Defend your hero: Abby Anderson

Luke Kemp takes a walk down Abby road in search of redemption

Okay, so she brutally murdered somebody you probably preferred had stayed alive. And, sure, she crumbled cookies with a man while they were both well aware that his (pregnant) girlfriend was anxiously waiting for his safe return back home. Yet at the end of the guilt-wracked day, she’s (very) flawed, not evil, and that’s why Abby is worth defending.

There are a hundred ways to build empathy for a character that don’t involve suffering, but hey, that’s not the way that The Last Of Us works. The more we see somebody go through terrible things, the more Naughty Dog wants us to like them. Which is, er, totally the thought process of a healthy mind.

Anyway, Abby’s lost her parents. She’s lost friends. Since her teenage years she’s been forced to live a life of violence, and as an adult she experiences some of her worst suffering yet. None of this excuses the terrible things that she does, but it goes a long way to explaining them.

She isn’t lashing out from a place of comfort.

She’s almost written as an alternate version of Ellie, and when you compare the two characters it’s actually hard to argue against

Abby being the more empathetic of the two. Generally speaking, Ellie employs a ‘stab first, ask questions later’ policy, while Abby ends up going out of her way to help and protect two people she’s been taught to regard as irredeemable enemies. Yes, she still murders countless strangers, but nobody’s perfect.

It’s easy to hate Abby, but it’s easy to hate anybody from this brutal world. Relatively speaking, she’s one of the nicer people around.

Look, I said relatively speaking.

You want her as a friend rather than an enemy, right?

Wow. Okay. She enjoyed that awfulness a little too much, but she redeems herself later. Eventually.

YOU STUPID OLD MAN… YOU DON’T GET TO RUSH THIS.”