User blog comment:The Emerald Sustrai/Neo's Death/@comment-4010415-20160326011826/@comment-4010415-20160326202748

DemonicsFire, you're wayyyy off on Roman, way off. Roman's continued existence was not initially for the fans, at all.

In the Volume 1 Director's Commentary, they said that Roman wasn't originally going to actually be part of the bigger plot at all, but they enjoyed writing his character and liked Gray's voicing of him so much that they decided to make him part of the big plot. This means, originally, Roman was just going to rob the Dust shop in the first episode of Volume 1 and then never be seen from again, but Monty, Miles, and Kerry loved him so much that they changed that and had him work for Cinder instead.

Roman appearing in Volume 3 was not because the fans love him but because he had already been tied so tightly to the main plot as someone who works for Cinder that they had to do something with him.

No one ever said ANYTHING AT ALL about Monty thinking fans wouldn't like Roman, whatsoever.

They had to "lose" Roman because he was never meant to exist past the first episode of Volume 1, so they didn't know what to do with him after Volume 3. If Roman stuck around, Miles and Kerry would've had to tread carefully so as not to allow Roman's continued existence alter the timeline that Monty had planned with them.