thinking about how kittridge said, "i put the bounty on ilsa's head. i also told you how to find her. i didn't ask her to steal the key, she did that for reasons of her own, but that's the pattern, isn't it? you get her out of trouble and she always found her way back in." how it implies that the general consensus is ilsa asks for ethan's help. when in actuality ilsa never asks for anybody's help at any given point. of course she needs their help (ethan and the imf as a whole) but it's pretty clear that ilsa doesn't need to explicitly express this as she's more than capable of producing the same results whether they intend to help her or not. ex: the ledger in rogue nation specifically. although if we look at the facts, most of the things that they do aid ilsa with when it comes specifically to her missions actually end up turning out a whole lot worse for her. i actually think it's fair to say that if anyone is in need of any help, it's imf from ilsa, which she greatly returns the favour and then some and continuously risks her own life to do so. but more specifically, kittridge's evaluation of ilsa and ethan's dynamic also explains how misunderstood ilsa is entirely. her desire to get out of the game and come home was never stronger than her desire to feel like she had a choice in her own fate. nobody really knows why ilsa went after the key. she is no longer an operative of mi6. it wasn't a mission. at least not a mission given to her rather she chose to accept it herself. which is the entire point. by the time ethan assists her in faking her death it's too late for something like that to actually be described as saving ilsa. she has already regained her freedom and made the decision on what she's going to do with it by nabbing one half of the key to the entity. which is further reiterated by her showing up in venice. and again, to her "final fate", when she meets gabriel on that bridge. nobody, not even ethan, gets to choose for her.