Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-26417457-20190905232433/@comment-14909251-20190912011339

Kaitryona Acheron wrote:

But, moving on, Cinder does not have to kill anybody.

I think this is being hopelessly technical. By rights, no one "has" to do anything. Ruby doesn't have to fight back against Grimm. She could let them eat her. The issue is saying killing Pyrrha is the proof her being the villain. Cinder is a villain in that scenario because she helped orchestrate a plot that brought mayhem and death down on the people of Vale.

Killing Pyrrha just made her a competent villain. That is the point. Degrees exist here and there are questions of emotional distance. In another thread, I noted that Darth Vader would kill his own subordinates for disappointing him. That is a great deal more evil than killing people who are actual threats to your efforts, because killing an opponent who is obstructing one's plans does not require the same level of viciousness.

Sure, she didn't have to kill people who were getting in her way, but it was what they were getting in the way of that makes her the villain.

Because, to Cinder, the wellbeing of others is immaterial. All that matters is the self. Which is, again, unspeakably evil.

I don't think we have clearly seen anything suggesting she only cares about herself. She doesn't care about her enemies, but, well, duh. Cinder did express some admiration for Emerald and saved her from a desperate situation. Now, there were benefits to her for it, but is there any reason to suspect she needed Emerald at her side? We hear her requesting permission to "take on an apprentice" from Salem. It is interesting to consider that she was not looking for an apprentice when she found Mercury. They were looking for a trained killer and found his son instead. We haven't quite seen enough of Cinder's interactions with Emerald to know what she thinks of her exactly, but I don't think we can rule out that she may care about Emerald for some reason.

I would argue there is nothing less logical, and hazardous to one’s well being than directly defying an order from Salem.

Sure, but she is still trying to be semi-logical by looking for a loophole. Hostility to Ruby and, probably, fear of her special eyes is clouding her judgment.

As for Ruby being a child, well, she is literally a child, by legal definitions. So calling her a child is more an objective statement of fact than absurd.

We don't know what counts as legal adulthood in Remnant. The fact they get into a formal combat school with a dangerous initiation at 17 suggests that is probably adulthood, presuming they have any fixed age for it. Ruby is, incidentally, 17 during Volume 6.

I’m actually closer, Advocate, to you on this issue than you might think. I actually wish Cinder were a more sympathetic, remorseful villain. I hate the way she’s currently written. I hate the fact that she never struggles with the horrible things she does. I hate that she’s so shallow in her villainy. I wish she were more dynamic.

But she’s not.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that the writers of this show took Cinder in a different direction than I wanted them to. It’s entirely their choice, and I have no agency to stop them. The only thing I can do is accept it and move on. And I have. I strongly recommend you do the same. Because no matter how much we may want Cinder to turn it all around and find redemption, it’s just not likely to happen. Some people, I’ve found, are just too far gone.

While they may not make her a more complicated character, I also think we can't judge this based off the behavior she presently exhibits. One thing people complained about with the White Fang and Adam is that their actions did not make much sense given what we had observed of how Faunus were treated in Remnant. Although there is still plenty to criticize, they did at the last minute essentially implicitly reveal something pretty horrific from Adam's past when he took his mask off. None of that makes up for it, but if they did it with Adam, then I have to think they will do it with Cinder and hopefully do more since she is a more significant player in the plot than Adam.

For one, given how basically every other villain has received some kind of backstory to give us some hint as to their life before Salem, I would like to think the withholding on Cinder is not just them being lazy or uninterested in exploring it and rather them holding it back for the most opportune moment. People thinking she is just some one-dimensional villain means they can't throw it in there without some preparation. Basically, every time we have seen Cinder she has been mission-oriented. We don't even know what she really thinks these missions are about as it is unlikely Salem told her or any of them the full and unvarnished truth.