Major spoilers for The Last of Us Part II.
Seriously. Stop reading if you don’t want to be spoiled.
Abby acts as the deuteragonist of The Last of Us Part II. In fact, players basically spend around half the game controlling her - especially after a mid-game twist puts her in the driver’s seat for a good ten to twelve hours. That might not sit well with some people, though, considering she bashes Joel’s bearded face in a with golf club early on.
But wait a second - why does she do that? Why does Abby hate Joel enough to beat, torture, and finally kill the original game’s primary protagonist? Well, the game actually explains this in full detail, because subtlety isn’t exactly The Last of Us Part II’s strong suit. If you’re too impatient to wait and find out, though, I’ve got you covered.
Abby’s Hatred For Joel
Basically, Abby’s hatred for Joel can be boiled down to, “you killed my father, prepare to die.” During the original game’s climactic sequence, Joel shoots up a whole bunch of doctors and Firefly militia members to save Ellie’s life. In case you forgot, Ellie’s immune to the virus ravaging the planet, and harvesting her body could save the lives of thousands. Joel’s not a big fan of that, though, and decides to commit genocide to protect her.
In that genocide, Abby’s surgeon father is caught in the crossfire. Joel pumps the good doctor full of lead, then proceeds to take Ellie and kill everyone that gets in his way. Fast forward a few years, and Abby’s been training with the Western Liberation Front - an occupying armed militia that controls much of the Pacific Northwest. Her last few years have been spent thirsting for revenge, and when she finally runs into Joel during a Clicker horde attack, she sees a chance for that thirst to be slaked.
Abby, then, serves as an overt reminder of the game’s blatant thematic thrust: revenge is bad, kids. You might sympathize with Ellie as she searches for Joel’s killer, but given a different narrative framework, you could just as easily sympathize with Abby. Yeah, this is one of those, “what about both sides” games - like Bioshock Infinite, but with less racism. It’s a prime example of that murky, dreary moral ambiguity that AAA games love so much.
Abby is, effectively, the very personification of that mindset. She’s another angry, buff white girl with an axe to grind - or, in this case, a golf club.
