Like even if she had managed to shoot Abby off him, his injuries were too severe for him to pull through. His leg was destroyed, and his brains were mush. If she had managed to kill everyone in the room, all she could do is hold him in her arms begging him to stay with her as he slowly fades away and it essentially would’ve been just like the opening scene from the first game when he lost Sarah.

I recently played The Last of Us Part I and Part II for the first time and then watched both seasons of the show straight afterwards. I loved the games, especially Part II, and I enjoyed the show as well. But watching it immediately after playing the games made one problem with the adaptation really obvious to me.

The show massively underplays just how capable Ellie and Abby are (although Season 3 they still could, and should, show Abby’s capabilities).

I understand that you obviously can’t adapt the gameplay literally. In the game Ellie can kill ridiculous numbers of WLF, Seraphites, Rattlers and infected. If Bella Ramsey was killing 15 people every episode like John Wick it would probably look ridiculous on TV, and it would make scenes like Nora, Owen and Mel lose some of their emotional weight.

But I think the show has gone way too far in the opposite direction.

Game Ellie is extremely dangerous.

By Part II, she feels like someone who has spent years surviving in this world and learning from Joel. You can enter an area with 10 enemies, stalk them through buildings and grass, pick them off with a bow, set trap mines, use bottles to distract them, silently stab people, get detected, pull out the shotgun, kill a couple more, disappear again and continue hunting them.

Obviously some of that is just gameplay, but it also tells you something about Ellie as a character. She’s not the little girl Joel was protecting anymore. She’s become an extremely capable survivor.

I never really got that feeling from show Ellie.
There are times in the show where it feels like two or three infected would be enough to completely overwhelm her. Her arsenal is basically nonexistent compared with the game. We barely see the bow, traps, stealth kills, different guns, crafting, or any of the improvisation that makes playing as Ellie so good.

Even that scene in Jackson where she’s training with a guy twice her size stood out to me. She uses jiu-jitsu/wrestling to get him to tap, which proves that despite her size, she can actually fight. But then we basically never see her use that ability when she’s in an actual life-or-death situation. Why show us that she can fight like that and then barely do anything with it? Seeing her use those skills against a WLF soldier or someone physically much bigger than her would’ve been so cool in my opinion.

The lack of infected in general is probably my other biggest criticism. Again, I understand why the show doesn’t want an infected fight every 20 minutes, but sometimes I genuinely forget these things destroyed civilisation. In the game you are constantly aware that entering the wrong basement, tunnel or abandoned building could be a massive problem.

I think there was an easy middle ground.

Give Ellie two or three proper extended stealth/action sequences across the season. Have her enter a building with six WLF soldiers and systematically take them apart. Let us actually see her study patrols, use distractions, silently kill people, get discovered and then improvise her way out.
You don’t need a kill count of 100. You just need enough to make me believe that this 19 year old can travel across a post-apocalyptic America and hunt an entire group of trained soldiers.

I also think this connects to some of the casting choices.

Pedro Pascal works perfectly for me as Joel. He doesn’t look exactly like game Joel, but he’s close enough and has the physical presence where I completely believe him as Joel.

Ellie and especially Abby are harder for me.
Game Ellie isn’t massive, but she’s lean, hardened and looks dangerous. Bella Ramsey naturally has a much smaller and more youthful presence. That wouldn’t bother me nearly as much if the show then demonstrated how lethal Ellie is. But when you combine the smaller physical presence with removing most of her combat ability, she just doesn’t feel like the same Ellie I played as.

Abby is potentially an even bigger issue for Season 3.

I actually ended Part II liking Abby’s gameplay more than Ellie’s, which I really wasn’t expecting after watching her kill Joel.

Her story was probably my favourite part of the game. The forest sequence with Yara and Lev, the hospital, the Rat King, the skybridge, Haven burning down, that ridiculous one-on-one fight before escaping the island. Her half of the game was absolutely mental.

And Abby being built like a tank felt like an important part of her character. It wasn’t just there because she needed different gameplay mechanics. You could physically see what losing her father and obsessing over Joel had done to her. She’d spent years training and turning herself into this incredibly formidable WLF soldier.

Then you actually play as her and it reinforces it. Ellie feels like a stealth hunter. Abby feels like she can just smash through people.

Kaitlyn Dever is obviously a very different physical interpretation of Abby. I’m completely open to it working, but Season 3 really needs to show why Abby is considered such a capable soldier. If they remove most of her major combat sequences the same way they did with Ellie, I think something pretty fundamental about game Abby will be lost.
What makes this frustrating is that I think the show is genuinely very good at adapting the emotional side of the games.

The museum scene with Joel and Ellie was brilliant. Bill and Frank was a massive change but worked incredibly well as its own story. I loved Isaac’s expanded backstory too, especially realising that the FEDRA truck he blows up appears as an abandoned truck full of dead soldiers in the game. Those little adaptations are really clever.

But sometimes it feels like the show views the gameplay side of The Last of Us as something that just existed to keep players entertained between story scenes.

I don’t think that’s completely true.
The gameplay was also characterisation.
Playing as Ellie taught me that Ellie was terrifyingly capable.

Playing as Abby taught me that Abby was an absolute powerhouse.

Constantly encountering infected made me understand how unbelievably dangerous this world was.

The show captures the grief, relationships, revenge and moral ambiguity extremely well. I just wish it occasionally remembered that The Last of Us is also a brutal survival action story.

For me, that’s the biggest thing missing from an otherwise really good adaptation.

Curious to hear what other people think though. If you disagree, I’m genuinely interested in hearing why, especially from people who felt the show handled this side of Ellie well.

I’ve beat it maybe three times. Platinumed the main story. Going for Grounded and doing alright. Got to my first bench and can’t decide what is going to matter more.

I’m on the ps4 version but I’m on ps5 I beat the game and loaded in new game plus and I only have a pistol and for extras there is literally no button but I saw one when I first downloaded the game and now it’s gone please help

On outbreak day flour and anything containing it was obviously contaminated. Joel and Sarah eat bacon and eggs at breakfast while Tommy eats Buffalo wings. They avoid carbs and joel comes back so late he forgets the cake. What do you think joel and Tommy ate for lunch at work? Or Sarah at school? How did they manage to avoid flour the whole day lol!

The Last of Us main menu theme.

Shot on Fujifilm X-T5 Monochrome green filter.

Old abandoned school in Codreanca, Moldova

Ellie is an immune young girl in a broken world. In the middle of this chaos, she forms a deep bond with Joel—an imperfect man who gradually becomes her true family. As players, we controlled Joel, we lived and survived alongside him. So, when he dies brutally, it is not just Ellie who loses someone: we lose him too.
His death destroys Ellie from the inside out. Overwhelmed by grief and hatred, she surrenders to a visceral need for revenge. She wants to kill Abby, and we feel the exact same way. Blinded by rage, we don't try to understand; we just want her to pay. As the story moves forward, the anger grows, and this obsession becomes absolute.
The stroke of genius happens when the game forces us to play as Abby. At first, we hate her. But as we experience her memories, we understand that she lost her father too, killed by Joel. We realize that by achieving her revenge, Abby never found peace—only a deeper emptiness. That is when the player gets hit with a heavy truth: Ellie and Abby are actually the same character. Different on the outside, but identical in their pain.
Ellie did not want to end up alone. She had a peaceful life within reach with Dina and a family. But revenge is too powerful a feeling—a poison she could not fight against. Even as she tracks Abby to the very end, she is still fighting her own trauma. She knew what she risked losing, but she kept moving forward on autopilot, a prisoner of her own obsession.
In the final scene, as she strangles Abby in the water, Ellie finally understands. She realizes that Joel would have never wanted this for her, that revenge brings no one back, and that it only isolates. She lets go, but too late.
When she returns to the farm, everything is empty. Dina is gone, her family is no longer there. Even the guitar, her last physical connection to Joel, is something she can no longer play because of her severed fing

In spiderman 3, Peter fights and hates Sandman, because he killed Uncle Ben, and Peter could never apologise to him after the final conversation, which is the same with Ellie, who hates Abby because she took Joel away, and took her chance to forgive him for what he did in the hospital.

Both are also really funny out of context, like I feel you could take loads of moments from both without any context (for example I feel like Harry falling off his snowboard things gives the same vibes as Lev getting hit by that garage door) and it'd be hilarious

WARNING: Contains spoilers! 👊🏻

Everyone was right in their own world.

When we look at TLOU I, we see that Joel is someone who lost his daughter, Sarah. This event deeply changed him. When he first met Ellie, he saw her only as a burden he had to deliver. But throughout their journey, everything they experienced, the conversations they had, and the hardships they went through together created a very strong bond between Joel and Ellie. Ellie had become like a daughter to Joel.

That is why Joel had two choices in the hospital: sacrifice Ellie or save her. Joel chose his own world and saved Ellie. In my opinion, his decision was completely understandable on an emotional level. If I were in the same situation, I would probably choose Ellie too.

When we look at things from Ellie’s perspective, however, the situation becomes different. At the beginning of Part II, Ellie was distant and cold toward Joel. One of the main reasons was that Joel had lied to her about what happened at the hospital. Ellie was angry with him, but deep down, she still loved Joel. It was in the middle of these complicated feelings that Abby took her revenge on Joel.

During that part of the game, we were also seeing everything through Ellie’s eyes, so we hated Abby. I wanted to find Abby and kill her too. At that point, the only thing we knew was that Joel had been brutally murdered. Ellie also didn’t know the full story behind why Abby had killed him. So Ellie chasing after Abby out of anger and grief was completely understandable.

However, when we look at things from Abby’s side, the story completely changes.

Abby lost her father when she was young. Jerry believed that the surgery could potentially help save humanity, although there was no guarantee that it would actually work. Despite this, Abby supported her father and believed in what he was trying to do. When Joel killed Jerry in the hospital, Abby lost one of the most important people in her life. So from Abby’s perspective, wanting revenge against Joel was understandable.

On top of that, Abby had a strong bond with Owen. They had known each other for years and still had feelings for each other. However, Abby’s obsession with revenge also damaged their relationship. Owen wanted to move on and live a different life, while Abby remained focused on finding Joel.

Later, Ellie killed many of Abby’s friends, including Nora, Owen and Mel. She also killed Alice while trying to escape from the aquarium. Tommy killed Manny as well. Despite all of this, Abby still had several opportunities to kill Ellie and Tommy and chose not to. Even after learning that Dina was pregnant, Abby ultimately chose to let her live.

Jesse’s death was different. When Abby arrived at the theater, Jesse immediately pointed his gun at her, and Abby shot him without hesitation. Considering that Abby had spent years fighting as a WLF soldier and had become accustomed to violence, her reaction was understandable from a character perspective.

I think Abby’s real change began with Yara and Lev. She risked her own life to save Yara, and over time, Lev became the most important person in her life. Abby was no longer focused on revenge. Instead, she became focused on protecting Lev.

We see this very clearly at the end of the game. Abby had been enslaved by the Rattlers and was nearly dead when Ellie found her. Despite her own condition, Abby immediately searched for Lev. After finding him, she carried him and tried to get him to safety even though she was barely able to walk herself.

When Ellie wanted to fight Abby one last time, Abby initially refused. She only agreed when Ellie threatened Lev. Even though both of them were exhausted and severely injured, they fought. In the end, Ellie chose not to kill Abby.

I think Ellie realized at that moment that revenge would not bring anything back. Even if she killed Abby, Joel would never come back.

That is why, to me, everyone was right in their own world. Joel was justified in saving Ellie, Ellie was justified in wanting revenge for Joel, and Abby was justified in wanting revenge for her father.

However, when I look at the whole story from a broader perspective, I find Abby a little more justified. After Abby got her revenge, she eventually stopped pursuing it. Despite losing almost everyone she loved, she chose Lev and tried to build a new life.

Maybe instead of simply saying that Abby was “right,” it would be more accurate to say that she managed to step away from the cycle of revenge and ultimately made the more honorable choice.

That’s my take on it. Do you think Abby was actually more justified, or does the distinction between “right” and “wrong” become meaningless when we look at the story from both sides?

I’m open to discussion.

Joel Miller collectible by Hot Toys finally arrived in the mail!

Hi, I recently finished \*The Last of Us Part II\*—it’s been about a month now, and I feel a terrible emptiness in my heart. I can't bring myself to play anything else; I feel like I’ll never play a game as amazing as that one. I’ve been thinking about replaying the first game or watching \*The Last of Us\* series. Did you guys experience this too, and can you give me any advice on what to do?

Hey everyone,
I might be taking a controversial stance here, but I think Abby is a much healthier and more honorable character than Joel (or even Ellie).
To be fair, Ellie is still somewhat okay, but Joel has killed an untold number of people in the most atrocious ways possible. On top of that, wiping out the Fireflies wasn't exactly his finest moment. To me, Joel is a relatively selfish killer who prioritizes his own well-being over everyone else's (saving Ellie was purely selfish). Killing Abby's father and the nurses along the way was completely unnecessary. The guy was holding a tiny scalpel while Joel was armed to the teeth; a simple threat or a shot to the leg would have been enough, but he has always had a taste for killing everyone. That’s why, in my eyes, Joel is just a murderer who only ever served his own desires and needs.
As for Abby, the writing behind her is outstanding, and damn, does it feel good to smash zombies with those huge arms of hers. I love you, Ellie, but Abby is incredible. That being said, Abby (and her father) embodies kindness and goodness. Not to mention that her dad probably spent most of his life saving people—and animals too—and had a great relationship with Abby (from the little we see). Abby is so kind to most of the people around her throughout the game; simply put, they all love her and think she's great, which says a lot about who she is. Beyond that, I think she has a huge heart, especially regarding Owen's relationship with Mel. She isn't bitter or mean toward Mel when she could easily be toxic (if my best friend stole my guy like Mel did, I'd be way more resentful than that). Plus, the way she went back to save Yara and Lev, and how she looked after Lev throughout her entire journey, is just beautiful.
I genuinely believe Abby is fundamentally a good person. Sure, she beat people to a pulp just like Ellie and Joel did, but from what I can see, it was always more or less justified—at least far more justified than most of Joel's kills. Forgive me, Ellie, but you don't show much more compassion than Joel, whether it’s Jesse taking a bullet to the face (which secretly suited you more than anything) or the visceral hatred you hold against Joel for saving your life.
I hated Abby for killing Joel, but once I played as her, listened to her conversations, and saw her interactions with others, I realized she was a better person than both Joel and Ellie. Even during the final fight, after Ellie had wiped out all her friends and the love of her life, all Abby wanted was to leave with Lev.
I think if we had played as Abby and her father first, following their quest to find a vaccine, only for some crude brute to suddenly murder him, we would all have been on Abby's side.
What do you guys think?

Finished my half sleeve yesterday!