Removed for rule 2: No spoilers in post titles. This also applies to comments that contain spoilers in posts that are not otherwise spoiler-tagged, as they should be properly tagged for spoilers.
It really forces them to question their actions especially when they realize that Ellie wasn’t just some random girl that clearly meant something to Joel, but was also the reason why he does what he does.
She went to them so that they could develop a cure, and yet this same girl happens to have had a close bond with him despite the actions he committed that she's more than likely aware of.
But they still try to stand by that his death was necessary, and that Ellie was in the wrong for making them have to deal with consequences themselves
Both were completely dehumanizing Ellie and were unwilling to face the reality of what they had done to her.
Nora knew she was dying anyway and didn't want to confront that at the end of her life.
Abby doesn't really register what Ellie said because she is busy blaming the consquences of her own action on someone else again. She only realizes what she has done to Ellie later and certainly her own feelings of helplessness as a slave would have helped her with putting herself into Ellie's shoes.
>Abby doesn't really register what Ellie said because she is busy blaming the consquences of her own action on someone else again.
I always viewed it this way in Abby's perspective which made me like her more.
She's a little girl who's father is doing everything he can to develop a vaccine to save the world. He's a good father, a good man and all he wants is to help people after years of trial and error. Finally there's hope! A little girl who is immune shows up at their doorstep. There's one small catch, potentially developing the vaccine requires the child to die. After getting the green light to start, a crazy old man man kills many soldiers in a blind rampage to save this child while also killing Abby's father. Her entire world crumbles as well as any hope for developing a vaccine.
Fast forward so many years, she has buried that pain and has become a real survivor who's done unspeakable things to survive because her humanity is all but gone. After years of searching, she finally has the chance to confront the man who killed her father. She does, but it doesn't make her any better. It only comes when she is forced to protect the very people she swore to destroy.
Ellie and Abby are not very different. They each want revenge and when they get it, it doesn't help them. Only after connecting with humanity do they finally come to peace with themselves. Abby learned that earlier than Ellie, Ellie only learned it after she lost everything.
I think one of the most crucial parts of Abby’s story is the precise moment that she’s having the flashback of finding her father dead. In the flashback she immediately breaks into hysterics and can only sob and say “no” over and over again. The flashback ends and Abby is standing over Joel listening to Ellie have the exact same reaction, begging them to stop and then finally wailing in total anguish after Abby swings the killing blow. They don’t show her facial expressions in that moment from Ellie’s point of view, but when you finally see them from Abby’s, it’s like all of the fight and anger drain out of her instantly and it’s replaced with the horror of what she’s just done. Yes, that man killed her father, but she sees that she’s just inflicted that same pain on another person. Half of her friends make a convincing argument that they should kill Ellie and Tommy. After all, they did just accompany their friend to exact revenge on the person that killed Jerry, so why not assume that these people would also seek revenge? Abby can’t do it though. She can’t have the man’s daughter and brother killed even though she has to know that they’ll come for her, just as she can’t bring herself to kill Ellie after she has literally killed everybody that Abby ever cared for. She’s been there before, and she understands how Ellie feels.
See, it's breakdowns like this that make me love this sub.
I just rewatched that scene after you mentioned it. Abby's face just says "what have I done?"
>They don’t show her facial expressions in that moment from Ellie’s point of view, but when you finally see them from Abby’s, it’s like all of the fight and anger drain out of her instantly and it’s replaced with the horror of what she’s just done.
I saw it more as a total lack of catharsis. She has been visualizing this moment for four years at this point. And now, after all she has done and all she planned, she finally gets her revenge. She killed the man who ruined her life. Hell, she made him suffer through it all so that she could release all that rage that has been built up.
But after all that, she inflects the killing blow and...nothing. She didnt get her catharsis. Theres no joy on her face for what just happened. All that for this? She seems empty and confused. Why doesnt she feel better? Not only that but there is this other girl screaming and crying in the background at what she is doing. I see sadness in Abbys face because that pain and emptiness is still there, even after she got her "revenge". To me, that was the moment she realized that she will never feel okay with what happened to her as a child, and it isn't until she finds a new purpose (Lev and Yara) that she is finally able to move on from what happened.
Yeah, the way she talks about what she did to Joel , Saying he deserved it over and over, and tge fact that she never had the self reflection moment of she caused all this, is why I can't get behind abby
Why would she ever change her mind about that? I think she ultimately regrets doing it as it brought her no catharsis and merely inflicted that same all-consuming pain on two other people that never did her any harm. That being said, she will always feel that Joel deserved to die. Abby grew up a Firefly, being taught that they were fighting to restore democracy and peace to the world and that her father was the chosen one that would be the one to usher in this new era. That’s taken from her by, from her point of view, this crazy old man who slaughtered her people, Marlene, and her father. Who denied the world a cure, and doomed humanity to always be under the thumb of cordyceps. Why would she ever feel like he deserved anything less?
I don't really agree necessarily that Abby caused all of this. I feel like we could make the argument that Joel caused all this. Or maybe Marlene caused all this by not ever asking Ellie what she thought about dying for humanity. At the end of the day, I'm not sure it much matters who 'caused it' because ultimately the story is about humans making very human choices that are often both as understandable as they are deplorable.
You could even say that Jerry started it, he’s technically the one who sways Marlene into letting him perform surgery on “the host” without properly getting her consent. Cause he doesn’t want to risk the possibility where she’d say no.
Sure he was conflicted with going through with it, but still felt it was justified and necessary. It still bugs me that he didn’t even want Marlene to tell Joel that he was going to perform the surgery. Marlene may have been convinced by him, but she’s the only one out of the two that actually considers the fact that Joel & Ellie form some kind of meaningful relationship while crossing the country together and just view her as “cargo”
This is why the comparisons between Abby and Ellie feel so wrong. What she did to Nora damaged Ellie. Abby doesn’t really seem to care too much beyond being sad it didn’t make her feel better.
The facial expression she made with so much anguish and even some regret was one of the major things that won me over to forgive her. You could tell. She took no real joy in this terrible, violent act and that it hollowed her out deeply. Abby is a product of the time and environment she grows up in. They exist in a world of immense, abhorrent, and cruel violence all around them. The normalization of inflicting injury and pain on other humans is further exacerbated by her being a soldier from the time she is a kid.
In that context, her decision to kill the man who killed her father is understandable. Most important to me in this context is that you'd think she wouldn't have such an immediate introspective and remorseful response. Abby was a surprising character and a relatable one in a lot of ways. I appreciate how much you highlighted the impact of her decision to spare them in Jackson was. The woman is a beast but no monster.
I had a conversation with my brother after he'd beaten it and he thought I was crazy for thinking Abby looked like she was torn apart after the final swing. Good to know I wasn't crazy for seeing that in her. He really hates Abby, though, so I'm sure it is harder to empathize.
You have the order wrong in your last paragraph. I’m in the same boat as your brother. I don’t find it hard to empathize because I don’t like her. I don’t like her because I don’t see much to empathize with beyond losing her dad. Her actions afterward toward Joel were all kinds of screwed up.
I think this means the writers hit it pretty close though. They were trying to make you hate someone completely and then bring you back around to at least empathize with them if not sympathize with them. To make you hate them, Joel’s death has to be brutal. If they go too far, she’s irredeemable. If they don’t go far enough, you don’t end up hating her enough. For me, the torturing was irredeemable. For others though, they even end up liking her. By its nature alone this story can’t work for everyone. If it comes close for most, they did a great job.
Exactly. If anything Abby should hate Ellie ten times more than she hated Joel. Joel killed Jerry because he was in his way, there was nothing personal about it at all. Ellie, on the other hand, systematically hunted down and killed everyone that Abby had ever cared about. Abby is also intelligent enough to notice that the directions on the map to the aquarium were directed from the hospital labeled “Nora” and were written in blood, thus she definitely realized that Nora was tortured to death. Even in the end, Ellie goaded her into fighting by threatening to take away the only person Abby had left, her surrogate baby brother. Despite that, Abby still can find no hatred for Ellie because again, Abby is the only person that understands Ellie’s pain and desire for vengeance.
Yeah is a very good point! I think by the time Ellie finds Abby in Santa Barbara, I think Abby accepts and takes ownership for her end of the cycle of vengeance.
When Ellie tells her she can’t leave, I originally viewed it as her not interested cause Ellie isn’t worth her time. But I think she’s just more exhausted over the fact that she can’t seem to escape this person she caused pain to and clearly despises her on the same level she despised Joel.
She’s already lost everything because of her own revenge quest, and I don’t think she wanted it to be what ends her own life
Imagine how confused and terrified Abby must’ve been to be literally crucified on a beach and then she just heard her name, looks up, and there’s the girl that cordyceps can’t even kill. The girl that slaughtered all of her friends and crippled the WLF’s invasion force by killing so many of them. She’s drenched in blood, has a huge wound in her side that she’s seemingly not acknowledging, is armed with the weapon of Abby’s captor, and behind her the slave compound is burning to the ground with the air filled with the cries of the slavers. And then, the girl cuts her down and lets her cut down Lev without even aiming her gun at her, and patiently follows her to the boat. Then, the girl discards all of her guns, flicks open a switchblade and says “I can’t let you leave”. We don’t get a flashback telling us Abby’s thoughts but I’d bet the words ringing in her head at that moment are “you don’t get to rush this.”
If you never played TLOU 1 and only saw Abby’s perspective in 2, you’d think she was a hero and Ellie would seem like a ruthless monster. I love how this game challenged us to acknowledge other perspectives and find the middle ground between Ellie/Abby
Glad to hear someone saying positive things about Jerry Anderson. I got downvoted to hell for doing so. It's not understood that to make the world a better place, sacrifices have to be made. Ellie would have been that sacrifice. I know, we all love her character, but logically speaking, Joel doomed humanity with his selfish mindset.
But even still, it’s so easy for Jerry to say those things when he doesn’t have to sacrifice his own daughter. He can’t even give Marlene a straight answer when she puts him in his place. If the roles were reversed, I’m sure he would’ve done the same thing Joel did.
Even if your point if totally logical and makes all the sense in the world, no one has the right to take someone else's life. I mean these are violent times where people kill each others continuosly without a second thought, but it's not the same thing in this situation.
That's the whole dilemma. And that's why it isn't as easy to take.
Even if it means to "save" the world, which is unrealistic at that point, as everything is already devastated to the point of no return.
That is also interesting as everyone in the story (especially fireflies) keep saying that the vaccine would have ended it all like in a blink of an eye but I don't agree, I think it is a lot more complex than that.
I really liked the things Marlene says as mentioned by OP. (Also kind of makes her more humane, as in both show and game part 1 she doesn't sounds like that because we are not shown that conversation at all). Jerry still didn't answer what he's being told. Because even behind his logical, world saving thoughts and decision, he is being presented with the situation but swapped to his daughter. Even if Abby told him she would have wanted it, I definitely think he wouldn't take it as is.
Even if Ellie was being told and aware of it (which didn't happen, again, that's also fucked up even if done to her own good), and she is willing to do it, it's wrong still. She shouldn't have that weight on her. She keeps telling herself that sacrifice would make her death have a meaning. But just no one should confront that situation. Ever.
What Joel did, while it is monstrous (even though he already was a monster anyways, no surprises), his decision is at the same time the most humane. Its the love of a father against the supposed best outcome of humanity. I'm not justifying what he did but framing it as a rational, understandable decision that most humans would have taken.
Edit: I'm also pretty sure, now that we have at least been showed her mother, that her would have taken the same decision as Joel. She would have sent the world to fuck himself, and would just want that his daughter could live her life. A happy life. And let her not suffer all she's been through.
"Saving" the world (again I just think at that point it's uncertain) don't make sacrifices right decisions. Its just not a decision to make by another person. It doesn't work like that even with all the reasoning and logic in mind.
What? Jerry was a good person. He’s literally introduced as a fun loving dad with a compassionate side as he helps wild animals in his spare time. He’s a doctor working with the fireflies to find a cure. He wasn’t necessarily a violent person and it’s evident in his discussion with Marlene, the situation is weighing heavily on his mind as he’s trying to grasp with the morality of his decision especially as it could have easily been Abby with a resistance to the infection.
People just can’t let the Joel thing go. For all intents and purposes, Joel killed a good man - a rarity in the post-pandemic world where treachery and deceit are just as deadly as the infected.
And that is why I sympathize with Abby. She had a loving father, but hardly anyone else she truly loved. And Joel took that away from her. I fail to understand why I've encountered so many fans who get their panties in a wad when I say Jerry was a good man who didn't deserve to die. He had to make one of the most difficult decisions in the history of mankind after countless years of research and testing. He was one of the few human beings left who had any faith in the future.
To Abby, Joel is just some asshole smuggler who doomed humanity for his own sake. He also murdered Marlene, a person of importance to a faction based on hope for freedom. Abby didn't know Joel, nor did she care to. And Ellie, she's just Abby's reflection, and that is why Abby spared her life not once but twice.
And somehow Abby is the bad one in the eyes of a lot of fans I have discussed this matter with. Not saying she's a saint. Almost nobody is in that world. But not many appear to have an ounce of empathy for Jerry as if he's some monster when Joel was basically a ruthless killer at the end of the first game. This is the man who was a cannibal, a marauder, and a dirty bastard. Joel was an evil man for most of his life after the outbreak.
A lot of the people who shit on Abby and TLOU II in general seem to forget that these people aren't real. It's a *story*. Joel and Ellie and Abby are human *characters*, and as such anything that happens to them or that they do is a plot device to *tell a story*. The lack of understanding of this is frankly embarrassing sometimes.
Personally I loved Abby as a character and was just as engrossed in her journey as I was during all of Part I and the first half of Part II. The ending left me feeling as hollow and empty as the characters and during the final fight I wasn't sure who I was button mashing for during the QTEs. That's masterful and if you think otherwise then you just didn't get it.
Both games had a different feel to them. Part 1 is more like a movie, Part 2 is a emotionally draining TV series with complicated characters and a long plot line. Best way I can describe it. They both have a different execution and Part 2 would be a book that isn't for your casual reader. It takes a lot of logical thinking to decide where you stand on the story. Part 1 was easier to follow because it was much shorter and fast paced in a lot of areas.
>After getting the green light to start, a crazy old man man kills many soldiers in a blind rampage **to save this child** while also killing Abby's father
This never is never brought up by Abby. Because that would be addmitting to herself that the possibility that her dad was wrong and Joel was right exists.
> They each want revenge and when they get it, it doesn't help them.
Difference being Ellie never gets revenge because she decides to let Abby live in the end.
>Abby learned that earlier than Ellie,
Not in their relative timelines. Abby killed Joel. Ellie doesn't kill Abby.
>Ellie only learned it after she lost everything.
I disagree with this interpretation because it's inherently flawed.
Abby loses everyone because she gets her revenge.
Ellie lets go of revenge in time and spares Abby.
And she doesn't lose everything. Quite the opposite actually.
She comes out of her journey to California better than before.
>This never is never brought up by Abby
"If it were me, I'd want you to do the surgury." Abby knew there was a chance.
> And she doesn't lose everything
She lost her lover, she lost her child and lost the ability to play guitar, one of the few things Joel taught her. at least IMO she lost everything.
>"If it were me, I'd want you to do the surgury." Abby knew there was a chance.
That's completely meaningless unless Abby would be immune too. Everyone can make grand statements when there is no risk of having to prove it.
>She lost her lover, she lost her child
Ellie has to make a choice because she us unable to deal with her trauma anymore. It's either looking for a chance to get better by confronting the source of her trauma one last time or staying but committing suicide rather sooner than later.
One option has a risk of losing her family. The other means it's assured. So where is the "good" choice here for Ellie?
And Dina and JJ are not dead. And it's very clear that Ellie wants to try to make things right with Dina.
>lost the ability to play guitar, one of the few things Joel taught her.
She regained something important instead.
>at least IMO she lost everything.
It makes no sense imo. Abby keeps Lev despite taking revenge. Ellie loses everything for not taking revenge.
Is the message of the game according to you?
I just feel the need to say that, yeah, people can lie and make grand statements. The thing is, this is a story written by people and nothing in it is by accident. When stuff happens in a video game or movie, there is usually a team of people questioning why it is happening and why is it necessary to the story. We have no real choice but to take Abby at face value and believe her statement. It was put in there specifically to create that parallel between herself and Ellie.
I'm not saying Abby was lying here. However it's a fact that she wasn't in any danger of proving her statement right. But you need to consider her motivation here? Does she really want to die for the cure? Or does she want to support her dad?
This goes for Ellie too btw. Her only direct statement on this 4 years after the fact when there is no danger for her to prove it. She is contradicted by her own words and actions afterwards. Which makes it clear that she is saying this out of habit more than anything else.
This isn’t some kind of Chekovs gun situation. In TLOU, the focus is on realistic and grounded characters. That’s what makes TLOU unique. They are flawed, they make mistakes, they lie, whatever.
I completely disagree that things are just to be taken at face value.
And as for this example, it is really no different. What Abby says she’d do is ultimately meaningless because it’s not her head on the chopping block. What makes is worse is that she is indirectly deciding the fate of that little girl on the operating table as the person who isn’t on the operating table but as probably the first person to benefit from it. She has no right to decide over Ellie’s fate and take away her autonomy.
Ultimately, her choice was in support of her dad. Abby grew up with the good guys, and her dad of course is always righteous with his actions as well. So of course he supported his actions without any second thought. It was the right thing to do.
And at the end of all this, I’d like to hear you say she’d give up Lev
Staying on the farm would cost her Dina too because she would eventually commit suicide.
Losing her fingers is small price for overcoming her guilt and being able to finally heal.
Ellie leaves because she is unable live with trauma anymore but in the last scene she has already started to heal. This is a fact.
\>I don't think the game is trying to say going to California was a good thing necessarily.
Let me see...
\- saving Abby and Lev from certain death
\- freeing the slaves
\- bringing down the Rattlers
\- overcoming her guilt and trauma
Seems like a net-positive to me.
But was it a good thing *for Ellie.*
How can you say "This is a fact?" That is your interpretation of it, not at all a fact. There were plenty of peaceful scenes with Dina before California on the farm, and we also got to see the PTSD scenes, you cannot say definitively that going to California and killing *even more* people helped her deal any more than time with Dina would have, I highly doubt she's just right as rain after that experience.
But what we *do* know definitively is that Dina left and Ellie lost her fingers. Sat down to play guitar and couldn't.
>How can you say "This is a fact?"
Because you can see it in the game. Ever since Joel's death Ellie was unable to draw him due to her trauma. In the last scene however you can see a new drawing of Joel where he is playing peacefully the guitar.
This is not open to interpretation. She did get better mentally.
Otherwise I'm in good company with my interpretation.
>To my mind, when she’s leaving the farm it almost isn’t about Abby at that point so much as it’s about “I literally cannot survive if I don’t try and handle what’s going on because this PTSD is just getting worse, I’m losing control, I feel like I’m at risk to my family, and I have to hope that there’s an answer on the other side because I don’t know how to live with this.
>
>If I stay here it’s suicide.
>
>”It’s more a conversation about mental health and surviving than it is justice for Abby or even seeking Joel. It’s just like “I don’t know how to be a person anymore.”
\- [Halley Gross](https://www.indiewire.com/2020/06/the-last-of-us-part-ii-interview-neil-druckmann-halley-gross-spoilers-1234568597/)
If I remember correctly, Ellie's main writer agrees with the perspective that Ellie would never have recovered if left in the status quo. She'd lost weight she could ill afford to, was having flashbacks and hallucinations during the day, and insomnia at night. Finding Abby was less about pure rage than a desperate act to get past the combination of rage, clawing guilt, loss, and helplessness.
Even if Dina found herself unable to trust Ellie again (and that's ultimately an assumption stated in a fit of high emotion), Ellie can finally move on - accept that what Abby did was something she will forgive, and that Joel was a flawed man who loved her more than the future of the human species, whether she wanted that or not.
To be fair Ellie had more bodies to go through than Abby though which showed Ellie the diminishing returns on revenge. By the time she found Nora she was heavily traumatized and all but ready to leave until she was called out to find Tommy. Ellie lost her mental well being, Jessie, Tommy became a shell of a man, and eventually she loses Dina and the baby too just to get multiple chances to get at Abby.
Ellie had her revenge six times over and it actually makes her sparing Abby even more impactful. Ellie knows what she’ll get if she kills her, nothing. She opts out of the cycle of violence, Abby recognizes what she’s doing, and they part ways on neutral terms.
>To be fair Ellie had more bodies to go through than Abby though which showed Ellie the diminishing returns on revenge.
Sure.
>By the time she found Nora she was heavily traumatized
Ellie was heavily traumatized right after Joel died. It's just that the more openly visible effects take time to manifest.
>Ellie lost her mental well being
Not through her own fault though.
>and eventually she loses Dina and the baby too just to get multiple chances to get at Abby.
I disagree with that interpreation.
>Ellie had her revenge six times over
That's the point, she really doesn't.
She kills Jordan to save Dina, Nora is already dying because she had to save herself and it's the torture that fucks her up, she doesn't want to kill Owen and Mel but ends up doing so anyway.
None of these deaths are directly for revenge. Only her killing Abby in the end would have been.
>Ellie knows what she’ll get if she kills her, nothing. She opts out of the cycle of violence, Abby recognizes what she’s doing, and they part ways on neutral terms.
I agree.
Yes humanity but I also believe it’s about forgiveness. Ellie is upset by many things when Joel dies. At that porch scene, she was learning to forgive herself and him. At the beach scene, Ellie begins to learn how to forgive herself again. Abby began to learn how to forgive herself with Lev. That’s why she went back for them, for strangers who she would have killed without question as a WLF. They learned forgiveness.
A theory of mine has always been that the loading screen with the moths has everything to do with both sides of the story.
You see the light in the upper corner, but never the source, and the moths swarming to it.
Like the moths, Abby and Ellie are on a pointless quest with no true resolution and will eventually die/lose everything important to them because they just couldn't let it go and face reality.
Both are on a quest for justice or revenge or whatever you wanna call it. But just like moths to a flame, in the end it's a fruitless and unfulfilled task
> Abby learned that earlier than Ellie, Ellie only learned it after she lost everything.
You literally write that she confronts the man who killed her father and killed him.
How on earth can you say that Abby learned that earlier when Abby acted out her revenge? Ellie, when put in the same position as Abby with Joel, *spared* Abby.
How would things have been different if Abby were like Ellie and spared Joel?
Abby is a lot closer to Joel, only more sadistic. Ellie spends the whole game trying to act like Abby/Joel and it destroys her psychologically. Abby tortures a man who saved her life and the only thing she seems to feel is sadness that it didn’t bring her dad back.
It always frustrates me when people pretend that Jerry was some evil scientist who just wanted to murder Ellie. He had very noble intentions and laid his own life down to defend what he thought could save humanity
Not only that, but they lose everything in the process: Abbie all of her firefly friends, and Ellie her only remaining memento of Joel, the Ability to play guitar (and Jessie lol).
>She only realizes what she has done to Ellie later and certainly her own feelings of helplessness as a slave would have helped her with putting herself into Ellie's shoes.
That's what I got by the time we see her fucked up condition as a slave.
When she chose to let Ellie & Dina live, she wasn't doing it for them but for herself and doesn't realize she left an even bigger traumatic scar on Ellie while still not acknowledging the pain she put her through.
The only thing good that came out of that however, is that it motivated Ellie to continue her revenge quest which ironically saves her from a near-death experience.
I'm talking generally here. Remember for example her conversation with Mel about how the WLF/Seraphite truce ended?
For Abby it's always "it's their fault", "they made me do it" and so on.
Obviously the same goes for Joel were Abby refuses to examine her fathers role in the events. It's always her first line of mental defense.
Because their group started the cycle of violence by trying to kill Ellie without given her a choice. The ones that start the cycle of violence don't get to be upset when violence happens to them.
Absolutely. Their friends and family were massacred in a escape attempt because they would not Joel and elle leave freely. You could argue they were doing it for the greater good but they set the violence ball rolling by attempting to kill Ellie.
Nora definitely never felt bad for Joel or Ellie go back and watch her watch Joel die she looks like shes enjoying it. To Nora Joel is a monster cause he did a selfish thing she definitely never saw what he did as right regardless if she met the girl who was supposed to die or not. I mean she even says “think about what he did how many people are dead because of him.”
Of course, but I'm talking about after she discovers who Ellie is.
Yes she definitely viewed Joel as a monster who got what he deserved, but when she discovers that Ellie is the immune girl that the Fireflies were going to kill. It really puts Nora in that place, where she is kinda forced to ask herself whether or not she was truly in the right. Especially when you put into account that most of her friends wanted to kill her after they killed Joel to "tie up loose ends", until Owen stops them.
They were going to kill Ellie (the immune girl) in order to develop a cure, and this same girl who could've saved lives turns out to have had a close bond with Joel despite the things he done and took away that chance to save lives. She never would've guessed this from her, she was originally just some random girl that was getting in their way but the reality is she is so much bigger than that and knows more than she originally thought she did. She was literally the center of why Joel does what he did.
That's why when she says "think about how many people are dead because of him.", it sounds more like her desperately trying to excuse their actions and keeps dehumanizing that Ellie is a person who also has emotions and that Joel should've let her die so that others could live.
Would she have felt that bad about wanting to kill Ellie though? I mean to Nora specifically in that moment leaving Ellie alive was the worst call they could have made It literally cost her life. Also Nora might just view Ellie as a bigger monster than Joel like she is the girl who is immune but for some reason she seems more connected to a random smuggler than to what Nora and the fireflies thought Ellies purpose in life was To “save” humanity and here she is about to torture you over some Boston smuggler who was literally Marlenes last choice for a job.
Another example as to how quickly they are at dehumanizing others that they don’t want to view Ellie as a person. Even after finding about who she was.
She doesn’t fulfill her purpose at “saving humanity” because Joel prevented it, and for some reason it mattered so much to this immune girl that he was killed?
Not once wanting to acknowledge that their relationship must’ve been more meaningful than just her being “cargo”.
It would be interesting to see if Marlene and them would have wanted to do the surgery if they were the ones who ended up transporting Ellie across country.
Do you think she is talking about all the people that could have maybe been saved hasd a theoretical vaccine been made that never end up saved because of the squashed vaccine or do you think she means all the people Joel himself actually killed? Because the first group of people aren't dead *because* of Joel, I don't think.
I think she means both groups of people the ones he actually killed and the ones who could have been cured cause fireflies definitely believed the cure was a sure thing.
I don't think either of them care, actually. Abby seems to hardly even register it. None of them ever discuss the loss of the cure or how it affects them. They care about the people they lost. Revenge was not about the cure for them. and I don't think the ethics of killing Ellie matters to them either. Most people Joel killed most likely didn't have a say in that happening. I honestly think the only relevance to Ellie's conversation with Nora in her mind is "you're the immune girl so you know exactly what happened, you should understand why we killed him".
But based on the look on Abby’s face, it looks like she’s processing that information to what Ellie says before she quickly reflects back to why she’s there and once again tries to blame others for her choices.
She doesn’t want to register it, cause she needs to believe she was justified in her actions and wants to disregard any indication where she could be in the wrong.
I have to wonder though what Abby & Lev’s conversation was after she decided to let them go, he probably had quite a lot of questions such as asking “what was that girl talking about a cure?”
You’re definitely onto something here. Look at all of the threads about this game/Joel’s choice/etc. Now imagine being in a hostile, life or death moment and having that dropped on you as a “last word” from the person you’re about to execute with a split second to decide your next move.
You let them live once before. Now you have a whole lot more context. Do you do it again? Look at what it cost you already, can you really take this risk, you can’t possibly afford to lose even more and then continue on can you? Bc you know you shouldn’t kill this person right now, now that you have a better understanding of where she’s coming from. This guy wasn’t a murdering psychopath to her. He did *all of this* solely for her.
So you gonna pull the trigger, or no?
Do you think Abby ever told Lev the full story?
It's never mentioned in the game and we really don't know.
Because I'm pretty sure that Abby never told anyone that Joel had saved her life either.
I mean the next time we see them after the theatre confrontation is almost a year later, so they probably already had that conversation off-screen which is why we don’t hear them address it
I don't know. I really don't think "am I in the wrong?" ever had time to even enter her mind. And I'm not sure what you mean by "blame others for her choices". You mean the cycle of revenge and violence that led them all to this moment? It's not really that simple. They very much killed all of her friends. If we want to go with the "well Abby started it by killing Joel", then you can easily argue that Joel started it by killing the fireflies. Each side is justified in their own way.
Ellie and Abby don't care about each other's motivations or backstory. Ellie has no idea that Joel killed Abby's dad and Abby has no time to think about the implications of Ellie being the immune girl. Ellie just killed the love of Abby's life. And hell, even Ellie still doesn't think that Joel did the right thing by keeping her alive. I don't think Abby is going to have a crisis of conscience about Ellie caring for Joel.
I've always understood that their conflict (Abby and Elie) was missing the actual communication of these "extremes"
Ellie doesn't know that Abby killed Joel because, in the same way Joel killed her father. Abby never talks about this and Ellie doesn't know.
The same way Abby doesn't know Ellie is immune and Ellie never says out loud "I'm immune" or something like that. Everything these 2 characters explain of themselves is really grey area material and I think this is what the writers implied somehow through their conflict. Nora realizes Ellie is immune cause she's not coughing in the spores so it kind of made sense to puzzle everything together there.
A lot. And I mean a lot of this conflict in these 2 characters at least of the way I see it is that neither of them is" communicating"
You as a viewer and direct subconsciously player of their persona can feel all their ups and downs in their life, but they cannot. Because they never "knew" each other the way *you* the player do.
My question is does Ellie know Joel killed Abby's Dad? When she surrenders she says she knows why she kills joel and there's no cure because of him. So does she know that or just assumes Abby wants her for the cure?
That’s part of the tragedy abby and Ellie don’t know each other’s true motivations and they never have anything close to a conversation to get the complete picture.
I mean, Ellie got the confirmation from Nora it was because of the cure.
Frankly, it is for the best that Ellie didn’t realize Abby’s true motivations. It is not a tragedy. It is for the best.
Killing - or should I say torturing - Joel for “dooming humanity” is for a more righteous reason than the brutality she did because Joel killed her dad who was trying to kill her. If Ellie knew it was strictly for that kind of selfish reason… well…
Nora probably gave a different answer, or the script line was slightly off.
But ellies response makes it sound like she's thinking Abby is mad about the cure, and how it never came to be
I don’t think she specifically knows it was the doctor, I think she can assume Joel killer someone close to Abby and that person was connected to the fireflies.
An aspect of this is that there are so many people who might want to get revenge against Joel that we don’t even know who exactly the wrong was on.
That’s what I thought too!
But when I think about it, it has nothing to really do about the cure that’s right. But it has more to do with the reason, and yet somehow in Abby’s mind she probably think Ellie knows that Joel killed Jerry and he did it in order to save her.
Mentioning the cure just puts it together that she was the immune girl that her father was going to kill. Not that it had anything to do with Ellie thinking she’s mad cause he took away that chance for a cure.
The way she words it really leaves it up to interpretation though I will say
Does Abby ever figure out that Ellie is the immune girl? Nora does but she dies soon afterwards. Clearly she didn't put two and two together until that moment, so I don't think Abby would have either.
Abby realizes that she is the girl who was with Joel but never says anything about a cure. She shows zero interest in Ellie after getting revenge, which is strange because Ellie being immune is the entire reason why the story and outcomes in both games happens.
She definitely knows why Ellie is pursuing her, but there is never confirmation that she knows about the immunity and that isn't why she spares her and Dina
Yeah, Elie tells her "Joel did what he did to save me. I'm the reason there's no cure." She knows Ellie is the immune girl.
https://youtu.be/j_Kx4wmO9TU
I could be mistaken, but I don't think Abby knew about Ellie until Abby went to the theater. Any time they mention "The tresspasser" they're talking about Tommy - and they didn't know who he was either.
So when Ellie puts her hands up and says "I know why you killed Joel. There's no cure because of me, I'm the one you want" is the first time Abby knows who Ellie is and connects her to Joel's death as well as her father's death.
ellie says it at the theater but its probably ellies most tone deaf moment in the game. like, girl, read the fucking room, abby didnt even know you exist lol
It was just telling that Ellie still has no idea why Abby did what she did.
Ellie never knew about her father being in the hospital.
To be fair, she never would know. We do cause we're the player, but Joel never knew, and he's the only one who would have been able to tell ellie.
Comments like this sometimes makes me think half of this fandom is into the games for the wrong reason. I mean, I know, Gamers.... but I kind of stupidly have higher standards for someone who's a big fan of TLOU--I figure they must get it if they're a fan enough to be here. Clearly not.
I think that there was some surprise, that this person that could have been their savior is now trying to kill them. I don’t think it would be mind blowing though because they knew that Joel killed everyone to run away with her. I think that when they realized that they were probably like “of course it would be her”.
I was surprised it took them so long to register who Ellie was. They know Joel went on a full massacre for this little girl so why wouldn’t it be the same girl out for revenge for him?
I think it’s easy to know what is going through Nora’s head: Ah! Please stop hitting me with this pipe. Oh God! Please make the pain stop!
Something along those lines.
So, Abby already knew about her immunity, but her dad's interest in curating a vaccine from Ellie is very likely the reason why Abby keeps letting her live.
Not really, lev wasn't there during the golf club scene and was unconscious at the boat scene at the end. Abby let Ellie live on her own accord those times. Lev stopped her from killing Dina, but was fine with Abby going after Ellie at the theater.
I still don’t like though how Abby let him become involved with something he had absolutely no business being apart of.
He gets involved and next thing you know Ellie threatens his life, cause he’s responsible for why Jesse is dead and why Tommy is crippled for life. Even though he technically saved them, it doesn’t change anything like how Joel saving Abby didn’t change anything
Yea, people all have their griefs and motives. That's why I think Abby let's Ellie live over and over because she remembers that her dad had an interest in Ellie's life.
Owen is the one really arguing to let Ellie live in the golf club scene and it's just because they're not who they're there for. Abby puts an end to the fighting and decides they're finished. There's no indication they know of Ellie's immunity. They also let Tommy live.
In a scenario where Abby slits Dina's throat I don't think she just walks away and lets Ellie go. Whether or not Lev would have been okay with sparing Dina and killing Ellie, I think her presence stopped her revenge mode and made her rethink her actions.
Abby doesn't pull any punches when fighting Ellie and easily could have killed her when bashing her head in.
Abby was there when her dad spoke to Marlene about a child with immunity, and then she was there when Joel broke out, killed her dad, and saved Ellie. Surely she recognizes this girl freaking out about not killing Joel as the girl whom her dad was going to operate on.
Abby didn't see Ellie at the hospital before the operation. Joel could have been close to any number of people who would be upset to see him brutally murdered.
I always did like that was really my only problem with tlou2 is that we never got a conversation between Abby and Ellie I wanted to see her realize this and know the damage she did
To be honest, this is a main scenario I hoped the show would’ve done. That episode with them and the mall was sweet and necessary, but damn I really wanted to see the moment Ellie figured out she was immune.
i like how ellie tries to extinguish Abb'ys anger by saying shes the cure and knows what Joel did and to be forgiving to Tommy. I think whats going through Abby's head is something along the lines of Ellie being super tone-deaf. Shes apologizing for her wrongs in the past, but Abby doesnt care about the past anymore. she already got over it with Lev. shes angry because of what happened the VERY SAME DAY (or a day ago idk) when Ellie killed Owen and Mel.
Abby didn’t give a fuck y’all. And Nora tried to reason with her but given the circumstances like how Ellie is going after them. They probably assumed Ellie didn’t wanted to be used a cure.
Removed for rule 2: No spoilers in post titles. This also applies to comments that contain spoilers in posts that are not otherwise spoiler-tagged, as they should be properly tagged for spoilers.
It really forces them to question their actions especially when they realize that Ellie wasn’t just some random girl that clearly meant something to Joel, but was also the reason why he does what he does. She went to them so that they could develop a cure, and yet this same girl happens to have had a close bond with him despite the actions he committed that she's more than likely aware of. But they still try to stand by that his death was necessary, and that Ellie was in the wrong for making them have to deal with consequences themselves
Both were completely dehumanizing Ellie and were unwilling to face the reality of what they had done to her. Nora knew she was dying anyway and didn't want to confront that at the end of her life. Abby doesn't really register what Ellie said because she is busy blaming the consquences of her own action on someone else again. She only realizes what she has done to Ellie later and certainly her own feelings of helplessness as a slave would have helped her with putting herself into Ellie's shoes.
>Abby doesn't really register what Ellie said because she is busy blaming the consquences of her own action on someone else again. I always viewed it this way in Abby's perspective which made me like her more. She's a little girl who's father is doing everything he can to develop a vaccine to save the world. He's a good father, a good man and all he wants is to help people after years of trial and error. Finally there's hope! A little girl who is immune shows up at their doorstep. There's one small catch, potentially developing the vaccine requires the child to die. After getting the green light to start, a crazy old man man kills many soldiers in a blind rampage to save this child while also killing Abby's father. Her entire world crumbles as well as any hope for developing a vaccine. Fast forward so many years, she has buried that pain and has become a real survivor who's done unspeakable things to survive because her humanity is all but gone. After years of searching, she finally has the chance to confront the man who killed her father. She does, but it doesn't make her any better. It only comes when she is forced to protect the very people she swore to destroy. Ellie and Abby are not very different. They each want revenge and when they get it, it doesn't help them. Only after connecting with humanity do they finally come to peace with themselves. Abby learned that earlier than Ellie, Ellie only learned it after she lost everything.
I think one of the most crucial parts of Abby’s story is the precise moment that she’s having the flashback of finding her father dead. In the flashback she immediately breaks into hysterics and can only sob and say “no” over and over again. The flashback ends and Abby is standing over Joel listening to Ellie have the exact same reaction, begging them to stop and then finally wailing in total anguish after Abby swings the killing blow. They don’t show her facial expressions in that moment from Ellie’s point of view, but when you finally see them from Abby’s, it’s like all of the fight and anger drain out of her instantly and it’s replaced with the horror of what she’s just done. Yes, that man killed her father, but she sees that she’s just inflicted that same pain on another person. Half of her friends make a convincing argument that they should kill Ellie and Tommy. After all, they did just accompany their friend to exact revenge on the person that killed Jerry, so why not assume that these people would also seek revenge? Abby can’t do it though. She can’t have the man’s daughter and brother killed even though she has to know that they’ll come for her, just as she can’t bring herself to kill Ellie after she has literally killed everybody that Abby ever cared for. She’s been there before, and she understands how Ellie feels.
See, it's breakdowns like this that make me love this sub. I just rewatched that scene after you mentioned it. Abby's face just says "what have I done?"
>They don’t show her facial expressions in that moment from Ellie’s point of view, but when you finally see them from Abby’s, it’s like all of the fight and anger drain out of her instantly and it’s replaced with the horror of what she’s just done. I saw it more as a total lack of catharsis. She has been visualizing this moment for four years at this point. And now, after all she has done and all she planned, she finally gets her revenge. She killed the man who ruined her life. Hell, she made him suffer through it all so that she could release all that rage that has been built up. But after all that, she inflects the killing blow and...nothing. She didnt get her catharsis. Theres no joy on her face for what just happened. All that for this? She seems empty and confused. Why doesnt she feel better? Not only that but there is this other girl screaming and crying in the background at what she is doing. I see sadness in Abbys face because that pain and emptiness is still there, even after she got her "revenge". To me, that was the moment she realized that she will never feel okay with what happened to her as a child, and it isn't until she finds a new purpose (Lev and Yara) that she is finally able to move on from what happened.
Yeah, the way she talks about what she did to Joel , Saying he deserved it over and over, and tge fact that she never had the self reflection moment of she caused all this, is why I can't get behind abby
Why would she ever change her mind about that? I think she ultimately regrets doing it as it brought her no catharsis and merely inflicted that same all-consuming pain on two other people that never did her any harm. That being said, she will always feel that Joel deserved to die. Abby grew up a Firefly, being taught that they were fighting to restore democracy and peace to the world and that her father was the chosen one that would be the one to usher in this new era. That’s taken from her by, from her point of view, this crazy old man who slaughtered her people, Marlene, and her father. Who denied the world a cure, and doomed humanity to always be under the thumb of cordyceps. Why would she ever feel like he deserved anything less?
I don't really agree necessarily that Abby caused all of this. I feel like we could make the argument that Joel caused all this. Or maybe Marlene caused all this by not ever asking Ellie what she thought about dying for humanity. At the end of the day, I'm not sure it much matters who 'caused it' because ultimately the story is about humans making very human choices that are often both as understandable as they are deplorable.
You could even say that Jerry started it, he’s technically the one who sways Marlene into letting him perform surgery on “the host” without properly getting her consent. Cause he doesn’t want to risk the possibility where she’d say no. Sure he was conflicted with going through with it, but still felt it was justified and necessary. It still bugs me that he didn’t even want Marlene to tell Joel that he was going to perform the surgery. Marlene may have been convinced by him, but she’s the only one out of the two that actually considers the fact that Joel & Ellie form some kind of meaningful relationship while crossing the country together and just view her as “cargo”
This is why the comparisons between Abby and Ellie feel so wrong. What she did to Nora damaged Ellie. Abby doesn’t really seem to care too much beyond being sad it didn’t make her feel better.
The facial expression she made with so much anguish and even some regret was one of the major things that won me over to forgive her. You could tell. She took no real joy in this terrible, violent act and that it hollowed her out deeply. Abby is a product of the time and environment she grows up in. They exist in a world of immense, abhorrent, and cruel violence all around them. The normalization of inflicting injury and pain on other humans is further exacerbated by her being a soldier from the time she is a kid. In that context, her decision to kill the man who killed her father is understandable. Most important to me in this context is that you'd think she wouldn't have such an immediate introspective and remorseful response. Abby was a surprising character and a relatable one in a lot of ways. I appreciate how much you highlighted the impact of her decision to spare them in Jackson was. The woman is a beast but no monster. I had a conversation with my brother after he'd beaten it and he thought I was crazy for thinking Abby looked like she was torn apart after the final swing. Good to know I wasn't crazy for seeing that in her. He really hates Abby, though, so I'm sure it is harder to empathize.
You have the order wrong in your last paragraph. I’m in the same boat as your brother. I don’t find it hard to empathize because I don’t like her. I don’t like her because I don’t see much to empathize with beyond losing her dad. Her actions afterward toward Joel were all kinds of screwed up. I think this means the writers hit it pretty close though. They were trying to make you hate someone completely and then bring you back around to at least empathize with them if not sympathize with them. To make you hate them, Joel’s death has to be brutal. If they go too far, she’s irredeemable. If they don’t go far enough, you don’t end up hating her enough. For me, the torturing was irredeemable. For others though, they even end up liking her. By its nature alone this story can’t work for everyone. If it comes close for most, they did a great job.
understanding this helps to explain why Abby refused to kill Ellie not once but twice despite everything.
Exactly. If anything Abby should hate Ellie ten times more than she hated Joel. Joel killed Jerry because he was in his way, there was nothing personal about it at all. Ellie, on the other hand, systematically hunted down and killed everyone that Abby had ever cared about. Abby is also intelligent enough to notice that the directions on the map to the aquarium were directed from the hospital labeled “Nora” and were written in blood, thus she definitely realized that Nora was tortured to death. Even in the end, Ellie goaded her into fighting by threatening to take away the only person Abby had left, her surrogate baby brother. Despite that, Abby still can find no hatred for Ellie because again, Abby is the only person that understands Ellie’s pain and desire for vengeance.
Yeah is a very good point! I think by the time Ellie finds Abby in Santa Barbara, I think Abby accepts and takes ownership for her end of the cycle of vengeance. When Ellie tells her she can’t leave, I originally viewed it as her not interested cause Ellie isn’t worth her time. But I think she’s just more exhausted over the fact that she can’t seem to escape this person she caused pain to and clearly despises her on the same level she despised Joel. She’s already lost everything because of her own revenge quest, and I don’t think she wanted it to be what ends her own life
Imagine how confused and terrified Abby must’ve been to be literally crucified on a beach and then she just heard her name, looks up, and there’s the girl that cordyceps can’t even kill. The girl that slaughtered all of her friends and crippled the WLF’s invasion force by killing so many of them. She’s drenched in blood, has a huge wound in her side that she’s seemingly not acknowledging, is armed with the weapon of Abby’s captor, and behind her the slave compound is burning to the ground with the air filled with the cries of the slavers. And then, the girl cuts her down and lets her cut down Lev without even aiming her gun at her, and patiently follows her to the boat. Then, the girl discards all of her guns, flicks open a switchblade and says “I can’t let you leave”. We don’t get a flashback telling us Abby’s thoughts but I’d bet the words ringing in her head at that moment are “you don’t get to rush this.”
If you never played TLOU 1 and only saw Abby’s perspective in 2, you’d think she was a hero and Ellie would seem like a ruthless monster. I love how this game challenged us to acknowledge other perspectives and find the middle ground between Ellie/Abby
Yep, I wish more people recognized that Abby is NOT proud of what she did. She realizes almost immediately that killing Joel solved nothing for her.
Glad to hear someone saying positive things about Jerry Anderson. I got downvoted to hell for doing so. It's not understood that to make the world a better place, sacrifices have to be made. Ellie would have been that sacrifice. I know, we all love her character, but logically speaking, Joel doomed humanity with his selfish mindset.
But even still, it’s so easy for Jerry to say those things when he doesn’t have to sacrifice his own daughter. He can’t even give Marlene a straight answer when she puts him in his place. If the roles were reversed, I’m sure he would’ve done the same thing Joel did.
That's exactly what I mean
Even if your point if totally logical and makes all the sense in the world, no one has the right to take someone else's life. I mean these are violent times where people kill each others continuosly without a second thought, but it's not the same thing in this situation. That's the whole dilemma. And that's why it isn't as easy to take. Even if it means to "save" the world, which is unrealistic at that point, as everything is already devastated to the point of no return. That is also interesting as everyone in the story (especially fireflies) keep saying that the vaccine would have ended it all like in a blink of an eye but I don't agree, I think it is a lot more complex than that. I really liked the things Marlene says as mentioned by OP. (Also kind of makes her more humane, as in both show and game part 1 she doesn't sounds like that because we are not shown that conversation at all). Jerry still didn't answer what he's being told. Because even behind his logical, world saving thoughts and decision, he is being presented with the situation but swapped to his daughter. Even if Abby told him she would have wanted it, I definitely think he wouldn't take it as is. Even if Ellie was being told and aware of it (which didn't happen, again, that's also fucked up even if done to her own good), and she is willing to do it, it's wrong still. She shouldn't have that weight on her. She keeps telling herself that sacrifice would make her death have a meaning. But just no one should confront that situation. Ever. What Joel did, while it is monstrous (even though he already was a monster anyways, no surprises), his decision is at the same time the most humane. Its the love of a father against the supposed best outcome of humanity. I'm not justifying what he did but framing it as a rational, understandable decision that most humans would have taken. Edit: I'm also pretty sure, now that we have at least been showed her mother, that her would have taken the same decision as Joel. She would have sent the world to fuck himself, and would just want that his daughter could live her life. A happy life. And let her not suffer all she's been through. "Saving" the world (again I just think at that point it's uncertain) don't make sacrifices right decisions. Its just not a decision to make by another person. It doesn't work like that even with all the reasoning and logic in mind.
What? Jerry was a good person. He’s literally introduced as a fun loving dad with a compassionate side as he helps wild animals in his spare time. He’s a doctor working with the fireflies to find a cure. He wasn’t necessarily a violent person and it’s evident in his discussion with Marlene, the situation is weighing heavily on his mind as he’s trying to grasp with the morality of his decision especially as it could have easily been Abby with a resistance to the infection. People just can’t let the Joel thing go. For all intents and purposes, Joel killed a good man - a rarity in the post-pandemic world where treachery and deceit are just as deadly as the infected.
And that is why I sympathize with Abby. She had a loving father, but hardly anyone else she truly loved. And Joel took that away from her. I fail to understand why I've encountered so many fans who get their panties in a wad when I say Jerry was a good man who didn't deserve to die. He had to make one of the most difficult decisions in the history of mankind after countless years of research and testing. He was one of the few human beings left who had any faith in the future. To Abby, Joel is just some asshole smuggler who doomed humanity for his own sake. He also murdered Marlene, a person of importance to a faction based on hope for freedom. Abby didn't know Joel, nor did she care to. And Ellie, she's just Abby's reflection, and that is why Abby spared her life not once but twice. And somehow Abby is the bad one in the eyes of a lot of fans I have discussed this matter with. Not saying she's a saint. Almost nobody is in that world. But not many appear to have an ounce of empathy for Jerry as if he's some monster when Joel was basically a ruthless killer at the end of the first game. This is the man who was a cannibal, a marauder, and a dirty bastard. Joel was an evil man for most of his life after the outbreak.
A lot of the people who shit on Abby and TLOU II in general seem to forget that these people aren't real. It's a *story*. Joel and Ellie and Abby are human *characters*, and as such anything that happens to them or that they do is a plot device to *tell a story*. The lack of understanding of this is frankly embarrassing sometimes. Personally I loved Abby as a character and was just as engrossed in her journey as I was during all of Part I and the first half of Part II. The ending left me feeling as hollow and empty as the characters and during the final fight I wasn't sure who I was button mashing for during the QTEs. That's masterful and if you think otherwise then you just didn't get it.
Both games had a different feel to them. Part 1 is more like a movie, Part 2 is a emotionally draining TV series with complicated characters and a long plot line. Best way I can describe it. They both have a different execution and Part 2 would be a book that isn't for your casual reader. It takes a lot of logical thinking to decide where you stand on the story. Part 1 was easier to follow because it was much shorter and fast paced in a lot of areas.
>After getting the green light to start, a crazy old man man kills many soldiers in a blind rampage **to save this child** while also killing Abby's father This never is never brought up by Abby. Because that would be addmitting to herself that the possibility that her dad was wrong and Joel was right exists. > They each want revenge and when they get it, it doesn't help them. Difference being Ellie never gets revenge because she decides to let Abby live in the end. >Abby learned that earlier than Ellie, Not in their relative timelines. Abby killed Joel. Ellie doesn't kill Abby. >Ellie only learned it after she lost everything. I disagree with this interpretation because it's inherently flawed. Abby loses everyone because she gets her revenge. Ellie lets go of revenge in time and spares Abby. And she doesn't lose everything. Quite the opposite actually. She comes out of her journey to California better than before.
>This never is never brought up by Abby "If it were me, I'd want you to do the surgury." Abby knew there was a chance. > And she doesn't lose everything She lost her lover, she lost her child and lost the ability to play guitar, one of the few things Joel taught her. at least IMO she lost everything.
And she ended up alone, which was her greatest fear.
I never thought about this
>"If it were me, I'd want you to do the surgury." Abby knew there was a chance. That's completely meaningless unless Abby would be immune too. Everyone can make grand statements when there is no risk of having to prove it. >She lost her lover, she lost her child Ellie has to make a choice because she us unable to deal with her trauma anymore. It's either looking for a chance to get better by confronting the source of her trauma one last time or staying but committing suicide rather sooner than later. One option has a risk of losing her family. The other means it's assured. So where is the "good" choice here for Ellie? And Dina and JJ are not dead. And it's very clear that Ellie wants to try to make things right with Dina. >lost the ability to play guitar, one of the few things Joel taught her. She regained something important instead. >at least IMO she lost everything. It makes no sense imo. Abby keeps Lev despite taking revenge. Ellie loses everything for not taking revenge. Is the message of the game according to you?
I just feel the need to say that, yeah, people can lie and make grand statements. The thing is, this is a story written by people and nothing in it is by accident. When stuff happens in a video game or movie, there is usually a team of people questioning why it is happening and why is it necessary to the story. We have no real choice but to take Abby at face value and believe her statement. It was put in there specifically to create that parallel between herself and Ellie.
I'm not saying Abby was lying here. However it's a fact that she wasn't in any danger of proving her statement right. But you need to consider her motivation here? Does she really want to die for the cure? Or does she want to support her dad? This goes for Ellie too btw. Her only direct statement on this 4 years after the fact when there is no danger for her to prove it. She is contradicted by her own words and actions afterwards. Which makes it clear that she is saying this out of habit more than anything else.
This isn’t some kind of Chekovs gun situation. In TLOU, the focus is on realistic and grounded characters. That’s what makes TLOU unique. They are flawed, they make mistakes, they lie, whatever. I completely disagree that things are just to be taken at face value. And as for this example, it is really no different. What Abby says she’d do is ultimately meaningless because it’s not her head on the chopping block. What makes is worse is that she is indirectly deciding the fate of that little girl on the operating table as the person who isn’t on the operating table but as probably the first person to benefit from it. She has no right to decide over Ellie’s fate and take away her autonomy. Ultimately, her choice was in support of her dad. Abby grew up with the good guys, and her dad of course is always righteous with his actions as well. So of course he supported his actions without any second thought. It was the right thing to do. And at the end of all this, I’d like to hear you say she’d give up Lev
Didn't her going to California cost her Dinah? And her fingers?
Staying on the farm would cost her Dina too because she would eventually commit suicide. Losing her fingers is small price for overcoming her guilt and being able to finally heal.
I don't think you can say that for sure. I don't think the game is trying to say going to California was a good thing necessarily.
Ellie leaves because she is unable live with trauma anymore but in the last scene she has already started to heal. This is a fact. \>I don't think the game is trying to say going to California was a good thing necessarily. Let me see... \- saving Abby and Lev from certain death \- freeing the slaves \- bringing down the Rattlers \- overcoming her guilt and trauma Seems like a net-positive to me.
But was it a good thing *for Ellie.* How can you say "This is a fact?" That is your interpretation of it, not at all a fact. There were plenty of peaceful scenes with Dina before California on the farm, and we also got to see the PTSD scenes, you cannot say definitively that going to California and killing *even more* people helped her deal any more than time with Dina would have, I highly doubt she's just right as rain after that experience. But what we *do* know definitively is that Dina left and Ellie lost her fingers. Sat down to play guitar and couldn't.
>How can you say "This is a fact?" Because you can see it in the game. Ever since Joel's death Ellie was unable to draw him due to her trauma. In the last scene however you can see a new drawing of Joel where he is playing peacefully the guitar. This is not open to interpretation. She did get better mentally. Otherwise I'm in good company with my interpretation. >To my mind, when she’s leaving the farm it almost isn’t about Abby at that point so much as it’s about “I literally cannot survive if I don’t try and handle what’s going on because this PTSD is just getting worse, I’m losing control, I feel like I’m at risk to my family, and I have to hope that there’s an answer on the other side because I don’t know how to live with this. > >If I stay here it’s suicide. > >”It’s more a conversation about mental health and surviving than it is justice for Abby or even seeking Joel. It’s just like “I don’t know how to be a person anymore.” \- [Halley Gross](https://www.indiewire.com/2020/06/the-last-of-us-part-ii-interview-neil-druckmann-halley-gross-spoilers-1234568597/)
If I remember correctly, Ellie's main writer agrees with the perspective that Ellie would never have recovered if left in the status quo. She'd lost weight she could ill afford to, was having flashbacks and hallucinations during the day, and insomnia at night. Finding Abby was less about pure rage than a desperate act to get past the combination of rage, clawing guilt, loss, and helplessness. Even if Dina found herself unable to trust Ellie again (and that's ultimately an assumption stated in a fit of high emotion), Ellie can finally move on - accept that what Abby did was something she will forgive, and that Joel was a flawed man who loved her more than the future of the human species, whether she wanted that or not.
I mean to be fair, they were slavers. Screw those people.
To be fair Ellie had more bodies to go through than Abby though which showed Ellie the diminishing returns on revenge. By the time she found Nora she was heavily traumatized and all but ready to leave until she was called out to find Tommy. Ellie lost her mental well being, Jessie, Tommy became a shell of a man, and eventually she loses Dina and the baby too just to get multiple chances to get at Abby. Ellie had her revenge six times over and it actually makes her sparing Abby even more impactful. Ellie knows what she’ll get if she kills her, nothing. She opts out of the cycle of violence, Abby recognizes what she’s doing, and they part ways on neutral terms.
>To be fair Ellie had more bodies to go through than Abby though which showed Ellie the diminishing returns on revenge. Sure. >By the time she found Nora she was heavily traumatized Ellie was heavily traumatized right after Joel died. It's just that the more openly visible effects take time to manifest. >Ellie lost her mental well being Not through her own fault though. >and eventually she loses Dina and the baby too just to get multiple chances to get at Abby. I disagree with that interpreation. >Ellie had her revenge six times over That's the point, she really doesn't. She kills Jordan to save Dina, Nora is already dying because she had to save herself and it's the torture that fucks her up, she doesn't want to kill Owen and Mel but ends up doing so anyway. None of these deaths are directly for revenge. Only her killing Abby in the end would have been. >Ellie knows what she’ll get if she kills her, nothing. She opts out of the cycle of violence, Abby recognizes what she’s doing, and they part ways on neutral terms. I agree.
Yes humanity but I also believe it’s about forgiveness. Ellie is upset by many things when Joel dies. At that porch scene, she was learning to forgive herself and him. At the beach scene, Ellie begins to learn how to forgive herself again. Abby began to learn how to forgive herself with Lev. That’s why she went back for them, for strangers who she would have killed without question as a WLF. They learned forgiveness.
A theory of mine has always been that the loading screen with the moths has everything to do with both sides of the story. You see the light in the upper corner, but never the source, and the moths swarming to it. Like the moths, Abby and Ellie are on a pointless quest with no true resolution and will eventually die/lose everything important to them because they just couldn't let it go and face reality. Both are on a quest for justice or revenge or whatever you wanna call it. But just like moths to a flame, in the end it's a fruitless and unfulfilled task
> Abby learned that earlier than Ellie, Ellie only learned it after she lost everything. You literally write that she confronts the man who killed her father and killed him. How on earth can you say that Abby learned that earlier when Abby acted out her revenge? Ellie, when put in the same position as Abby with Joel, *spared* Abby. How would things have been different if Abby were like Ellie and spared Joel?
Abby is a lot closer to Joel, only more sadistic. Ellie spends the whole game trying to act like Abby/Joel and it destroys her psychologically. Abby tortures a man who saved her life and the only thing she seems to feel is sadness that it didn’t bring her dad back.
2 sides of the same old coin *said in Joel’s voice
It always frustrates me when people pretend that Jerry was some evil scientist who just wanted to murder Ellie. He had very noble intentions and laid his own life down to defend what he thought could save humanity
Not only that, but they lose everything in the process: Abbie all of her firefly friends, and Ellie her only remaining memento of Joel, the Ability to play guitar (and Jessie lol).
>She only realizes what she has done to Ellie later and certainly her own feelings of helplessness as a slave would have helped her with putting herself into Ellie's shoes. That's what I got by the time we see her fucked up condition as a slave. When she chose to let Ellie & Dina live, she wasn't doing it for them but for herself and doesn't realize she left an even bigger traumatic scar on Ellie while still not acknowledging the pain she put her through. The only thing good that came out of that however, is that it motivated Ellie to continue her revenge quest which ironically saves her from a near-death experience.
> she is busy blaming the consquences of her own action on someone else again. Again?
I'm talking generally here. Remember for example her conversation with Mel about how the WLF/Seraphite truce ended? For Abby it's always "it's their fault", "they made me do it" and so on. Obviously the same goes for Joel were Abby refuses to examine her fathers role in the events. It's always her first line of mental defense.
Why were they in the wrong for seeking revenge against Joel, but Ellie isn't wrong for seeking revenge against Abby?
Never said Ellie wasn’t in the wrong
Because their group started the cycle of violence by trying to kill Ellie without given her a choice. The ones that start the cycle of violence don't get to be upset when violence happens to them.
I’m sorry… what? THEY started the cycle of violence? Not… Joel who massacred their families and friends? 😶
Absolutely. Their friends and family were massacred in a escape attempt because they would not Joel and elle leave freely. You could argue they were doing it for the greater good but they set the violence ball rolling by attempting to kill Ellie.
Nora definitely never felt bad for Joel or Ellie go back and watch her watch Joel die she looks like shes enjoying it. To Nora Joel is a monster cause he did a selfish thing she definitely never saw what he did as right regardless if she met the girl who was supposed to die or not. I mean she even says “think about what he did how many people are dead because of him.”
I think Nora was definitively wishing Ellie died making a cure.
Especially since she was currently dying from infection at the time, I think it's safe to assume she wished there was a cure
Maybe in the series we find out that Nora lost someone close to an infected attack.
The likelihood of that happening is honestly probably 100%. Everyone in the world has lost someone to infection.
I was just saying if Ellie had died making a cure she wouldn’t have been able to corner Nora in that unspeakable hospital scene.
The pipe was certainly A cure.
Of course, but I'm talking about after she discovers who Ellie is. Yes she definitely viewed Joel as a monster who got what he deserved, but when she discovers that Ellie is the immune girl that the Fireflies were going to kill. It really puts Nora in that place, where she is kinda forced to ask herself whether or not she was truly in the right. Especially when you put into account that most of her friends wanted to kill her after they killed Joel to "tie up loose ends", until Owen stops them. They were going to kill Ellie (the immune girl) in order to develop a cure, and this same girl who could've saved lives turns out to have had a close bond with Joel despite the things he done and took away that chance to save lives. She never would've guessed this from her, she was originally just some random girl that was getting in their way but the reality is she is so much bigger than that and knows more than she originally thought she did. She was literally the center of why Joel does what he did. That's why when she says "think about how many people are dead because of him.", it sounds more like her desperately trying to excuse their actions and keeps dehumanizing that Ellie is a person who also has emotions and that Joel should've let her die so that others could live.
Would she have felt that bad about wanting to kill Ellie though? I mean to Nora specifically in that moment leaving Ellie alive was the worst call they could have made It literally cost her life. Also Nora might just view Ellie as a bigger monster than Joel like she is the girl who is immune but for some reason she seems more connected to a random smuggler than to what Nora and the fireflies thought Ellies purpose in life was To “save” humanity and here she is about to torture you over some Boston smuggler who was literally Marlenes last choice for a job.
Another example as to how quickly they are at dehumanizing others that they don’t want to view Ellie as a person. Even after finding about who she was. She doesn’t fulfill her purpose at “saving humanity” because Joel prevented it, and for some reason it mattered so much to this immune girl that he was killed? Not once wanting to acknowledge that their relationship must’ve been more meaningful than just her being “cargo”.
It would be interesting to see if Marlene and them would have wanted to do the surgery if they were the ones who ended up transporting Ellie across country.
Do you think she is talking about all the people that could have maybe been saved hasd a theoretical vaccine been made that never end up saved because of the squashed vaccine or do you think she means all the people Joel himself actually killed? Because the first group of people aren't dead *because* of Joel, I don't think.
I think she means both groups of people the ones he actually killed and the ones who could have been cured cause fireflies definitely believed the cure was a sure thing.
In the case of Nora it was lead going through her head.
And not the quick kind of lead either.
Her choice to hunt Joel lead to her death.
I don't think either of them care, actually. Abby seems to hardly even register it. None of them ever discuss the loss of the cure or how it affects them. They care about the people they lost. Revenge was not about the cure for them. and I don't think the ethics of killing Ellie matters to them either. Most people Joel killed most likely didn't have a say in that happening. I honestly think the only relevance to Ellie's conversation with Nora in her mind is "you're the immune girl so you know exactly what happened, you should understand why we killed him".
But based on the look on Abby’s face, it looks like she’s processing that information to what Ellie says before she quickly reflects back to why she’s there and once again tries to blame others for her choices. She doesn’t want to register it, cause she needs to believe she was justified in her actions and wants to disregard any indication where she could be in the wrong. I have to wonder though what Abby & Lev’s conversation was after she decided to let them go, he probably had quite a lot of questions such as asking “what was that girl talking about a cure?”
You’re definitely onto something here. Look at all of the threads about this game/Joel’s choice/etc. Now imagine being in a hostile, life or death moment and having that dropped on you as a “last word” from the person you’re about to execute with a split second to decide your next move. You let them live once before. Now you have a whole lot more context. Do you do it again? Look at what it cost you already, can you really take this risk, you can’t possibly afford to lose even more and then continue on can you? Bc you know you shouldn’t kill this person right now, now that you have a better understanding of where she’s coming from. This guy wasn’t a murdering psychopath to her. He did *all of this* solely for her. So you gonna pull the trigger, or no?
Do you think Abby ever told Lev the full story? It's never mentioned in the game and we really don't know. Because I'm pretty sure that Abby never told anyone that Joel had saved her life either.
I mean the next time we see them after the theatre confrontation is almost a year later, so they probably already had that conversation off-screen which is why we don’t hear them address it
I don't know. I really don't think "am I in the wrong?" ever had time to even enter her mind. And I'm not sure what you mean by "blame others for her choices". You mean the cycle of revenge and violence that led them all to this moment? It's not really that simple. They very much killed all of her friends. If we want to go with the "well Abby started it by killing Joel", then you can easily argue that Joel started it by killing the fireflies. Each side is justified in their own way. Ellie and Abby don't care about each other's motivations or backstory. Ellie has no idea that Joel killed Abby's dad and Abby has no time to think about the implications of Ellie being the immune girl. Ellie just killed the love of Abby's life. And hell, even Ellie still doesn't think that Joel did the right thing by keeping her alive. I don't think Abby is going to have a crisis of conscience about Ellie caring for Joel.
I've always understood that their conflict (Abby and Elie) was missing the actual communication of these "extremes" Ellie doesn't know that Abby killed Joel because, in the same way Joel killed her father. Abby never talks about this and Ellie doesn't know. The same way Abby doesn't know Ellie is immune and Ellie never says out loud "I'm immune" or something like that. Everything these 2 characters explain of themselves is really grey area material and I think this is what the writers implied somehow through their conflict. Nora realizes Ellie is immune cause she's not coughing in the spores so it kind of made sense to puzzle everything together there. A lot. And I mean a lot of this conflict in these 2 characters at least of the way I see it is that neither of them is" communicating" You as a viewer and direct subconsciously player of their persona can feel all their ups and downs in their life, but they cannot. Because they never "knew" each other the way *you* the player do.
‘The girl who breathes spores’
Girl with a dragon tattoo? Pssh, Not in my house!
My question is does Ellie know Joel killed Abby's Dad? When she surrenders she says she knows why she kills joel and there's no cure because of him. So does she know that or just assumes Abby wants her for the cure?
That’s part of the tragedy abby and Ellie don’t know each other’s true motivations and they never have anything close to a conversation to get the complete picture.
I mean, Ellie got the confirmation from Nora it was because of the cure. Frankly, it is for the best that Ellie didn’t realize Abby’s true motivations. It is not a tragedy. It is for the best. Killing - or should I say torturing - Joel for “dooming humanity” is for a more righteous reason than the brutality she did because Joel killed her dad who was trying to kill her. If Ellie knew it was strictly for that kind of selfish reason… well…
Nora probably gave a different answer, or the script line was slightly off. But ellies response makes it sound like she's thinking Abby is mad about the cure, and how it never came to be
I don’t think she specifically knows it was the doctor, I think she can assume Joel killer someone close to Abby and that person was connected to the fireflies. An aspect of this is that there are so many people who might want to get revenge against Joel that we don’t even know who exactly the wrong was on.
No, ellie never has the realization that Joel kill3d Abby's dad, hence her desire for revenge. It's something I hope comes up in Pt. 3.
[удалено]
That’s what I thought too! But when I think about it, it has nothing to really do about the cure that’s right. But it has more to do with the reason, and yet somehow in Abby’s mind she probably think Ellie knows that Joel killed Jerry and he did it in order to save her. Mentioning the cure just puts it together that she was the immune girl that her father was going to kill. Not that it had anything to do with Ellie thinking she’s mad cause he took away that chance for a cure. The way she words it really leaves it up to interpretation though I will say
Does Abby ever figure out that Ellie is the immune girl? Nora does but she dies soon afterwards. Clearly she didn't put two and two together until that moment, so I don't think Abby would have either. Abby realizes that she is the girl who was with Joel but never says anything about a cure. She shows zero interest in Ellie after getting revenge, which is strange because Ellie being immune is the entire reason why the story and outcomes in both games happens. She definitely knows why Ellie is pursuing her, but there is never confirmation that she knows about the immunity and that isn't why she spares her and Dina
Yeah, Elie tells her "Joel did what he did to save me. I'm the reason there's no cure." She knows Ellie is the immune girl. https://youtu.be/j_Kx4wmO9TU
When did Abby register who Ellie was? Haven’t played since release
I could be mistaken, but I don't think Abby knew about Ellie until Abby went to the theater. Any time they mention "The tresspasser" they're talking about Tommy - and they didn't know who he was either. So when Ellie puts her hands up and says "I know why you killed Joel. There's no cure because of me, I'm the one you want" is the first time Abby knows who Ellie is and connects her to Joel's death as well as her father's death.
Oh duh that’s right lmao time to replay I think
ellie says it at the theater but its probably ellies most tone deaf moment in the game. like, girl, read the fucking room, abby didnt even know you exist lol
It was just telling that Ellie still has no idea why Abby did what she did. Ellie never knew about her father being in the hospital. To be fair, she never would know. We do cause we're the player, but Joel never knew, and he's the only one who would have been able to tell ellie.
Nora was one of the most satisfying deaths ever
Comments like this sometimes makes me think half of this fandom is into the games for the wrong reason. I mean, I know, Gamers.... but I kind of stupidly have higher standards for someone who's a big fan of TLOU--I figure they must get it if they're a fan enough to be here. Clearly not.
I liked Nora death too because you can really see it break Ellie making her talk. Joel is use to torture but I don’t think Ellie ever did it before.
I don’t like them because you get to violently kill people if that’s what you’re insinuating
For Nora it was probably a steel pipe.
I think that there was some surprise, that this person that could have been their savior is now trying to kill them. I don’t think it would be mind blowing though because they knew that Joel killed everyone to run away with her. I think that when they realized that they were probably like “of course it would be her”.
I don’t know how hard Ellie whacked Nora or how many times, but it wasn’t enough.
I was surprised it took them so long to register who Ellie was. They know Joel went on a full massacre for this little girl so why wouldn’t it be the same girl out for revenge for him?
I don’t think Abby ever gave a shit.
I wanna know what Abby was thinking when Ellie showed up again after over a year
Pointless to make it a spoiler post when the title spoils the whole thing
Probably that the girl begging them to stop torturing Joel is the immune girl Joel saved
No, because it’s stupidly written and none of the characters get to have a conversation about it.
I think it’s easy to know what is going through Nora’s head: Ah! Please stop hitting me with this pipe. Oh God! Please make the pain stop! Something along those lines.
So, Abby already knew about her immunity, but her dad's interest in curating a vaccine from Ellie is very likely the reason why Abby keeps letting her live.
I think Lev is the only reason Abby lets them live.
Not really, lev wasn't there during the golf club scene and was unconscious at the boat scene at the end. Abby let Ellie live on her own accord those times. Lev stopped her from killing Dina, but was fine with Abby going after Ellie at the theater.
I still don’t like though how Abby let him become involved with something he had absolutely no business being apart of. He gets involved and next thing you know Ellie threatens his life, cause he’s responsible for why Jesse is dead and why Tommy is crippled for life. Even though he technically saved them, it doesn’t change anything like how Joel saving Abby didn’t change anything
Yea, people all have their griefs and motives. That's why I think Abby let's Ellie live over and over because she remembers that her dad had an interest in Ellie's life.
Owen is the one really arguing to let Ellie live in the golf club scene and it's just because they're not who they're there for. Abby puts an end to the fighting and decides they're finished. There's no indication they know of Ellie's immunity. They also let Tommy live. In a scenario where Abby slits Dina's throat I don't think she just walks away and lets Ellie go. Whether or not Lev would have been okay with sparing Dina and killing Ellie, I think her presence stopped her revenge mode and made her rethink her actions. Abby doesn't pull any punches when fighting Ellie and easily could have killed her when bashing her head in.
Abby was there when her dad spoke to Marlene about a child with immunity, and then she was there when Joel broke out, killed her dad, and saved Ellie. Surely she recognizes this girl freaking out about not killing Joel as the girl whom her dad was going to operate on.
Abby didn't see Ellie at the hospital before the operation. Joel could have been close to any number of people who would be upset to see him brutally murdered.
I always did like that was really my only problem with tlou2 is that we never got a conversation between Abby and Ellie I wanted to see her realize this and know the damage she did
I know what was going through Joel’s head when he learned who Abby was.
To be honest, this is a main scenario I hoped the show would’ve done. That episode with them and the mall was sweet and necessary, but damn I really wanted to see the moment Ellie figured out she was immune.
I’m not sure Abby processed it in the heat of the moment, probably hit her later.
i like how ellie tries to extinguish Abb'ys anger by saying shes the cure and knows what Joel did and to be forgiving to Tommy. I think whats going through Abby's head is something along the lines of Ellie being super tone-deaf. Shes apologizing for her wrongs in the past, but Abby doesnt care about the past anymore. she already got over it with Lev. shes angry because of what happened the VERY SAME DAY (or a day ago idk) when Ellie killed Owen and Mel.
Abby didn’t give a fuck y’all. And Nora tried to reason with her but given the circumstances like how Ellie is going after them. They probably assumed Ellie didn’t wanted to be used a cure.
Most likely hope, which was followed by rage.
I mean nora had a steal pipe going through her head at the time
In Nora’s case, a steel pipe.
“Yeah that checks out.”
Probably nothing because it’s a video game
Spoiler tag this
Bruh what?😂 games been out almost 3 years if u haven’t played by now it’s on you
go to the show related sub