Let’s be real. Mentioning Abby Last of Us in a Discord server is basically like throwing a flashbang into a crowded room. You either get a ten-paragraph essay on why she’s a misunderstood masterpiece of writing, or you get people screaming about golf clubs and "plot armor." It’s been years since The Last of Us Part II dropped, and the dust hasn't even started to settle.
Most characters in gaming are designed to be liked. Abby Anderson wasn't. Naughty Dog basically made a daring, almost suicidal bet: they forced you to play as the person who murdered the most beloved protagonist in the franchise. It’s messy. It’s painful. Honestly, it’s one of the gutsiest things a triple-A studio has ever done, regardless of whether you think they stuck the landing or crashed into a mountain.
The Joel Problem and the Weight of Consequences
The hate for Abby started long before anyone actually knew her name. When those leaks hit the internet back in 2020, people saw a clip of a muscular woman killing Joel Miller and they lost their minds. It felt like a betrayal. Joel was our guy. We spent dozens of hours protecting him and Ellie in the first game. To see him taken out in such a brutal, unceremonious way—by a stranger, no less—felt like a slap in the face to the fans.
But that’s kind of the point of the Abby Last of Us narrative.
In the world of The Last of Us, nobody is the hero of everyone's story. Joel killed a lot of people. He killed the Firefly doctors at the end of the first game to save Ellie, and in doing so, he likely doomed humanity to remain "infected" forever. One of those doctors was Jerry Anderson. Abby’s dad. When you look at it from her perspective, Joel isn’t the rugged survivor with a heart of gold. He’s the monster who murdered her father and took away the world’s only hope for a cure.
She spent four years obsessing over him. She trained until her body was a weapon. She tracked him across states. Her entire identity was built on the foundation of "Getting Joel." When she finally did it, she thought she’d feel better. She didn't.
Why the Perspective Shift Works (and Why It Fails for Some)
The game forces you to play as Ellie for the first half, fueling your rage against Abby. You want blood. Then, right at the climax, the game hits the brakes and says, "Now see it from her side."
This is where a lot of players checked out.
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If you aren't willing to empathize with a "villain," the next ten hours of the game feel like a chore. You’re playing as the person who hurt you. But for those who stuck with it, the game reveals that Abby’s story is a mirror of Ellie’s. While Ellie is descending into darkness and losing her humanity to get revenge, Abby is trying to find her humanity again after getting her revenge.
Abby’s journey with Lev and Yara—two Seraphite outcasts—is her attempt at redemption. She starts as this cold, detached soldier for the Washington Liberation Front (WLF), but by the end, she’s risking her life for "the enemy." It’s a classic "protector and child" dynamic, echoing Joel and Ellie’s original bond. It’s poetic, but for many, it felt like a cheap manipulation to make us like her.
The Physicality of Abby: Breaking the Mold
We need to talk about her design. Abby doesn't look like your typical female video game lead. She’s jacked. She’s got arms that could crush a brick.
This sparked a truly weird amount of internet discourse. Some people claimed a woman couldn't get that muscular in an apocalypse. Except, the game literally shows you her environment. She lives in a stadium converted into a military base. She has access to a professional-grade gym and a consistent supply of protein (the WLF has literal burrito stations and livestock).
Her physicality reflects her mental state. She didn't get big because she liked the aesthetic; she got big because she was terrified. She felt small when her father died, and she vowed never to be weak again. Every muscle on her body is a physical manifestation of her trauma. It’s smart character design that tells a story without saying a word.
Combat Mechanics: Brute Force vs. Stealth
Playing as Abby feels fundamentally different than playing as Ellie.
- Ellie is fast, uses a switchblade, and relies on craftiness.
- Abby is a tank.
- She has a "momentum" mechanic where she can chain melee kills.
- She can snap necks with her bare hands.
Her gameplay style reinforces the idea that she is a soldier. While Ellie is a survivor, Abby is a combatant. This distinction makes the final confrontation between them so jarring. You’ve spent hours building up Abby’s strength, only to have to use it against the character you’ve loved since 2013. It’s uncomfortable. It’s supposed to be.
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Misconceptions and the "Villen" Narrative
One of the biggest misconceptions about Abby Last of Us is that Naughty Dog wanted you to think she was "right."
They didn't.
The game isn't interested in who is right or wrong. It’s interested in the cycle of violence. Abby is a deeply flawed person. She’s a "Top Scar Killer" for the WLF. She was willing to kill a pregnant woman (Dina) until Lev stopped her. She’s not a saint. But neither is Ellie. By the end of the game, both women have lost everything—friends, family, and even parts of themselves—in the name of a justice that doesn't actually exist.
Real-world experts in psychology often point to The Last of Us Part II as a study in "moral injury." This is the psychological distress that results from actions, or the lack thereof, which violate a person's moral or ethical beliefs. Abby lives in a constant state of moral injury until she finds Lev. Helping Lev is the first thing she’s done in years that isn't motivated by hate.
The Legacy of the Character
Love her or hate her, you can't ignore her. Abby changed the way we talk about protagonist-centered morality in gaming. She forced us to confront our own biases as players. Why is it okay for Joel to kill hundreds, but not okay for Abby to kill the man who killed her dad?
Laura Bailey, the actress who played Abby, gave a performance of a lifetime, even though she faced horrific online harassment for it. She brought a vulnerability to Abby that the leaks could never capture. You can see the regret in her eyes during the quiet moments. You can hear the exhaustion in her voice.
Actionable Takeaways for Players and Critics
If you’re revisiting the game or diving in for the first time, keep these points in mind to get the most out of the experience:
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- Watch the background details in the WLF stadium. The letters and logs found in Abby’s section explain the logistics of her training and the WLF’s food supply, debunking a lot of the "unrealistic" complaints.
- Pay attention to Abby's dreams. Throughout her three days in Seattle, her dreams about the hospital hallway change based on her actions. It’s a literal representation of her conscience healing.
- Compare the final fight to the first encounter. Notice how both characters have been stripped of their "superhuman" video game qualities. They are just two broken, exhausted people who have nothing left to gain.
- Don't rush the "Abby Day 1" segment. It’s meant to be jarring. Lean into the discomfort. The game is trying to challenge your loyalty, and that’s a rare thing in modern media.
Abby Anderson didn't just break the cycle of violence by the end of the game; she broke the mold of what a female character is allowed to be in a mainstream title. She is a reminder that in a world gone to hell, everyone is someone’s hero—and everyone is someone’s villain.
To truly understand the impact of Abby, you have to look at the "Three Days in Seattle" structure as a dual narrative of grief. Ellie is at the start of her grief (anger), while Abby is at the end of hers (acceptance/restitution). If you only focus on the violence, you miss the actual story: a woman trying to find her soul in a world that already chewed it up and spat it out.
The conversation around Abby will likely continue for decades. She remains a litmus test for a player's capacity for empathy. Whether she’s "redeemed" is up to you, but her impact on the medium is undeniable. She didn't just kill a character; she killed the idea that video game stories have to be comfortable.
For those looking to dive deeper into the lore, checking out the official The Last of Us podcast provides immense insight from Neil Druckmann and the writing team on why they chose this specific path for Abby. It wasn't about shock value; it was about the consequences of choice.
Step away from the rage-bait videos and look at the character's arc as a whole. You might find that the person you hated at the start of the journey is the one you’re most relieved to see survive at the end. That’s the power of the Abby Last of Us story—it changes you, whether you want it to or not.
Focus on the nuance of her relationship with Owen. It’s the most human part of her story. It shows that even a "monster" wants to be loved, wants to be normal, and wants to escape the war they’ve been fighting their whole lives. That’s not a villain story. That’s a human story.
The best way to move forward with the discourse is to acknowledge that both things can be true: you can love Joel Miller and still understand why Abby did what she did. One doesn't have to cancel out the other. That’s the gray area where the best stories live. If you can sit in that discomfort, you’ve understood the game better than most.