Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-26417457-20190905232433/@comment-14909251-20190910043815

ReikaTachyon wrote: So you're saying that anybody who's abused, put in a threatening situation, or tortured (physically or emotionally) doesn't have the choice to do anything besides become a mass murdering terrorist. I mean, that is not even sort of what I was saying. Cinder was likely abused and tormented by her family per the Cinderella inspiration. Salem probably rescued her from that situation, in some sense. Cinder had no choice in her family situation, nor any choice in who would take her out of that situation. At the same time, Salem probably also made it pretty clear not doing what she wants would mean certain death. Even there she would have little choice. Not to say she absolutely didn't have a choice, but in those cases the atlernative choices are things like "try to run away from home with no way of knowing how you are going to survive on your own even if you can get away" and "die a horrible and gruesome death that may involve being eaten alive."

Of course, those are choices one can make, but they aren't very appealing ones. You have a sort of carrot and stick approach. The carrot Salem would be dangling in front of her was "I will make you powerful beyond anything you can ever imagine so that you never have to be at anyone's mercy ever again" and the stick she would be threatening her with was "If you decide not to join me then I will just let these human-eating monsters under my command devour you piece-by-piece while you are still alive." Definitely not your average situation. Even after she joined there would be the ever-present threat that non-compliance would mean becoming Grimm food. We saw how she treated Hazel when he tried to cover for Cinder's failure. Cinder could have been getting groomed for years and may not have always been so committed.