Wahoo! I've taken a nap which did almost nothing for my energy levels, but we will run with it. I wanted to chime in on this thought because I think a lot of good points were made, and there was one point I wanted to rebuttal:
I'm glad you pointed out that Owen did effectively act as a bomb within his own coven. I think there was a hope it would motivate and rally some of the more passive members of the coven to action, and while it did for Shelby, for example, that only extended to her taking out Pyro. (I do remember her saying at one point that if the town had taken out Avid instead, she would have gone after them no questions asked, which would have been an interesting alternate timeline for sure). Instead, the result was Owen and Pyro splintering off, leaving Scott without fighters on his side, which absolutely crushed the ability of the vampires to be effective.
Abolish 100% played a massive role in getting the vamps to the state they were in by episode 8. They were genuinely starving. Pyro's pov is on the mind since I just rewatched it for my fic, but he kept trying to fight without a weapon and no claws because I think he kept forgetting he was level 1. It's funny how much the vampires blew off the burning of the forest when, in reality, it fucked them over far more than they realized.
The Legundo healing in episode 7... I'm split. I see where the frustration comes in (though I agree with some of the clarifications @pinkydragon01 made in the replies - I'll admit some of the details of how this mechanic worked escaped me bc Owen and Apo kept changing and rebalancing things on the back end). If anything, I wish they had introduced the idea that the town had special abilities earlier in the series than they did, even if they kept them super limited (like single use abilities like Legs, or long cooldown abilities like... I think what Abolish had?) It also could have changed the vampires' priorities of which humans to try to turn - ones with abilities seen as a bigger thorn in the side could have been targeted earlier on. This would have required a lot more balancing and playtesting, though, so I see how it was more of a late addition than anything else.
I also agree that the humans were not fully taking advantage of the abilities they had - I primarily noticed this with holy water. I will say, Avid stealing the holy water stockpile was a massive blow to the town, because they had such a limited number of those to begin with. That said, I'm surprised that they hadn't replenished their stockpile more than they had by mid to late episode 8. I know it had a long cooldown, but I feel like some people kept forgetting they could make more? Unless I just missed all of that. (I'll also say, part of the problem with the holy water was how tied in it was to the cure, making it almost too precious to use - I went on a rant about the problems with the cure in another reblog, so I won't go into it here)
I absolutely see where the cast felt like they had to come to a compromise, otherwise things were just going to continue circling indefinitely. I understand why there was a satisfaction in finding a loophole (as someone who does play a lot of ttrpgs, and does get excited when we can find a fun way around the DM's evil plans), so I respect where many of the creators and many fans latched onto that. I also can see where there were fans who found this particular narrative ending compelling and where the message may have landed with them for various reasons (like you mentioned, Scott's story being a counter-trope).
Episode 8 had lots of action, and almost everyone had a compelling character arc that came to a gripping conclusion.
This is the one point I disagree with (so sorry, this absolutely got out of hand). After reading through a lot of thoughts on the vsmp finale, seeing a lot of reactions to The Plan, and going back and rewatching several povs (mostly for fic reasons), I think a person's enjoyment of the finale and The Plan boiled down to two main points:
Who were your povs (and, specifically, who was your main)
I'll use myself as an example.
I was a Doc main - love his character to bits (the cc on the other hand... that's a whole hot mess), but I also followed Cleo, Owen, Martyn, and interestingly enough, Scott (as sort of "secondary povs")
I'm a tragedy enjoyer, and I love horror - it's my bread and butter
I was on Team OwengeJuiceTV - I wanted bloodshed (I saw the vision, Mr. JuiceTV, I saw it!) - now I knew going into the finale it was probably not going to be total bloodshed, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hoping for it!
Talk to any Legs main and you're going to get mixed opinions on the finale, ranging anywhere between "I found it satisfying!" to "I liked his story, but I wish _" to "that motherfucker needed to survive!"
I fall somewhere in the middle. I knew there was no way the Doc was making it out of the series, and frankly I didn't want him to (sorry to my lovely "The Doc Must Live!" mutuals - know that I love you and support you entirely on your canon divergent aus). I'm glad he had a horrific turning by Owen (though his lack of closure with his sire destroyed me), and I'm glad he went on this arc where he could have continued the cycle of violence like Owen wanted, or he could be pulled out of that with the assistance of the town.
The tragedy enjoyer in me loved that he was given a chance to sacrifice himself. I love that it was Cleo, the person he trusted above anyone else (and they trusted him in turn above anyone else - yes, above Pearl), to present his death on a silver platter to him, that they were the one to ultimately push the stake in.
All that aside, the Doc's death was, ultimately, for nothing. Martyn and Ren died anyways due to circumstances outside the Doc's control. Abolish declared his death necessary for the sake of paperwork, and then presented us with an epilogue where he gets to be half vampire, the Doc's sacrifice be damned. Yes, it was tragic, but it was also a waste. Now, the Doc (aka: Mr. Suicidal Ideation) absolutely did not want to live as a vampire, and likely would have sought out an end one way or another even if his death hadn't been necessary to get people out of Oakhurst, but we didn't get to see that struggle. We just had to swallow the fact The Plan was falling apart around him, but he was going to move forward with it anyway.
This is just one perspective on Legs' ending, and I would say most people are relatively positive about how his story landed, all things considered.
When you get into other characters, this gets far muddier. I'm not an Apo expert, but her storyline was absolutely massacred for various reasons (I think she was a victim of more of the mechanical issues of the smp - discussed in another reblog), and the one piece of solace that most Apo mains have is that she did get out and was able to get back to Cherri.
Shelby's ending is interesting, as it's one people seem to either really like or really hate. If you were team core coven or if you were a Scott or Shelby main, you probably enjoyed it. I was team vamp (but not inherently team coven), and I could not stand it. I admit, most of my problems with her ending are personal issues I have d/t personal taste and a lovely dash of my own trauma, but it doesn't change that I found her arc unsatisfactory.
Scott is interesting. I mentioned that Scott was one of my secondary povs, and I remember getting to the end of episode 7 and having the thought, "okay, he's pissed - he's going to unleash hell next episode because of what happened with Avid." And then that just... super did not happen. In retrospect, I suspect Scott only ever intended to really go for Owen and Pyro, but when both of them were taken out by others (Pyro taken out by Shelby at his request ooc, and Owen being a sneaky little shit), he didn't have an outlet for that anger, so it just... fizzled.
Now, you were a Scott main who didn't have this problem! You had the counter-trope, as you mentioned. You enjoyed seeing this potential for the one of the main antagonists to grow and change. You saw a character who jumped at a plan to keep the rest of his floundering coven alive at all costs. All of those things (and many others, I have no doubts) led to a compelling narrative for you. And I'm happy you and so many other people who primarily watched Scott got that!
I could go on, but the point is, I think whether or not someone felt the characters had a compelling arc was heavily influenced by the povs they watched. Of course personal taste comes into play as well (see: both of us who watched Scott, but wanted very different things from his story). It's a divisive ending, which I do think is part of why it's still being discussed a year out. I also deeply appreciate that it inspired a lot of fan works - both from people who were happy with the ending, and were able to build new stories off it, and from people who weren't, and used their skills to try to craft "okay, but what if" scenarios. POW did give us a very fun little sand box to play in, but I'm also very content with looking at some of their toys and going, "hmmm, I don't know about that one," and building something different.
