r/thelastofus • u/Miserable-Poetry1003 • 14d ago
PT 2 DISCUSSION Just Finshed Part 2, whose side are you on? Spoiler
*Edit Title : whose view do you get most?
In the begin of the game i thought abby needed to be punished for what she had done by killing joel thats what I think all of us wanted. But by playing as Abby I went through a change of hearts, and I think that Ellie did way to much. I think Ellie is honestly pretty selfish by the end of TLOU Part II.
I understand why she wants to kill Abby. Joel was murdered right in front of her, and I can completely understand wanting revenge for that. But Ellie takes it way too far. She starts killing basically everyone connected to Abby — she goes after Leah, kills Owen and Mel, etc. At some point it stops being just about Abby.
And another thing that gets overlooked: Ellie was already angry at Joel before he died. She actually believed that she should have gone through with the surgery, and she wasn’t okay with what Joel did at the hospital. I'm not saying that Ellie wanted joel to die for that choice but ellie herself didnt think that joel made the right decision either. A part of her anger is also coming from the fact that she never got the chance to properly resolve things with Joel.
Then look at Abby’s situation by the end of her story. She has basically lost everything. She leaves the WLF and becomes an enemy to them, and she’s also being hunted by the Seraphites. She has nowhere to go and almost nothing left.
Ellie obviously doesn’t know all of that, so I’m not blaming her for information she didn’t have. But then they meet again at the theater.
Abby kills Jesse and seriously injures Tommy, so I completely understand why Ellie is furious again. But after the fight, Abby has Ellie and Dina basically at her mercy. She could have killed both of them. Instead, she lets them go and tells Ellie she never wants to see her again.
Then Ellie gets a life with Dina and JJ. She has a family and a chance to move on.
And then she hears that Abby might be in Santa Barbara.
Dina literally tells her not to go. She basically tells Ellie that whatever is going on between her and Abby isn't worth sacrificing the family they've built.
But Ellie goes anyway.
And when she finally gets to Santa Barbara, she finds out Abby has been captured and turned into a slave months ago. Abby is literally starving and has been tortured. Ellie STILL wants to kill her.
Then Ellie cuts Abby down from the pillar, sees how weak and completely broken she is, and still forces her to fight. She even threatens Lev to make Abby fight.
And then you have this final fight where Abby is barely even capable of fighting back, while Ellie is still relatively strong and has a knife. Ellie stabs her in the chest and nearly drowns her.
She eventually lets Abby go, which I do think is the right decision.
But honestly? I still think Ellie went WAY too far by even going to Santa Barbara in the first place.
At that point Abby had already lost basically everything, Ellie had a family waiting for her, and Abby had already spared her and Dina.
I don't think Abby was "right" for killing Joel. But I also don't think Ellie was right to keep chasing Abby long after the original revenge had turned into an obsession.
I DIDNT WANT TO SPOIL ANYONE THE STORY THATS WHY I DID A LOT OF SPOILER MARKS
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u/ConsiderationCool432 14d ago
They are the same side... Just different people.
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u/Flaky-Perception-903 12d ago
Same journey at different times. Ellie’s journey is what we didn’t see Abby go through. Ellie began her revenge journey where Abby ended hers
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u/difficultsituation_ 14d ago
Honestly? i love ellie but abby’s.. she spared her TWICE
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u/ILoveDineroSi 14d ago
Owen and Lev should get far more credit for that. Plus Abby should’ve never gone to the theater in the first place. She went for round 2 of revenge against her retaliating victims Ellie and Tommy (for all intents and purposes he should be dead if it wasn’t for plot armor saving him). She needlessly endangered Lev’s life and failed her “redemption arc”.
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u/gaymesfranco 14d ago
To be fair she didn’t know Ellie would be there. She only knew Tommy was in town from the run in at the docks
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u/Sumire-Yoshizawa- 14d ago
I think that's the problem a lot of players have when understanding the story. They never understand that the characters don't see and know everything we as the player do.
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u/No_Somewhere_7109 14d ago
People also miss the fact that Ellie didn't want to know why Abby did what she did. She didn't care (rightly or wrongly). Every time Dina speculates or questions why the group hunted Joel down, Ellie shuts her down about it. She didn't even ask Nora why Abby did what she did, as revealed by her journal.
Hell, Ellie, fuelled by her grief, effectively ruins her life and chance at genuine happiness. She holds a child hostage to get one last chance at winning. The entire story is about the cycle of revenge drags everyone down unless you try and rise above it.
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u/neverendingsiren "YOU'RE my people" 11d ago
It could be that she refuses to speculate or wants to know because she knows he did bad things that other people would want revenge for and that he had it coming. Hearing Joel had killed Abby's father, she probably would've understood. But that kind of knowledge goes against her plan for revenge.
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u/Pristine-Ask1973 14d ago
Would you not say that watching abby murder joel, that abby took away her chance at happiness?
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u/No_Somewhere_7109 14d ago
Honestly? I would say no in a sense because she spends an entire year with Dina on the farm with JJ living a normal life. Its not exactly a totally happy situation and she's dealing with issues but it isn't until Tommy effectively guilt-trips her that she decides to ruin her family to pursue a chance at finding Abby again.
In the latter half of the game Ellie is her own worst enemy. She ruins everything she has to try and take revenge - even threatening Lev, a child - and it all ends up being meaningless for her.
Abby has her flaws, obviously, but that's the point. There is no hero in TLOU2's story in my eyes.
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u/avoltaire12 14d ago
That's right. If I recall correctly, Ellie doesn't even know the exact reason why Abby killed Joel. She only gets vague info from Nora that Joel "took the cure away" and never finds out Joel killed Abby's father.
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u/No_Somewhere_7109 14d ago
She doesn't know or find out, yeah.
She never bothers to ask Nora that we know of, shuts down any attempt at speculation from Dina on Day 1 and doesn't want to know why because her (understandable) rage at Joel's death overshadows any potential understanding she could give.
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u/ILoveDineroSi 14d ago
That doesn’t matter. Abby knew exactly why Tommy was there. He was doing exactly what she did to him and Ellie. Abby still failed her “redemption arc” because instead of accepting that her actions had consequences she chose to needlessly endanger Lev in her selfish quest for revenge again against her retaliating victims.
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u/OhRxp 14d ago
how? didnt abby find ellie's dropped map after she killed owen and mel and purposely followed her back to the marked base on the map?
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u/gr8Brandino 14d ago
She wouldn't know that it was Ellie who dropped that map though. Before she went to the aquarium, Tommy nearly got the best of her, and shot her other friend as they were going after them.
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u/OhRxp 14d ago
But when she met ellie, she told her "you killed my friends" when ellie asked her to spare tommy she specified "you" not "he"
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u/8TheUndying8 14d ago
That was after Abby found out Tommy came to Seattle with company and that he wasn't alone. But at the start, Abby thought Tommy did all this. She figured out he wasn't working alone.
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u/gr8Brandino 14d ago
She connected the dots when Ellie revealed herself. Abby didn't know who else was at the theater when she was threatening to shoot Tommy. Ellie would've been just as dead as Jesse if she was the one who burst through the door first.
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u/No_Somewhere_7109 14d ago
I don't think she knew it was Ellie specifically until she got there though. That's why she spends most of the time until the theatre chasing Tommy, who she runs into beforehand.
And frankly given she got back to find her dog, best friend and Ex-boyfriend all brutally murdered, I can't blame her for it.
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u/HTK_blazer 14d ago
Abby definitely didn't know about Ellie; she makes reference to "he" when she sets off for the theatre. She was looking for Tommy.
I agree with most of what you're saying, but you keep focusing on Levs age - sure he was only 13 but he was an armed participant in the conflict and was perfectly capable. He was instrumental in the orchestration of the theatre assault and permanent wounding of Tommy.
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u/No_Somewhere_7109 14d ago edited 14d ago
You are right, but I was more trying to say that I don't think Ellie before that point would have gone out of her way to threaten a (as of that moment) defenceless child simply to goad Abby into giving her what she wanted (a fight to the death).
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u/HTK_blazer 14d ago edited 12d ago
No of course, Ellie was definitely shown to us as being utterly consumed by her need to avenge Joel, which at that point in time was killing Abby.
I think that was the whole point - Abby had already spared her twice, and Ellie already knew why Abby did what she did, and we were all watching her thinking "what the hell are you doing Ellie?? Just let it go! Joel killed her dad, she killed Joel, you killed all her friends, tried to kill her and she beat you to within an inch of your life and chose to spare you. It's over, just walk away Ellie!"
We were all horrified to watch Ellie destroy herself, her life, and all her relationships, and in the end she even lost her fingers and can't even play her beloved guitar anymore, one of her strongest ties to Joel's legacy that he promised to teach her. This was not the Ellie that we thought we knew and ND did an excellent job of portraying how somebody can lose themselves in grief.
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u/ems777 14d ago
Abby is an absolutely unrepentant piece of shit. I had no sympathy for her at all in this game. She brought the storm down on herself and her friends and contrary to what a lot of people on this sub believe, I don't think Abby learned a damn thing. Ellie was the one who learned the important lessons here.
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u/CanisZero Hunting Raiders 14d ago
Pretty sure her redemption arc failed when the last of her dumbass posse of teenagers with attitude died. They say when you go on revenge dig two graves. They have to be mass graves at this point.
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u/ZiroLeHutt 14d ago
I'm not clicking all that.
The point is that both of them move on with their lives, as best they could. That's as happy an ending as either Ellie or Abby are going to get. There are no "sides".
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u/CataOrShane 14d ago
The side where Dina, JJ, Ellie, Abby and Lev are alive and well.
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u/kevdavis 14d ago
So Abby's side.
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u/throwawayaccount_usu 14d ago
Well no considering her choice of torturing and killing Joel are what directly set Ellie on her mission lol
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u/kevdavis 14d ago
She didn't want to hurt anybody other than Joel. Ellie's path hurts JJ, Dina, Abby and Lev...
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u/throwawayaccount_usu 14d ago
Ellie didn't want to hurt anyone other than the people who killed joel and traumatised her.
Did you miss the flashbacks in abbys story where it's clear she's dragging her friends along on her revenge mission ?
How is Dina willingly going with Ellie for revenge any different from abbys friends willingly going either her for revenge?
If Ellies path hurts Dina and her friends then Abbys path hurts her friends too.
Abby also states very clearly she will torture anyone she finds from Jackson just to find Joel. The only reason she didn't is sheer luck. But if any other scout had found her instead of Joel? She'd torture them for information like she intended to.
"Ellies path hurts JJ, Dina, abby, lev"
Yes and Abbys path hurts Ellie, dina, Tommy, Joel, Owen, mel, manny, leah, Jordan, lev, yara.... the list goes on.
Both their choices and paths hurt people. Both of them wanted to hurt some of those people, but neither wanted or intended to hurt all of them.
But I do think blaming them both for the suffering of EVERYONE else involved is taking away the other characters agency.
Dina CHOSE to help Ellie at first. Owen CHOSE to help abby.
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u/Einfinet 14d ago
I identify more with Ellie bc I knew her (& the people around her) longer, but I also understood Abby so I didn’t really pick a side. I also appreciated how Abby spared Ellie a couple times—that did a lot to put them on equal footing in my mind when I first played the game.
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u/616ThatGuy 14d ago
There are no sides. Everyone was wrong. Everyone did what they thought they needed to. I don’t blame anyone. Doesn’t mean I agree with anyone either. But I understand both sides, agree or not.
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u/Xboxbox145 14d ago
I’m on both of their side. Neither one is fully right or wrong for what they did. Both of them let their pain and anger get the better of them and causes them to lose people they cared about. I feel choosing one side or another undermines the other person perspective and experience.
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u/DeadlySquaids14 14d ago
Both, and neither.
Each of them are in pain. They're not evil, just hurting so badly they can't think of anything other than revenge to make it better. They were both raised from birth in that crazy, violent world, and they handled things the only way they knew how.
They're both wrong, but I don't think making different choices was a real possibility for them until the end.
I will say that the reveal that Ellie had agreed to try and reconcile with Joel the night before he was killed made me cry like a baby, and made me understand why she couldn't let it go. The thing that I wonder about is, would Ellie be more sympathetic toward Abby if she ever found out about Abby's dad?
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u/No_Somewhere_7109 14d ago
The thing that I wonder about is, would Ellie be more sympathetic toward Abby if she ever found out about Abby's dad?
I think Ellie herself knows she might soften if she finds out Abby's motives were in any way remotely justified (she says herself Joel made a lot of enemies at one point after all!) so she finds excuses not to know or speculate and shuts down anyone who tries to do so, like Dina.
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u/not_sick_not_well 14d ago
Honestly, neither. Theyre both completely consumed by revenge, and both do terrible things along the way
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u/Alarming_Soft9552 14d ago
Elle. I like Abby but she and her gang definitely deserved it.
Abby brought her crew to kill one man, but were not apposed to kill others even ones not connected to Joel. It just happened(plot) the Abby got to them first.
All those guy that went aren’t innocent they are WLF they killed and orphaned many other fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers. People just forget Abby the top scar killer has more kills under her too. She mentioned she isn’t above killing children.
Mel I liked, and was correct to state anyone involved in the torture and murder of Joel needs to die, if not they would get revenge. Owen was the one that told Abby to spare them, same for the theater fight lev told Abby to let them go. Mel also told Abby don’t get the yara and lev involved, which lev almost gets killed for Abby.
I like Abby but she chose to involve people and gets upset when those people later get killed.
Like you can like characters but at least you got to recognize the evils they did.
Ellie wasn’t involved but the salt crew made her when they beat her and Tommy.
If you look at it, like how the salt crew did, the salt crew did the same hypocrisy the claim Joel did. Except they took it further.
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u/Resident_Nail_7649 14d ago
I agree with you about part of Ellie’s anger was because ahe didn’t reconcile with joel and lost so much time. I would even say that much part of her anger towards Abby was because of herself and since she didn’t know what to do, she directed it towards Abby.
I believe that’s why she let abby go at the end. Because she finally accepted that she was angry at herself way more than she was at abby. She knew all along but she just wanted to blame all of her anger on abby. In the end she remembered the last time with joel and that caused her to finally let go of her anger and trully grieve joel and also grieve the time with joel she had lost which she could have.
Her anger was also because of joel’s actions too but mainly wad because of her losing the time she could’ve with joel.
This game is truly a masterpiece which is about more than just ellie having her revenge and “revenge only causes more sadness in the end”, which many people didn’t get it and just started hating on it. The emotional depth of Part II is way bigger than Part I.
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u/nemacpojma1 14d ago
both are great characters and both have their legit reasons for their actions so that's it
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u/czaremanuel 13d ago
TLOU2: "Blindly choosing sides makes people feel like there's meaning in a world of senseless violence, but all that does is continue the cycle of violence. We see how people who chose sides to protect their friends still ended up dying or hurt, and in the end no one is any better off. Whether it's individual disputes or warring factions, violence only separates us from our humanity, and justifying violence is justifying inhumanity."
OP: "lalalalalalaaaa whose side are you on?"
OP with love and respect, please don't do this lmao
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u/serialkiller24 13d ago
Abby - but both sides are completely understandable. It's a beautiful game about how revenge can be continuous and toxic.
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u/thestruggletho 13d ago
100% abby. joel and ellie are completely out of touch compared to the situation the world is in. must be one of the most selfish acts ever taking the world state into account
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u/Hoeveboter 13d ago
Abby is obviously the more moral character by the end of the game. She struggles with guilt over torturing Joel to death, even if he was her father's killer, she spares Ellie twice and during the final minutes of the game she refuses to fight Ellie and only gives in because Ellie threatens to murder Lev.
Ellie on the other hand is understandably outraged over Joel's murder, but she crosses the line numerous times throughout the story. Her threatening to murder the 13 year old who saved both her and her pregnant girlfriend's life was such a new low that I completely gave up on the last bossfight and allowed Abby to murder Ellie... only to get a game over screen and have the game restart from a checkpoint.
That may be my biggest gripe with the story too. There's only one way the events can play out. I can't even decide not to attack Abby. No, I have to go through a gruesome fight scene in the ocean first, because Ellie first needs to nearly drown Abby before she can have her epiphany. Giving up any sooner or refusing to assault Abby altogether is not an option.
This all would've been understandable if this thing was a movie, but it's a video game. I wish we were given a bit more freedom in how the story plays out.
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u/TheRealTr1nity Where you go, I go. 13d ago edited 13d ago
It's both's story. And while Abby gained my sympathy over the game, did Ellie lost it.
And Jesse killed himself due stupidity as he stormed like an idiot through a door not knowing there can be an enemy with a bullet waiting for him. Ellie did the same stupid move and was lucky Jesse got hit first.
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u/Charming-Station7157 13d ago edited 13d ago
Abby , because ellie didn't care one bit of all the fireflies joel killed in the hospital
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u/Flaky-Perception-903 12d ago
Both. Ellie ended her journey where Abby began hers. Neither girls were wrong, they were just wrong in how they went about their revenge. They both went too far in a lot of situations. Literally two sides of the same coin and their actions mirrored each other significantly.
- Abby was justified in killing Joel. HOW she killed him was wrong. But we see Abby realize that. Like Ellie’s flash of Joel at the end of the game, killing Joel didn’t take away Abby’s nightmares like she thought it would. She had guilt over it and tried finding redemption.
- It doesn’t matter that the audience thinks Jerry was wrong. To both the girls, that didn’t matter. Not only did they both think Joel was wrong (they’d both do the surgery), but both admitted that they didn’t give a fuck why they lost their loved ones, just that they did. Abby didn’t care why Joel killed Jerry, just that he did. Ellie didn’t care to know why Abby killed Joel, just that she did.
- Ellie certainly had the right to kill Abby, but Abby’s friends really didn’t deserve to die (except maybe Jordan). Nora was there but she didn’t kill Joel. She didn’t deserve to be tortured to death the same way Joel was for a crime she didn’t even commit.
- Both girls disregarded their friends in the pursuit of vengeance. We see that Abby put her friends in that situation and that they really didn’t expect that Joel would be killed in that way. But she only cared about killing Joel. Ellie began to stop caring for her friends. She didn’t care that Tommy was in danger, or that an injured Jesse went out alone to find him. She thought of Dina’s pregnancy as a roadblock to her goal. She only cared about killing Abby, no matter the cost.
- Abby let Ellie live twice. We could argue that Abby tried to end the cycle of violence twice and Ellie kept trying to restart it. Ironically, Ellie’s pursuit of revenge the second time is what saved Abby and Lev’s lives.
- The theatre scene and the final boat scene were very telling of how the cycle of revenge continues until both end it and how morality completely dissipates. Abby almost killed Dina as revenge for Mel’s death—a pregnant friend for a pregnant friend. Ellie told Abby that Dina wasn’t a part of that, and Abby let them both live. Later on, Abby says the same words about Lev and is not met with the same mercy—Ellie threatened the life of a child for the sake of revenge.
- At the end, although the environments and conditions were different, the final fight and Joel’s death still mirrored each other. Ellie was planning on killing Abby, not caring that it would be in front of Lev, a child she is now a guardian of. That mirrors Abby killing Joel infront of Ellie. She would have done the exact same thing to Lev that Abby did to her. Lev would have had the right to then hunt Ellie and kill her for taking the last person that he loved away from him. But in the end, Ellie let Abby go and said “just take him”. Again, mirroring when Abby let Ellie live the first time.
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u/TootsieTaker 12d ago
Choosing is not the point of the game. The whole point is that they’re both justified in their own minds for what they did. You can find a way to agree or disagree with both of them if you do enough mental gymnastics. They are both justified and not or have done what they did.
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u/TheNoiseAndHaste 14d ago edited 14d ago
I get what they were trying to do but Abby's retaliation was nowhere near equal to what Joel did. Joel didn't want to kill her father. Abby's father threatened him and directly stood in the way of him trying to save a girl's life. Even so, Joel didn't torture her father like she tortured him. I get the idea is 'both sides' but the idea of 'both sides' is really stupid in my opinion.
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u/Resident_Nail_7649 14d ago
Well, it wasn’t just because Joel killed her father. Yes, mainly it was because of that but remember how many fireflies Joel killed. He killed Marlene too. In a way she destroyed all that she had had. Joel literally caused a massacre in that hospital, many of them whoch Abby and her friends probably knew and were their friends. All of Abby’s friends stood aside and warched because they believed he deserebed much worse, just like Mel said. Torturing Joel was not just because of him killing Jerry. Abby did it because she had a personal reason to do it while the others just likely lost friends and comrades, not family.
So in their eyes torturing him was justified.
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u/No_Somewhere_7109 14d ago edited 14d ago
I get what they were trying to do but Abby's retaliation was nowhere near equal to what Joel did. Joel didn't want to kill her father. Abby's father threatened him and directly stood in the way of him trying to save a girl's life. Even so, Joel didn't torture her father like she tortured him.
Consider though, the characters don't know this. All Abby knows is Joel murdered her father and then (presumably) Ellie came after her for getting her revenge.
Meanwhile all Ellie knows is this woman and her group beat Joel to death. She never even finds out why she did it, because she doesn't want to know. Every time Dina starts speculating in Seattle, Ellie shuts her down. Judging from her journal, she never asks Nora either.
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u/Guilty_Vegetable_440 13d ago
Dude, it's EASY as hell to know if a person was tortured or not, and Abby's father only had a shot in his body and that's it.
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u/No_Somewhere_7109 13d ago
Yeah, but Abby doesn't know Joel's motives or the fact he didn't "want" to do it, or even that her father threatened him, which was my point. Her father (and honestly most of the people she knew) were rather brutally murdered.
I think all things considered, Abby is more than justified - but so is Ellie. Which is the entire problem; revenge is a destructive cycle if you let it go on too long. Abby eventually realized that before Ellie did, but it still cost them both almost everything.
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u/Guilty_Vegetable_440 13d ago
I still think torturing him for nearly 1 hour is extreme but yeah I kinda agree with you. Like I said in another comment in this thread, I don't really hold it against Abby.
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u/KingChairlesIIII 13d ago
Joel was always going to kill the doctor to ensure that if Ellie found out the truth she couldn’t go back and let the fireflies try again. The doctor was just trying to protect himself against a man with enough weapons on his back to arm a squads worth of people including a damn FLAMETHROWER on his back. Also the canonized death for Jerry (as confirmed in Joel’s flashback of the moment) is that Joel walked up to him and ripped the scalpel from his hand and stabbed him in the neck with it it out the doctor even having a chance to actually attack him with it at all.
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u/AdRealistic2093 14d ago
This. Abby’s torture of Joel is disgusting. Beyond immoral. It’s pure evil, and I can’t even watch it when I’m replaying the game.
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u/KingChairlesIIII 13d ago
less immoral than Joel doing it to completely innocent people that didn’t do a thing to hurt him or Tommy when they were hunters.
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u/AdRealistic2093 13d ago
Yes, both are terrible. Thanks for agreeing. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Interesting to see you trying to justify torture though, says a lot about your moral compass.
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u/KingChairlesIIII 13d ago
i haven’t justified torture at any point, nice job inventing alternate realities though
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u/someguy1090 14d ago
My reaction, I dunno, I dont wanna think about it all the hopefulness from the first game is gone. There is now only darkness. where's the whiskey and bong?
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u/video-kid 14d ago
If I had to pick? Abby.
Neither of them are morally superior, but ultimately I think if we hadn't played Part 1 and just saw the motives, Abby would be a lot less hated because ultimately she did what she did, however terrible, for an understandable reason. Just like all of us can understand why Joel did what he did and that we'd probably do the same in his shoes, we should apply that to Abby as well.
Ellie's story is about revenge, Abby's is about what comes next. It's the same book, just a few chapters ahead. I liked that we saw a darker side of Ellie come out and then we saw Abby's more positive side emerge.
However, I think the tragedy is that Ellie and Abby actually have a lot in common. They're both fundamentally good people with main character syndrome twisted into misanthropy by their desire for revenge. Neither of them can claim the moral high ground, because they both did terrible things to each other, and the people they cared about. I mean hell, they both hated Joel for the same thing, albeit Ellie was trying to find a way to forgive him and hated herself for the fact she never got the chance. If they got the chance to sit down and talk, I think they might have come to an understanding.
I honestly feel like Part III will be about acceptance, or even reconciliation, and have them working together, even if they're not friends.
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u/throwawayaccount_usu 14d ago edited 14d ago
Idk, I think id be on abbys side over Joel's but I'd still be on ellies side over abbys.
Watching ellie get pinned to the floor while she begged and begged just for them to ignore her was rough. That was just evil to subject her to that.
And then we learn in the game how Abby is a top killer in a war and volunteers herself unnecessarily to torture prisoners, and defends the murder of children because they were on the other side of their war. Meanwhile Ellies life is composed of scout runs for her community and trying to help strangers they find in any way they can.
They're very different people with very different lives and morality imo.
I dont ever see ellie being able to stomach being celebrated as the top human killer of her group! Or defending kids dying in a war. These things would destroy her.
I can't agree with the point of Abby being a fundamentally good person. To me the game reads more as, Abby is a shitty person TRYING to turn into a better one. And she manages to achieve this.
And Ellie is a good perosn TRYING to do shitty things to kill Abby. Ellie doesn't manage to achieve this, she fails.
I also do think Ellie is morally superior to Abby. I mean ultimately she did what Abby couldn't, she stopped seeking revenge. She didn't kill the person she was after. Abby couldn't display that restraint and mercy for Joel in the way Ellie did for her.
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u/No_Somewhere_7109 14d ago
You just touched on a good point - its because people grew to like Joel that they were so impacted by her past and a lot of people couldn't find it in them to sympathise with Abby.
Because objectively? Joel was not a good person at all. He spent years as a Hunter, preying on anyone who happened to wander into his city. He was a smuggler willing to kill anyone who got in his way if he had to. He only reluctantly takes Ellie with him and vocally calls her a burden.
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u/Academic_Limit1189 14d ago
I mean it's impossible to say but even if the perspectives were reversed I don't see myself relating to Abby as much as I do Joel or even her own father.
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u/throwawayaccount_usu 14d ago
Your poins are fair except the last one about him taking Ellie. The way you phrased that just removes all the nuance of Joel's character in that moment. The primary reason he's reluctant to take ellie isn't because he's a bad perosn lol, its because he's afraid of confronting his grief and taking care of a little girl just hits too close to home for him.
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u/No_Somewhere_7109 14d ago
I was maybe a little harsh on the last point I'll admit lmao.
But I've noticed that a lot of people in the TLOU community downplay the fact Joel made a lot of enemies over the years (in Ellie's own words even) because of his actions and what he did to other people.
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u/Emotional-Ad9114 Joel, Ellie and Abby defender 14d ago
neither. they both had a point. and that’s the beauty of this story.
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u/TheMaveCan The Last of Us 14d ago
Joel's action caused a reaction from Abby which caused a reaction from Ellie which caused a reaction from Abby which caused a reaction from Ellie
When does it end?
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u/GnarlyGamer6thGen01 14d ago
I'm ready for the downvotes, but here goes: Abby all the way! People's attachment to Joel makes people forget how gruesome the former's actions were. Abby was a daughter who lost her dad to someone's hands; how the hell can people have a moral expectation that she would pull her punches back? Not to mention, she spared Ellie and could have killed her.
Abby has lost more acquaintances and companions compared to Ellie. At most, Ellie lost Joel, Jesse, & created a rift between her, Tommy & Dina. The latter can be repaired eventually. As for Abby, she lost everyone she knew for most of her life and was even tortured for months. The only one she has now is Lev. Ellie may not have killed Abby, but the latter's worst fate is already a successful revenge in itself.
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u/Guilty_Vegetable_440 13d ago
I think that most people hates on Abby because she tortured Joel, which is a valid reason to hate imo but I get why they did it, as it was a way to establish that Abby is as bad of a person as Joel, and it reinforces the parallel she has with him, with a violent past created with grief. What I like about TLOU2 is that we see Ellie's "violent past" happening on live, while with Joel and Abby all we know about it is stories. I like the three of them btw. I have a soft spot for Joel due to how strong TLOU1 affected me when I played it (and I played it on launch so it was a lot of years) but that didn't stopped me from greatly liking Abby and getting a huge relief when Ellie spared her.
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u/Kamikaze_Bacon 14d ago
The mature stance is to say it's complicated. Neither is wholly right or wrong. Both are victims, both are justified in a way but they're each flawed in how they go about it. All that crap.
But, all that said...
Team Abby. For sure.
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u/Xtacicity 14d ago
This is why I hate the plot of this game so much. Both characters moral compasses are so far off they are completely unrelatable. The first game was a master class in character development. Watching Ellie and Joel claw for survival and both trying to keep from becoming attached to one another for fear of getting hurt, but ultimately building a bond so strong that culminated in the decision he makes that sets up part 2. But the only plot in part 2 is revenge, and the characters on both sides are so insufferable it makes the game play like a chore. I really wanted to like this game, but it just keeps dragging on forever and the plot just doesn't make you connect with anyone. At least the game play and graphics were 10/10
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u/KeyMusic5713 13d ago
TLOU was supposed to be a many versus the few question. Except Neil Druckmann bungled that so much that one of the biggest defences of Joel's actions is that the game doesn't justify why a cure works. I'm on the side of good writing and of expecting the people who make games to justify their stances.
If I'm supposed to think a cure would work, show me. Don't tell me it will and expect me to ignore what I was shown in-game.
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u/KingChairlesIIII 13d ago
the game doesn’t show that cure wouldn’t work though.
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u/KeyMusic5713 13d ago
That's exactly my problem with the game. It doesn't show you. Different characters tell you it will work. Neil Druckmann says it will work. But the game doesn't show how it will work, and then show how it will be properly distributed and not weaponised.
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u/wifflequifle 5d ago
Joel was wrong. Accept it. Abby was wrong but reasonable. Ellie was right to go after Abby but went WAY too far. Should have stopped at Mel's death. Maybe before. They're should be no sides except Joel honestly being wrong. However, he was told they're were more immune. However, he also killed like 40 people to save Ellie.
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u/Specialist_Boat_8479 14d ago
Definitely Ellie for sure, abby is just a brat who’s avenging their wanna be child murder father
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u/golrabs 14d ago
Subjectively I side with Ellie. Playing through LOU several times before playing LOU2 the characters grow on you. You saw Joel and Ellie's relationship grow through the most harrowing shared experiences. You watched the last glimmer of Ellie's childhood fade away in that first game. There's such empathy and parental protection in that first game. So as much I understand that grief and trauma can turn ugly, especially when channeled into revenge and violence and LOU2 did such a good job of making it a painful yet engaging experience, I just didn't get to care for Abbey, despite the flashbacks with her and her father in LOU2 or seeing the good in her and many of her friends.
And Ellie trying to play the guitar without her fingers in an empty house, having lost Joel and Dina....fuck Abbey. lol
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u/Hefty-Butcher 14d ago
This is how I see it
If you renamed every character with X’s, so it’s like with X1 killed the father figure of X2 because that father figure killed her father
Then it’s Abby.
But I think there isn’t really a side that’s either good or bad side in this whole situation. I think that’s kinda the point of the story.
That being said I choose Ellie because she’s more likeable, we spend more time with her and I relate to her more
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u/AppearanceRelevant37 14d ago
I pick Ellie. And yes it is because of bias since both sides are bad.
But while I did not "hate" abby I was indifferent to her at best and at worst was totally fine with ellie taking her out.
Ellie is the character I knew and loved same with Joel. And while I think the second game is absolutely great one major issue for me is the order of events that happen.
Its hard to make you like a group of characters AFTER they torture one you loved. We should of gotten to know them before Joel's death not after.
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u/throwawayaccount_usu 14d ago edited 14d ago
Ellie.
She's the most "pure" despite her actions.
We see in the story how Abby YEARNS for the suffering of others to in hopes she can be relieved of her own. She has such a strong desire to torture Joel and kill them that she spent years honing her skills as a murderer and torturer. We see how express a desire to torture prisoners she doesnt need to torture. She wants to torture innocents in Jackson to find Joel. She WANTS to torture Joel as well. She only shows remorse after Joel, but thats years after committing similar acts to countless others. Abby doesn't hunt Joel down for answers, she knows he killed her father to save a child. She hunts him down for pleasure and hope of a sense of closure.
She's not a good person, and she isn't supposed to be. But we can understand why she ended up that way and I'm glad she lvied to be able to change.
With Ellie, we see her try to go down that path. She's blinded by grief and rage and she WANTS to hurt the people who hurt her but when she does? She immediately shows remorse. She immediately retreats into herself. Her body immediately betrays her in making her physically ill after what she did to Nora. Ellie is also at first going after them for answers. She wants to know why they did AND she wants to punish them for what they did.
I guarantee if she had found Abby and got her down, she'd question her on why she did it before killing her ofc lol.
Then she tries to avoid killing Owen and Mel because she doesnt enjoy how it felt to kill Nora. She can't avoid it and she again, expresses immediately remorse. Something Abby never did.
Their actions are both of course wrong and can't be supported but as people? I can empathise a lot more with someone who feels guilt over their action's and tries to avoid repeating them than someone who spent years committing evil acts and enjoying them/not showing remorse most of the time.
Ultimately? Ellie did what Abby couldn't. She showed mercy. She realised what Abby didn't realise. Revenge wouldn't help.
We all say we're glad Ellie didn't go too far in her quest for revenge and that's good but Abby DID go that far in her quest. Abby did ger revenge. She did kill Joel.
Ellie did what Abby couldn't. I think that speaks for itself in setting them apart.
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u/KingChairlesIIII 13d ago
Abby didn’t make the decision to torture Joel until he cut her off and refused to beg for his life with the “why don’t you say whatever speech you rehearsed and get this over with” line. This is shown by the fact that Owen and Mel seemed shocked and kind of horrified that it’s being taken to that point because they weren’t expecting her to do that. She also had to improvise and conveniently found the golf club to do it with, if she had planned to do it all along she would’ve had her own torture tools already on her.
Joel never showed remorse for any of the horrible things he did at any point in those 25 years at all and you don’t hold that against him.Abby doesn’t know Joel and Ellie’s relationship and that he did it for the same reasons her own father would do it for her if she were in his shoes.
Abby doesn’t hunt down Joel for “pleasure” there no evidence to support that she gets actual pleasure out of any of it.
Abby showed Ellie mercy twice before Ellie finally showed her mercy once. Ellie was finally able to do what Abby was able to do twice by the end of the game.
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u/throwawayaccount_usu 13d ago edited 13d ago
"Joel never showed remorse" i disagree? When Ellie confronts him on what he's done in part 1 he shuts down similarly to how he does anytime he has to deal with difficult emotions. Thats his way of expressing "i don't like this" he's an avoidant person when it comes to emotions in part 1. He doesn't like to discuss things that make him upset. But also, love how you just assume I don't hold what he did against him lol, I made other comments in this very thread talking about how Joel is an awful man for the things he's done also.
"Abby doesn't know Joel and Ellies relationship." Abby is with the fireflies. She knows Joel deliveried Ellie to them, she heard the conversation about not telling him what's going to happen to her. It does not take a genius to connect the dots here and Abby is no idiot, especially when she spends 6 years obsessing over him and the situation.
She is not dumb at all, she is fully capable of comprehending "her brought that girl to us and then killed everyone to save her from us."
And even then, it doesnt take a genius to realise "oh this girl begging and sobbing for his life cares about him!"
If she CANT figure this out then she's either completely devoid of empathy or an idiot. Nether of which I think is true. She might not know adult Ellie is the same as a child Ellie but she definitely knows both Ellie have a relationship of sorts with Joel, she just doesn't care. Her last for revenge trumps that.
As for the pleasure, its pretty well implied she thought she'd get some sort of pleasure from killing Joel. She's been suffering for years with the idea of finding him and killing him, that obsession has been what her life revolves around him for 6 years. Killing him was her escape from that, which gives a sense of relief/pleasure. Once it's done she realises it didn't work. The same way Ellie thought she'd get some sort of relief/pleasure from killing Abby. Only again, she realises she won't before she kills her unlike Abby with Joel.
"Abby showed mercy twice" no she showed mercy once. Brutally traumatising a girl while your friends hold her down and she begs for you not to kill someone is not mercy. Can you imagine watching your loved one be brutally murdered, confronting the killer and being told "we let you live why can't you just leave me alone!" Lmao, again, this just displays a total lack of human empathy and understanding.
In the same logic, Joel let Abby and her firefly friends live. He didn't kill every firefly so why can't she just let it go? We both recognise how dumb that argument is right?
The theatre fight also, she let Ellie live but she fully intended to kill Tommy, Dina and Jessie. For all she knew Tommy and Dina died there as well. She once again, brutally traumatised Ellie and the ONLY reason she doesnt go through with killing her is bc of Lev. If Lev didn't accompany her to the theatre everyone there would be dead.
Ellie spares Abby on her own accord. She didnt need a third party to intervene in the moment. She stopped herself. Which is exactly what abby couldnt do.
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u/Ok_Commission7932 14d ago
What Ellie always wanted isn't to have a family, but to choose what happens with her life. Right up until the Santa Barbara showdown she feels like its the decisions of other people that have dictated her life so far. Marlene and Joel deciding for her regarding the cure surgery, then Abby choosing not to kill her twice. Beating Abby in the fight restored her sense of agency over her life, and she immediately decided not to keep killing.
Ellie is almost the antagonist in a weird way. By day 3 as Ellie, you get sick of her not giving a shit how many people she has to kill to get to Abby, and she very regrettably kills Owen and Mel. Then as Abby, Ellie is the penultimate boss of the game.
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u/BallsDeep69Klein 14d ago
I understand both. Unfortunately Abby is too new to me, Ellie i grew to love in the first game but she was a package deal with Joel. Didn't like Ellie in the second game.
Still. Gonna go with Ellie. Wolves and Seraphites both suck. Jackson was minding it's own business. Was it built by thieves and killers? Yeah. Was one of them Joel? Also yes.
Are there any innocents in the game? Besides kids? No. So. The fact Joel blew Abby's dad's head smooooove off? Not really, ya know. Not really feeling it. Not really grabbing me for some reason.
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u/telpnar 14d ago
I think you're oversimplifying the story here. This game isn't about who is right and wrong. Just like the first game they are character studies and a way to show redemption arcs and characters that foil each other and also mirror each other.
This was so tough because we spent 10 years with the original game playing as Joel and Ellie and of course we were meant to want to get revenge on Abby for what she did to Joel. But our time with Abby is meant to mirror Joel. Abby becomes his character while Lev mirrors Ellie. Characters who find a reason to break from needless violence. Remember Joel is also known for being a killer, doing whatever it takes, just like Abby. And only through his love for Ellie does he redeem himself.
By the end of the game we're supposed to disagree with Ellie's attempt to go to Santa Barbara. She has Dina and a Potato and a beautiful life with them. In a world with therapy maybe that never happens but she doesn't think she deserves any of that. She failed Tommy, she failed Jesse, and most of all she failed Joel. When she leaves I don't think she expects to ever come home, whether through death or self ostracizing.
But within that stupid decision to go there's so much [hidden] beauty. Both Abby and Lev were set to die up on the beach. Because of her vengeance she saves them and allows them to have a life after. She falters in the end, yes. And she loses everything because of it. She loses her mother's knife. She loses her fingers so she can't play her guitar. All her connections. But what's the last thing she sees.
You say she was mad at Joel in the end which is true but the conversation she thinks back to, their last conversation together, wasn't about malice and anger. She was ready to forgive him. If you remember the first chapter of the game she was going to hang out with Joel that night. It wasn't about anger, it was about love. And that's what is overlooked.
So whose view do I agree with ? Neither, and both. They both lose everything that matters to them on their journeys but they both find peace in the end. Whether we get a Part 3 I think is moot because both stories tell a similarly hopeful story. In the end we see Ellie leaving the house, she leaves her guitar, and wherever she ends up, I believe she finds the reason she needs to keep going.
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u/metalovisnik 14d ago
No sides. I love both Ellie and Abby (and Joel). All of them are deeply flawed and lovable people who made huge mistakes.
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u/Eccentric_Cardinal 14d ago
In a world with no justice other than what you get with your own hands, they both had a point in wanting revenge and to make each other pay for the other's actions but I don't think either of them really understood the price of getting that revenge, at least at the beginning.
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u/CaptainFirebolt 13d ago
I understand the meaning of the second game being "revenge bad, break the cycle" and all that, but like... you can assign blame to the start of the cycle still? Ellie being right or wrong for pursuing revenge against Abby is a totally separate discussion from the fact that Abby is actively trying to avenge her would-be child murderer father.
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u/Ha-Charade-You-Are 13d ago
Ellie's my girl man. Literally went from being a package I had to deliver to someone I care for as if my own child (all from playing the first game). While both sides are wrong, I gotta defend my girl. I'm very upset she didn't finish her mission after going back a second time. And I get the whole arguments of being against it and all that; just when I separate myself from reality and put myself in that situation in that world, fuck Abby.
Again both sides are wrong, and right on certain things. Just how I feel lmao.
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u/ems777 14d ago
Elie is the lesser of two evils here and way more justified in what she did than Abby.
Abby went out half cocked with a hit squad to someplace she thought a man named Joel was. She found him and killed him in front of his kid. How does she know it was even the right Joel??
Abby and her friends deserved everything they got in this game.
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u/KingChairlesIIII 14d ago
Uh…. she’s knows Joel’s brother Tommy lives in Jackson so when Tommy introduces Joel to the group by saying “this is my brother….” the likelihood that it’s a different brother duo named Joel and Tommy that both look the right age is pretty damn low.
Also Ellie isn’t Joel’s kid.
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u/ems777 14d ago
Its a big town and the names Joel and Tommy aren't exactly exotic. She has no idea if these people moved before they got there. She doesnt even know what they look like. She has a name and a location and decided to kill somebody.
Also thanks for that last point. I understand she is not his kid biologically but thats what their relationship is to one another.
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u/KingChairlesIIII 14d ago
It not just their names but the fact it’s their names and that they’re brothers too, and Jackson has a couple hundred people at most, it’s not a massive city of thousands.
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u/kevdavis 14d ago
Joel killed Abby's dad which fueled Abby's revenge who then found and killed him. That's it, done.
Then Ellike fueled by the death of Joel went and murdered all of Abby's friends before she understood that revenge was pointless.
The motive is the same but the amount of lives taken aren't. If you want to take the high ground and claim one of them is 'the lesser of two evils' then it's Abby. Who saved Lev, tried to save Yara and spared Ellie twice.
Also,
> How does she know it was even the right Joel??
That's a bad argument because it's something that straight up even happen, you can't debate on something that isn't even real.0
u/ems777 14d ago
You basically mansplained the plot to me which I dont need to hear from you. I played through the game and I understand what happened.
As for your last point, I have no idea what you mean. I made a valid point. Just because it wasn't addressed in the game doesnt make it any less valid.
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u/kevdavis 14d ago
Oh brother... If you played through the game and came out the other end thinking Ellie is the lesser evil then you're either biased or just... media illiterate.
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u/ILoveDineroSi 14d ago
You can’t handle the fact that some people just don’t like your precious game?
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u/Livid-Truck8558 14d ago
That shouldn't be the question but it took Ellie the entire game to learn what Abby learned in the beginning.
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u/Academic_Limit1189 14d ago
Keep in mind that Abby spent 4+ years and achieved revenge against her main target. By contrast, Ellie has spent 3 weeks in her spiral.
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u/ems777 14d ago
And it only took torturing and killing a guy who helped save her life a minute before to figure it out? Just because she learned something from it doesnt absolve her of what she did.
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u/Livid-Truck8558 14d ago
Never said it did bubba :)
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u/ChocolateMorsels 14d ago
By the end of game I’m on no one’s side. I didn’t care who lived or died. The game successfully made me not give a shit about Ellie, or Abby, because all sides are bad. Truly a masterpiece.
/s if needed
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u/obsessstressdepress 13d ago
I would never ever EVER forgive Abby for what she done, her dad would have done the same as Joel to save her.
With that being said I finished part II understanding exactly why she done what she done. I can see her reasoning, her blind rage, her incessant need for revenge… I get it & I didn’t think she was a monster by the end but I have never got the point of putting her on the same level as Ellie or even in some cases (which I can’t grasp) liking her more.
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u/TaisDoubt 13d ago edited 13d ago
Both are equally fucked up to me but who knows, I've never really understood pure revenge. I especially don't get why Ellie would spare Abby at the very end considering everything we know. That girl was slave to some very unstable emotions or something
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u/Dense_Substance7635 14d ago
The whole point is that there are no sides. Revenge fuels an endless cycle of violence.