(SPOILERS AHEAD IF YOU HAVE NOT FINISHED THE GAMES)
If you’ve played Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us duology, then you should know that the characters are typically not black and white villains or protagonists. More commonly, the characters tend to do things that are not commendable for what they perceive to be the greater good. Unfortunately, this “greater good” that they speak of doesn’t always wind up being good at all. This trend is the same for all of the characters in the game – Joel Miller, Ellie Williams, and yes, even Abby Andrews from The Last of Us Part II.
So if all of the characters from these games have been known to commit atrocities and murder of many different individuals for different reasons, why is Abby the only one that the fans tend to hate for her actions? Are they really so different from what other characters do? Or is it because of who she targeted that creates many player’s animosity towards her? Regardless of why some fans are against Abby no matter what, I’m here to explain that she really is no different than the other characters that we know and love.
We are introduced to Abby in a brutal, chilling fashion, through her plight in the snow away from a horde of infected, being saved by Joel, and ultimately the reveal of her true desire to avenge her father’s death by killing and torturing Joel. The first question that comes to mind while watching this scene (amidst the teary eyes) is who is Abby’s father? Why did she go to such extreme lengths, including her training to be able to physically overpower Joel if needed, for over four years before she finally managed to track him down? The answer is that her father is the doctor that Joel had murdered while rescuing Ellie from the Firefly Hospital at the end of the first game/season.
If the murder of her father didn’t serve as reason enough for Abby to set out on her quest for vengeance, I’m not sure what else would. As someone who loved Joel, he was one of my favorite characters and I was devastated by his death. I’m also not going to act like I don’t understand why Abby did what she did. That’s the beauty of The Last of Us. It forces you to see and even understand every perspective of the situations, even when you didn’t want to initially. While the situations aren’t identical, I do think that Ellie’s hunt for vengeance against Abby later in the game is a direct reflection of Abby’s hunt for vengeance at the beginning of the game. Both set out to avenge their father figures, and both had to reap the consequences of their actions. But, if the situations are so similar, why does the fanbase seem inclined to turn against Abby?
While every major character in The Last of Us commits terrible acts in the name of love or survival, Abby alone is vilified because her revenge harmed the man players loved—Joel. Her actions against someone the game has made a main character have the direct consequence of turning the fans against her, since for so many individuals, Joel was their favorite character. Add into it the specific violence she used against Joel, and the rest of the Salt Lake Crew (Manny, Owen, Mel, Nora, etc) while making Ellie watch, and boom. You have the perfect villain to drive Ellie’s story forward into Seattle with the player wanting Abby dead just as much as Ellie does. In a tragic symmetry, Ellie later becomes what she most despised—driven by the same rage that consumed Abby, just two girls who miss their father figure.
Then at the height of the game, when Ellie and Abby meet again on the 3rd day of Ellie being in Seattle, Naughty Dog throws players for a loop. The narrative switches, and now the player is operating as Abby, getting her backstory, and humanizing the Salt Lake Crew, leading to conflicting emotions and understanding if the player is open enough to receiving it. We learn that Abby isn’t the villain that we’ve been made to see in the beginning, she’s just a girl who misses her father. And really, isn’t that who Ellie is?
Abby’s backstory with her father, her trauma in finding her father dead on the operating room floor after Joel’s reign of terror, her relationship with her friend Manny, love interest Owen, and her other friends Mel and Nora are all played into perspective here. These people aren’t villains, and more than that, we realize that Abby is actually a mirror reflection of who Joel was in The Last of Us Part 1. Her relationship with Lev, a Seraphite boy who’s been ostracized from his group, is very similar to Joel’s relationship with Ellie in the first part of the stories. Even her build, which is a stark contrast to how female protagonists in video game media are usually portrayed, is similar to Joel’s. She’s tall, muscular, and uses that muscle to get around in the post-apocalyptic world. A seasoned soldier, she’s trusted by the leader of her group in Seattle, the WLF’s. Furthermore, Abby has jokes, she laughs, she cares deeply about the people that she loves, and more humanizing, she’s afraid of heights, giving her character more depth, clarity, and understanding as the story goes along. She becomes a real character, and despite my reluctance to love her, I found that I did the more that I got to play her.
The reason why players are so inclined to hate her is because Joel has that same depth, clarity, and understanding that has been built up for much longer than hers. The games gave a voice to Joel, and the fans loved him. If he didn’t have that depth, and was just another side character that we meet along the way, Abby would not be villanized for her actions against him. In fact, I do believe that she would be praised for what she’d done, especially if Abby and her father were given the same relationship that we saw with Joel and Ellie.
While these factors are all true of Abby, it’s still undeniable that she has done bad things that I won’t try to sit here and defend. The only thing that I’ll say is that I understand why she did them, and I understand why Joel and Ellie took the actions that they did as well. The Last of Us does not have heroes. However they also don’t have villains. In the post-apocalyptic world, every character is morally grey, and you cannot help but to see both sides of the coin. Whether or not you choose to despise Abby, you cannot deny that she’s a good character, and that The Last of Us Part II is a story about grief, depression, vengeance, and humanity. By forcing players to inhabit each side of vengeance, The Last of Us Part II doesn’t just tell a story—it tests our capacity for empathy.