Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-26417457-20190905232433/@comment-43757330-20190910061339

Cinder couldn't have been born evil because it's not possible to be born evil. People aren't morally binary. Every single person on this planet is capable of acts of evil and acts of kindness. Nobody is innately good and nobody is innately evil. What makes us good or evil is our actions; what we choose to do. It's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you.

So, how can a new born infant be evil if they haven't done anything yet?

To quickly address what some other users have said here, it's very obvious that Cinder suffered some kind of trauma early on in her life. Her lust for power, her desire to be feared; it all speaks to someone who was made to feel weak in their life. How that trauma manifested doesn't matter, though. What matters is the reaction to it.

We all suffer trauma. All of us. But trauma doesn't alter us. It doesn't change us. Instead, our response to trauma does. If your father beats you, you can react in a variety of ways. For example, you can fight back; harm your father in retaliation. You could also remain passive and dedicate your life to helping other victims of domestic abuse. The two responses I just described are one of personal vengeance, and one of altruism, respectively. The first is evil in nature (fighting violence with violence; a vicious cycle that never resolves itself, and never solves the problem), and the second is good in nature (breaking the cycle of violence and seeking to heal oneself and others).

We've seen characters in this show face trauma and demonstrate good and evil responses. Jaune Arc, for example, faced the trauma of losing a close friend. He could have reacted through self destruction, or by indulging in any number of harmful vices. But he didn't. He responded with love and righteous zeal. That is what makes Jaune Arc good. That's what makes him a hero.

Salem, on the other hand, suffered the trauma of losing a loved one, but she didn't react the same way. She reacted by escalating a war with the Gods that ultimately resulted in the annihilation of mankind. She responded to tragedy with selfishness, violence, and social manipulation; all the while blind to the devestation it was causing all around her. That is what makes Salem evil. That's what makes her the villain.

Cinder is no different, though we don't know what her tragedy was. But it doesn't matter what her trauma was. What matters is that she responded to it by becoming a killer. And not a remorseful killer. Cinder is the type of person who will kill out of spite, not because she was ordered to. She was never ordered to kill Pyrrha, and she didn't have to. She was never ordered to kill the Mistral woman, and she didn't have to. But she did it all anyway. Those are evil choices, and it's what makes her evil.

'''Cinder's trauma didn't make her evil. It just revealed her to be evil.'''

It's also worth mentioning the first thing Cinder did after her defeat in Haven. She could have focused on her mission to retrieve the relics. She could have focused on any number of things. But, instead, she focused on defying orders and conspiring to murder a child, for the purpose of revenge and nothing else. That is an astoundingly evil choice, and one that many villains wouldn't make under similar circumstances.

I also don't believe for a moment that Cinder was threatened into doing any of this by Salem. Salem is a classic manipulator. She identifies weaknesses in people and uses those weaknesses to bend them to her will. She plays on people's desires, makes promises, offers security, vengeance; whatever she needs to garner loyalty. And the one thing we know about Cinder is that she craves power. So it makes most sense that the way Salem assimilated Cinder was through promises of power; a promise she has already delivered in the form of maiden powers.

Moreover, Cinder doesn't act like a hostage. She demonstrates independence, and a willingness to commit evil acts that extend beyond her directive. So a revelation that Cinder was forced into Salem's service would raise more questions than it would answer.

But even if Cinder were threatened into service of Salem, it is important to note that that is still an inherently evil choice. Choosing to murder dozens of innocents to preserve your own life is evil. It's selfish. And though it's not an easy choice, the morally righteous choice in that scenario (assuming that you can't escape and go into hiding) is to die. Choosing to become a mass murderer is always evil, no matter what the circumstances of the choice. That's one of the things that separates heroes from villains. Heroes will lay down their life to save others. Villains will always prioritize self-preservation.