Abby Anderson

Abigail "Abby" Anderson is the deuteragonist of The Last of Us franchise.
Abby is the daughter of Jerry Anderson, one of the Firefly surgeons attempting to find a cure for the infection. His death at the hands of Joel Miller is what sets her on her quest to avenge her father. When she finally fulfills her mission, she comes into conflict with Ellie, who swears revenge after Joel's death. During her journey, Abby comes across two former Seraphites, whom she protects and forms bonds with.
She is voiced and motion-captured by Laura Bailey, who also played Nadine Ross in the Uncharted series, Supergirl in Injustice 2, Abigail Walker in the inFamous series, Serana in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Rayne in the titular BloodRayne series, Helena Harper in Resident Evil 6, Kait Diaz in the Gears of War series, Catwoman in Telltale's Batman, Lust in 2003's Fullmetal Alchemist, Mary Jane Watson in Marvel's Spider-Man, Polina Petrova in Call of Duty: Vanguard, Chun-Li in the Street Fighter series, and Jaina Proudmoore in World of Warcraft.
==Biography==
===Background===
Not much is known about Abby Anderson's past, but she was born some time after the cordyceps outbreak to Jerry Anderson, a doctor and member of the Fireflies. During her youth, she became friends with Owen Moore and Mel, and developed a coin collection alongside her father.
==Abilities==
Abby is highly trained in marksmanship and other general survival skills plus has an above-average level of hand-to-hand combat training for the setting. Her playable sections and skills are meant for direct combat and action-packed encounters, as well as she is the character that has the most boss sequences; Ellie only faces off against a Bloater towards the end of Day 3 and in her flashback, whereas Abby goes against a Bloater and the Rat King in the same day no less, and Tommy, a Seraphite brute, and Ellie in Day 3. As shown by her muscular build, she has an above-average level of strength and stamina.
==Personality==
When the audience is introduced to Abby, she's a cold-hearted, selfish person willing to risk herself and the lives of her friends just to exact her revenge. In the immediate aftermath of killing Joel, the expression on her face gives away that she thought she would instantly feel better but instead, she regrets it and it doesn't bring her peace. Additionally, her nightmares have not gone away, letting her relive her father's death over and over. She latches onto Lev and Yara quickly, which allows her rebuild her empathy, and finds that helping them is what is bringing her closure. Towards the end of the game, she spares Ellie due to Lev's interruption, showing that she's starting to value the input of her friends. The biggest show of character growth for Abby was being immediately concerned for Lev's well-being after being rescued, in stark contrast to her repaying Joel's kindness in saving her by killing him. She instead became humble and benevolent, prioritizing her goal of protecting Lev and only fighting Ellie when she threatened Lev.
Perhaps due to her desire for vengeance and living in Cordyceps-ravaged world, she initially lacked the capacity for empathy. Even among her own friends, she had an affair with her ex-boyfriend, Owen, despite knowing that he was in a relationship with Mel, who was pregnant with his child (of course, Owen isn't innocent either, yet Abby still shared guilt). When beating Joel to death, Abby had Ellie simply restrained, ignoring her pleas to spare Joel, yet also not moving Ellie to a different room, thereby murdering her father figure in front of her eyes. Another indication that Abby struggled with empathy was when Ellie had, in the pursuit of her own revenge, killed all of Abby's friends along the way; Abby seemed incapable of understanding that Ellie had been twisted by revenge as she had, thus was indignant and angry at Ellie for "wasting" her earlier sparing of Ellie's life, instead of realising their similarities. However, it is possible that Abby felt guilt over indirectly causing the deaths of her friends, so was simply projecting all blame at Ellie to ease her conscience.
Upon bonding with Lev and Yara, Abby appeared to develop her previously dormant empathy, as despite being standoffish against them at first, she became genuinely invested in their safety, even at the risk of challenging the fanatic Seraphites. Abby felt heartbreak upon Yara's death, which motivated her to become extra protective of Lev. Although, despite her growing compassion, the above confrontation with Ellie and inability to understand her pain showed that she still had more growth to undertake. Despite her dedication to Lev, it did make her betray the WLF, which had sheltered, fed, and trained her; thus Abby was forced to kill numerous people from her old group, yet she didn't appear to regret any kill - while it was arguably justified to protect Lev, Abby's lack of sympathy for any of her old comrades showed that she still had a possibly inherent sociopathic nature, which perhaps came to be from growing up in a post-apocaylptic world and the death of her father. 
Even so, after an attempt to find a Firefly colony with Lev lead her into imprisonment by the Rattlers, Abby appeared to have grown to finally understand the fruitlessness of revenge; Ellie rescued them, and instead of trying to avenge her friends again, she just took Lev to a boat to escape. Abby ignored Ellie's provocations, until Ellie threatened Lev, thus forcing them into a final fight; while Ellie had almost killed Abby, her memories of Joel made her abandon seeking revenge before gaining it. Abby left the despondent Ellie, showing that Abby no longer carried grudges, knowing that sanctuary for Lev mattered more than hating enemies.
==Reception==
The character has been regarded as a tragic protagonist, and one of the most polarizing video game characters in the Playstation-exclusive series, where she received both acclaim from critics and backlash from fans. But the voice actor received critical praise and won numerous awards.
== Trivia ==
* Abby being a playable character was leaked before the game's release. 
* The Head Rattler that captures Abby and Lev is voiced by Travis Willingham, who is married to Laura Bailey in real-life.
== See Also ==
*Abby Anderson on Villains Wiki
*Abby Anderson on The Last Of Us Wiki
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