My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Live Reactions & Discussion)

Starswirl's assessment of the spell's time scale didn't bother me because it's Starswirl, the greatest wizard who ever lived. I just assumed he was able to sense the magic beginning to fade away before it's effects became too pronounced, and did some magic tests on it and extrapolated a predicted schedule. Like the strength of the spell is increasing in potency exponentially and at different thresholds it can compromise different sources of magic. Something to that effect. It isn't said, but Starswirl's also a genius. So I dunno, it just didn't bother me.

It's definitely a case of A Wizard Did it, but it's not really solving the plot.

Edited by GNinja on Oct 14th 2018 at 8:55:00 AM

Kaze ni Nare!

Well, you can put Cozy Glow being Chrysalis in the unofficial What Could Have Been folder. That WOULD have been an amazing twist.

Optimism is a duty.

Personally, I don't think it would've made sense. M Aybe if Mean 6 hadn't happened, but it seems like if she already had her Cozy Glow persona plugged into the school thanks to M Arks for Effort, then she wouldn't have been as insane and desperate feeling as she was in Mean 6.

I like Cozy for what she is. I don't NEED her to be someone else.

Edited by GNinja on Oct 14th 2018 at 9:05:19 AM

Kaze ni Nare!

I just hope Tobias isn't going to dock points too heavily when that twist doesn't happen.

I remember being pissed off when the twist I was for sure expecting in Antman didn't happen, and it wasn't fair when I did it.

Kaze ni Nare!

I was also going in expecting Cozy to be Chrysalis, but after seeing the episodes, I'm glad it wasn't. At least, if Cozy suddenly turned into Chrysalis, then that would have undermined part of Neighsay's racism biting him square in the ass, and the lesson he learned from it. I think the villain needed to be a pony.

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08x26 - School Raze, Part II

Wait a second. Before we begin, I just realized something. If Cozy Glow actually is Chrysalis, then this stops being the ultimate counterpoint to Dracula. Worse, it actually makes him right. The racist strawman asshole was right, and that's the worst thing.

See. Dracula said back when this all started that non-pony creatures attending Twilight's school would try to use friendship to destroy Equestria. That is literally what happened here. Empress of Friendship Chrysalis is exactly the ridiculous scenario that Dracula insisted would transpire if Twilight allowed non-pony creatures to learn friendship. That's awful.

I mean, disallowing non-pony creatures wouldn't have kept her out due to her guise as Cozy Glow, but it still vindicates his concerns to have everything he feared come to pass exactly as he said it would. Making the racist asshole right isn't a good, My Little Pony. Even if the Students save the day and he recants the error of his ways like I predicted, it doesn't change the fact that he was right. And the racist asshole should never be presented as right.

It's like having a side character spend the season talking about how you can't trust Hispanics 'cause they're thieves, and then in the finale, a Hispanic dude robs the protagonist. Sure, you can have another Hispanic dude thwart the robbery and be like "Not All Hispanics", but that doesn't change the fact that you validated racism within your narrative by proving the racist asshole's prejudices to have been ultimately valid.

So at first I was all, "This is the best twist," but now I'm all, "My Little Pony, what have you done?!"

"The most powerful villains and monsters of all time are trapped here." I mean. They're in cages and have a ferocious three-headed dog that supposedly keeps them from escaping. I'm not sure what the door's supposed to do. Also, what the hell was Celestia on about it being more dangerous to come here now? They walked right in, saw the scary monsters, and then Cerberus took them to Tirek. How exactly is this any different from whatever Twilight's last visit was supposed to be?

"Wait!" OKAY. The vortex has ravenous monster claws that pull ponies in. Cozy did say she'd pushed Starlight in to get her trapped in there, so it does fit with what we knew. It's still goofy as f*ck, though.

"But Starlight's trapped here and there's no way to get word to Celestia or anypony else!" And yet Dracula seemed to think he could totally get word to the students' guardians, no problem. Make up your mind, do we have easy and reliable long-distance communication or not?

"Did you miss the part where he said he didn't want anything to do with us?" Smolder, I expected better from you after how observant you were last episode.

"Right now, we have to get to Chancellor Neighsay." I'm with Gallus. The f*ck are you smoking, Sandbar? I mean, in fairness, it's nice to see the kids be like, "Who's our nearest authority figure? Let's go get them to fix it!" That's so rare in kid-centric media, where kid characters usually insist on solving everything themselves. But in this case, I really wouldn't fault them for being like, "Our nearest authority figure is a racist asshole who hates us for no good reason? Yeah, f*ck that guy."

"I guess things will have to stay the way Twilight wants them, which includes leaving me in charge." I want to know where Chrysalis learned to manipulate the way she does. I mean, she was awful at playing the role of Cadance back in "A Canterlot Wedding", which is what allowed Twilight to figure her out. But in her guise as Cozy Glow, she's phenomenal. It's weird that she'd be such a charismatic and brilliant manipulator when her dominion over the changelings was more along the lines of a Might Makes Right doctrine, wherein she was in charge because FIGHT ME.

Chrysalis has never been subtle before, so if Cozy Glow actually is her, it's a bit of a sharp left-turn in terms of characterization for her to be so good at this.

"As Headmare of the School of Friendship, nopony will have more friends than me!" Okay, but where does purging all of the magic come in? You know, if there's no magic in Equestria, then Friendship isn't Magic anymore. You know that, right?

"Hey, Cozy Glow. What's so funny?" "Are you just happy to be running the school?" They totally caught you Evil Laughing.

"She's behind that as well? I must get word to Celestia and Luna." There's that lack of reverence for royalty again. That's PRINCESSES Celestia and Luna.

Also, neat, I guess? He's leaving before he can find out that Cozy Glow wasn't actually a pony, so I guess we're sidestepping the whole "Racist asshole was right" thing by just not letting him find out he was right?

"It means you're trapped here. Forever. With us." It also means that whoever is bringing food for these creatures can't get in the front door. So, y'know, not forever. Just until everyone starves to death.

"Do you three think you can fool me?! I know a diversion when I see it!" And yet you still fell for it.

"Destroy the School of Friendship? Oh, dear." JESUS, she got good at this. Chrysalis really has been taking part of Twilight's lessons to heart.

"All eternity!" I'm not gonna lie, it is cathartic to see that dipshit Tirek get the "A Friend in Deed" treatment.

Channeling Tirek's magic-strealing through Twilight to drain the magic from the different creatures and use it to open the door is actually a pretty clever resolution. Though I guess that means we haven't passed the second day, when creatures lose their magic? But the cockatrice couldn't petrify and Chrysalis doesn't seem able to shapeshift, so why does Tirek still have the ability to cast his magic-stealing effect?

It's a smart solution, but I'm not sure it's actually consistent with the level of magic-purging that Equestria is at right now.

"They brought this on themselves. There's nothing that we can do." Psst. Chryssy. Your mask is slipping.

"And with magic gone from Equestria, I'm not even sure the Tree of Harmony will be as helpful as it once was." NO. NO. THIS DOES NOT GET SOLVED BY THE TREE OF BULLSHIT BULLSHITTING UP SOME BULLSHIT. NO.

"They're glowing like the Elements. I think the Tree of Harmony saved them." YES, THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED. GOD F*CKING DAMN THIS F*CKING DEUS EX BULLSHIT OF A PLOT DEVICE.

Mind you, I will forgive it if the Tree's ruthless casual endangerment shines through and it's like, "Whew. Got the six I care about!" and then it promptly dumps Starlight down the hole. Nothing against Starlight, but that would be hilarious.

Tirek's magic hitting him in the face is really funny but I am once again forced to bring up that we just saw that he somehow still has his magic anyway. Twilight confirmed that we're at the end of the third day here; he absolutely should not have been able to do that.

"You can drop the act, Cozy Glow." You go, AJ. Be that secondary leader.

"It's clear to me now that there is no pony better suited for the job." And here we go with Dracula's reformation. All without him ever finding out the truth about Cozy Glow's true identity. I mean, I assume we are going to find that out, right? She clearly said "You ponies" last episode, identifying herself as Not A Pony. It's kind of weird that we're wrapping up without Chrysalis reverting to her true form and trying to gloat at any point in this episode.

Unless that's meant to happen as like a cliffhanger? I hope not, because that would imply her escaping, and she is pretty much out of villain cred at this juncture.

"Now that we've saved Equestria, we figured we were done with school." I mean, it worked for Starlight. Saving Equestria was her graduation too. And Spike clearly signed off on this assumption, seeing as he's helping them practice.

"Saving Equestria is nice, but I'm afraid it will take more than one semester to learn all there is to know about friendship." Again, it worked for Starlight. She spent one season in the Castle and then she was finished.

"Told ya." You were helping them practice, Spike. You don't get to gloat.

"As for Cozy Glow, I can assure you where she's going, she won't be causing anymore trouble." You did NOT send her to Tartarus. Tell me that's not a thing. SHE IS A CHILD.

I mean, she's almost certainly Chrysalis. But you don't know that. So as far as you know, SHE IS A CHILD.

"Hey neighbor. Want to be friends?" Ominous cliffhanger is actually pretty ominous.

So, did this episode stick the landing? No. No, it did not. We are never given a reason for why purging all magic from Equestria is a thing that Cozy Glow would want. It really doesn't mesh at all with her plan of becoming the Empress of Friendship, nor is the effect at all consistent with Tirek's magic drain, which they try so hard to link it to. Also, Tirek totally pulls magic out of his ass to get the door open when he shouldn't have any magic left.

The big moment where the Students save Equestria is totally ruined by having the Tree of Harmony save Equestria instead, while the Students are nearby. There's no clear indication for why Cozy Glow was so thrilled to discover the Tree's space here in "What Lies Beneath" when, indeed, the Tree isn't involved in her plan at all. Nor is there any explanation for why it doesn't do anything to thwart a plan happening in its living room like it did in "The Mean Six". It waits to act until literally the last second, because it's a bullshit deus ex machina plot device first and foremost.

It's never actually confirmed if Cozy Glow is or is not a pony, so I can't really hold that against the episode. At the very least, they kick the can down the road regarding Cozy Glow's identity to avoid validating the racist asshole as I'd feared they might. Probably a good idea, because the racist asshole should not be validated. But that does mean we close out the season with zero explanation for what the hell Cozy meant when she said "You ponies" to Starlight.

I honestly don't know if I'd prefer for Cozy Glow to be Chrysalis or not. We're past the "out of sight, out of mind" threshold for validating Dracula if she turns out to be Chrysalis next season; puts the confirmation of his fears into Fridge Logic territory rather than laying it front and center in an episode directly involving said fears. But she definitely doesn't seem to act like a pony foal. I'll be really interested to see her long and tragic backstory when we inevitably redeem her next season if she doesn't turn out to be Chrysalis.

It's a weird situation where if Chrysalis is Cozy Glow, then it's actually really good for Chrysalis's story because it's an interesting direction for her character. Way better than that nonsense from "The Mean Six". But if she's not Cozy Glow, then that frees up Cozy to be a more dynamic character because she doesn't inherit Chrysalis's established character history and waning threat level. So it's better for Chrysalis for her to be Cozy but better for Cozy for her to not be Chrysalis.

Dracula's story played out pretty much exactly the way I expected it would with no twists or swerves. I'm cool with that.

Tartarus was ultimately underwhelming; it's the size of one room and has maybe a dozen inmates in small cages, plus Cerberus to guard it. This feels far less grandiose than what I'd been imagining. More "County Jail" and less "Maximum-Security Federal Penitentiary". That bugbear might as well have been here overnight for a Drunk in Public charge.

All in all, this had its problems. That said, I still enjoyed it quite a bit more than "Shadow Play" or "Twilight's Kingdom". It's far from the worst Adventure plot they've ever done, which is the highest praise I'm willing to give it.

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I'm pretty sure Cozy Glow is a pony. My guess is that her saying "you ponies" is like someone in real life saying "you people" (when it's a person addressing other people).

I would not want her to turn out to be Chrysalis or some other non-pony creature in disguise, because of what you mentioned about it proving Neighsay right about non-ponies being untrustworthy.

Edited by Rainbow on Oct 14th 2018 at 5:27:51 AM

I thought the two parter actually gave two potential motives for her taking away magic.

It allowed her to trap the mane 6 away in a place they couldn't escape. The mane 6 who she knows are a massive threat to her plan. It also created a situation where Cozy could act as the people's saviour. Someone they could turn to and depend on in these dark times.

And this one isn't said, but by removing all other forms of power, it leaves her brand of political/friendship based power as the sole source of power.

Edited by GNinja on Oct 14th 2018 at 10:37:48 AM

Kaze ni Nare!

Ending magic forever destroys the world. Ponies rely on magic to move the sun and moon. Earth ponies use their magic to harvest the food that ponies eat. Ponies rely on the Weather Factory, which we see early in the two-parter, to create weather and on pegasi to distribute that weather. We have been explicitly told that without Celestia's magic moving the sun, an apocalyptic scenario would descend upon Equestria.

Hell, according to "Twilight's Kingdom", ponies need magic to even move their bodies.

Global annihilation is not conducive to Cozy Glow's plan of amassing political power.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Oct 14th 2018 at 4:47:37 AM

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You mentioned how she doesn't feel like a foal. I disagree. I think she VERY much feels like a child, and what you said about her plan and her motive (at least how she words it) is why.

She's an idiot kid who's special talent is being a master schemer. So while she can execute every step of her plan incredibly, the overall goal she set for herself is shortsighted and kinda doomed to failure.

She strikes me as someone who'll be even more insanely dangerous as she grows older and more refined.

Edited by GNinja on Oct 14th 2018 at 10:52:40 AM

Kaze ni Nare!

I don't know that it's supposed to be doomed to failure, is the thing? Like, within the context of the episode, the effect of ending magic forever seems to be limited to "Oh no, ponies can't cast spells and artifacts don't work and shit." This is one of those episodes that seems weirdly ignorant of the entire rest of the series. They never really give the end of magic the apocalyptic stakes it warrants, only noting that it would be very bad because Rarity wouldn't be able to curl her mane.

Which weirdly doesn't stop Tirek from using his magic on the third day when magical creatures have already lost their magic. Or the other magical creatures from contributing their magic to said effect on the third day when magical creatures have already lost their magic.

I don't get the impression that a lot of thought or effort was really put into the "end magic forever" plotline. Its function is twofold. It serves to:

1. Provide a means by which Twilight and the others can be kept out of the plot.
2. Give Cozy a much simpler and more easily thwarted Evil Master Plan than her political machinations. That way, the story can end on a big action blowout where the day is saved with rainbow beams instead of a complex Talking the Monster to Death confrontation.

And then it also gives them an excuse to have fan-favorite Tirek show up for a few lines that don't go anywhere or contribute anything to the plot - note that because Twilight and her friends are kept away, nothing that actually happened in Tartarus matters to the story. That was all filler action for the sake of letting Tirek make a cameo. It goes nowhere.

But what it doesn't do is play into Cozy Glow's agenda in any conceivable way. Nothing about her is opposed to magic. There's no part of her plan where she's like, "Then, without magic in the world, even the Princesses will be powerless to stop me!" or some shit. She doesn't mention it. It is both the central point of conflict that the plot revolves around, yet also an unimportant means to an end unworthy of even discussing in her ambitions. She doesn't actually care about ending magic, but the threat of magic's end is what the plot's about.

In essence, the finale revolves around confronting the weapon that Cozy Glow happens to be holding, rather than Cozy Glow herself. All of this is spent thwarting a single piece of her plan that isn't even part of the character's actual goal.

So the result is that the story winds up making too big a deal out of the threat of magic ending, yet at the same time not enough. Too much because it is totally irrelevant to the actual plot, yet not enough because they completely undersell how devastating such a thing would be to Equestria.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Oct 14th 2018 at 5:21:05 AM

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What about those two lines I pointed out? The ones that hint at at least two motives.

The situation created by the event allowed Cozy to win people's trust easier, and taking away magic allowed her to trap the mane 6 in Tartarus.

Edited by GNinja on Oct 14th 2018 at 11:22:37 AM

Kaze ni Nare!

Like I said: means to an end, completely irrelevant to the actual goal. It's the equivalent of spending the resolution to the Movie on finding a way to reverse the Staff of Sacanas, leaving Tempest totally undeveloped and just letting her get f*cked with the Storm King.

Or concluding "The Cutie Re-Mark" by discovering a way to shut down the time travel scroll, never exploring Starlight Glimmer's character in the process.

Or, on the topic of Glimglam, concluding "The Cutie Map" by having Fluttershy release everypony's Cutie Marks and then having Twilight beat up Starlight and take her into custody; never actually talking about the hypocrisy that undermines her cult.

By keeping the narrative fixed firmly on the end of magic but also making the end of magic into a simple step of the plan rather than the actual end-goal, "School Raze" resolves only a tool used to carry out the villain's agenda. It never confronts the villain herself. And that brings up another issue:

See, it bugs me that Cozy Glow was sent to Tartarus. That really bothers me. It feels really cruel and mean-spirited for a series that so often makes a big deal of reforming its villains. Like, I get that not every villain can be reformed but since she's probably not actually Chrysalis, that means she's a child. A child.

This is a really f*cked up place to draw the line in the sand and be like, "You know what? I'm over redeeming bad guys. This kid gets shoved in a hole to die alone. F*CKER GOT THEIRS." Especially while redeeming Dracula in the same breath.

Like, they don't need to redeem Cozy Glow now, but consigning her to Tartarus is too much. It's a decision that puts her where the writer wants her to be for season eight, but also makes Twilight and Celestia look like heartless monsters. SHE. IS. A. CHILD.

Like. Cozy Glow's whole thing from the moment she was introduced is that she is a kid who slipped through the cracks. She didn't really understand friendship and needed the Crusaders to tutor her. To the end, she never really got it. She knew the ideas but never internalized them. She needed more help than the regular classes could offer.

And the school's response to that was, "F*ck you, rot in Hell." If that's how this school handles problem kids, then what are we even doing here? Friendship School isn't supposed to be a school-to-prison pipeline. There's enough of those in the real world.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Oct 14th 2018 at 5:43:53 AM

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I appreciate them having the balls to at least try it, honestly. I think Cozy really does come off as far gone. I mentioned it on another page, but she's not like Starlight or Discord. She didn't not know what friendship was. She was in a school, learning Twi's damn curriculum and acing it. She just didn't care.

It's cynical, but you gotta think that not everyone will learn, and if she has no interest in turning good, then they can't force her.

Cozy's a very dark character in a lot of ways. Twilight sounds honestly defeated at the end when she confronts her. She was apologizing for failing her.

And she's not just any problem child. She's a dangerous problem child. If you fail at Twi's school. I don't think she incarcerated anyone unless you turn into a super villain.

Edited by GNinja on Oct 14th 2018 at 11:51:18 AM

Kaze ni Nare!

Cozy is an adult pony who is Older Than They Look, infiltrating the school by pretending to be a child. (On second thought, that might also have Unfortunate Implications involving the Depraved Dwarf stereotype, so I'm not sure if that's better than her being a filly or not.)

Edited by Rainbow on Oct 14th 2018 at 6:52:46 AM

Everpony says that Cozy Glow's spell is draining magic, but the effects are still very, very different from Tirek's magic-draining. Cozy's spell doesn't remove anyone's cutie marks (like Tirek's did), nor does it stop pegasi from flying (like Tirek's did), nor does it leave anypony too tired to walk (like Tirek's did).

The simplest in-universe explanation is that Cozy's creating a very imperfect knock-off of the spell from "Twilight's Kingdom", one that doesn't drain ponies nearly as dry. Tirek sucked every last bit of magic out of everypony, while Cozy's just skimming off the top in comparison. Just enough magic gone to stop unicorns from casting any spells, but not enough to take away cutie marks, or to affect pegasi or earth ponies.

Which makes sense, because Cozy Glow wants to be the Empress of Friendship, and where's the fun in ruling over a nation of ponies too drained to do anything but lie around?

Granted, that does still leave the issue of "Who's going to move the Sun and Moon now?"

I didn't write any of that.

So have we seen the last of Neighsay? I hope not, as I'd love to see what else they could do with the character now that he's had a face turn, you cant just get Maurice Le Marche and just have him make a couple of appearances anyway. (heck, have him play other characters)

Edited by J79 on Oct 14th 2018 at 4:58:38 AM

Starlight was a grown-ass adult, already set in her ways, when they reached her.

Discord had been alive for over a thousand years. By all rights, his worldview should have been nearly completely immobile. And it has been rough going, but still....

Tempest was battle-forged through hardship and cruelty that gave her every reason to buy into her coldhearted worldview and no reason to ever listen to someone who thought differently.

Nightmare Moon burned with the resentment from over a millennium of jealousy.

Sunset Shimmer was older and more sure of herself than Twilight, totally convinced that she knew what was up.

Cozy Glow is like nine years old. She found something that she thinks is cool and she's latched onto it, as children do. Her world philosophy is naive, shortsighted, and stupid, as children's often are. Grown adults are not more malleable in their philosophy than kids are. A child's philosophy is an incomplete, constantly changing thing. It exists to be corrected by the adults helping that child develop.

When you declare a child to be unfixable and cast them to the wolves, you make that into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because it is then the wolves who teach the child who to be.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Oct 14th 2018 at 5:58:46 AM

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Also, there was that magic still inside the prisoners of Tartarus. The magic that made up what they are. They still had that, even though we were into the third day, when magical creatures should've lost all their magic powers and artifacts had started to wane (which we saw with Neighsay's medalion). So yeah, practical magic that you emit in the form of spells of trinkets or stuff like the rays of a cockatrice gaze was being stolen, but magic that's woven into your being remained.

Edited by GNinja on Oct 14th 2018 at 11:59:59 AM

Kaze ni Nare!

The practical magic that Tirek emits was still there at the end of the third day.

We're told over and over again that this is just like what Tirek does. I chalk the fact that it's nothing like what Tirek does up to simple inconsistency. I'm not giving it the benefit of a headcanon if the episode can't even be consistent to itself.

EDIT: Come to think of it, one wonders why Tirek's never consumed the magic of his fellow inmates and Cerberus before, given that they're apparently all kept in this tiny room. Tartarus as depicted in "School Raze" shouldn't hold him for two seconds.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Oct 14th 2018 at 6:08:27 AM

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I don't think it IS supposed to be literally the same as his magic stealing.

Just that his area of expertise is in stealing magic. If you wanna steal magic, he knows various ways in which to accomplish it. He knew how to order Cozy to arrange the artifacts, when he never used artifacts in Kingdom. So it's more that he just knows more than one way to steal magic.

Edited by GNinja on Oct 14th 2018 at 12:10:28 PM

Kaze ni Nare!

I looked on the YMMV page for the episode and found that there is a tweet from someone involved on the show that gives a response to the "Cozy was put in jail despite being a child" issue.

https://twitter.com/TheBiggestJim/status/1051269705061687296

Judging from that, it sounds like they weren't actively thinking about the real-life implications of imprisoning a child, and more trying to be subversive with having the evil, irredeemable villain be a cute little filly (rather than someone whose appearance is Obviously Evil like Sombra).

I think you missed something important, Tobias. Twilight specifically says she is NOT using the magic abilities of these creatures, but rather the magic that MAKES them fantastic beasts to begin with. Notice how they de-chimera as soon as she uses their magic. Hence why I called it draining their life force, because that is basically what it is. It doesn't kill them, but it certainly brings them down to normal from being supernatural creatures.

Except Tirek, for some reason.

Optimism is a duty.

If anyone would know how to shield what little magic he had from a spell like that, it would be the person who literally gave the instructions on how to build it and is a master of magic stealing, no?

Edited by GNinja on Oct 14th 2018 at 12:24:18 PM

Kaze ni Nare!

That makes sense as head canon, yes, though the episode does not exactly support or deny it. I think the writers were pushing the complexity of all this magic stealing a bit with this plot.

While I like the subversion of an irredeemable villain being the cutest cavity-causing filly in all Equestria in theory, I do not want to be the parent who has to explain to their child why the cute little filly was sent to Pony Hell, when others have been redeemed before. This was, with the audience in mind, perhaps not the best choice of villain to subvert the "everyone can be redeemed" trope with.

I really think the writers have been writing this episode mainly with an adult audience in mind, maybe not consciously, but even so in the way they have been plotting this story.

Optimism is a duty.