Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-4141313-20181229081856/@comment-14909251-20190110204626

Masma93 wrote: She is responsible for Penny's death and for the destruction of Beacon by making Pyrrha kill Penny which caused a lot of destruction and death and also indirectly caused Pyrrha's death and she also feigned to befriend them only to betray them and was one of those who ambushed them at Haven so she has a lot of blood on her hands and a lot of things to answer for. And she also helped killing Tuckson, even joking about his death with Mercury after. I forgot about her role with Penny, but if she gets brought back on account of being a robot then that will be pretty easy to dismiss. Plus, her role was pretty indirect and it is hard to say if things would have played out differently without her involvement given the whole magnet power versus robot aspect was still a big risk. The person most responsible for this would probably be Ironwood who should have known Pyrrha's ability and the risks that would come with Pyrrha fighting Penny without knowing about Penny's true nature. Cinder and her crew merely exploited an opening created by his irresponsible conduct.

No one cares about Tukson and even if they did, it isn't clear she really did anything to help. She was just there threatening and it is implied Mercury did the killing. Not sure how she indirectly caused Pyrrha's death except in the very broad sense. Really, outside of Penny, the rest is still just faulting her for her association rather than anything she herself did.

SomeoneYouUsedToKnow wrote: Just because Vegeta did worse than both of them it doesn't mean that what they did should be easily forgiven. Even Ilia, your Karma Chameleon, didn't do as much as The Ones here. Dude, Ilia was a direct participant in a plot to kidnap Blake and kill her parents. She defected at the last minute because the people she was trying to help kill saved her miserable life instead. Unlike Emerald, who knew and cared nothing for the random people she was somewhat complicit in harming or killing because they were complete strangers, Ilia knew the Belladonnas very well and was infatuated with Blake. On the scale of things difficult to forgive, Ilia's actions are definitely above anything Emerald did in the show. Her betrayal was much more deeply personal and yet they got over it.

Mercury is a much harder case for them to forgive I would say because he was much more involved in the dirty work than Emerald, who basically facilitated things using her Semblance. That said, his backstory could make them at least somewhat sympathetic. However, I don't think there are nearly as many impediments to her having a redemption arc as you seem to believe.