HBO’s ‘The Last of Us’ Season 2 Exposed an Ugly Truth About Joel and Abby’s Saga Few Game Fans Noticed

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HBO’s ‘The Last of Us’ Season 2 Exposed an Ugly Truth About Joel and Abby’s Saga Few Game Fans Noticed

The Last of Us became a breakthrough in video games when the original game was released in 2013. With the second game releasing in 2020, gamers around the world were overjoyed to hear that their favorite video games were being adapted into a television series.

The Last of Us became a TV show, which aired its first season in 2023 with Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey in the lead roles of Joel and Ellie. With the second season making waves on the internet, it seems that show fans have finally reached the point where they can discern the truth about Joel and Abby.

Joel and Abby are more similar to each other than Joel and Ellie!

If you have played The Last of Us Part II or watched the second season of The Last of Us (or both), you know what happens to a certain individual who is very close to our hearts. Well, Joel dies in The Last of Us Part II at the hands of Abby, and the same thing is followed on TV. Although his return is not impossible, fans find themselves hating Abby immensely the moment they see the death of Joel, and that rage is also understandable.

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The Last of Us | Credits: HBO Entertainment

However, what seems to be a killing is actually a tale of revenge and redemption. The famous saying “Revenge begets revenge” is personified in the tale between Joel and Abby, who play a game of revenge until Ellie breaks the cycle at the end of The Last of Us Part II.

Well, fans took to

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to talk about the fact that although Abby killed Joel, the two shared several personality traits that were sometimes more similar than what Joel and Ellie shared.

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by

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in

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The thread suggested that Joel and Abby were both survivors who were completely dependent on themselves to survive. They were also hunters and gatherers who would do whatever it takes to survive. Much like Joel’s quest for revenge, Abby was on a similar path of revenge, and much like Joel improving his life due to Ellie, Abby also starts improving her life with Lev and Yara.

Fans of the video game as well as the TV show seem to agree that Abby was indeed more similar to Joel than Joel was to Ellie. The patterns are emerging, and people are starting to notice that the crimes of Joel and Abby aren’t that far off from each other either!

The story simply doesn’t end there. Even creators of the video game, The Last of Us Part II, have often talked about how the characters of Joel and Abby are quite similar in nature, with both serving as antagonists in each other’s tales.

Even Neil Druckmann and Halley Gross know about the similarity

Neil Druckmann and Halley Gross co-wrote the story of The Last of Us Part II together. Since it was their decision to kill off Joel by Abby, fans blamed Druckmann and Gross for the death of Joel. The video game received immense backlash due to the death of their favorite character, but according to the creators, the backlash was expected by them; in fact, they were counting on it.

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The Last of Us Part II | Credits: Naughty Dog

During an interview with

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, The Last of Us Part II co-creator Halley Gross sat down for a talk about her decisions and time working in the video game franchise. During her talks, Gross mentioned that people didn’t realize that Abby was the one holding a mirror to Joel.

In my experience, people are all across the board, which is so fascinating. There are people who think Joel was an inherently good person, and yet hate Abby. You can look at what both of them have done, and their sins are fairly similar. 

She continued,

Their redemption arcs are fairly similar. Why is one more valuable to you than the other? Any way you feel about Abby is super valid. It wasn’t about whether or not you loved her. It was about whether or not you understood her. That was our goal.

Well, as expected, a majority of people failed to understand that Abby was hated by the world because she wasn’t the protagonist of the video game. If she had been the protagonist, the story would have revolved around avenging her father’s death, and Joel would have been the villain.

However, since the story was seen from Joel and Ellie’s POVs, they essentially became the heroes, because no one wants to admit that they are evil. That’s what also happened with Abby when players played her POV in the video game.

The creators wanted to showcase Abby’s POV, not just as a villain, but as a human who is stuck in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where the survivors are worse than the infected. Abby was not just a villain, she was a survivor like Joel, and she did everything she could to survive. That’s the beauty and genius of The Last of Us.

The Last of Us (TV Show) is available to stream on HBO Max (USA).

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