The Topic of Vengeance in “The Last of Us Part 2”

From the classic literature of Ancient Greece all the way to modern novels, movies and video games, writers have used narrative archetypes for centuries to delineate the structure of their works: these archetypes are story-telling patterns that we can find various times in the stories we come across.

The choice of using these recognisable patterns of story structure is often dictated by two practical reasons: narrative archetypes give a plot a roadmap to follow as well as an idea of the situations and obstacles that the characters are going to face along the way.

With a plethora of archetypes available, the ones that will best fit a specific story will depend on the messages and life lessons that the writer is trying to convey to the audience.

Today we’ll take a look at “The Last Of Us Part 2” and its main underlying question: is it possible to break the cycle of violence and vengeance, once it comes to be?

- SPOILERS FOR “THE LAST OF US PART 2” AHEAD -

In “The Last Of Us Part 2” we are introduced to the theme of vengeance pretty early on once we start playing as Abby Anderson, who’s on her quest to seek vengeance for the death of her father, Dr. Jerry Anderson, which happened at the hands of Joel Miller towards the end of the previous game.

Abby and her team reach an area near the city of Jackson, Wyoming, where Joel is rumoured to reside. Abby’s group eventually decides to give up on the mission due to the unlikeliness of being able to get to Joel in such a guarded city. Unwilling to give up on her chance at vengeance, Abby heads to a nearby patrol spot on her own in the hope of finding someone from Jackson stationed there and interrogate them on the whereabouts of Joel Miller.

Thanks to a sudden snow storm and some sheer luck, Abby comes across Joel and his brother Tommy while trying to escape a hoard of zombies. After learning that one of the men is exactly the person she was looking for, Abby suggests that her, Joel and Tommy seek refuge from the zombies and the storm in a nearby lodge that her friend were staying at.

After their arrival at the lodge, Joel and Tommy are attacked by Abby and her group. Shortly after, Ellie, who is like a daughter to Joel, arrives to the lodge looking for the man, but she’s attacked and forced to watch as Joel, her only parental figure, is mercilessly killed in front of her very eyes.

The events of the lodge leave Ellie with an absolute desire for vengeance: Tommy, Ellie and her friends Dina and Jesse embark on a long trip to Seattle to kill Abby and avenge Joel’s death.

After killing the majority of Abby’s group, Ellie is still unable to track down the woman, so she decides to give up on her hunt and go back home in order to avoid putting her friends in any more danger.

It’s at this point, though, that Abby decides to bring the fight to Ellie, enraged that the girl has killed almost all of her friends in an attempt   to get to her. A fight ensues, after which Abby prevails and is about to kill Ellie but ultimately decides against it, moved by her friend Lev’s reaction to the events.

Abby and Lev depart, leaving an injured Ellie on the floor, with no choice but to return to Jackson without having accomplished her mission of vengeance.

We are now sometime in the future, living on a farm just outside of Jackson. Everything seems to have gone back to normal after Ellie’s return from Seattle: she now lives a peaceful life with her girlfriend Dina and Dina’s newborn, tending to their farm and animals.

Despite having the life she’s dreamed of, Ellie seems unable to let go of her desire for vengeance, still tormented by nightmares abut Joel’s death. After Tommy informs her of Abby’s whereabouts, Ellie decides to leave her perfect life behind in the pursuit of tracking down Abby and finally avenging Joel’s death.

After playing the game as both Ellie and Abby, the player has come to realise that the two girls are not so different after all - both of them have been through a lot since the virus started spreading and both had lost people they were very close to.

Ellie’s and Abby’s stories are awfully similar, both full of pain, resentment and desire for vengeance. Grief always leads to more grief if we cannot let go of it. Is it possible to break the circle of violence and vengeance, or is everyone involved destined to repeat this sorrowful cycle until no one remains?

Towards the end of the game, Ellie finally manages to track down Abby, who had been captured by another group of survivors. After freeing Abby and Abby’s only remaining friend, Lev, Ellie forces her rival to fight her by threatening the unconscious Lev’s life.

Ellie and Abby fight in the shallow water for a while, until Ellie finally prevails and is about to drawn Abby. Right before Abby is about to die, Ellie remembers her last talk with Joel and how she decided to work on forgiving him for preventing her from saving the world. Ellie’s mind comes back to the present and she decides to let Abby live and escape with Lev, effectively breaking the cycle of violence and vengeance.

We can hypothesise that if Ellie had never broken the cycle by choosing to let Abby live, Lev might one day have sought his own vengeance for Abby’s death by trying to kill Ellie or someone close to her.

But why did Ellie decide not to kill Abby? We don’t get an explicit answer, but my personal interpretation is that, the same way Ellie was willing to work on forgiving Joel for his life choices, she decided to try forgiving Abby for killing Joel, for both Ellie’s sake and the sake of the people she loves.

Ellie heads back to her farm, but no one is waiting for her there - Dina has left, the house is completely empty and silent now. No one wins at the end of this cycle of violence and the price to pay to get vengeance is always too high.

There’s nothing left to do for Ellie if not leave now, hoping one day Dina will forgive her the same way Ellie had learnt forgiveness herself.