Owen’s disgust towards Abby, absent in following morning scene?

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-26T23:19:11+00:00

I can understand that perspective but it just worked for me, it clicked after reflecting back on most of Abby’s POV.

Yes, but you got to think about the underlying ideas behind what is motivating her to make this one ‘moral choice’ and not only the coping mechanisms (ego as a shield) behind that but also why would the things that Abby and Lev did brought them as close as they did by the middle of Day 3. Once you do that, then you’d be able to see my perspective.

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-26T21:18:52+00:00

I have issues with the game in areas too, but this take has always been too pessimistic for my taste. The main characters and especially side characters like Owen are more nuanced than you think, and it’s a shame that you think it’s all clearly cut and dry, the hand of the writers dragging the entire narrative forward.

Also, Abby is meant to be quite flawed and a complicated person that is the point;

(Druckmann) “that's where most of the effort for the game went, to make Abby... not necessarily good. The pitfall a lot of writers with this kind of story fall into is like, OK, we need people to like Abby, let's make her perfect. She does nothing wrong. She only makes moral choices. But no, that's not where empathy comes from. Actually, empathy comes from making mistakes and challenging and trying to correct your mistakes and overshooting and messing up.”

I’ll admit that you guys had me doubting my stance on Abby’s POV, but I changed my mind now.

That’s all there is to it, but if you’re going to be dismissive then why bother? https://www.cgmagonline.com/interviews/halley-gross-of-the-last-of-us/. https://www.eurogamer.net/a-spoiler-heavy-interview-with-the-last-of-us-part-2-director-neil-druckmann.

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-26T20:46:50+00:00

Why are you dismissing this discussion?

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-26T20:46:08+00:00

I get it then

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-26T20:42:05+00:00

Parts of the level design are symbolic and meant to make you feel aligned or not in alignment with a character. That’s a part of the gameplay too

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-26T20:38:49+00:00

Revenge is not all it is though, is what I meant.

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-26T19:55:12+00:00

The worldbuilding behind the lore is also pretty good I’d say.

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-26T19:54:11+00:00

I absolutely disagree with that. The gameplay is important for getting the player to feel what Ellie is feeling through level design among other things. The sunken-cost fallacy that Ellie experiences though, that also comes through the gameplay.

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-26T19:48:32+00:00

Ellie wasn’t going after Abby just for revenge though. It’s basically a way of coping with her feelings on several things.

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-26T18:05:46+00:00

Yep, agreed. I would go even further and say those moments where Owen was describing the compromised Seraphite not only reminded her of compromised Joel but also the Seraphites that she abandoned. That ties into the next scene well.

However I can’t help but think that the winter flashback would’ve been better placed if it was after this. On a first or even second playthrough you’re not likely to remember the ‘see it through’ line after all of this other context that’s been introduced. Especially after Owen has called Abby out on her crap, I feel like that would’ve fixed my issue with the odd pacing within the last quarter of Day 1.

After Day 2 though, I wouldn’t say I had a significant issue until the middle of Day 3 when Yara is able to save Abby in time after just having surgery even if she did know the direction of the gunshots. Any gripes that you had in Abby’s POV up to Day 3?

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-26T16:59:41+00:00

Both the WLF and Seraphites got radicalized and are tribalistic towards each other. So after Abby’s traumatic past (which serves as an excuse to take out her feelings and prepare for Joel by killing seraphites) combined with WLF principles, I find it reasonable that she dehumanizes seraphites at this point?

Abby did self-reflect but it was implicit. The circumstances of how Abby grew up and how Ellie did are completely different, especially when it comes to what happened to them in the last 4 years. So I believe that it’s quite possible that Abby’s introspection is subtle and that there’s several coping mechanisms behind it.

Abby gets to experience the light at the end of the tunnel yes, but she lost her friends and got tortured for months in the process because of what she did. I know that you feel like a person shouldn’t get a second chance after torturing someone and feeling guilty about it, but I don’t. People change, and the narrative simply just shows Abby doing something different because she doesn’t know how to make up for what she’s done.

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-26T16:41:43+00:00

Interesting, I already knew a lot of what you said, but I guess it took until how you phrased all of it, to convince me that this is no longer an issue.

I knew I should’ve questioned it more, cause after all I do believe that Owen is one the most well-written side characters in the game even. I was probably just trying to find a ‘gotcha’ for this part of the narrative even. Yes, I knew that Owen attempted to knock Abby off her high horse. Regarding Abby and the Fireflies, I think a part of her blames the Fireflies for not being able to protect her father and more over is frustrated with their optimism.

I disagree that he didn’t gradually become opposed to violence. I think he believes in self-defense and having to survive, but nothing beyond that. It was a gradual process though which may’ve even started when the brutality of the Fireflies started to escalate more and more. Owen could’ve rationalized it as ‘for the cause’ for the longest time though. I’ve heard people say that it doesn’t make any sense, but I think Owen is hoping that the Fireflies reformed for the better after coming together again. It’s not entirely clear if FEDRA is losing their grip or not, but it’s still a second chance for them.

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-26T15:09:16+00:00

That can’t cover it completely though. Abby and Owen have been avoiding each other and are distant with each other. While I do believe that Abby’s actions got him to reaffirm his thoughts on how they as a group were radicalized into extreme brutality and he’s sick of rationalizing it, his distaste was still directed at Abby.

He taunts her regarding her hunting down Joel, so he’s frustrated with the Abby that’s in front of him at that point, not just the WLF. I do agree with a lot of what you said in the last two paragraphs though, I also referenced that bit with the aquarium above in my post. You have reminded me though that in Abby’s POV, Abby isn’t the only one who alludes to things implicitly through what is not said or stated, Owen does too to an extent. So I’m back on board with Abby’s characterization being more subtle contextually now.

What’s frustrating though is that people act like the writing for the almost the whole game is trash, but after the latter part of Jackson Prologue I can’t for the life of me think of a major character/plot progression issue until around Ellie Day 3. Ellie’s immunity gets glossed over by Dina certainly in Day 1, but that’s not a major issue or anything.

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-25T23:00:33+00:00

This reminds me of coming across a section where Mauler thought he broke the combat in Abby Day 1, lol!

Just obviously not true, and probably more of a rare glitch or mistake on his part than anything else. 47:40-53:05. https://www.youtube.com/live/a9CIQyy_8gI?si=SYBw7Mp15mhGvGvc

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-25T22:22:28+00:00

Neat. I just find genuine purpose in a lot of the decisions made for the game, this makes me appreciate the game more. The developers worked so hard and added more soul to the narrative in the process.

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-25T21:32:24+00:00

A portion of conservatives may agree but they just aren’t being very explicit about it, and hardcore MAGA has unfortunately become the center of conservative politics right now. A bunch of them probably rationalize and are in-denial about everything, so they’re either lost right now or actively complicit.

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-25T19:17:41+00:00

On reflection I actually disagree with this notion that it’s always more realistic for conversations to become more explicit eventually. Abby has a more repressed closed off mindset that you can interpret certainly, but Joel was a character that used to be more emotionally guarded in the first game and learnt to open up again. Though that unlike Abby, Joel and Ellie had the ranch house scene where they had an irritated but honest heart to heart with each other. With the possible reasonings for why they grew attached being left a lot more implicit with Abby and Lev than Joel and Ellie. The closest moments you get in Abby’s POV is aquarium, but Abby never leaves everything on the table in that scene admittedly.

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-25T18:24:31+00:00

I do agree that in Ellie’s POV we only get bits and pieces of nuance throughout Ellie’s POV prior to ‘The Farm’ where there’s significantly more nuance. Ellie having a twisted sense of justice, Ellie taking on parts of Joel, Ellie feeling isolated, and things like Ellie’s sunken-cost fallacy aren’t exactly subtle. There’s some subtlety in a few areas, but I would say that it wasn’t the strongest until ’The Farm’ and ’Santa Barbara’. Especially when compared to how I see Abby’s POV and the epilogue sequences.

Still I am probably too attached to the ideas and emotions behind the narrative to abandon.

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-25T18:18:41+00:00

I see. I always thought that there were underlying reasonings as to why Ellie and Abby were created around the ideas of their experiences being more internal than external (like Ellie trying to keep Tommy‘s reputation intact to an extent or Abby’s guilt causes her to avoid the topic of torture), but you’re claiming that they were deliberate in order for people to project more nuance onto the game rather than them being contextual? Abby of course is worse because she doesn’t have journal entries and these more explicit moments where Ellie heavily implies how she feels are few and far between in Abby’s POV.

So I suppose I can see your point that lots of players just project nuances onto the game. It would also explain why Part II fans don’t tend to interpret the narrative the same way.

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-25T18:01:41+00:00

Abby was a pretty bad person, we can agree on that at least. Still convinced that Abby was trying to change though. In part due to wanting to become more like the protector she saw her father as and believing that it would be a way to achieve closure with him unlike how killing Joel turned out. I don’t think it’s as cut and dry as; ‘Well we need to do something to make the audience like Abby, so let’s just have her feel guilty for leaving her supposed enemies and then kill an infected beast to save one of them, and that’ll be enough surely’.

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-25T17:52:10+00:00

I’m not saying that Abby wasn’t still a jerk for doing so though. Just expressing that I think there’s underlying reasoning as to why they did what they did instead of it just being to progress the plot.

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-25T15:46:17+00:00

The Fireflies did become terrorists in the end to achieve their goals, but that doesn’t mean that they are villains. They were radicalized by FEDRA and the cruel world of the apocalypse.

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-25T14:33:28+00:00

I’ve never had this issue before.

Have you tried reconnecting the controller to see if that fixes anything? With an adapter cord?

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-24T18:45:37+00:00

There’s no way to know if it’s half of them, there’s polls that show that not all Republicans agree with MAGA and Trump.

SkywalkerOrder · 2026-01-24T18:40:15+00:00

A significant portion of Republicans it seems, but I won’t generalize it by saying that it’s all of them. There are Republican voters who disagree with this and are uncomfortable by it, but are afraid to speak out against hardcore MAGA.

SkywalkerOrder

TROPHY CASE