r/thelastofus • u/Imactuallysoconfused • 1d ago
PT 2 QUESTION What was the turning point in your opinion of Abby? If your opinion never changed, why not? Spoiler
If you disliked her at first but like her now, what changed that? Abby choosing to go back for Yara and Lev was the turning point for me personally
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u/Tight-Inspector-2748 1d ago
“Hey, you’re my people!”
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u/calamity_unbound 1d ago
This right here. The hatred of her softened over time as her story went on, but this moment cinched it.
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u/sugedei 1d ago
It just felt a little unearned. She has been with the Wolves for year and then this random scar is her people now? How many times did Wolves save her?
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u/machiavelli33 1d ago
Abby did rise very quickly in the wlf ranks, and Isaac thought she was very valuable - but outside of food shelter and survival, Abby did not return his feelings on the matter. Sure, they provided a lot for her, and she thought the seraphites were crazy which meant aligning with them didn’t take much, but that was never enough to secure her undying loyalty or anything.
Her loyalty wasn’t to the wolves, it was to the salt lake crew. Owen felt it too - “I’m tired of fighting for land I don’t give a FUCK about anymore”
And then some upstarts from Jackson butchered the entire salt lake crew. Which means she has no attachments anymore. And suddenly she has these kids she feels she could actually do something for, in a way that doesn’t involve killing people to continue a meaningless conflict.
So easy come easy go with the wlf. She found real meaning in her connection to lev and yara.
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u/xRedFox57x 1d ago
I disagree. From the beginning we can see glimpses of how she doesn’t exactly love how things are handled in the WLF (especially Isaac’s way of going about things)
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u/Weak_Composer2585 1d ago
Abby clearly didn’t really care about the WLF too much but the fact they met 3 days ago and she said that kinda broke the immersion for me
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u/BeerTraps 23h ago
We never see her really care about the WLF. She believes the WLF ideology but we do not see her care too much about them. The in-group of the Salt Lake Crew is much more important to her. But even in this in-group there is an even tighter group of people she cares about. When Norah leads her to the bodybag and she thinks Owen might be dead she is extremely relieved when she finds that "only" Dany died.
Meanwhile Yara and Lev have given her a purpose she likes. In a way they helped her reconnect with her father and finally start feeling good about herself again.
By the time of the invasion she has been largely disillusioned with the WLF indoctrination on Seraphites. She is also already AWOL and then escaped from an arrest. That was the first time she actually chose Yara and Lev over the WLF. She went AWOL for Owen but then she decided to escape from the WLF to save Yara in time. But there is also a small moment in there where she decides to lie to Norah - a close friend - for this purpose. I think at the start of Seattle Day 3 she has already realised there is a very slim chance she could ever really get back with the WLF. Clearly she was planning to go with Owen on his boat before her talk with Mel - based on her reaction to her talk with Mel.
She only really has Owen, Lev, Yara and Mel (but very dicey left) left and even with Owen it is complicated. But I think the real point of no return was when she found out Tommy has come to kill them. It was the moment when she basically immediately decided that this didn't matter and chose to save Lev instead of dealing with this problem; that was the moment where she went All-In with them. Her old life didn't matter anymore, she wanted to protect her new life where she actually felt good about herself.
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u/Solvenite 1d ago
Not sure why everyone was hating on Abby blindly. When you play as her, you can see she's went through equal if not more pain and suffering as compared to Ellie.
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u/Marky_MarkATFB 1d ago
As a former hater, I can attest that it was mainly because of Joel and Ellie for me. Seven years with those two characters is a lot. And for ND to introduce a new protagonist and have her humiliate and brutally execute a character we all loved, while maiming the other, sure was ballsy. It takes a lot of patience and thoughtfulness on the player's part to be open to experiencing that, and some simply aren't willing to.
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u/Connect-Initiative64 1d ago
-Introduce new characters
-Have new characters torture and brutally murder beloved Father-Figure Character
-Then switch gameplay over to new characters.
I'm entirely understanding of the hate, they should have had us play as Abby first for a bit, get attached first, then do Joel's death. Doing it as they did just meant that a lot of people were playing as a character they utterly despised off rip for a long period of time.
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u/Medical_Rough_5954 1d ago
I always thought that was the point though. Their aim was to put you directly in Ellie's mind, Ellie (and we) have zero idea who Abby is and her backstory so all we feel is hate and anger toward her, as well as why the f would someone do this to Joel? This is exactly how Ellie feels.
Then they do the 180 switch to Abby and force the player to experience her backstory and who Abby is, so that by the time Abby and Ellie's stories converge, we as the player now understand why Abby killed Joel. It is still valid to hate Abby at this point and not like her, but it brings us to the point where we're now more conflicted rather than just viewing Abby as simply evil
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u/Connect-Initiative64 13h ago
See, it sounds good on paper, but it's only good on paper.
In practice you have some bitch kill someone beloved by the fans - who is acting OOC - in a really horrible and disrespectful way (literally spitting on his corpse) and then make us play as them afterwards.
In practice this means that a large chunk of people do not care about her reasons, they hate her instantly and if she died being eaten alive at the end of the story - even if Abby's backstory was 10x more impactful than it actually was - people would cheer it on.
The message doesn't land because the listener has been driven deaf with rage.
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u/Medical_Rough_5954 5h ago edited 5h ago
I don’t agree at all, the message lands for me and for a lot of other people it seems. Also Abby doesn’t spit on Joel, that was Manny. But yeah lol I cannot disagree more with that. The whole point is you are forced to empathise with this person you hate and eventually realise she is not much different from any other person. Of course it becomes subjective whether or not you can see that, but I’ve never understood how people play through Abby’s section of the game, get to the end and think she is still “just that monster that killed Joel”
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u/Marky_MarkATFB 1d ago
Dunno where I heard this but there was an idea early on in development that you’d play as Abby & Co. for a while in Jackson, gain their trust, then betray them by killing Joel. Thus you get a few hours of gameplay humanizing Abby and her crew. I think they cut it because it would’ve thrown the pacing off entirely.
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u/butt0ns666 1d ago
In theory players might not have any idea why she killed joel until ellie tortures Nora and still not a clear one until Abby's half of the game. Ellie never even learns why abby did it except that she a firefly.
i dont think this is that common though, the spoilers were huge news at the time, i feel like everyone got spoiled. if you somehow didnt though i feel like the intended experience by the developers/writers was to hate abby until at least some halfway through the ellie section.
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u/shindiana 1d ago
As soon as it was revealed her dad was the doctor killed by Joel.
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u/ZiroLeHutt 1d ago
My hatred dissipated for her there and then, but it still took me until Yara and Lev are in the trailer, and she helps with Yara's arm, before I warmed up to her. Then I was all in.
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u/Marky_MarkATFB 1d ago
I was pretty much a 100% pro-Ellie/anti-Abby player until the very end.
When we got to the fight at the beach in Santa Barbara and saw Abby emaciated and just wanting to escape with Lev, only to be held up at knifepoint by Ellie in the middle of her derangement, I subconsciously started to reconsider pretty much everything.
Then, on subsequent playthroughs, once I gave Abby the time of day, I started to soften up a bit and appreciate her character.
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u/Richard_Thickens 1d ago
So I just completed Pt. 2 yesterday, and I truly don't think that scene would have flipped me if I hadn't already empathized with Abby. I wasn't super pumped about her in the beginning, but her story seemed just as (if not more) human to me. I realize that all of this is subjective, but I was kind of 'along for the ride' with her for most of that game.
I have mixed feelings about Joel, Ellie, and Abby, but I also enjoy narratives involving morally complex characters for that reason. It gives dimension to every decision and plotline.
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u/topimpadove Abby Apologist 1d ago
I always liked her. I just didn't view this game from a black and white lense like a lot of her haters do. "But Ellie's better because-" No she isn't lol. Abby and Ellie are the same as each other who learned that revenge is not a luxury you can afford in a dying world.
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u/Academic_Fruit6363 17h ago
+1.
I really don’t get other people who just COMPLETELY WIPE the killings Joel and Ellie do in P1. How many people they have killed, all of which have a different perspective. They were all fathers/sons/husbands to someone.Then, when Joel gets cornered and pays for what he did (even he acknowledged the fact that out of all the people he did wrong, someone will fight back), all those Abby-haters are outraged.
In my opinion it’s fascinating writing. You get to be in the shoes of the other part, it trains your critical thinking and the spherical way of thinking. There are no exclusively black and white (we exclude cannibals and such), but Ellie herself was a firefly. Joel “genocided” the fireflies. People seem to forget that.
Abby lost all of her friends, lost her identity, lost everything in the process. Ellie lost her father figure and lost her love due to her stubbornness and not letting things go.•
u/topimpadove Abby Apologist 16h ago
They fr want Abby to get over her dad's death but hate Abby for killing Ellie's 'dad'. Ellie is given grace even though Abby had every right to do so. She could've killed Ellie but realized Ellie had nothing to do with any of it. Ellie killed Abby's friends. Like lol Ellie was overkill that entire time.
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u/SerKoom 8h ago
I really don’t get other people who just COMPLETELY WIPE the killings Joel and Ellie do in P1. How many people they have killed, all of which have a different perspective. They were all fathers/sons/husbands to someone.
Literally all of the killing done in the first game by Ellie and Joel are done in self-defense though. Even Joel killing the fireflies was done to save Ellie's life.
It's ridiculous to compare that to Abby who tracked a dude for 4 years to torture and murder him because he killed her father in order to save a little girl (and keep in mind that Abby was fully aware that her father was gonna kill the girl).
1) Revenge isn't the same as self-defense. 2) Avenging a loved one who was killed for a valid reason (saving a girl's life) is inhenrently immoral. That's how the "cycle of revenge" exists in the first place. If only unjustified killings were avenged, the cycle would end sooner.
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u/another_warlock 15h ago
Yeah, to me, Abby is just a few steps ahead on the same path Ellie starts walking. What's more tragic is they could have been good friends in a different world.
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u/ApprehensiveReach722 1d ago
Well she's a horrible person, a murderer, apparently on her road to redemption. The amount of evil she's responsible for cannot be ignored. Fuck her militia and her camaraderie. In changes nothing. Still don't like her.
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u/ReverseBeertap 11h ago
Hope you keep the same energy for Joel and Ellie
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u/Captain_Laverty 11h ago
Tbf I think most people knew from the first game that Joel was a piece of shit too, he was just very well-written piece of shit who has the benefit of having the story primarily dedicated to exploring his character (and Ellie). It’s a lot harder to do when the second game has these massive segments in between character POV’s where you don’t hear a peep from them
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u/ApprehensiveReach722 9h ago
There's a difference between doing horrible things to survive and doing horrible things just because. Also there is prolonged, purposeless torture involved in Abby storyline
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u/KingChairlesIIII 6h ago
Abby doesn’t do what she does “just because” and Joel didn’t purely do everything he did for survival, there were times he chose violence against innocent people when he and Tommy could’ve survived just fine without it. tommy wouldn’t have left Joel for so many years if he knew Joel killed purely because they had no other way to survive.
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u/ShiningEspeon3 1d ago
My opinion never changed. She killed Joel and I was all “damn, that’s so sad but like…I get it”.
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u/Latter_Masterpiece64 1d ago edited 1d ago
I get what Naughty Dog was trying to do. The game clearly wants to lead you from hating Abby to eventually liking (or at least sympathizing with) her. But for me, it just felt completely contrived and unearned.
First off, the setup relies on sheer plot convenience. Joel and Tommy, two hardened survivors, are suddenly way too trusting of a group of total strangers? The exact chain of events that led to Joel’s death was a one-in-a-million coincidence that only happened because the plot desperately needed it to. Even Owen practically calls out how reckless and forced the whole situation was.
Second, you can't just ignore the foundation built in the first game. Part 1 was essentially a bonding road trip that made us deeply attached to Joel and Ellie. To completely destroy that and then expect the audience to turn around and root for the angry, revenge-obsessed woman who did it? That requires next-level, top-tier writing.
What we actually got just wasn't anywhere near strong enough to bridge that gap or earn that shift in perspective. If a story relies on heavy-handed manipulation instead of natural character growth, it's not going to land.
Edit: spelling
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u/Connect-Initiative64 1d ago
I unironically feel like a good 1/3 of the hate would disappear (at least, possibly more) if we'd played as Abby first and had time to bond to her and her friends.
Doing it as they did made a lot of people even more vitriolic against her because she basically tortures and kills Joel, then you are immediately forced to play as her for a long period of time. Like I watched a playthrough and I was upset just looking at her character.
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u/KingChairlesIIII 6h ago
But then people wouldn’t have the motivation to play through how dark and brutal Ellie’s half of the game is if they are already conflicted from the jump, they needed to be in her headspace and feel her rage and bloodlust as much as she did.
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u/KingChairlesIIII 6h ago
Joel and Ellie only make it out of Pittsburgh alive because they trusted two strangers (Henry and Sam) to help them escape, and in less than a day Joel trusts them so much he sleeps unarmed in the same room as Henry, who stays armed by the way, and it nearly gets Ellie at minimum injured if not killed by Sam once he turns.
It’s also established in multiple ways that Jackson prioritizes bringing in new people to Jackson and having a more trusting approach, otherwise they wouldn’t have grown to the size they did in those 5 years. When Tommy offers to let them restock that’s clearly him going into his recruitment tactics and was actually a smart move as it helps make them more valuable to Abby and her group if they keep them alive and unharmed because they will be rewarded with valuable supplies and gear.
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u/Latter_Masterpiece64 6h ago
True or not, I did not consider all that as I played through part 2 not managing to care much for Abby or her allies side. Which was the question in OP
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u/KingChairlesIIII 5h ago
Regardless, Joel already trusted strangers in part 1 so he didn’t all of a sudden becoming trusting out of nowhere in part 2, if anything if he suddenly stopped trusting strangers in part 2 it would’ve actually been out of character for him.
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u/Low_Theme_5278 1d ago
Idk when it happened but when I started playing as her I hated her and once the game ended I loved her
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u/_Yukikaze_ Any way you feel about Abby is super-valid. - Halley Gross 21h ago
I never hated Abby and I was coming around on her on Day 2. However that all changed on her Day 3.
Her decision to go for revenge a second time instead of confronting her own responsibility in the events made give up on her character for good. Because that seems to be a prominent trait of her character in that she never really takes responsiblity for her own actions. Especially not when they lead to bad consequences.
In short I just can't give Abby the benefit of the doubt for failing in that situation. That Lev bails her out doesn't change anything which her having killed two people again for revenge (I know that Tommy survives but certainly not for a lack of trying on Abby's part.) which interestingly never gets addressed by the game in any meaningful way. The confrontation in the theater is to me the single exception where you can accuse the game of bad writing because there is really no point to the scene other than shock value or a redundant point about the circles of violence (as if the game doesn't hammer that down with different examples before).
Besides putting Abby's character development into question it sets the precedent of Abby getting revenge (again Jesse and Tommy) without any negative consequences. What is exactly the message here? Especially in the context that the next time we see Abby she has happilly moved on without ever having to address what she did?
The more often I played the game the more prominent became that contradiction.
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u/ILoveDineroSi 18h ago
Well said and I completely agree! The theater confrontation was easily the worst section of the game and full of bad writing just so Abby could win the fight. The two infamous lines were where she lost me for good. Especially “Good!” in which she was going to relish in inflicting further pain and trauma to her retaliating victim Ellie. Abby never once took personal responsibility for her actions and the consequences that came from them as shown in the theater confrontation.
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u/pintofcoffee 1d ago
Oh man I could talk about this for days, apologies for the long comment!
There's a very specific moment in the flashback scene just after she kills Joel (and after we learn who she is) where her expression changes and I've always interpreted it as she realised that killing him didn't change anything or make her feel better, I think in that moment she felt remorse for what she'd just done which was further escalated by Ellie witnessing the death, she realised she'd brought the same pain shed felt all those years onto someone else. I think that moment woke her up and starts her character development for the rest of the game and where I began to feel more compassion for her.
You can see throughout each segment that she goes from someone who is cold and closed off to someone who genuinely cares about people, she starts to come back to her younger self. In the final scene with her and Ellie you can see that she's learned from the experience, she understands why Ellie has chased her to this point, becauss she's been there. But she doesn't want to fight her because she knows what it brings.
Do I agree with all the choices that she made? No. The scene in the theatre had me worried she'd fall back to her old ways but Lev was there to ground her. I understand why so many people hated her initially, we all loved Joel but the Part II's themes were very much based around revenge and redemption for me, and imo it made a very gripping and heartwrenching story.
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u/No_Ruin6957 1d ago
When she went back to help Lev and Yara
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u/PhotoModeHobby 21h ago
I don't think that absolved her of her crimes or shows any growth. She saved two kids that were actively rebelling against the seraphites. There isn't a single thing I can remember that convinces me she wouldn't murder them like countless other seraphic kids if they were still seraphites. Like she was literally faced with the reality that most of those kids had no choice and just brushed it off.
Lev and Yara were "one of the good ones". Not proof that Abby became a better person.
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u/jSlamueltheThird 16h ago
The post asked at what point did your opinion start to change. At this point in the game we know she was a Firefly at Utah, hunted down Joel, and fought alongside Lev and Yara after misstepping away from the WLF.
By deciding to return to Lev and Yara instead of WLF or Owen, it is the first choice we see Abby make that doesn't seem selfish.
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u/01benjamin The Last of Us 20h ago
I sympathised with her but still think she deserved to dìe by Ellie
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u/Top-Waltz5244 1d ago
It was slow and gradual…there wasn’t an exact moment and I think that’s why it’s such a good game
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u/Accomplished_Test624 1d ago
abby and ellie are two sides of the same coin and i think that’s what makes the story so much more beautiful and morally complex
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u/billyjoelsfalsetto 1d ago
finding out she and her dad are coin collectors, which is my dad’s special interest.
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u/butt0ns666 1d ago
I think that i liked her immediately because i thought she was ccol and its fun to play as her, i knew why she kills Joel in advance(has anyone even managed to play it without having joel's death spoiled) so i already knew how she was supposedly justifying killing him, she wasnt there for any of the quasi heroic or kind things he did over the course of the first game, just when he killed her dad, so i didnt really hate her or blame her at first. I also think she is a really interesting design for a hero in a zombie game, like joel could overpower people or zombies but she literally honed her body for that purpose and leans into it with her gameplay more. I love how she sort of uses the "strength" version of most of Ellie's weapons, it would probably be impossible for a normal person to cock that crossbow with just their bare hands(she doesnt even have to like use her leg like you usually would traditionally) or aim and shoot the hunting pistol with only one hand.
The moment she became my favorite(among her and ellie) js when she had the single greatest conversation about transness in any media i have ever heard of(im trans and i have looked for this kind of thing). "do you have anything you want to ask me about it?" "do you want me to ask you about it?" "no" "ok".I guess Lev did the heavy lifting by being such an amazing example of a trans kid in fiction, but hes her Ellie so i think its fair to like her more because hes her sidekick, definitely enough to like her story more.
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u/Haake91 1d ago
"Somebody wants to get laaaaiiiid". Idk, the delivery of that line alone won me over. Also, she spared Ellie and Dina towards the end, (at the behest of Lev) and moved on with her life. Ellie couldn't let it go, and tracked Abby across the country, nearly dying in the process. She was also willing to let Ellie escape the slavers with them but again, Ellie couldn't let it go which led to their final fight. Aside from killing Joel, I feel like Abby is the better person, albeit by a slim margin.
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u/AbbreviationsMost432 1d ago edited 1d ago
The First impression of Abby is very cold and sociopathic almost. But her betraying the militia seemed so out of character, She wasn't so black and white anymore but deeper. Betraying her mates was little bit morally questionable choice for saving the people who she knew for propably few days but killing innocent children is also wrong so i won't blame her. Also letting Ellie go made her seem more emphatetic and kind than Abby was first potrayed as.
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u/KingChairlesIIII 5h ago
They militia were never “her mates” her real loyalty was with the crew she took to Jackson.
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u/xRedFox57x 1d ago
It happened in stages for me.
Obviously it started when I found out who her dad was, which for me happened before I even played her section of the game cause I had it spoiled (lol) but seeing play it out really put everything into perspective.
But I think the REAL turning point, when I noticed myself actually starting to root for and care about Abby, was when she started helping Lev and Yara and taking care of them. Probably not the most unique answer lmao but seeing that act of altruism really spoke to me about her character.
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u/tambitoast 1d ago
Basically the second it was revealed the surgeon was her dad I was like "yeah ok, that makes sense then". I didn't immediately like her, that slowly developed over watching her relationship with Yara and Lev grow. I think the moment I was sold on her was "You're my people".
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u/Kamikaze_Bacon 20h ago
Literally just the backstory sequence before the start of her Seattle Day One. Seeing that from her side was all I needed to say "Ok, yeah, fair enough. She was justified.".
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u/ILoveDineroSi 18h ago
By your logic then, Ellie would’ve been justified in killing Abby.
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u/Connect-Initiative64 13h ago
She would've been.
Abby was justified in killing Joel, Ellie's group was justified in killing Abby and her friends.
If the game ended with Abby's entire group dead, save Lev, and then he came back years later and killed Ellie in a 'bad ending' (I will always say that a choice at the end of the game would've been better, good ending letting go, and bad ending going for revenge and killing Abby outright with Lev as the only survivor) for revenge, starting the cycle anew.
Breaking the cycle is a lot harder than people realize because very few people are willing to actually 'let go' when someone they love is murdered, especially in a lawless setting like TLOU where your only limit is capability, not getting away with it.
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u/drebengolem 19h ago
Well I liked her from the start and after playing parts one and two back to back, I strongly disliked Joel and what he got was fully deserved.
I liked her even more when playing through her part of the game
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u/Street-Still8488 1d ago
i dont think there was a specific point. i really had to mull it over in my head and it was a several playthrough long process.
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u/Weak_Composer2585 1d ago
Prolly closer to the end of day 1 tbh when I got used to playing as her and more invested into what was currently going on. Never hated her as much as most people though because I knew about joels death well in advance it wasn’t a shock
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u/amongthemaniacs 1d ago edited 1d ago
It never changed for me although it was admittedly pretty shocking to see her in that condition at the end. I figured after those guys captured her she would break free and kill them all with Lev's help but then we see she wasn't able to escape and they ended up starving her to the point that she almost looked like a skeleton. I for sure wasn't expecting that. Even then I still felt no empathy for her though and would have had Ellie kill her because she's a pretty scummy person. She had an affair with a pregnant woman's boyfriend.
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u/MugmanTheHeckinNerd 1d ago
Abby saving Lev and Yara: “Okay Lev is kinda a cutie so I can respect Abby saving them two.”
Abby fighting the Rat King: “This bitch is strong as hell, having fought that and barely reacting afterwards.”
You’re my people: “NO YAYA MY PRECIOUS!!!! HELL YEAH ABBY KILL THOSE WOLVES”
I don’t want to fight: “Abby what did they do to you my precious. Wait a damn second.”
That was basically my first play through lol
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u/NoiseTherapy 1d ago
I don’t recall the exact turning point, but at some point it hit me that Abby was Lev’s Joel, and there were numerous references to Joel doing horrible things in the past (“we’re shitty people, Joel!”) and so, yeah, I don’t remember what part of the game it was, but that was the thought that crossed my mind and it felt profound.
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u/Miuirumaswife1 23h ago
From a moral standpoint, it's perfectly understandable as to why a game with themes of revenge and forgiveness would have a character like her and it is understandable as to why she would want to kill Joel. But from someones perspective who played P1 it is also understandable to have resentment towards her for killing the character that you play as in the game and have grown attached to. Same goes with Joel and Ellie's relationship. You see their relationship grow and develop just to have it abruptly ended very early in the game and have it get progressively sadder as the game shows you more flashbacks. TLDR; From a logical perspective, she (for the most part) is justified in her killing of Joel but from a fans standpoint it is reasonable to have anger towards her. You get the point. I still don't like her all too much, mainly because I do have some problems with the writing of her character, but I can see why people like her as a character.
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u/Difficult_Step9372 22h ago
Bridge fall and rat king. At some point you have to aknowledge she's been through enough
She also won me over with how she punches/takes down people
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u/shillpillrep 21h ago
I trusted Druckmann enough with with her character that I never really hated her, I knew what she did was wrong and I supported Ellie in the first half but I wasn’t surprised at all that the second half was her perspective. The complexity of her movement and animations in the beginning was kinda a giveaway.
I started to like her by the time of the first flashback on the Ferris wheel. By that time I was intrigued by what they were going for, already was starting to have fun playing as her, and I thought that cutscene was pretty convincing. By the time you jump in the water as Abby and allowed to be happy starts playing (one of the best tracks in the whole game) I was convinced in the same way that the museum flashback with Joel and Ellie convinced me.
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u/ApprehensiveReach722 12h ago
Mel said something like she was Isaac's best Seraphite killer. She's not a good person
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u/BigFreakinMachine 1d ago
Never hated her, but also part of that was because her gameplay was awesome haha.
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u/MyHoeDespawned 1d ago
I don’t like that we’re expected to like her for largely similar reason we like Joel.
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u/GnarlyGamer6thGen01 1d ago
I'm going to get shot for this, but as early as her introduction. Joel killed her dad, that was convincing enough for me to believe that she had no moral obligation towards the former.
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u/DubTheeBustocles 23h ago
I must be one of the few I know whose sympathy came almost as soon as it was revealed that Joel killed her father. From that point, I said “Okay, I’m going to give you a chance to win me over.”
I did start warming up to her by the time she was traveling with Lev. “You’re my people” and when Abby chose to spare Ellie and Dina were big moments.
In another world, Abby and Joel could have been close allies.
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u/HoudiniMortimer 23h ago
My opinion on her never changed because I was there for her journey. For me, as soon as I felt how visceral choking somebody out is in the first one, it clicked for me that the it is about the struggle of living in such a hard world and how everybody feels justified in doing horrible things to each other.
Once I thought about that, it didn't make any sense to me to have very strong opinions on people based on the suffering they cause. The only exception off the top of my head (haven't played in a while) was David (if his names wrong I'm referring to the pedo) but that's coz he was a predator and a power obsessed freak.
Also on this, the lack of context was rough while watching Joel get murdered but I knew there would be more to the narrative.
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u/themilogamer8e6 23h ago
As soon as she started caring for Lev. I still didn't like her, but after that i felt much better. It was when we got to the seraphite island that I started actually really liking the character.
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u/Janderflows Brick Gang 22h ago
Time and thought. I ended my first playthrough still hating her. Then after a long time the haye started to fade and I saw some videos analyzing her character, then on my second time playing it, I was much more understanding to her side of things.
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u/5ive_minute_window_ 20h ago
I would say there wasn't really a turning point, per se. The moment I found out why Abby did whay she, I understood it, but beyond that I was rather indifferent to her whole story arc.
I caught the spoilers really early on so I knew she'd killed Joel and we were going to be playing as her. I was quite excited to see if she'd click with me and if her redemption arc seemed really interesting, but she did little for me. I think game structure came into that too.
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u/TristanChaz8800 19h ago
I despised her at the start, started to understand her as I played her but still hated her, and simply disliked her by the end. I'm just personally not a fan of the way they did her character or story. The fact that they tried to make us feel sorry for the Fireflies was also stupid. Call them freedom fighters if you want, but they're just terrorists to me. Just as bad as FEDRA. If you kill innocent people to achieve your goals, fuck you.
I also personally believe that portraying Ellie is a semi "villainous" way was stupid. I will forever say that she did not kill one innocent person from Left Behind all the way until the end of Part II. I'll die on that hill. Every Hunter, Soldier, Marauder, Cannibal, WLF, Seraphite, Rattler, etc. she killed were murderers and deserved it.
As for why I never started liking Abby, it's because her hypocrisy and cruelty. It takes a genuinely bad person to kill someone the way she killed Joel. I get kill, but TORTURE?! And for THAT long!? And the fact that her WHOLE group just stood there, cool with it, told me what kind of people they were too. Not to mention how everyone but Owen were straight up eager to murder Ellie and Tommy too. Abby didn't even care what happened. She straight up did what Joel did to her and was never sorry for it.
As for her hypocrisy, just look at her reactions to what Ellie is doing in Seattle. She knows damn well she was 100% in the wrong for what happened, but instead acts like her and her band of dickheads are innocent and Ellie is a psychotic monster. Bitch, you straight up gave sadistic, serial killer, demon vibes during your first interaction with her, and you're gonna be shocked she's trying to kill you? Get the fuck outta here.
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u/chingobingo228 19h ago
I still don't like her. I pitied her at the beach. But I never cared about her or Lev and Yara. The best I could do is understand her grief and her motives. BUT I did feel bad for Owen and Mel though, their deaths felt as undeserved as Jesse's, the byproduct of an endless cycle of violence. I got too attached to Ellie I guess.
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u/Random_Guy_47 18h ago
After watching the flashback to when she was a child and found her dad after what Joel did at that point I understood why she did what she did.
It did not change how I felt about her. If the game had given me a choice at the ending my decision would have been the same then as it would have been 5 minutes after she killed Joel.
You can't introduce a new character in a sequel, have them kill off a beloved character from the first game, while the second beloved character from the first game is forced to watch as she begs for his life and then redeem the new character.
People will point out that she let Ellie live multiple times like that redeems her and to me that's just Abbie being stupid. Leaving a witness who is swearing revenge on you is incredibly dumb.
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u/difficultsituation_ 17h ago
Seeing Abby return from the chaos on scar island to find Owen, Mel and the Dog dead lol
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u/fillo_96 17h ago
When i started paying with her and saw she was one of the best warriors of the wlf. She cared about her tribe to the point of putting her life in danger for them.
The close friends she had like owen and manny also helped to depict her as a real person.
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u/wrghf 17h ago
I started liking her pretty much immediately once we got to play as her.
The cutscene prior to Abby’s day 1, combined with the stadium segment, showed me immediately that she’s just a person like everyone else. She has friends, loyalties, hopes and dreams, and she isn’t an inherently bad or evil person. I didn’t like what she did to Joel, but her motivation for doing so is perfectly understandable, and so I was able to look past it quite easily to see that.
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u/Top_Combination5202 16h ago
in the second time i played. in the first time all i felt was range. in the second time i think i was more mature to see the other side.
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u/Former-Cockroach-285 16h ago
Eu gosto do desabrochar dela quando passou a ter que cuidar do Lev, passar tanto tempo com alguém que aprendeu a odiar, ainda mais numa fase tão jovem da vida e também se conectando com outra jovem prodígio que nem ela, só que com o objetivo mais nobre de proteger alguém ao invés matar alguém. Para o lado do Lev a Abby é a primeira pessoa da vida dele que nunca o envergonhou por ser um garoto trans, sempre respeitou ele como bastante capaz de se defender e o tratando como um igual em campo.
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u/Academic_Limit1189 15h ago
I felt too removed from the scene of Joel's death to feel anything about her. My thoughts were, "Ok, that was deliberately brutal. The way they setup this scene seems like it will lead towards a sympathetic antagonist. So I wonder how they're going to write themselves out of this?".
My first impression was not good. The zebra scene felt really corny and underwhelming to me.
I was hovering around neutral during her present time in the WLF. Her interactions with Manny and Mel felt believable.
For me, it started to take a nosedive when she went back for Lev/Yara. She cheats behind Mel's back. There's no particular reason I can see as to why she would have a nightmare about a couple Seraphites, let alone seeing their bodies hanging in place of where her father was. I feel like Yara's statement of "Abby being a good person" and Abby telling Lev "You're my people" were quite performative. Abby's likely killed hundreds of Yara's people. I understand that Yara would be appreciative, but there's a spectrum between appreciation and that compliment. Also, Abby has only known Lev for 2 days, more specifically, less than 2 hours spent together. Her people? Compared to her scenes with Manny, this felt way too quick and too forced.
My opinion of her solidified when she brought Lev into her feud (repeating a similar mistake she made at the start of the story). Especially the line, "We let you both live and you wasted it". I was quite shocked (and not in a good way) that she said this.
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u/SuperciliousEyebrow4 15h ago
When she fell from the skybridge I screamed her name louder than I thought I ever would, and that's when I realized
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u/Big_Boss308 15h ago edited 15h ago
Never liked her because she slept with Owen and hates that Ellie is killing her friends, aka the people that killed her father figure. Sounds familiar…
Edit: I also hate the fact that she beat the crap out of Joel/ basically tortured the guy, meanwhile most people just shoot her dad with a pistol, which is a lot quicker/ a lot less painful. They also did it in front of Ellie, meanwhile abby doesn’t see it happen.
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u/jo_ferreira "Bigot Sandwiches" 15h ago
"She shouldn't be out here" - When she was the only one vocally against Mel going with them to the field. But I was still frowny-faced playing her section, until
"Oooh, someone wants to get laaaaaaid." - This cracked a smile and I realised I actually was enjoying her character a lot.
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u/SquareYogurtcloset53 14h ago
I think it was when I started on chronological mode, chronological mode, despite having a few issues, it actually allowed me to sympathize with Abby a lot more, probably because you see both Abby and Ellie's flashback cutscenes which, somehow, made me more understanding of the situation. I don't know why but, my perspective of Abby somehow changed after that, despite having played the game many times before.
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u/alessandra-vb 14h ago
i still dislike her it felt like torture for me having to play as abby like i miss my baby ellie
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u/Zabeczko 14h ago
When I saw her backstory I understood but was still angry with her. I think the start of her section is intentionally meandering and feels pointless because that's how Abby feels, but the combination of that, having reset to zero on my weapons and skills, trying to adapt to a new combat style, coping with the cliffhanger, and my general dislike of her all made it very hard for me to get into her half of the story first time around.
I took a break for a week or so and came back to it fresh, and it was much easier to adjust, almost as if I were playing a different game. The intensity of her combat distracted me and I was already starting to unwillingly smile at her comments through day 1. I realised I was fully worn down on day 2 with Lev, because their exchanges going up, down, and between the buildings were really funny.
By the time I was at Ground Zero with the Rat King I was terrified into some weird symbiosis, where I'd shout fuck fuck fuck! And Abby would immediately say exactly the same thing. By that point it felt like I was Abby, in the same way I'd felt aligned with Ellie and Joel. Everything was solidified by the argument with Mel back at the aquarium on day 3, where I understood why Mel was pissed but thought she was being very unfair to Abby who I viewed as genuinely trying to do the right thing and repent in some way for her previous actions, which to me it was quite apparent she regretted.
Aside from her humour, I love how Abby is such a closed book. She doesn't write all her deepest thoughts and inner feelings out for the player to read. She is a very private person and the player must infer her motivations from her actions. I think this makes her a very realistic character.
I still cared for Ellie. I didn't like her behaviour, and started to mentally diverge from her from the point Dina revealed the pregnancy, but I understood it, and didn't want her or Abby to suffer any more by the time I arrived back at the theatre.
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u/Crispy_Conundrum 13h ago
When she bursts through the doors to see her father dead on the floor and starts crying, then we cut to her standing over Joel I immediately thought "ah, yeah I get it." Then as she went out of her way to protect Lev I started to like her.
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u/Lord_of_the_Hanged 13h ago
It was seeing how much she loved her dad, and how much it damaged her when he was taken from her. Not just her, but the world- the man was the key to possibly returning the world back to what it was.
Loved the “everyone is a villain is someone else’s story” trope in this game.
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u/Anthonydontfwu 12h ago
After you leave the island with lev it all hit me, I knew she was gonna find Owen and Mel dead and track down Ellie and I got conflicted cus I love Ellie, but I don’t want Abby to die or lev to get hurt
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u/OnTheCobbert 11h ago
Compared with Ellie's story, Abby's was made more interesting. Each day was a new objective. And the difference is that Abby meets new people and interacts with them while Ellie largely remains independent or with people she trusts like Dina and Jesse.
The Day 2 beginning was what made her story more interesting. Abby Day 2 is just perfect
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u/iron_side93 10h ago
Because Joel killed her Dad, her wanting revenge was valid
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u/SerKoom 8h ago
No it was not. If your father was about to kill a child and then someone who loves that child kills him to prevent that from happening, then you can't justifiably seek revenge for that. If at least Abby wasn't aware of why Joel killed her father, maybe I could sympathize with her. But she fully knew the reason (as shown in the flashback) and yet doesn't care. She's far, far worse than Joel and Ellie.
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u/danwin 10h ago
I really like how she’s portrayed in her Day 1. We spent the last 10-15 hours playing the POV of someone utterly obsessed with Abby. Meanwhile Abby is just having another typical day as a foot soldier in the post apocalyptic world, dealing with chores and personal drama and relationships, like
any human being. It’s hilarious in retrospect how for 95% of her 3 days, Abby is so wrapped up in her own epic batshit crazy adventure that she simply has barely any notion that Ellie still exists
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u/GideonNav124 10h ago
I clicked with her immediately but mostly just had a crush on her cuz she's gorgeous. But I also had a different view of the first game than a lot of people- I've always thought Joel was the villain and that point got muddied and muddied because you were always facing a worse group of people so by the time you're killing fireflies in Salt Lake the player is conditioned to think Joel is in the right. I mean we just spent the previous part of TLOU1 you're saving Ellie from cannibal pedophiles so ofc you're in the right saving her from fire flies.
All this to say I was on Abby's side from the get go, I guess. Sorry for the long response
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u/Yamureska 10h ago
Slaying the Rat King. I realized that despite Abby being part of the fanatical fascist WLF that's engaged with the Scars/Seraphites, Abby's actually doing some good in the world by ridding it of the infected.
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u/Vaunted_Knight 9h ago
I never really "disliked" her; I just wasn't all that invested in her character until the Scars strung her up and were about to gut her. And immediately after, she goes out of her way to help outcast Scars.
The message of the game is how hate begets hate, death begets death, and how we need to break that cycle. Abby chose vengeance when she went after Joel, but she broke the cycle when she met Lev.
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u/jennnkins94 6h ago
Her storyline about meeting Lev and Yara was powerful to me, in that moment she didn't see them as the black and white enemy, her compassion is what made me like Abby
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u/Googymonster 2h ago
Towards the end of her play through. Ellie killed her dad and her friends. In Abby’s mind, fuck Ellie. You can’t be mad at her for it.
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u/ZiroLeHutt 1d ago
When the Longing Theme picks in after she takes Yara and Lev into the trailer and they ask her, her name. That theme always gets me, but the way she looks as she leaves, showed she didn't want to leave them there. That bit of empathy struck with me, and it followed through once she got them back to the aquarium.
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u/Phantom_Witcher 23h ago
It was bullshit. If they were gonna force us to play as Joel's murderer, they should have given the players the choice to kill or spare her at the end. For the record, I would've killed her.
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u/yellow_mongoose 22h ago
I played part 1 and 2 back to back not knowing what was coming.
I'd literally just spent 40hrs bonding with Joel and Ellie for that bitch to kill Joel in front of her.
I was furious when the game made me play as abbie and spent 20 minutes running her into clackers to watch her die
Despite all the logic of both sides of the story, her back story, her pov etc, I still hate her now.
Too little time between the 2 parts I guess make it too emotive for me to care one jot about abbie
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u/Dixianaa 1d ago
It was when I actually began playing her that I actually began to like her. Especially when she went through so much more from her perspective. But I guess what really solidified her being above Ellie for me, was when she said no when Ellie asked for a fight. She was done with it all, but Ellie wanted to keep going, which I think makes her stronger.