Violetta Abby Winters 2021 May 2026
Her arc mirrors Joel’s redemption arc from the first game. Abby finds her "Ellie" in two Lev and Yara, siblings from the enemy Seraphite cult. By saving these children, Abby betrays her own faction (the WLF). She risks everything for two people she barely knows, not out of a strategic goal, but out of guilt and a desperate need to do something right after the hollow victory of killing Joel.
What follows is a masterclass in forced empathy. We watch Abby pet a dog (Alice) that Ellie later kills. We see her banter with her friends (Manny, Owen, Mel) and develop a fear of heights. We learn she is loyal to a fault and carries the emotional weight of her father’s death like a stone in her chest. violetta abby winters
Suddenly, the monster is a daughter. The brute is an orphan. Abby’s story is a brutal inversion of Joel’s. Where Joel lost a daughter (Sarah) and damned humanity to save a surrogate daughter (Ellie), Abby lost a father (Jerry) and damned her own soul to avenge him. The genius of The Last of Us Part II is the "Seattle Day 1" switch. Just as the narrative reaches a fever pitch—Ellie is hunting Abby down—the game resets. You are back to square one, controlling the villain. Her arc mirrors Joel’s redemption arc from the first game
But if you finish her half of the game and still feel pure hatred, Naughty Dog would argue you have missed the point. In a world ravaged by a fungal apocalypse, there are no "good guys" or "villains." There are only people. She risks everything for two people she barely
That purpose is revealed in the game’s devastating prologue: her father was the surgeon Joel murdered to save Ellie at the end of the first game.
When players first take control of Abby Winters in The Last of Us Part II , the feeling is almost universally visceral: disgust. After the shocking, brutal death of Joel Miller—the beloved protagonist of the first game—being forced to walk a mile in his killer’s boots felt like a cruel joke by developer Naughty Dog.
The moment Ellie lets Abby go—drowning her, then sobbing as she sees a flash of a peaceful Joel—is the climax of both characters' arcs. But for Abby, it is liberation. She rows away into the fog with Lev, the last remnants of the Fireflies. She is broken, but she is free. The controversy around Abby isn't really about her muscles or her actions. It is about structure . We love Joel because we spent 15 hours surviving with him before he made his selfish choice. We hate Abby because we saw her crime before we saw her justification.
