zglib

Alright that'll do it

obviously one of the core themes is choice to become a better person, and there's a lot to look at in who capitalized on their choices, but this story interweaves between characters so much that many of those choices were given or taken by someone else the biggest villains of this series spent their time manipulating others and lessening their decisions, scott and owen are the only two who sort of chose to enter the circumstances of the story, willing vampires who knew what oakhurst was longer than anyone scott infamously spent all his time making choices for pyro, shelby, apo, he was the main driving force for vampires getting worse the moment they left the town, we will absolutely be back to him in a few paragraphs owen is the in-between case because he never wanted the story he ended up in, and he seemed to take solace in the idea that he was forced into every horrible decision he made, that he couldn't have been better if he tried, which he of course didn't and he saw people in similar circumstances at risk of not ending up as badly as he did, (legs, avid, maybe pyro) which he had to fix by taking away their agency the best he could, to prove that they're one in the same it's hard to say if pyro ever got a choice, he was the victim of both scott and owen, he could have left this path but he was never going to, he helped take the chance away from avid alongside owen who made the plans for him, he was a tool in this but a useful one on the human end we have some interesting cases too Ren plays a part as the righteous human fighter to kill the evil demons and protect the town, which is usually the good one in the story, but this story was never going to be that easy and his refusal the whole time to view people as a result of their choices and not of their origin, even in the end when he was the last one thinking that way, left no avenue for someone to join the "good" side I've talked plenty about the ethics of legundo, but from this perspective he comes out favorably, he had to believe that people could choose to be better, in order to have any respect left for himself, so he was adamant throughout the story to let people choose their fate not caring whether they deserved it or not, he was one of the first cleo trusted to see vampires as more like humans, and he was even content with scott, someone he didn't trust, making it out alive did scott, the cartoon villain, deserve a chance at that point? (we're back to him). No, he didn't really, not yet, no one redeemed deserves their chance before they've had it, if legs had died a war criminal everyone would have celebrated and there would be no debate, he lived and got the time to make something else of his life, scott is the one we see at the beginning stage in the story where he was given a chance to deserve it later not everyone given the chance will take it, that's also demonstrated with the others, but in order to get the chance they can't have deserved it yet, that question gets answered later louis gave owen a choice and he made things worse, I don't think louis could have predicted that, or can be given responsibility for it, but he let owen make decisions in the story hoping for a good ending

It makes sense for owen's lore to introduce afterlives and his story beat works great with eternal closure, but the doctor will forever be open to interpretation and require you to define what good means before calling him anything

Apo's story despite being in a fantastical setting about vampirism feels so grounded and plausible that it's hard not to empathize, she's someone who's different from her community, and different from the "family", most of them don't like her and she doesn't like most of them, but the more she acts on it the more reason she gives them not to like her. What vampirism does matters less to her story than what expectations it carries, she only lost who she was at the realization that it was already gone.