One of the greatest things about The Last of Us saga is the way it challenges the archetypal notions of heroes and villains. The supposed hero of the first game, Joel Miller, dooms humanity by massacring their saviors, because the creation of a world-saving cure required the death of his adopted daughter, and even worse, he lied to his daughter when she asked him about what happened. Joel is an antihero at best, but we love him anyway, because he’s a human being; flawed, yes, but also deeply sympathetic.
In The Last of Us Part II, Neil Druckmann and the team at Naughty Dog doubled down on this idea that there are no heroes or villains in this world. We’re all complex individuals with our own faults, foibles, and redeeming qualities, and The Last of Us reflects that. The characters in these games contain multitudes, and Joel was just the tip of the iceberg.
The sequel initially shifted perspective to Joel’s surrogate daughter, Ellie. After a mysterious woman named Abby drifted into Jackson and murdered Joel in cold blood, Ellie chased her to Seattle, hunted down her friends one by one, and gave up everything in her relentless pursuit of revenge. But just as Ellie’s story was wrapping up, and it seemed like she might never find Abby, Abby herself showed up, held Ellie at gunpoint, and we cut back to the beginning of Ellie’s three days in Seattle — this time from Abby’s perspective.
While it rubbed some gamers the wrong way (and even led to death threats), it was an ingenious storytelling technique. Video games have the ability to literally put their audience in the character’s shoes, and Druckmann, Laura Bailey, and co. used that inherent emotional connection to force players to empathize with their worst enemy. And now, HBO’s The Last of Us is doing the same thing.
Ellie & Tommy Will Be The Antagonists Of The Last Of Us Season 3
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Liane Hentscher / ©HBO / Courtesy Everett Collection</figure>
After the first half of The Last of Us Part II makes the player hate Abby with a passion, and sends them through hell and high water on the way to make her pay for what she did to Joel, the second half makes you walk a mile in Abby’s shoes and see things from her point of view. From Ellie’s perspective, Abby seemed like a heartless monster. But when we see the world through Abby’s eyes, it’s clear that Abby is just as broken and vulnerable and human as Joel or Ellie.
Abby’s dad was the Firefly surgeon that Joel killed to save Ellie, so she’s in the exact same boat as Ellie: her dad was murdered, and she couldn’t rest until she exacted vengeance on the person responsible. But, unlike Ellie, Abby got her revenge, and it didn’t solve anything. It didn’t make her feel any better; if anything, it made her feel a lot worse. So, now, she’s looking for a better, nobler purpose in life.
She’ll find that redemption when she takes two young runaway Seraphites, Lev and Yara, under her wing like a big sister. Much like when Joel embraced Ellie as his family, Abby will finally find her way back to the light as she protects these two sweet, innocent kids from the horrors of the post-apocalyptic wasteland.
But what she doesn’t count on is that, while she’s on the road to redemption, her chickens are coming home to roost. This will flip the hero/villain dynamic of The Last of Us on its head in season 3. In season 2, Abby and her group were the antagonists that Ellie and Tommy were looking for. But in season 3, when we switch to Abby’s perspective, Ellie and Tommy will be the boogeymen lurking in the background, picking off our heroes. Essentially, they’ll be The Last of Us‘ new villains.
The Last of Us
The Last Of Us is a television adaptation of the acclaimed video game series, set in a post-apocalyptic world where a smuggler named Joel (Pedro Pascal) is tasked with escorting a teenage girl, Ellie (Bella Ramsey) across the ravaged United States. Along their journey, they confront various threats from both infected creatures and hostile human factions.
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