ellie upon herself, and she deserved having her entire life dismantled bit by bit. Perhaps leaving her alive, broken, and lost was the best revenge after all. However, if I were Ellie, I would have finished her off.
This game, in attempting to be a statement, lost me. A game is supposed to be first and foremost fun. If it teaches you a lesson afterward that is a bonus. I loved the first Kingdom Hearts because it taught me lessons about life, love, and perseverance, it was a nice bonus that the gameplay was great. I loved Final Fantasy VII because Cloud’s plight and his ability to move on after the death of Aerith were also lessons on motivation, self-actuation, and self-reliance. Did I need Sephiroth’s point of view? Do I care about Sephiroth’s point of view? No, he killed Aerith. And even though Sephiroth might have had righteous reasons for his great indignation, his means did not justify the ends. He deserved his end at the hands of Cloud. To present a new Final Fantasy from Sephiroth’s point of view would be blasphemy. Therefore, the misguided attempt to humanize Abby is the greatest blasphemy a creator can jam down the throats of his or her adoring fans.
PS: Voldemort was someone’s child also, but I don’t need to read that story.
The game wants you to like Abby more considering they throw everything including the kitchen sink at the player to ensure that. Everything you do as Ellie is a borderline direct (good) mirror to eventually playing as Abby. The biggest sin The Last Of Us Part 2 has is that it introduced about 10 new characters and literally none of them are even memorable. Abby in the long run is gonna be remembered for killing Joel and her body design (which is unfortunate cuz I found her body design a breath of fresh air) and Lev is simply Abby’s redemption and for the players can have a sense of what made the first game so special (Joel and Ellie)
“For Ellie, that journey is much longer.”
Not really. Abby had around FOUR YEARS to put her life in balance, accept the love of Owen and keep living. Killing Joel was not out of an angered and rushed decision like Ellie did. She killed the guy after years of hunting and much more time to cool up, but she didn’t. She let Tommy and Ellie alive because she had no peace over the body of Joel. She felt nothing and so, no reason for more killing — but later, wouldn’t hesitate to kill/almost kill Jesse, Tommy and Dina, saved by Lev of doing something worse than Ellie did to Mel (since she had no idea Mel was pregnant). As Owen said in one of their last dialogues, “we stopped looking for the light”.
I guess ND rushed the narrative pushing Ellie to a sequence of terrible actions while Abby was being showed as the sad girl who loves dogs and helps poor kids. All events from TLoU 2 could be in a third game, where the second would slowly build the tension and suspicious of Ellie towards Joel. In my head, the perfect Part II would end when Ellie finds the true at the hospital.