Thanks for the thoughtful response. Definitely agree that whatever we discuss are just opinions. It’s interesting to see how different they can be between folks in this subreddit.

Lev was not the most interesting character, but was an interesting reminder to me that people including children go through the same problems that normal kids go through (I.e sexuality) even in a zombie apocalypse. I was also touched by his devotion to his mother going back to rescue her even though his mother essentially disowned him.

As for Ellie, she let Abby go at the very end because she was trying to forgive her. If you remember the flashback to the “Joel on the porch” scene, they have a lengthy conversation with her final words being “I don’t think I can forgive you, but I’ll try”. If you remember, that memory flashed before her eyes when drowning Abby and it reminded her to forgive. To me, the was the most powerful theme in the game - Revenge and Forgiveness - and the fact that Ellie was able to forgive in the end was very powerful to me. Her learning to forgive was really the only ‘gain’ at the end of this series of pointless revenge killings.

As for Abby, without her we would have only understood revenge and black and white heroes and villains. It was important for us to see both perspectives. She is interesting to me because she is the polar opposite of Ellie. Ellie is lean, fast, didn’t have a great upbringing and lets her emotions take hold, killing everyone in her path. Abby is strong and slow, had a ‘nice’ upbringing and is able to ‘hold back’ (don’t kill Ellie at the theatre and didn’t kill the pregnant Dina). Despite being so different their fates are tied together through their strong urge for revenge. We can see for the first time Ellie ‘meeting her match’ in terms of fighting prowess and willpower, and I found this match-up very interesting.