The Last of Us Part 2
The Last of Us season 2 will be here soon enough, just a month from now on April 13. The series will bring the game sequel’s Abby into the mix as a new co-lead for the series, and it’s actress Kaitlyn Dever who ended up getting the role, someone who actually read for Ellie back when the show was first spooling up.
Whoever was going to play Abby was in for a potentially tough ride, resulting in a “protect whoever players her at all costs” mentality from some fans. Now that it’s Dever, she’s discussing the hate for the character got when the game was released, and how that could potentially be transferred to her. From an interview with Screenrant, asking a question about Abby hate:
“Well, it’s hard not to see those things on the internet. It’s hard not to stop myself from looking at it every once in a while, especially going into this, for sure. And I want to do this character justice and make the fans proud by bringing her to life in this kind of way.”
“But my main focus was just the collaboration between Neil and Craig, and making sure I was really getting to the core of who she is and what drives her and her emotional state; her anger and her frustration and her grief and all of that. I wanted to make sure that that was what I was focusing most of my energy on.”
The Last of Us
I did not see all that much internet backlash to Dever’s casting, outside of complaints that she “wasn’t muscular enough” like the game character. That was eventually addressed by Neil Druckmann saying it wasn’t essential to her character and they didn’t need Dever to massively bulk up or anything, as that was mainly to create a playstyle disparity with Ellie in the video game.
As for the hate for the character, not Dever, that’s a whole other thing that dominated “discourse” at the time of release, despite the fact that The Last of Us Part 2 would go on to seemingly win the most GOTY awards in history. Spoilers follow.
Many fans of The Last of Us were not on board with the idea that Abby showed up and brutally murdered the playable protagonist of the last game, Joel, in the early stages of the sequel, as he was the man who killed her father, a doctor who was attempting to extract a virus cure from Ellie in the first game (which would kill her). Then, you go on to play as Abby for half the game, the point being that from her perspective, you’re meant to view Joel and Ellie as monsters, and Ellie, hunting down her friends one by one, lives up to that. Though from her side, obviously we know she’s just trying to avenger her pseudo-father Joel.
But the hate for Abby and this storyline escalated all the way to death threats again Abby’s voice actress, Laura Bailey, from fans who could somehow not disconnect the actor from the character (this happens more often than you think in media, just ask Skyler White’s Anna Gunn). Then, there were requisite discussions about Abby’s attractiveness and size and all the rest from culture warrior gamers who are doing the same thing half a decade later today.
Dever is phenomenally talented. Watch everything she’s ever been in from Booksmart to Dopesick to Unbelievable to Netflix’s new Apple Cider Vinegar. She will kill it as Abby, and absolutely should not be harassed in any way. But this is just what happens, and it’s more about mitigating damage and exposure than anything, unfortunately.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
