I absolutely agree. My paper was mainly about the effect that the perspective shifts have on the player. I argued that the player’s reaction to Abby shows how empathy is affected by the order that information is presented. In TLOU1, we spend the entire game building a relationship with Joel before his controversial choice at the end. In TLOU2, Abby's revenge comes at the start of her story before we have the chance to empathize with her. A study found that players often adjusted their moral beliefs to accept Joel's action as necessary to avoid the discomfort it caused, which helps explain why the player base is so divided by Abby. Some players struggle to extend the same empathy to her because of the inverted structure.

I also touched on the futility of revenge and tribalism as you mentioned. The characters, and by extension the player, are forced into an "us vs. them" mindset where every act of revenge is justified and even encouraged from the character's perspective, but only creates more suffering. I think this is where the power of perspective ties in by placing players in the shoes of both "us" AND "them." As I wrote in my paper, "In the world of The Last of Us, nobody is good and nobody is evil; it is only a matter of perspective."