it's practically confirmed that libby will have a corruption arc, but i just wanted to list down some of the ways it was foreshadowed in the book:
"they were binary stars, trapped in each other's gravitational field and easily diminished without the other's opposing force."
she is the opposing force to nico's. she is the only one who can really challenge him and equal his strength. it's mentioned so often in the book that i will be truly disappointed if we don't see an actual fight between them no holds barred to settle the score or to prove just how equally matched they are.
"do you worry much about your soul, rhodes?"
"always. constantly... it terrifies me how easily i can watch it corrupt."
"whatever corruption of herself she might become next, it was all within arm's reach...
just like the other five, she has it in her to consider what she wants and her ability to get it. it was just often overlooked because she is libby - she is moral, she will do what is right and she will not take advantage of her power for selfish reasons.
if you think about it, it can be so simple for her, if she only chooses to. but she never really acted on them because it's not her. she's the group's moral compass for a reason. her power is beyond comprehension for the most of them, except nico. and she has been drifting from this idea of her always being careful and fearful. the night with tristan and parisa was the chance she'd been waiting for to wipe the slate clean. it was the opportunity to delineate two different versions of libby - the then and the now. one day these thoughts may be enough to push her and make her fully utilize her powers to serve herself. some truly villain vibes if you ask me.
"the day she woke up and realized she could make her own world would be a dangerous one, but it was so unlikely it hardly kept callum up at night."
callum repeatedly rejected the thought of libby as a threat to him or to anyone because of her sense of morality. but this passage is almost like a book version of chekov's gun. "you see this holstered dangerous weapon of mass destruction? yeah, don't worry about it."
so yeah, we should definitely worry about it.
"the problem with you, rhodes, is that you refuse to see yourself as dangerous."
from the start, libby's the one who has the habit of making herself small and nonthreatening for others' sake. one way to develop her character is to ask: "what if she suddenly doesn't care?"
"you're a fire hazard, rhodes. so stop apologizing and just let the fucker burn."
this is a weird argument but most characters with a certain affinity for fire are the villains (sky high even addressed this stereotype with warren peace lol) i don't want to generalize, but yeah, that's what we can have with libby.
"whatever libby was now, she was powerful with possibility."
and if this is isn't foreshadowing that she is going to have an interesting plotline...
but as much as this interests me, i seriously hope that she will still be redeemed eventually. especially since she started off and was loved by the readers as a good person. so geniunely good that parisa did not see how she could use her and constantly pissing callum off with her anxiety because she just always wants do what is right.
what i mean to say is to let this corruption arc be just a part of her overarching hero's journey. that would be nice.
