Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-26417457-20190905232433/@comment-14909251-20190906235336

Wilfred J. Pemberley wrote: I didn't say Cinder was born evil. What I said was that she could have easily channeled her problems in a more productive way. The way she chose was evil. So, while she may not have been born evil, her choices certainly were.

Arguing about whether somebody is born evil is a waste of time. Infants don't really have the psychological capacity to show evil (if they have it). Arguing about a person's choices is far more substantive. And literally all of Cinder's choices (that we've seen) have been pure evil. So, regardless of whether or not she was evil straight out of the womb, Cinder is pure evil, and she's been that way for quite a while. The problem here is the emphasis on choice. Many things are beyond a person's ability to choose and thus cannot be judged in the same way. Cinder didn't choose the circumstances of her birth and until she was at reasonably matured age, she would have had no choice in her upbringing. It is also quite plausible that she had no real choice when it came to joining Salem. Were she in a situation where it was "join or die" then there really wasn't much choice, especially if her life left her with no particular reason to be any more hostile to Salem than to general humanity.

At a certain point she had a choice, but changing what one is doing when it is working out well is pretty difficult and if someone has never really had the necessary experiences to understand the gravity of one's actions then there is no reason for change. For Cinder to choose a different path something would need to happen to wake her up to what she is doing. Best way for that to work is if it involves someone to whom she has developed some attachment being threatened, realizing the person she has put her trust in was never going to do what she promised, or both.