The Last Of Us Showrunners Say "Entire Concept" Of Heroes And Villains Is Flawed

The Last of Us Part II prepared players for the dark journey of Ellie (Bella Ramsey) in The Last of Us Season 2. Casual fans may not have been ready for the choices Ellie made in the Season 2 finale or the way her confrontation with Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) played out. But if you're still thinking of those two as the hero and villain of the story, showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have explained why the entire concept behind that is flawed.

Warning: There are spoilers ahead for The Last of Us Season 2 finale!

"The point of this story--and this is looked at from so many different angles in so many different ways--is that the entire concept of protagonist is flawed," explained Mazin via The Hollywood Reporter. "The entire concept of villain is flawed. Our way of processing the world through heroes and villains is a mistake. It ends up creating these barriers between people that shouldn't be there. It ends up giving ourselves justifications and conveniences for bad behavior, and it ends up allowing us to judge others summarily for things that we don't quite understand the motivation behind it. We know this is a challenging thing to keep track of emotionally. We understand people are going to be provoked. But part of this story is about examining why we're so comfortable with following one person's point of view about everything."

As signaled in the closing minutes of the season, Abby's perspective comes to the forefront in Season 3. And as far as the showrunners are concerned, Abby is still the hero from her point of view.

"Abby is the hero of her story," noted Mazin "Wherever we go next, we'll always be centering on somebody, whether it's Ellie and Dina, or Abby and Owen… [But] everything is under the cloud or sunlight of Joel--what Joel did to Abby and what Abby did to Joel."

During the same press conference referenced above, Mazin and Druckmann explained why Ellie didn't kill one minor character from the show who was important to Abby. However, Ellie did kill two other characters who were close to Abby, which fueled the latter's rage in the closing minutes.

Since Season 3 is Abby's story, some of the dead characters in the Season 2 finale will likely return as her journey unfolds from the show's recent past to the present. The showrunners made it pretty clear that Ramsey will be back as Ellie despite the immediate danger to her character. But they left it open-ended about how often Ramsey will appear while the spotlight is on Abby.

HBO has already renewed The Last of Us for a third season, but the fourth season hasn't been ordered yet. For now, there's no word as to when The Last of Us Season 3 will begin production.