I feel like last episode really did reveal how many fans of this show are rather young and idealistic and don't really have the experience of dealing with local politics.
Okay let's get this out of the way first: The Coterie is not supposed to be 100 righteous. Even Batchild and Darkness man have some deeply selfish tendencies. So just because they take issue with how somebody conducts themselves towards them doesn't mean the narrative is telling you that person is 100℅ in the wrong.
Second, it is a very odd look to focus your ire towards Ally when Emily was participating just as much in that conversation.
Okay that being said let's talk about Maya. I feel like a lot of you had the takeaway that Maya was being villainized in that episode for being mistrustful or antagonistic. That was not the case.
Maya's mistrust of the intrepid heroes was very much justified and the narrative did make that very clear. Brennan literally spelled it out to us several times.
The issue with her behavior is that every course of action she chose is extremely off putting and abrasive on a personal level which will always end with you self sabotaging in the end when it comes to political collaboration. The narrative essentially said that if you approach things in that manner you are only hurting your cause especially if you don't know what the fuck your are doing.
First of, she was the one who threw the first stone.
She had a number of positive interactions with the Coterie and then turned around and decided to use information they had given her as a extension of trust to go behind their back with no communication. Did her intentions make sense in hignsight? Yes, but she had no reason to do it that way because had she simply explained herself she would have gotten the support of the coterie. She was the one to break a perceived line of trust first because this group of strangers weren't 100℅ willing to tell her all the deep interpersonal motivations behind their actions or the circumstances they were under.
Then there are her shenanigans with Lavonte. Maya assumed that Lavonte rather not having to stay in Purpee meant he was being deceitful when it doesn't take much critical thinking to understand that they were sent to Purpee for a reason and it's very possible that Lavonte is truthful about wanting to make the best of the situation he was stuck with. Instead of trying to figure out more she immediately went with the worst faith interpretation of things based on a superficial understanding of the man's personality.
Especially she should know that things often are more complicated then one might think. She's actively lying to her wife about a big aspect of her life after all.
She then decided to try and spread distrust among their group in a frankly very stupid manner. She assumed that she had a handle on everyone based on extremely limited interactions with them (hence her writing Zaeth and Mitch off despite both of them being actively involved in everything in their own ways) and then singled two people out simply because they seemed the most aligned with her vision and assumed the rift between HJ and Lavonte was motivated on moral differences rather than interpersonal. Again she doesn't actually know any of them and has next to no idea what is actually going on there.
Then when she had her meeting with HJ and Batchild she also acted like she was trying to catch them in lies the whole time and treated them with a lot of hostility despite potentially trying to get into a partnership with them and was suddenly confronted with the fact that her judge of character might not be as good as she thought it was because HJ despite his character growth is still very much a shit head and Batchild despite her moral convictions is fiercely loyal to both Lavonte and HJ who have helped take care of her through some of her most vulnerable years after she was turned.
Maya went into the negotiation with a very vague understanding on who she was talking to and instead of recognizing that and trying to see how she can play her cards right she acted like she had full insight and while it's easy to look at her hostility from an outsider's perspective and think she is justified that isn't necessarily how you would feel if you are the one who that hostility was aimed at.
And that's kind of the whole problem. Maya is a extremely passionate and righteous person and she is being very true to herself in these interactions but she's also very blind to the fact that people are infact very complicated and just because someone isn't 100℅ altruistic in their motives doesn't mean collaboration isn't possible. She isn't wrong for being mistrustful and cautious but she can't then turn around and demand full transparency and trust from the other party involved when she herself lead with deceitful tactics.
That's self sabotaging, all you accomplish that way is burning bridges and losing resources that could have helped you do something good and frankly she's very lucky the coterie is trying to make things work with her or else what would her plan have been? She doesn't have the resources to help Emilia win. She admitted herself they could have killed her any time they wanted. The only reason why they still want to work with her is that the intrepid heroes like her, in reality she would go home and watch them do what they want anyways.
And I feel like a lot of people who see themselves in Maya did not like having the fact that them going in guns ablazing will ultimately just make you unlikable towards people you need to collaborate with in order to make any meaningful change pointed out.
And like I get that, as a person who was involved in local politics until very recently and started out very like Maya only to see a alt right movement gain more and more traction in your country it's an extremely sobering experience to realize that, like it or not, your ability to do anything meaningful and prevent harm hinges on your ability to not show your cards too much and learn which people are beneficial to enough of your goals to be worth keeping around even if they aren't necessarily aligned with some of your core believes.
And before the "piss on the poor." Crowd comes at me. Of course there is a flip side to this where you could end up betraying the core values you hold and that's a very fine line to walk. That's why a lot of people with idealistic ambitions don't last in politics, it's a system inherently biased towards the wealthy.
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