I thought I'd sum up my interpretation of the game, in the context of the first....to see where I'm coming from.
The first game is a fairly simple buddy movie type at first. Joel the gruff survivalist, upset about his past, Ellie the innocent, well meaning, naive kid and they develop through the game. We get hints throughout the game that this isn't a hero story, that Joel is a damaged, ruthless killer....which culminates in him snapping over the grief of his lost child, stopping Ellie from saving the world, and murdering a swathe of innocent people, and then lying to her about the whole thing. It's a selfish act, Joel is not a good person.
Part 2, timeline hops around a lot, but we see that Ellie has suspicions about what went on at the hospital, goes in search of answers, and eventually finds out what happened, she confronts him, their relationship is irreparably damaged. Joel knows he shouldn't have done it, but he knows he couldn't have in his eyes have let his daughter die all over again.
Joel dies. Now I don't have a problem with his naivety in this section. Later on in the game in the section with the tripwires, the dialogue establishes that Jackson is not a fortress, they are welcoming to strangers. They talk about putting trip wires up around Jackson and how they'd have to put signs up to make sure no innocent people get killed by them. Joel after living in a welcoming town like Jackson for years is not the same Joel out on the road not trusting anyone.
Ellie witnesses this and is infected with a seething rage. We're introduced to Abby, who is obviously filled with a similar rage.
We get into themes of different factions justifying what they believe is right but ultimately just appearing to be monsters to outsiders. We see that the Fireflies were decent people and Joel's protecting of Ellie, from their point of view is just a lunatic murderous psycho, just how Abby appears to Ellie.
The two women, infected (see what they did there), are set on a collision course. Is either one of them going to break the cycle of violence? Ultimately Abby is redeemed first, as Lev, the previously 'psycho' 'other' scar that she's grown attached to, persuades her to stop. Ellie doesn't stop, so we get basically a repeat ending with a different backdrop. Abby is redeemed already. Ellie this time, perhaps seeing the parallels between Ellie/Joel and Abby/Lev, finally lets it go.
Now, it's clumsy at times, and not particularly clever, and goes on too long....but it's not the travesty that some people make out. I don't know what story these armchair writers would have come up with, but I thoroughly enjoyed it as it is. There's kinda a limit to what you can do with a game where the core game loop revolves around ruthlessly murdering scores of people.
The first game makes the motivation for all the killing survival, right up until the final act, which flips the narrative on it's head, setting the game on the course that is played out in Part 2.
. You do realise that isn't what strong women/female soldiers look like right? or did you choose to ignore how unrealistic it is?
Have you ever seen Alex Puccio? She's a beast, probably kick Abby's ass 
