AAA gaming fandom was clearly not ready for this level of story telling.

Ellie manages to forgive Abby without knowing every detail about her, the game should have allowed us that experience.

I get that this is the biggest gripe a lot of people have about the ending, but I have to disagree. Once that choice is offered to the player, then it's no longer Ellie's story--it's "our" story. And we are making a decision based off a character history that we, the player, knows, but Ellie is not privy to.

Even if a player would chose to spare Abby, it is not based off the same informed decision that Ellie made. Like, we know who Lev is. We know his backstory and the vast traumatic experiences that he, Yara, and Abby had gone through. Ellie doesn't. She doesn't know about Alice, or members of the WLF going AWOL to start a new life chasing a lead to the Fireflies.

If we were to make the choice for Ellie, she is doing so based off knowledge she doesn't have, which I would argue is a plot hole. But Ellie chooses herself to spare Abby. And since it's not our decision, the big question then becomes: Why did Ellie decide to spare her?

/r/thelastofus Thread Parent