If you’ve spent dozens of hours stalking through the overgrown, rain-slicked ruins of Seattle, you know the tension. It’s thick. It’s suffocating. By the time the credits roll on The Last of Us Part 2, your knuckles are probably white from gripping the controller. You’ve seen Joel die. You’ve seen Ellie lose herself to a jagged, ugly rage. So, the question that brought you here—does Ellie kill Abby—is basically the pivot point for the entire franchise.
Honestly, the answer is a lot more complicated than a simple "yes" or "no," even if the literal physical outcome is straightforward.
The Short Answer: No, Ellie Does Not Kill Abby
Let's just get it out of the way. Ellie does not kill Abby. In the final, brutal confrontation on the fog-drenched shores of Santa Barbara, Ellie has Abby exactly where she wanted her for the last year. She’s drowning her. She has her hands around Abby's throat, pushing her under the salt water while the waves crash around them. Abby is emaciated, weakened by months of torture at the hands of the Rattlers, and she can barely fight back.
Then, something shifts.
At the very last second, just as Abby’s lungs are likely filling with water, Ellie sees a flash. It’s not a vision of Joel’s bloody face or his final moments of pain. It’s a memory of him sitting on his porch, playing guitar in the sunlight. It’s a memory of the night Ellie told him she’d like to try and forgive him for what he did at the hospital.
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She lets go. She sits in the surf, sobbing, and tells Abby to "just take him" (referring to Lev, the young boy Abby has been protecting) and leave.
Why the Choice to Spare Abby Matters
It’s easy to feel frustrated by this. Trust me, I get it. You spent twenty-plus hours killing hundreds of WLF soldiers and Seraphites just to get to this one person. To see Ellie walk away feels like a betrayal of all that effort. But from a narrative standpoint, killing Abby would have been the final nail in the coffin for Ellie’s humanity.
By sparing her, Ellie chooses to break the "cycle of violence." If she kills Abby, what happens to Lev? Does he then come for Ellie in five years? It never ends. Sparing Abby was Ellie’s way of finally, painfully, choosing herself over her grief.
The Brutal Price of Revenge
Even though Abby lives, nobody "wins" in this scenario. This isn't a superhero movie where the hero walks off into the sunset. The cost of Ellie's pursuit of Abby is staggering.
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- Physical Loss: During the final struggle, Abby bites off two of Ellie’s fingers (the pinky and ring finger on her left hand).
- The Guitar: This is the most symbolic gut-punch. Because she’s missing those fingers, Ellie can no longer play the guitar Joel gave her properly. She can’t play their song.
- The Family: When Ellie returns to the farmhouse, Dina and the baby are gone. The house is empty, save for Ellie’s old drawings and the guitar.
It's a heavy ending. Basically, Ellie sacrificed her relationship, her fingers, and her last physical connection to Joel’s hobby just to realize that killing Abby wouldn't bring him back anyway.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Ending
A common misconception is that Ellie let Abby go because she felt sorry for her. While seeing Abby’s state—shaved head, starving, losing her strength—definitely affected Ellie, it wasn't pure pity.
Ellie realized that her war wasn't actually with Abby anymore. Her war was with the fact that Joel was gone and they never got to fully reconcile. Killing Abby was a surrogate for the anger she felt toward the world, toward Joel for lying, and toward herself for not forgiving him sooner.
Was Abby "Better" Than Ellie?
This is a hot debate in the Last of Us community. Some players point out that Abby actually spared Ellie twice. Once in the basement in Jackson after killing Joel, and once in the Seattle theater after killing Jesse and nearly killing Tommy.
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In that theater fight, Abby had a knife to the throat of a pregnant Dina. She was ready to do it. It was Lev who pulled her back. It’s sort of a mirror image; both women needed a "moral anchor" to stop them from becoming monsters. For Abby, it was Lev. For Ellie, it was that final, lingering memory of Joel's capacity for love.
Real-World Insights and Practical Takeaways
If you're playing through the game or watching the HBO series, it helps to look at the ending not as a failure of revenge, but as a study of PTSD.
- Understand the Themes: The game is a "dual narrative." You are supposed to feel conflicted. If you hate Abby, the game is working. If you start to feel for her by the end, the game is also working.
- Look for the Details: Pay attention to Ellie’s journal. It changes throughout the Santa Barbara chapter. You can see her mental state deteriorating and then, eventually, stabilizing after the fight.
- The Bracelet Theory: Some eagle-eyed fans noticed Ellie isn't wearing Dina's bracelet in Santa Barbara, but she is wearing it in the final scene at the farmhouse. This led to a popular theory that she actually went back to Jackson first and reconciled with Dina before coming to get her stuff. It’s a bit of "head-canon" that makes the ending feel slightly less depressing.
The story of The Last of Us Part 2 is about the "weight" of our choices. Whether you agree with Ellie’s decision or not, it remains one of the most discussed moments in gaming history because it refuses to give the audience the easy, violent catharsis they think they want.
Keep an eye on the HBO adaptation as it moves into these later chapters. The showrunners have already hinted that they might expand on these motivations, but the core fact remains: the knife stayed in the sheath, the hands let go, and both women walked away into an uncertain future.
To fully grasp the nuance of this ending, pay close attention to the final flashback dialogue between Joel and Ellie. It recontextualizes every single kill Ellie makes in Seattle. Once you understand that her quest was never really about Abby, but about her own stolen chance at forgiveness, the ending feels much more earned than it does at first glance.
Next Steps: You might want to explore the "Director’s Commentary" in The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, where Neil Druckmann and Halley Gross discuss the original ending where Ellie did kill Abby, and why they eventually decided to change it during development.