I have alot to say about the story, its just not very good in my personal opinion. The things these characters act out just dont make sense.

I am unsure how to create spoiler boxes so please dont read on after this point.

SPOILER WARNING!!!

Plot issues that made little sense.

Joel gets killed by Abby after saving her life afew times and she just turns and knee caps him and tortures him after finding out his name, even after he was being nice to her, you would think she would have some sort 2nd throughts about ending his life, but no, a dishonorable shot gun to the knee and a slow death.. it made little to no sense. Thats not how people work.

The ending is another major flaw, why would she (Ellie) let her (Abby) live? After all the death and pain Abby put Ellie through, it made little fu#$ing sense. Joel would be the reason to kill her alone let alone her biting off Ellies fingers and killing more of her friends..

This whole adventure, i found little to no love for Abby, nothing she does in this entire game justifices her spot in killing the main lead in the 1st game. Ellie was also unlikable as her personality was just being an asshole like everyone else. The way this game ends, i wouldnt be suprised if Ellie and Abby become friends in the TLOU3

Rant ended

Other than the story issues, this game has to be one of the best looking games on the Pro. The gameplay is solid also but man.. that story was a massive disappointment especally when this game is all about the story.

Something like that would have been better, yes. I actually expected Joel to die, but not like this. The problem is that the story from Abby's side is not set up properly and her as a character isn't built up with sufficient time in order for us to care for her even one bit. She just shows up like this roid raged monster that brutalizes Joel and we're supposed to appreciate "her side of the story".

     So to you, Abby killing Joel was a flaw because Abby should've had second thoughts about doing it after Joel saved her, but Ellie not killing Abby at the end is also a major flaw, after Abby let Ellie live (tommy and dina too) TWICE.

     Sounds to me like you're a little biased as to "how people work" when it comes to joel and abby.

     Abby spent 4 years of her life tracking down Joel, a man who killed her father, a father that seemingly never did anything to hurt anyone who didn't deserve it ( unlike the long list of innocent people Joel kills ). During this time, she never allows herself to be happy, not even giving a chance to her relationship with Owen, someone she KNOWS she loves. All she can think about is Joel and how he killed her father, who was just trying to do good. She finally finds him and goes to Jackson WITH her friends. For them to do that in their situation, they risked their lives for her. Do you honestly believe that, just because Joel was "nice" to her for a moment, she should just change her mind and tell her friends they risked their lives coming there for nothing? That's an ironic expectation for someone who complains about "characters wasting their time".

     After Joel's death, Abby and Ellie are even. Even Ellie knows that, but pain is blinding her judgement. She ends up killing almost all of Abby's friends, but Abby still lets her and Dina go, because even Abby was having a hard time dealing with what she did to Joel. After all, she tried saving Yara and Lev as a way to redeem herself for that.

     After all the innocent people Ellie kills (including a pregnant woman), she is still blinded by pain and continues to seek revenge until she finds Abby in a state that was arguably worse than death. That, combined with the fact Abby let her live twice ( plus a pregnant Dina ), and combined with ALL of the innocent people Ellie kills throughout the game, almost convinces Ellie to just let Abby be on her way with Lev. But then she looks at her own blood and is once again reminded by the pain of losing Joel. Once again she is blinded by that pain and quickly decides to kill Abby there and then. Abby doesn't even want to fight and she is physically weakened to an extreme extent, so it's almost like an execution, rather than a fight.

     A moment away from drowning her, Ellie realizes she will not feel better by killing her. She realizes she has to do what Abby did, and that is to redeem herself for her acts of revenge. Only then she could still have a hope of ever feeling happy and content with herself as a person again. So she lets Abby and Lev go for that very purpose. You cannot honestly have played the entire game and tell me that it would've been "good" for Ellie and her mental state to kill Abby at the end.

     I am baffled by the people who state that " the characters just wasted their time". Ellie finally learned how to cope with Joel's death and be her better self, instead of her worst. Abby found her light in the darkness that surrounded her for 4 years, in Lev. THAT is a how humans CAN work, there is no standard for that because every person and every situation differs from one another. It's almost childish to expect someone to deal with pain and loss the same way you would.

SPOILERS

Yeah i completely agree he had to die, however it was how it was implemented. There was no build up, barely any character development to lead into it, just a quick removal of the face of TLOU to make room for a forced story, thats how it felt.

I believe Lev was the reason too, but its not a realistic outcome for Ellie. She literally saw Joel get tortured to death by her, she saw Abby kill her friends, and Ellie cared little for any one to the lead up to finding Abby.. than all of a sudden gives her mercy? I dont know, it just felt unnatural. 

True that there was little build up, but i kinda like that tbh. I like these WTF just happened moments and then seeing the aftermath of that. A big reason why I really enjoyed the first 5 seasons of Game Of Thrones.

Abby gave Ellie mercy twice, so maybe ND thought Ellie killing Abby would make her seem like the more ruthless and cold one. I dont know. I would be fine with either outcome.   

I am definilty not saying Joel shouldnt die. Abby has every reason to put him away, thats by far and large not the issue here.

The issue was how it was implemented. Joel is a survivor, he shows this in the first game, yet now he just all of a sudden lets his gaurd down.. characters like these need better send offs, there was no fight, no courage, just a stupid move of Joel trusting strangers.

There needs to be character build up to Abby, there was none, and that scene set the mood for the entire game. Majority still didnt like playing Abby or thinks her motives were earnt. 

Personslly, I dont agree with Ellie letting her go, maybe if Abby only killed her friends but she personally watched what she did to her father figure and why this story needed to end her. The game felt hollow at the end, like it needed some resolve. That is an opinion of ours.

Just to add to bozinga 

Joel was morally corrupt in the first game and ellie was his chance of regaining what was lost.. yes in greater scheme of things that's selfish and wrong but that was the cruz of the last of us.. which took almost 10hrs to show why you shouldn't feel bad about joels decision.

If in first game Joel's action was handled in similar way as Abby's.. Starting of killing the doctors and ruining every chance society to rebuild itself.. we wouldnt have considered last of US as masterpiece.

The problem with TloU2 is neil druckmann and Shanon woodward got complacent and probably thought hey lets break the rule of story telling, which is 3 act structure.. setup, Confrontation and conclusion, in that order, but instead we got 

Confrontation - Joels death was the conflict but falls flat due to no setup of why he deserved to die, rest alone in that manner..

Setup- Abby was directly thrown into confrontation, (no character setup or situation setup)

Conclusion - this entire thing got lost when writer didn't know who's story deserved conclusion.. what players should feel towards Abby.

it would have been a much better story if we started playing as Abby recruiting the team on quest to finding joel. and show why she hated joel so much and it was not just because of her father but there were many things joel and we as a player did in the first game that would deconstruct joel in our mind.. and then setup a confrontation with abby, we as a player fighting as joel along with tommy to give player the sense that joels death was our doing. and then from that we would have had ellie's journey on revenge and the conclusion which we got would have made much more sense..

P.S Scars was pointless to the story..

SPOILERS 

Id definitely say there is a bias because people built up a connection with Joel in the first game where as Abby is comparatively shoehorned in. From the start if NDs goal is to make you care about Abby they chose the wrong way to start that emotional connection. 

Hey I didn’t agree with Joel’s actions. It was selfish and didn’t serve the greater good. If she was his real daughter I’d get it but she wasn’t. What I do get is that he was motivated by love when he killed the doctor. He wasn’t willing to back down and neither was Joel. And I think that’s why people got invested with Joel because he’s the rock in Ellie’s life no matter what. Abby on the other hand isn’t motivated by love but by revenge. Far less sympathetic off the bat. 

After Joel’s death I wouldn’t call Ellie and Abby even at all. Joel killed her dad quickly and out of necessity. Abby killed Joel slowly and made Ellie watch. Big difference. Abby is far more disturbed once you look at it this way. 

Then you have the narrative tricks ND plays on you where you see Ellie commit savage acts and by comparison you play as Abby doing nice things for others. It’s a narrative ploy to divest you in Ellie and invest in Abby. Except there’s an entire 1st game in 2013 that make it very hard to flip a switch on Ellies perception among fans. 

As far as the final confrontation goes, I feel ND should have let players have a choice to kill Abby or not. Because as it stands, Ellie lost everything while taking the high road at the last second (Despite her firm determination leading up to it). Where as Abby got her revenge and is able to walk away. For a “revenge bad” story Abby got the better end of things. Then you have the big chunk of players that purely want Abby dead just because of their attachment to Joel and how unceremoniously he went out. ND robbed people of that option because they wanted you to like Abby by the end.

Your interpretation is valid. That’s probably what ND was going for. I’m just saying the story interpretation is more divisive then they anticipated. If people want to reject the story on the sole premise Abby isn’t a likeable character, then so be it. 

If someone you love was murdered while trying to do something good, I think you would be able to see "your side" of the story.