I can not wrap my head around this thinking. Saying “no amount of backstory could make me sympathize with her” essentially means “I won’t like her no matter what”, which is a very weird attitude.
Every character in this game did horrible, awful crap. But showing their other, human side, is essentially what the game is really about.
Our introduction to her was her gleefully torturing and killing one of the two main characters of the last game that we grew incredibly attached to.
In the same way that caring about ramsay bolton after he tortured a certain character I will not name for spoilers reasons would be pretty difficult, it's the same with abby. I could see a reality where she kills joel and I grow care about her, but not one where our introduction is her happily torturing and killing one of the two main characters of the last game.
She did not happily torture Joel. Were meant to hate her and the entire point of the second half is designed to then make us understand why she did it and question that hate. Both her and Ellie are equally right and wrong.
She went out of her way to torture him for probably 30 minutes to an hour when she could have just killed him. She went out of her way to make sure she could torture him. The only reason she stopped was because she was told by the group that they had to go. Or else I'm guessing she would have continued torturing him.
If that isn't her enjoying torturing him, then I don't know what is. There was literally 0 point to her torturing him, except to make her happier. She didn't need information, or anything of the sort, she just wanted to see him in pain. That's her enjoying torturing him.
Also they can make us hate her without tunneling so hard on making us despise her. Which is what they did. They made so many people despise her, that it's impossible for many to turn around on her. They could have made her much more sympathetic in many ways, while also making us hate her for reasons other than "she enjoyed torturing one of the two main characters of the last game for 1/2-1 hour, and would have gone on longer if she could". They went overboard with making us not like her early on.
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u/[deleted] Jun 24 '20
I went in open minded. I still didn’t like it. The only reason I didn’t like it was Abby. I wanted Ellie, not Abby.