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Do you expect new story content if The Last of Us Part II - Director's Cut happens? (spoilers maybe)
- Thread starter Nazgûl
- Start date
I mean, don't get me wrong, Abby's not blameless here either. She could have let the events in SLC bring the 8 of them together and they could have forged a stronger bond through that, but consensus was splintered and it wasn't just Abby that wanted Joel dead either. Some people had a higher price to pay for following through on it than others, and Abby lost herself in it.
It's implied that she used interrogating and torturing Seraphites as a way of preparing for killing Joel, so if my friend was doing that, I'd wouldn't be all sunshine and rainbows with them. I wouldn't keep it inside to knock that friend down when they were at their weakest, though.
TLoU2 threads are fascinating. The interpretations and passion to argue ones point are unlike any other I've seen for a game. It's very clear Neil succeeded in making a game the industry will not forgot about for a long time.
She does make it known during their mission together that the experience made her deeply uncomfortable. She doesn't state outright that she thinks Abby is a POS but she doesn't approach the subject on friendly terms either.
Yup. I actually always thought it was somewhat weird how Mel is framed as being mostly this big sweetheart girl, but she is totally on board with executing Ellie and Tommy once they were finished with Joel, particularly if Joel's death was as brutal for her as she says it was. It felt incongruous if she is meant to be the big good of the group.
Turns out our little Mel has something of a snake bite to her. Good for her.
only way im buying it is if theres new content.
idc if the game is long, i wanna play more of it.
idc if the game is long, i wanna play more of it.
The pivotal moment at the end was that Ellie realised she wouldn't get closure by killing Abby.
I hope if ND makes some scifi game its full of even more storylines and complexity cuz i love watching the fights XD
Well, sure, but she also had 4 years to speak up if she had that much of a problem with it. She was one of the people that wanted to go after Joel originally (as heard on the tape Ellie finds), knowing the full implications of what might happen. She knew the kind of person Abby was, and came on board anyways, but it wasn't until Abby was at her weakest, and Mel was personally inconvenienced that she choses to (finally) speak up?
At the very least, she has a horrible sense of timing. At worst, she's as conniving and vindictive as she paints Abby as being.
That just doesnt work for me, especially after she kills an army right before getting to Abby. I think this ending couldve worked if it was just presented differently, but as someone playing the game and getting thru all of that end section, only to not have Abby die felt lame to me. As much as this is about Ellie, it's also about the player who is playing the game, and putting the player through all of that and having Ellie change her mind just felt unsatisfying to me.
I find the entire ending chapter too ridiculous and over the top. Whereas most of the game is you trying to survive, the ending just feels like a super soldier murder mission that doesnt follow through with the goal. The body count Ellie leaves behind only to peace out at the end felt frustrating to me.
Gimme a Left Behind size story with Yara and Lev before they meet Abby pls. Seeing their escape from the village and what goes down with their mom would be intense.
I think there are a few details about Mel you're omitting.
First, one of the big factor playing into the whole situation is that the father of her soon to be born child just hasn't talked to her in weeks without much of an explanation. Just think about what kind of message it sends her, and in what kind of jeopardy it puts her. Think of the stress.
Second, she's very aware that Owen still has strong feelings for Abby. In the context, think about how she must feel. And while she wanted Joel dead as much as anybody from the group, she attributes the traumatic nature of the trip to Jackson directly to Abby. In her head, she's the main reason they all had to go through this.
Mel doesn't "throw people under to bus to save herself". In the confrontation with Ellie she was ready to give up Abby, a person she sees as being the cause of the current mess, and a person she grew to hate for obvious reasons. Everything would be solved without Abby.
And it's kind of difficult to actually talk to the people in your life when the people you need to talk to are doing their best to avoid you, isn't it?
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It really paints her apprenticeship with Abby's dad in a new light. One of the things you have in your pack as Baby Abby is Mel's letter to her thanking her for getting her into an apprenticeship with her dad. It doesn't necessarily mean she was manipulative about it, but apparently her getting that position was atleast partially cronyism. This implies that Mel has stuck around with Abby even as far back as children atleast partially out of a desire to get stuff out of her. Which isn't to say that their relationship before this was necessarily entirely fake by any means, but a lot of re-evaluation has to be done around mel if we don't assume she's the goodie two shoes that her status (being both a healer and pregnant) implied about her. I feel we were set on this interpretation because that's how Manny introduced her to us, "She's a medic, she doesn't view this as grunts like us" and we never questioned it because her being an expecting mother and a doctor fits that archtype, but its another way that that might not be true.
It's also kind of funny to imagine that Mel spent her whole life trying to be Abby. "I want your dad, let me be his apprentice. I want your boyfriend, give me Owen!" Had things not gone to shit, she probably would have taken Lev and said "You know, I can be your big sister if you want"
About that...
"Everyone's on board, Mel included"
Perfect chance for Mel to just say "no thanks, leave me out of it", and wash her hands of Abby for good, and if Owen choses to follow Abby, she also has her answer about him. Wouldn't surprise me if she waited and kept her pregnancy from him, as well - Owen didn't even know Mel was pregnant until they'd reached the outskirts of Jackson, so it's not like Owen knowing Mel is pregnant would be a factor in him leaving or staying to be with her.
Of course, this assumes Abby is being honest about Mel being on board before the conversation with Owen, but nothing we've seen of Mel's character contradicts that.
The fact that she was ready to kill Ellie and Tommy means that yes, she will throw people under the bus to save her own skin, even as Owen's saying "we're here for him, and that's it". She justifies selling Abby out by saying "she's probably dead anyways". She needs a clean conscience if she's going to kill someone, but she's perfectly willing to do it. "You'll miss fucking up Scars with us..."
If you thought Joel did the right thing at the end of the first game, and cannot emphasize with the firefly position, it seems those people hate the second game as it makes it very hard to emphasize with Abby. Making half of it a slog.
If you thought he was a piece of shit for dooming the human race for one person and slaughtering a hospital full of people, even if you understand why he did, (like I did) then you absolutely emphasize with Abby and enjoy seeing the other perspective.
There's a legitimate argument to be made about length and pacing. But whether you enjoyed the story seems more about a personal perspective than something objective about the quality of the game.
If you thought he was a piece of shit for dooming the human race for one person and slaughtering a hospital full of people, even if you understand why he did, (like I did) then you absolutely emphasize with Abby and enjoy seeing the other perspective.
There's a legitimate argument to be made about length and pacing. But whether you enjoyed the story seems more about a personal perspective than something objective about the quality of the game.
I think she was onboard until the moment actually came and it was way more prolonged and brutal than she was actually expecting. She wanted it but not that way. Abby could've ended it way quicker than she chose to. Mel was no stranger to death at that point but this was some other shit:
Id like this if we could explore the cult better, but I still really want to play as Joel right after the outbreak. It'd be nice to see ND pull that off, especially as the human enemies would be a lot deadlier and there would be absolute chaos with society falling apart.
The thing is though, the game actively dissects both positions. People just take Joel dying horrible as the game taking a stance against his choice when that's not even remotely true.
If you think Joel did the right thing, it shows how badly his lying to Ellie messed with her and messed up their relationship for a good number of years, it shows the trail of broken people he left behind who's only source of refuge was a violent paramilitary group and the fracturing that took place in that friend group because of it.
If you think Joel made the wrong choice, it shows you a time when him and Ellie were actually really happy together, and that Ellie splintering their relationship like that cost them their last few years together. It also shows just how ruinous the Firefly ideology was for people, to the point where people carried the things they did to their graves.
I think Joel actually comes out of the game smelling like roses, if anything.
Absolutely. But she also knew the kind of person that Abby was, and that Abby wasn't the kind of person to just get things over with with a quick bullet to the head. Mel and Owen actually had to leave the room because Abby took it father than they could have ever imagined, and one can't blame them for that, but there had to be some part of her that knew that was the trip she packed for. Abby was an uncontrollably monster over the last few years, this wouldn't have changed when she came face to face with the man that ruined everything for her.I think she was onboard until the moment actually came and it was way more prolonged and brutal than she was actually expecting. She wanted it but not that way. Abby could've ended it way quicker than she chose to. Mel was no stranger to death at that point but this was some other shit:
Mel shows a refreshing amount of honesty when she says "I think he deserved it, I just wish I didn't take part in it", at least.
By the way, when I make these sweeping condemnations of Mel's character, I'm by no means saying she's poorly written. The contrary actually, there's a lot more to her than meets the eye.
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I really don't see it. They were friends in a small community. There is nothing indicating otherwise.
She wanted to go. It's how it went down that ended up causing a trauma, and it marked the beginning of the schism between these three. When leaving for Jackson, everything seems to indicate that the friendship between Mel-Owen-Abby was good (well, except for the awkwardness and tension because of the Owen-Mel relationship).
I don't understand how you came out with these conclusions. She was ready to kill Ellie and Tommy to mitigate risk. It was about being careful, and a perfectly reasonable stance in the whole violent context they were already in.
And she says "she's probably dead anyways" to Owen. To convince him somewhat. She really doesn't want to die for Abby's sake (oops), and she really just want her out of their lives.
Maybe it's because I naturally have a tendency to really empathize with Mel and her struggles, but I really, really don't have the same reading of the character as you two seem to have. I just don't see it. To me, Mel is more a victim of the events than anything else.
#justiceformel
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What you feel is intended, because it's very similar to what Ellie is feeling, the fact she went through all this effort, killed all these people, abandoned Dina and the baby. It is supposed to unsatisfactory and it is meant to induce the player to ruminate and reflect on what just happened.
You are right Ellie's motivation to go is ultimately misguided, it was an attempt to address her PTSD that she lives with because of what happened to Joel in Jackson and what she did in Seattle. Also to address her survivors guilt because of what Joel did to the Fireflies and the fact that a vaccine wasn't developed. She is living with all this weight everyday and it is unbearable which is why she makes this desperate but ultimately misguided attempt at addressing it, and she realises it at the very end, which is why she doesn't kill Abby.
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This is one of my biggest problems with TLOU2. Ellie not being in on it and acting like it was some huge revelation that broke her relationship with Joel in TLOU2 is a complete retcon of the ending of the first game.
Oh I absolutely agree with that. The game shows empathy for both positions. Heck, that's the central theme of the game I think.
I was focusing on the reaction to the game from players breaking down around those lines.
If they did DLC, I would love more prologue that is mostly outside the core narrative. Formation of the WLF, Abby after the hospital, anyone's journey from WY to Seattle, etc.
what are you talking about? she didn't know what he did at the end of TLOU1
I'd love if they cut the second half of the game, and instead sum it down to 3 hours to play. Then add a shit load of Joel, Tommy, and Ellie play time instead where it fits narrative wise.
Also let me do a different decision in the end and get a different ending.
I'll pay $60 for that.
Also let me do a different decision in the end and get a different ending.
I'll pay $60 for that.
Which one of these statements is true?
Because Abby has been a force of chaos and confusion and upset for the last 4 years, which Mel understandably wouldn't want a part in. My point is though, that Mel waits far too long to say something, and waits until she can actually hurt Abby to do it. All because she sees herself as inconvenienced by Abby, even when Owen wanted to bring her along. Owen finally had enough of it and told Mel to go back if she feels that strongly about it, because he also saw the Abby that's probably saved Mel's ass on a number of occasions. Something that does not seem to factor into Mel's decision at all, and instead she's laser focused on knocking Abby down a peg.
I'm simply addressing the incongruity of her being painted as the goodie two shoes against the backdrop of how she actually acts.
Wait. What? How? She makes him swear on their friend's lives that he wasn't lying to her, and even if she doesn't believe it (I think she's willing to give him the benefit of the doubt), finding out that he kept lying to her all those years was still going to have a negative effect on her. He was the one person in her life that was never supposed to lie to her, and now she didn't even have that.
When Joel tells her that there are other people who are immune, and they've stopped looking for a cure, and she makes him swear to her that that's the truth... She can tell he's lying. He can tell that she doesn't believe him. They both accept that in that moment and move on, because of the relationship they built over the course of the game, which is stronger and more important to each of them and their individual needs at that point in time than the greater good.
Maybe those feelings festered over the years. Maybe the guilt grew. Maybe the blame grew. Maybe she had time time to reflect and question Joel's decision, or felt like she had her own feelings and personal autonomy that she wanted to work through before agreeing that she was "ok" with what happened. I would have bought those emotions boiling to the surface and exploding. But it suddenly being some shock revelation to Ellie in TLOU2 is a retcon that actively cheapens the beautiful ending to the first game - perhaps the best ending ever in a game.
right, but i think the way the ending is presented, it just feels dumb. I dont know how else they couldve done it, but the game does way too much in terms of coinciding events to move the plot, that by the end I found it way too over the top. I also have no idea why Abbie lets Ellie live, and find it extremely hard to believe that in a world like this, Abbie especially would choose to live looking over her shoulder.
u could say liv changed her, but liv doesnt feel consequential enough to me to allow abbie to spare ellie.
no it is not lmfao.
she suspects that he's lying but decides to try and move on. however, as TLOU2 flashbacks show, the truth of joel's actions kept coming up in various ways.
in fact, the nature of their world pretty much made it impossible for her not to have doubts eating away at her because Jackson deals with infected so regularly and the main reason the apocalypse happened was because of the outbreak. combine that with the nature of ellie's patrol job that dealt with clearing infected and yeah it makes sense why she would eventually seek out the truth herself instead of accepting joel's lies and gaslighting.
i mean, she literally pokes holes in the story he told her while they stand over the bodies of two jackson residents who committed suicide after getting infected. it's even implied by joel that this isn't the first time they've had that argument.
of all the tlou2 criticisms, this one never made any sense to me. nothing about tlou1's ending implies that this is a relationship that will 1) be healthy and 2) actually last. she tried to live with his lie and, predictably, it didn't work.
Abby was going through her own redemption arc. Her insatiable lust for revenge basically cost her everything, her nightmares never disappeared nor did she find peace, and I think she realised Ellie was basically her pre-Joel murder.
It's why she went back for Yara and Lev in the first place, going against everything she knew, and the WLF who she'd essentially devoted her life to.
Through Lev and Yara she basically found herself again and realised how all the rest of the bullshit was just a fruitless cycle of shit, that she needed to be rid and free of.
It was also Lev who was the voice of reason who stopped her from killing Dina, and presumably Ellie too. That grounding force and point or window to redemption and understanding, that had essentially changed her worldview and character.
I don't think she knows it's a lie, rather has her suspicions that it could be, but is willing to give Joel the benefit of the doubt.
However, as explained in TLOU2, the older she gets and more she experiences, the less and less what Joel told her makes sense. For example, if there were so many other immune folk like Joel stated, why has Ellie never come across any? Why is she still forced to hide her immunity? Ultimately the more time passes, the more she begins to doubt his account of things, which ultimately begins to gradually further and further erode on their relationship.
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I'll agree that the first game's ending set up their relationship for conflict. You can't expect the weight of accepting that lie to fully hit her in that moment. But she did know it was a lie from the beginning.
Eh, it's not so much that I believe Mel was this sinister figure plotting from behind the shadows. It's just that if we know that Mel is atleast a little duplicitous in the present, it casts doubt on her past as well. That's why friendship betrayals suck so much, they retroactively shake the foundations of the past as well.
To be honest, I think it's just a human mixture of both. Mel probably is good hearted to a large degree, because I doubt that Owen and Abby and Manny would be so close for so long if Mel was extremely underhanded. It's just that I feel there is definitely a self interested side to her. Traumatized or not, she was very in favor of tying up loose ends with regards to Ellie and Tommy and didn't give a shit about their innocence, and with how she acted towards Abby in the end, as well as her defection before the events of the game, it paints her as a more complex figure.
Which I personally like. Both because it's engaging to me as an audience to have to piece together whats underneath appearances and because it means she isn't just this sad victim of Owen and Abby's drama that got the short end of the stick. I don't mean to frame it as her being a bad person to she gets what she deserves, but I prefer her as a complex character with her own hang ups, maladjusted personality traits and conflicts like the rest of the gang over her just this sweet innocent girl that got dumped on because she tried to be the rebound chick.
yeah and then she accepts it and over the next two years it predictably blows up in joel's face. Like fam, one of the most popular TLOU2 fan discussions was about when ellie was gonna find out about joel lying and how she would react (most of us predicted that she'd be reasonably angry about both his violent actions and his lying).
So then why did she make him swear to it at all. If Ellie was as okay with it as you think she was (she was clearly stressed about it).
She doesn't have that moment of penance on top of that cliff for no reason. She needs Joel to look her in the eye and say that all the people she lost, weren't lost for nothing. Joel, being the one person that's never once lied to her, he's been less than straight forward with her at times, but he's never lied to her, says "I swear", and she says okay. I think she suspects something happened, but she did not play the game with us. She has no idea what happened between falling off that bus and into the rapids, and when she wakes up in the back of a truck that Joel is driving.
This also leaves out that a vast majority of the discourse surrounding the ending back when it came out, and again, when Part II was unveiled, is whether Ellie believed her or not, and what implications that had for a follow up game. People just naturally assumed their relationship would be splintered by that somehow, because that's the only course that could have followed. We just didn't know that Joel would continue lying to her for years even when she gave him the chance to come clean about things.
So yes, when Joel has been less than honest about what happened, and she goes to that hospital and finds that not only did they make it, but that the surgeon that was supposed to perform the surgery was dead at Joel's hand while she was unconscious, and that Joel kept that from her for years, that's going to have an effect on her psyche as someone that's already struggled with abandonment issues.
Yeah, I just can't say I bought into any of that. At the end of the day, people like Abbie keep killing and sparing Ellie of all people isn't something that I think is something she would do just because they hamfisted this relationship with Lev into the game. I liked the sections with Lev, I just thing when you weigh in killing Ellie vs this sudden newfound sense of purpose, it doesnt make sense for a super soldier like Abbie to let Ellie go
And that's really my problem with a lot of the game: they give us all these evil people to constantly kill, humanize some of them with personal names, and in the end, these characters, in this world, are so strongly moved to spare one another. This is despite losing a shit ton of people who they cared for. You can say they want to see the light, but that's just not the kind of world they live in. Realistically, if you were to imagine their lives going forward, peace isnt an option
I don't like this take because it implies that empathy is dolled on on the basis of you liking Joel alone. I like Joel fine and if it were me in his position, it's more than possible I'd have made the same choice (though probably for different reasons and in different ways), and I empathize with Abby a lot. Joel's great, but Abby is her own person and it's up to the player to take her on her own terms. If you are someone who judged her on "What would Joel do" logic, then I feel that's a failure to engage with the story on it's own terms.
What do you mean? They leave for Jackson, relationship between those three is alright. The come back from Jackson, relationship is really not alright.
Wait far too long to say what? The friendship between Mel-Owen-Abby really began to dramatically collapse after Jackson.
You realize that Mel is around 7 months pregnant with Owen's child, right? It's not like she's just that awkward friend that wants to tag along for the trip. Owen telling her to go back is a moment in the game that gives me goosebumps every time I play it. It's by far the most egocentric and cowardly thing from the whole game.
And yeah, Mel is focused on having Abby out of their lives ASAP because to Mel she's the reason she'll most probably be left all alone with her unborn child. The father of her child doesn't talk to her for weeks, has eyes only for Abby and isn't even subtle about it... I mean what do you expect from her?
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Why doesn't it make sense?
It makes sense to you that she would abandon the WLF to save the very enemy she'd devoted her life to killing, but not spare the girl who's father she'd brutally murdered infront of her, and who was essentially a spitting mirror image of her own downward spiral of death and destruction in her journey to avenge her own father?
The WLF vs Seraohites, Lev and Yara, Abby and Ellie, they all interlink and are analogies of one another, and if Abby could see the destructive pointlessness of all the other conflicts and seek redemption in her own way through Lev, there's no reason she couldn't see it in Ellie either, thus letting her go.
How much Ellie knows at which point in time has been a bugbear for my reading of the story for a while. My interpretation is that as a kid, she doubted heavily, but believed him out of trust and faith as her close friend and familial figure. At 15, she still trusted him, but the firefly she found in the museum reminded her of how she doubts him. At 16, during the Hotel, she tried to confront Joel and get him to tell her the truth, but she wasn't sure what it is. She knows somethings up, but is torn between still trusting him.
At 17, she finally goes to the hospital and finds evidence. Once she gets the recording, she has almost every piece of what Joel did except maybe the why. But the why isn't super important to her, it's that she at this point knows he's lied to her and is torn up over her trust. I think the scene where Joel tells her the truth is not just that she finds out that she could have cured the world, but also gets final confirmation that Joel was lying to her when he admits what he did. Like, she knows, but it's not until she hears it from him that he lied to her that it finally all breaks for her.
That's my take - she knew all this time something was up but she trusted joel. She had the pieces to work out what happened before Joel confessed, but her connection to Joel was tantamount to everything so she couldn't truly accept it until he admitted it. It basically confirmed to her two things: 1. Her existential crisis where she believes she should have died is correct and her living now is at the cost of everyone else and 2. She can never trust Joel again.
OP
OP
As for the "Joel, Ellie and the Lie" thing, here's what Neil has said in two different interviews in different years.
2013 Interview
2020 Interview
It's complicated ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
2013 Interview
2020 Interview
It's complicated ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The "enemy" are literally two children who are hardly hostile.
Ellie is someone who is extremely capable, angry, and kills literally all of Abbie's friends. Abbie doesn't have to be WLF to fight the Seraphs either, they are still hostile by nature.
Her sparing literally two children and sparing Ellie are two different things. In what world does it make any sense for you to have a mass murderer on your tail, who is justifiably furious with you, who kills all your friends, and then for the character to basically go (despite all your experience and instinct) "look lets just chill out ok? I am now a different person". Abbie being WLF is irrelevant to her confrontation with Ellie. It's not even COMMUNICATED between Ellie and Abbie, Abbie just lets her go. I dont find that it makes sense for the character to do that
And then Ellie decides to keep going, aggressively kills a bunch of people to get to Abbie again (the entire set up is so contrived), and then Ellie decides in *that* moment that she doesnt want to follow through because she just happens to realize this wont give her peace of mind.
I think Ellie's arc could have made sense again, if the set up to the story was told better. But when you add everything up, I just felt "whatever" when I realized Ellie was going to let Abbie go.
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I'm saying, there was a 4 year stretch where Mel and Owen watched Abby turn into the person she is, to the point where it splintered Abby and Owen's relationship, and that Mel didn't once take the opportunity to speak up about it. You said that it's "kind of hard to speak up to the person that's been avoiding you". Clarity is important here. So, which one is it? Was their relationship hunky dory up until the trip to Jackson, or had Abby been avoiding Mel (for some reason) for those 4 years? So make up your mind here.
My whole point is, Mel isn't stupid. She saw the kind of person Abby was turning into. She's not mad at Abby for what she did. She's mad at Abby for implicating her in it. If she really took this much of an objection to the kind of person Abby was ("Isaac's top scar killer suddenly has a change of heart"), she had 4 YEARS to speak up about it. 4 whole years. You know how much you can get done in 4 years?
You realized I addressed this right?
What's cowardly to me is watching a girl beg and scream for Abby to stop, insist on killing the girl that's doing this, and then getting all self righteous in a moment of weakness for someone that's probably bailed you out time and time again, acting like you don't have blood on your hands too.
Mel's blowup at Abby wasn't only a month of two long spat. This was born from a deep resentment towards Abby that's lasted years. She had a perfectly healthy amount of time to address this, but *conveniently* it only happens when she's just a boat ride away from freedom. Not sure what part of this you're not getting.
I'm not even saying Mel's a uniquely awful person in this game.
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I don't disagree with you, but when people talk about it in these metaphorical terms, of "seeing the light" or "seeking redemption", I feel it dehumanizes the journey for them.
The reason Abby does what she does is simple - She feels fucking miserable. She has felt miserable ever since her dad died and she has recurring nightmares that mean she can never get a full nights sleep. So she seeks out Joel because, in her mind, that's the only way to end the suffering she's going through, through justice. But then she does kill him and feels not just the same, but worse. You can hear in her voice that she knows what she did was monsterous and is defensive about it any time it's brought up. This a mentality that's encouraged by the WLF becuase of their war with the Seraphites, whenever you hear other soldiers expressing doubt, the pushback is "Well, they hurt us first, so they get what they deserve", and that's what she goes with whehter we're talking about her personal beef with Joel or her less personal organziational conflict with the Seraphites. But it doesn't make her happy.
So she finds Lev and Yara and they save her, and her leaving them to die is not something that sits right with her, for various reasons. So she goes back and saves them again. She's saving them out of a psychological need to do something she feels is good, even if she can't articulate why until later. And in her journey, she talks more and more to Lev, who she is has been set up to hate by her being a WLF, but she can't ignore how much they are normal people. "They're just kids..." she tells Owen, which is the scene where she can no longer pretend that the Seraphites are just enemies. And because this is the first genuinely good thing she's doing in so long, because this is the first time in years that she's felt any healing from her trauma with her dad, because she's going to such lengths to save this kid, the bond is that much more amplified by her need to protect Lev from the dangers that would harm him.
Abby's actions are totally believable from an emotional point of view if you do the work of empathizing with her. Feel what she's feeling, how she's can sleep for the first time in years because she is doing something she feels is worth doing. But then the worst happens and Owen dies and she has the target of her rage within her sight. When she spares Ellie, it's not that she went on a narrative arc (though she did) or became a 'better' person in some metaphysical way (though you could argue she did, if you believe in such nonsense), it's that Lev being there reminded her she went through this shit before. She got her revenge and killed Joel in a torturous way and all it did was make her more miserable. What would her knowingly killing a knocked pregnant girl and an incapacitated opponent do to her? Nothing good, and Lev reminded her that she is just going to be happier if she just leaves and goes on protecting him.
And she is, atleast until a totally unrelated tragedy happens to her.