Abby Anderson

Abby is a hardened but emotionally conflicted young woman. After her father's death and the disbanding of the Fireflies, Abby distanced herself from her friends, like Owen and Mel, to achieve her personal goal of murdering Joel.[12] She became a stoic and blunt soldier in order to achieve it.[9] In doing so, she gained a commanding presence, becoming a leader among the WLF. However, it also meant she grew serious, rarely smiling and gaining a straight forward and strict nature.[1]

She also exemplifies her more warped perspectives in how she tortured and killed Seraphites because she saw them immoral.[11] She can also be rather self-righteous and hypocritical at times, chiding Owen for wanting to abandon the WLF and go to Santa Barbara to find the Fireflies, only for Owen to call her out for doing the same thing by going out and killing Joel.[9]

Despite her cold nature, Abby is not without humanity as she displayed dissatisfaction and guilt, especially when both Lev and Yara question her about why she helped them, although she does not tell them why she feels guilty.[11] When talking to Owen, Abby laments that she is no longer who she believed she was, believing her goodness has been lost, with Owen reflecting they had both "stopped looking for the light" after leaving the Fireflies.[6]

Upon realizing that she had abandoned her Firefly sense of morality by joining the WLF, she has another dream about her father, except instead of entering the operating room and finding him dead like in her nightmares, she enters and finds him smiling at her, indicating she had finally overcome her father's death, not by killing Joel, but by helping those she cared about. Another instance of her psychological improvement is her display of guilt in how her selfish actions fractured her relationship with Mel.[6]

It is only after she befriends Lev that this dark exterior begins to fade and is replaced with a more compassionate side,[4] demonstrated in how she stopped herself from almost killing Dina when Ellie told her that she was pregnant, ashamed of herself for almost killing Dina in front of Lev.[9]

Months later, Abby no longer held a grudge against Ellie. She instead became humble and benevolent, prioritizing her goal of protecting Lev and only fighting Ellie when she threatened Lev.[4]