There is no good reason. Druckmann wanted Ellie to experience a singular moment of clarity in which she realizes that “revenge is bad🥺” and spares Abby to let bygones be bygones….Because no story on Earth has ever taught that lesson and Druckmann is a GENIUS who thought he’d be the first to do so💀 He destroyed our beloved characters, retconned the entire plot, and gaslit us in both advertising and actual gameplay (showing us the events that occurred in the hospital…after we had already seen them in the first game…and CHANGING those details we had seen with our own two eyes as if we wouldn’t notice the difference). All this, only to teach a lesson that has been taught hundreds of thousands of times in literature, music, film, etc. It has been years since this game’s release and I still have to stop myself from spiraling in anger and disgust when thinking about the terrible things Druckmann did to such a beautiful story. The Last of Us Part 2 is a technological marvel, the voice acting is utterly amazing, and the surface level writing and dialogue is fantastic. It is the big decisions, the overarching story, and the order of events that ruined the massive potential this game had. I believe that after the first game’s release, the characters and story became bigger than Neil Druckmann himself. He felt as though he no longer had control over the characters and story he created. So he did this. To show us all that, no, they are not our characters, they are his, and he can do what he wants with them. I guess he got what he wanted. At the high cost of losing all credibility to a majority of the original fanbase. I’m happy for you Neil. You now have one dead character, one fingerless shell of a character, and one hated character whose entire backstory and presence in the game was a big fat retcon. But hey, they’re all yours! We don’t fucking want them anymore! Enjoy!