>>42314127
To distill my own feelings on his character: I'm equally happy whether he wins or loses. He's the complete antithesis to the show's moral system - harmony, that is - and everything we see past his initial S2 showing is him shamelessly abusing the weaknesses of that system to prolong his own unpetrified existence. It's fun to watch him carry that out, in the same way we might enjoy watching the course of any character that we know is ultimately in the wrong, but we know that the eventual come-uppance is entirely deserved. I like seeing him screw around, get away with it, and ratfuck his way into staying standing by the end of S9, but I'm not disappointed at the post-FiM prospect of it all coming back on him in the end, because that's the natural, poetic way in which things ought to have concluded.

I don't know. I'm quite thoroughly attached to his character, so there might be some of my own fatalism creeping into that analysis. He was fun while he was around, some comic writer gave him what was coming to him, and I'm not the least bit upset about any of it. I'm smiling because it happened. It made for a nice story.