EVOLUTION OF ELLIE | Last of Us & Last of Us 2 How She Turned From a "Baby Girl" To a "Fool" 

Not completely.

Jerry it’s a reference to Joel’s song

@@spookyboy101 I know.

I believe she lost herself when she killed David in the last of us part 1. After that, she wasn't the same.

Yeah I agree

How did she lost it

@@lauradoesanimash1209 abby bit ellie's finger's off when they were fighting

I know, it’s all sad. But she actually can learn to play left handed, it’s just gonna take time.

@@ayban3257 You mean she bite?! Or she slice using a knife?!

@@lauradoesanimash1209 SHE BIT ELLIE'S FINGERS OFF BRO

Communist Bug she completely lost everything.

She only really has the baby Dina and Tommy kinda but he left anyway didn’t Abby shoot him in the head how does tom live but Joel doesn’t

The Lonely Stick man Jesse got shot in the head

I know

20 was the saddest it was when she actually lost everything she lost Dina and her baby, she never actually got her revenge and the only thing that still connected her to Joel (the guitar) she lost because of her fingers

and what she said to sam thats she was afraid that ending up alone come true in that ending

😭😭😭

she knew it even before part 2 lol

She looks her age to me

erika She looks like she is in her mid twenties at 20 imo

Not really.

@@unfortunatetiming4169 right? She looks like she older than twenty

@1,000 subs with a few vids it's only because of the change of hair, makes her look matured.

Yep, that song is actually freaking great foreshadowing of what was about to come, now that I think about it oml.

@@Ice.muffin Yeah.

@@_ylgsb But what stings most is that it doesn't come from Joel's part (who sang it first)like we could be lead to believe, but from Ellie's 😢. That was brutal man.

@@Ice.muffin Yeah :(

😥😥😥

The good times

i was on that exact spot today

Yeaa

Thats The scene where all The fucking consequences begun

Yeaaa

@ZayedG Haroon Fuck Abby

@ZayedG Haroon Fuck abby

whose hug exactly? try to hug her and she is gonna stab u in the eye...

@@aryanxrestha3356 lmfao

@@aryanxrestha3356 "Just shut up"

we are talking about post apocalypse world.. survival and all

@@KimTaehyung-jy4pq she killed about as many people in one game as Jason Vorhees did in all of the friday the 13th movies

@@kotorandcorvid4968 may be more than that...lol

@@kotorandcorvid4968 she's a killer

She could be considered the most powerful person that ever existed in that world lol

i mean good jeans stay long with you, i still have pair of jeans from 2015 and they still do me good

@@Snoop_Doge you're not wrong

And same shoes

Bruh when i lost weight i could finally fit in the clothes that i bought like eight years ago

i mean what can she wear its an apocalypse she cant make new clothes

This story has all the subtlety of a golfclub to the head.

@@D_YellowMadness There's so much more subtly if you actually pay attention instead of looking at the surface level shit

I'd restring it and flip it to learn lefty.

@@chadn.1619 coming from a left-handed guitar player, learning lefty is so difficult. I forced myself to learn right just because it was too much to try and flip all the songs I knew to play or wanted to learn. It'd take Ellie YEARS to switch hands, and by then she'd forget how to play the song in full, only destroying her more

​@@chadn.1619 Nah, get rubber stubs like Iommi.

Fr

for me..its 19

14 is the best for me

And we all agree 20 is the worse :(

@@SuluhPandu Why?

Yea I wish part 2 would have started right after part 1 and ellie wouldn't be so traumatized after the things that happened to joel

she lost her fucking father figure. who wouldn't be in a dark place mentally after that?

@Dice Lee I k kw but im.sayi g that losing joel, the person who was pretty much her father figure, is enough to go to a dark place. losing everyone else is just adding to that.

I feel sorry for her

hafid luqmanul hakim Agree

fbi open up

fbi open up

fbi open up

oh that's *deep*

In Left Behind, 13 years.

laufey, mother's atreus Left Behind was only a month before she meets Joel. When Joel and Tess knew about Ellie’s bite, she told them it was 3 weeks old, suggesting that the events of Left Behind she was 14.

@@faisalhp1773 no, not really. if she was fourteen at that time, she would be fifteen long before the flashback with the joel in the second game. for example, i believe that riley returned on ellie's birthday, she had just turned fourteen on the left behind, or would be in a few days. she spends a year with joel more or less, and when they arrive in jackson, a month is left for her birthday which gives the eldest time to look for the museum as a gift to her. it fits, you know?

laufey, mother's atreus Yeah that makes sense, but all we know is Ellie was bitten 3 weeks prior to the events of TLOU. And later we don’t see how old she is or in what time frame during the years exactly. It just tells us 3 years earlier or 4 years earlier, and our point of reference is definitely 19 yo Ellie.

@@duuds4726 I thought she turned 15 in between the Winter and Spring chapters

Same :(

Yep always :(

Same bro yeah that's my baby girl Ellie 😁

Hopefully if they make a Part III, she’ll find Dina and JJ

arthur morgan is better

Filipe Pinheiro completely agree. As a 19 year old I can see her being one of my friends. She’s so well written. At the start in Jackson you can see her still having that innocence and flirty behaviour with Dina, but you can also see she’s damaged and depressed, much like myself lol. Joel’s death then broke her even more, and her ptsd almost made her lose her humanity. Emphasis on “almost”, she’s much stronger now, found her humanity, her content. I really hope the 3rd game is about Ellie’s redemption story (much like Joel’s redemption story, and Abby’s) I feel like Ellie now needs one, fulfilling her original purpose as the cure by heading to the fire flies or some shit.

@@jewsweat6088 there are no fireflies any more

finally someone understands

If you can call living with PTSD and severe depression and finally living her worse fear of being alone in a universe torn apart from the cordyceps fungus “a life worth living”

@@HypocriteHunter666 yeah but some people think she lost that fear at part 1 I'm not that people

in the end dina left her?

@@oishigain8220 yea and the end is her walking and then boom credits

BRENDA APARECIDA DE LIMA TOMONAGA well Abby didn’t see her father die. Ellie did right in front of her but yeah

BRENDA APARECIDA DE LIMA TOMONAGA nope I’m just saying Abby didn’t see her father die. She saw him dead 2 different words that are the same thing now Ellie did but yeah they both have the right to be angry and get revenge

@@Jj-xh3cy Abby not seeing her father die doesnt matter it still got her pissed just like ellie joel was like her father ur point makes no sense lol

Diego Lopez artz yeah I know I said that 🙄 and I never said Abby ain’t got the right to be pissed and not get revenge 🤦🏽‍♂️

@@Jj-xh3cy u were just saying that abby didnt see her father die that was ur point which was stupid and whatever u said rn was wrong lol

She knew later in the story

@@blackmamba7273 when does she find out? Because I beat the game and I dont remember Ellie ever being told about who killed Jerry (Abby's Dad), that wouldve been a huge step in character development because Ellie would have been able to empathize Abby.

@@sociop9063 she found out when ellie and abby meet she said I know why u kill joe

@@blackmamba7273 In that scene in the theatre she says, I know why you killed Joel, but then rambles on about the cure.

Socio P but what if Nora told her bc Dina ask Ellie if she told her why they did it an she said yea after ellie kills Nora

:(

Abby did the same thing. It took control of her for four years! But she still got lev in the end. This is why this story doesn’t make any sense

@@amberb.6395 yeah but that's meant to be a parallel to Ellie and Joel's relationship. It reminded Ellie of Joel and she realized that's not what Joel would have wanted, Maybe Abby did deserve to die(I don't think she does but for argument's sake let's say she does) what would Ellie gain? Through her revenge fueled rampage she lost everything, her family, her home, even herself. So at the end of the fight she decides that killing Abby isn't worth losing anything else which would have been her last connection to Joel.

@@amberb.6395 she got revenge, and it didn't make her feel better, and only have her guilt. She found an opportunity in Yara and Lev to redeem herself for all the horrible things she's done. Ellie hasn't found her purpose yet, but at the very least she didn't lose herself and her humanity by killing Abby, so her character can develop once again. Also if you rlly care then Abby WAS punished. She was starved and made as a slave for months before Ellie saved her.

@@iamrococoo was about to say this, thanks for doing my work for me

you're right man☹️

In RDR2 Arthur says Revenge is a Fools Game. But she the thing is she became a monster and lost everything that was dear to her. (Meanwhile Abby still lost her friends but she got the easy out. It seems she found the fireflies again and got Lev.) They shouldve give us a option to kill Abby or not at the end.

Imagine if the good guys of WW2 caught Hitler then let him go free of all charges because"Revenge is bad"

Yes she is not a fool

Colby King this is a stupid comparison

maybe ☹️

she missed him☹️☹️☹️

i mean she mentions that she barely eats anymore like 5 times throughout the whole game.. so no, it's not just you

Grief

Come on dude it's a fucking game I doubt they stuck that much thought into this

i really love her.. she is my most favourite gaming character and she will be

Yeah, I think the type of PTSD she had was Survivor's Guilt. It's hard to keep living when you know you should be dead, or that if you weren't alive and shouldn't be because it could have changed something. Definitely took a toll on our poor Ellie here.

If she was a real person, she would be worst .I mean imagine yourself in her place , in a world like this .

Joel's life is worse, from living normally before the pandemic and losing his daughter at the beginning of the pandemic, doing atrocious things in the time of the pandemic to survive, doing whatever it takes for the love he had for Ellie and he is not a man haunted by his past. On the other hand, Ellie was born in the pandemic, that is to say that this is her reality (infected and crazy factions), she tortures a girl and the world collapses, even her hands were shaking, Joel tortured two to find out Ellie's whereabouts after waking up from his injuries and seeing that Ellie was not around him. In TLOU2 Ellie couldn't avenge Joel because he left Abby alive just because of him a sense of morality she had never experienced, Joel killed all the Fireflies and screwed the cure just for her sake, that's why the first game wins by far to the second. joel: strong Ellie: Weak

​​@@Exoskeleton4490 The difference is that killing Abby wouldn't change shit, cut the bs, both are great games, it's okay not to like them but damn

😭😭😭

Basado

Best calculus I've come across so far and I agree entirely.

@@Ice.muffin Geez I forgot about this comment, thank you…

@@faisalhp1773 My pleasure ^^.

I feel like there’s something wrong with that math, but I can’t quite tell what it is...

So true ;^;

Yeah, younger Ellie was one of my favorite gaming characters. She'a just so darn likable once you get to know her

It is what it is bruv, last of us 2 pretty much fucked up the whole storyline and the people who are playing it, it's a waste of money pretty much, the first game was godly but the second one is just ass (graphics wise it's godly tho)

@@yeetyeet2098 nah, it elevated her character so much tbh

@@yeetyeet2098 I mean, if you think about it Ellie isn’t going to be the same after 5 years of struggling to survive. She has so many things to worry about and losing Joel made her lose a huge part of herself. Of course she’s going to be a different person. The last of us storyline isn’t exactly sunshine and rainbows. Also, after Ellie went after Abby in the ending of part 2, she thought it would finally bring her peace by killing Abby. Which it won’t. That’s why she stopped. It’s never gonna bring Joel back. She just still needs to find her peace so she can move on with her life and get over Joel’s death.

dina will beat the shit out of you😂😂

Uh...no

@ZayedG Haroon You stupid?

@ZayedG Haroon read your comment lmao

@@simpleastronaut.2692 Dina who?

Shut the fuck up. Please shut the fuck up

@@willcotterill8598 u alright bro?

lol

RecruitGamer no I’m sick of everyone being obsessed with saying ReVenGE iS a FOolS GAmE like shut the fuck up tlou2 isn’t about revenge

@@willcotterill8598 yes is it

Babies usually form worrs when they're that old so I don't think it's that. Maybe a year, but not 2 or more.

yeah.. you're right...i was thinking the same thing.

It was 9 months after everything happened so i don't think he's 3

Hope Gaming Playz couldn’t have been 9 months considering dinas Pregnancy was 9 months and the baby is at LEAST 6 months old. So about a year and a half maybe more

@@_JM- plus the baby can already talk so it's probably even longer than that

The game literally ends with them having a conversation on how they are going to work on mending their relationship

@@thomaspaxton9620 it kind of doesn't even matter Joel already dead. Ellie has lost a father figure. Joel has put everything on the line and out of love save her. To me the story is stupid. If they wanted Joel dead at least let him die a better way. Being beaten by a monster girl and get spit on is the worse way to die. Also humiliating I know they have great graphic and mechanics and so on. But the story to me is the important part to me. The best part of the game was the flash back of young Ellie and Joel bonding I love that. Really it's like father and daughter makes me happy. Than goes back to the present Ellie who hate Joel and is a killing machine. They totally change the character of Ellie become ruthless and a murder and make Joel a useless bumb who get killed by a monster girl. I hate it . The ending is meaningless.

Tarnish? They live in a world going through apocalypse. All they had was each other and then they lost each other. It is not tarnished by the game. It was always meant to be a revenge story

@@sumanchhetri1809 it seems that way because they wrote it that way. If you say it like this Ellie killed the mother who had a baby. After a few years the baby grow up and hunt Ellie? Cycle continue if the baby didn't hunt Ellie means the last of us part 2 is bs. All because Joel kill the doctor than the daughter hunt Joel same as the baby . Who gonna hunt Ellie tell me now even if Ellie forgive Abby does it make a difference? What about that baby?

It's a story. It doesn't need to have a traditional happy ending.

Exactly, she became a serial killer because she couldn't stand all the pain after his death. Moreover, she is a girl. I mean I don't want to be a sexist but by nature, girls tend to be more emotional. Tho, there was a lot of arguing between her and Joel, I would say their friendship and love was unimaginable. Back in those days, Ellie was only a teenager and she couldn't control herself that well due to all the hormones being bombarded. However, the older she was getting, the more understading of life she got.

LOL, almost everyone agrees that 20 year old Ellie is not looking so hot. But yeah one of things that really disappointed me about this game was how they aged Ellie from 19 to 20 ish. Her hair was really short. She got too skinny and muscular. She's looking more and more like a guy. In the last part of the game I'm sure it didn't help she got all sunburned and malnourished while looking for Abby in Santa Barbara. It's like she was obsessed with finding Abby and didn't care about anything else. She was a wreck at that point. If they plan on making part 3, I hope they give Ellie some of her spunk back. She's the reason I'm into this series.

Lorenzferus true bro, I wasn’t digging her short hair, it looked better how she had it before at 19 in Seattle, Ellie is one of my top 10 favorite gaming characters. I didn’t really enjoy playing as Abby I was just so impatient to get back to Ellie again, and even though Joel which was my other favorite got killed, I really felt like he shouldn’t have went out like that. I’m really curious about what happens next after the last of us 2 but at the same time I wouldn’t mind if the last of us 3 was a prequel

@@jluck1399 I think they have to end it with part 3. I can't see much more happening other than the fire flies will reform and Ellie sacrifices herself to save humanity. That would be a strong close. Joel is dead so it doesn't matter now. Along the way they should show lot of flashbacks of Ellie's life and some of the times she spent with Joel. That will make it super sad and closeout the series strong and believable. I know it's really sad but I think that's the only way they can save the series now. I don't want it to get carried away and go on and on like the walking dead TV show and other movies that get ridiculous,

Imagine a last of us part 3 tho 🤪

@@user-zj2yx7hk1k don't need to imagine one lol

I’d say it was losing Riley

C. Precious Jones yeah that too maybe it didn’t really show us her feelings after it showed us that after david she couldn’t really listen that well so it could really be either one

After she killed david, she was very quiet too, joel would talk to her and she wouldn't even reply and she didn't make any jokes, she was a completely different person after that experience

It actually was a lot she talks to Joel about a dream in a plane where she crashed a that actually a metaphor of Ellie losing control over herself

Growing up without her mom is the first trauma

Not that bad.

Honestly, she became an adult as her mental health was swiftly declining.

@@terrencerogers8574 she's living in a world that's tearing itself apart. Most people in her situation wouldn't be all there in the head either.

@@lovellhorrors1586 Exactly what I was saying. Thank you for your perception!

Was about time, joel was getting old. No one has the luxury of dying of old age in that setting.

circumstances made her like that☹️

What do you think would spice up her image in the long run? Becoming God?

Hey i was kidding

Ye they made her dirty. Ellie is nothing like Ellie in the part 2. Basically every character from the original is made in the most shitty way possible. Actually funny how they messed everything up from a 10/10 game and made tlou2 that's like 4/10 OMEGALUL

So guess Joel is also another crazy adult doing dumb shit in an apocalypse

Abby deserve die like Joel, she killed Jesse

@@matheuscezar5264 jesse wasn't the most fleshed out character to be honest, he is pretty basic, in a 25 hour game i think he appears for like 1 hour

Yessss when I was playing during that fight scene I really didn't want Ellie to kill Abby, the whole time I was just sadly looking at the screen hoping for something to happen to make her not kill Abby, honestly I was expecting lev to shoot Ellie and for her to die. Happy both of them survived and hopefully in the third game they can become friends or at least have a mutual understanding and truce to each other

What we are talking about is she made a foolish decision because abby also revenged her father's death.Some people say they wanted ellie to forgive abby but the thing is why abby didn't pay Joel some mercy?If we are talking about forgiveness,why only ellie has to has mercy on her enemy?

@@raymondreaper2554 I personally dont think ellie forgive abby,she just spared her,completly different thing,abby killed joel still didn't do for her and that action ended up causing all her friends deaths by tommy and ellie

@@alphagamer9505 I would like to say,you are right

@@alphagamer9505 actually I love The whole TLOU franchise both the first part and the second part,I just said my idea

To preserve what was left of her humanity.

all wrong she was 14 throughout the whole last previous game so when we went to the birthday flashback she was turning 15 (i know this was 3 years ago bc time flies by quick)

It's all about circumstances joel was a regular carpenter but the apocalypse made him a veteran survivor at least until the hulk wanted to play golf.

That's her world

Well in the post apocalypse era maybe we must anything to keep survive maybe we must kill other peope who can harm your life, you never know if you afraid you can do anything to keep survive, just like Lev say in the game "When you afraid you'll be become the strongest version of you"

@@michaelsutanto5114 exactly fear drives us to our limits fear makes us stronger.

Probably cuz your not in a apocalypse 😂

I agree wasn't a fan of her in 2

What music did you use in the beggining with the guitar

Thank you. I don’t understand why everyone is saying it’s a bad game. It’s another masterpiece. I was emotional in the end.

You are so right about this. This game is beautiful.

People only say it's a bad game because they miss the point of it. They say it doesn't "feel like the last of us" which doesn't make any sense.

Makes no sense at all.

Jerry Glen lovell that’s not why we don’t like it. There’s a video about it titles “The Last of Us part 2 is worse than you think”. It’s like an hour and 40-ish minutes long, but it explains it perfectly everything that’s wrong with the game (witch is a crap ton). It talks about the ending, individual characters, story, starts talking about the first compared to the second game, etc. honestly that video tells it much better than I can. Once you watch it, you are shown even more parts that make this game bad. This is a story based game, yet the story is so incredibly horrible beyond belief

And he also says something around the line of "feel nothing for your enemies, for they won't give you the same concern", but last of us 2 is opposite of that logic, you must sympathize with ruthless and bloodthirsty bandits since they've likely helped animals despite being mass murderers.

Vengeance is a fool’s game, and kratos Gained nothing from it, yes he lost everything but he still was a fool, at the end of god of war he says “the cycle ends here, we must be better than this” this shows that kratos accepts his faults and finally moves on.

@@carloz1536 you said he lost everything which means he has nothing to lose but Ellie didn't lose everything and that's why for Ellies character revenge is a fools game because revenge just makes her lose more

Metallic Winter and Joel was a mass murdering bandit at one point too so what’s your point?

Kratos is a god, you know

Some people aren't so lucky with that.

Ellie and Joel** are 2 of their best characters

Glad you enjoyed it

But we don't now the Joel's age

Nacho Zarza he was born in 1980, so 33 in 2013, 52/53 in TLOU and then we see him from 53-57 in TLOU 2

@@justcurious3653 he had Sarah at 19? lol

@@ruty_bolzga424 yes

@@ruty_bolzga424 młody chłop zaszalał.

Same

Lmao

I don’t know I thought it was great but I’m a fan boy. I wasn’t expecting Joel to live after what he did.

Jackson Krebbs I’m not saying it’s bad I’m just saying it doesn’t live up to the masterpiece first one was

Bagneto I agree in terms of gameplay, it had a lack of focus and randomly went from open to linear, wonky stealth, etc. the story though, for me, was a mind fuck. I know people wanted Ellie to kill Abby but Abby had to take care of Lev. It’s just this theme of, “it’s not about you.” with Ellie that counteracts her being the protagonist. She picked up Joel’s selfishness but couldn’t live up to his savagery. It was a bit more (too) dramatic though.

Jackson Krebbs it’s a REALLY good game. people just don’t like it because of the way joel died. yes i was sad that joel died. i cried a lot. but joel killed a lot of people and i knew he was going to die. i wish he died a little bit different but i love ellie in this one i loved her in the first one too but this one she is such a badass. personally i love the game but in my opinion there needs to be another one because there is things that are unanswered. i don’t think ellie should of ended up alone at the end. SHE LOST EVERYONE. including her two fingers. 😂 EDIT: i also wished ellie didn’t have to see joel die it was so heartbreaking.

" I'm on a fucking dinosaur"

I don't think so☹️

No he didn't

Jaden Zeno no he did.

yuppp😋😋😋

FBI: we got him

@@santiagoporcell4148 lol dude😄

@@santiagoporcell4148 lmao😂

@@KimTaehyung-jy4pq ladies and gentleman

Thank you! Cheers!

FBI: *OPEN UP!!!*

@@Taco_chalupa7644 chill... 😂

@@user-es9us9em3q It's a joke Bro🤣🤣😂

@@Taco_chalupa7644 ik😂

@@user-es9us9em3q looks like you don't..

Ellie isn’t the fool, the people who wrote the garbage part 2 are the fools

@@marc4595 agreed

@@Aodhan567 well they failed and got a lot of hates, good job

@@marc4595 Totally agree

@Aplles Considering her mindset at the time, she obviously wanted some closure due to her PTSD but killing Abby wouldn't solve that.

FBI: That's the one!!

@@Taco_chalupa7644 She's legal cuz she's 19.

Abby never showed regret for what she did though. She had already made peace. She was living comfortably after her group murdered Joel. She sparred Ellie and tommy for some unknown reason, expected none of them to come back for revenge, got all her friends killed because of her revenge, let Ellie go again, almost died once again, but still got to keep lev even though she fulfilled her revenge. While Ellie got the short end of the stick and didn’t get her revenge but still lost everything. Abby wasn’t struggling with anything after she killed joel. She had no remorse, no nightmares (poor Ellie), nothing. And Ellie was left with nothing because someone killed her father figure and she couldn’t get revenge. Everything about this story was bad, not well paced/rushed, and game many loopholes for the characters (especially Abby). It’s ridiculous how much the developers want you to love Abby and think Ellie is the villain

@@amberb.6395 Abby WAS Having Nightmares tf you talking about?

Velasco 141414 she had nightmares because what she did didn’t bring her closure not because she regretted her actions

Amber B. Barely anybody with a brain is buying into it though

@@amberb.6395 Abby did show regret. I've only watched/played the game once so far, but I remember clearly that when one of the little scars asked her why she saved them, Abby said something like "So I don't have another thing to be guilty about" (greatly paraphrasing, I don't remember the exact quote). You could say that she was talking about the other bad stuff she's done that we haven't really seen, but Joel's death was still recent at the time, and also we saw her show remorse during the act. At the cutscene of Joel's death from Abby's perspective, after we've seen that Joel had killed her dad and we heard Abby screaming his name and crying, Abby hesitates to keep torturing Joel when Ellie comes and starts begging. We see in her expression that she realised what she did, and she was hurting a girl about to lose her father figure exactly like Abby was hurt. She just finished Joel off and said "We're done.". The hints were sometimes subtle but they were definitely THERE and very intended. The thing is, human emotions are extremely complicated. Even if Abby regretted what she did, she couldn't do anything but move on, Ellie just comes back to haunt her, but that's where the two girls are similar. In regards to villains, there is no villain in the game, it's a story about forgiveness. The story of the two protagonists trying to forgive each other, and most importantly themselves. It's not about hatred or revenge. Personally, I despised Abby, but by the end of the game she became one of my most favorite video game characters. I didn't agree with Ellie, but if it sucks to play as her, it sucks so much more to BE Ellie at the time. That's the point. Abby's not a good person, but neither is Ellie, and definitely not Joel. The fact that we were only told about what he did in his past after Sarah died, doesn't mean that he didn't go through what Ellie and Abby did. I'm not referring to a revenge plot, but he was a "shitty person", exactly like Tess had said. Yet, he was redeemable, because he was still a person, even if it took him 20 years. The fact that Joel is so well loved proves exactly that point: that someone can be the villain in someone's story, but a savior in someone else's. The developers weren't trying to turn Abby into the good guy and Ellie into the villain. They were just showing traumatized people in a shitty environment, fueled by emotions and regret, coping through revenge, but what they truly needed was to find closure. Joel was able to find it after 20 years because he found a daughter to fill that void, Abby didn't find it by killing Joel, but by forgiving herself and sparing Ellie, by choosing life instead of death when she saved Lev and Yara (sparing Dina and Ellie right after Lev called her name proves that she almost abandoned her progress but she pressed on). That on its own shows remorse in her actions, that she viewed herself torturing Joel and killing him as a mistake. She didn't have to say it in a dialogue prompt. I don't know if Ellie forgave Abby, but she found closure only when she was able to forgive Joel. When she went on a killing spree in his name, like he did for her and doomed the world for it. Only then did she understand his motive to its core, and Ellie was able to truly forgive him, and thus forgive herself. When you regret something, you can't be expected to just say it outloud and be done with it. Sometimes people are too stubborn to admit they're wrong, or just can't handle the guilt emotionally. They can, however, show it through action. Abby just finished her arc sooner than Ellie did, that's why she appeared as "the good guy" by the end of it. Ellie was able to let her go only at the end of the game, where Abby even refused to fight until she was threatened. Even then, Ellie was going back and forth, unable to decide until she almost killed her and she remembered Joel.

omg…