On that note. I feel like. A lot of the TMA fandom. Uses Doylist explanations for Watsonian reads.
Which makes sense if I’m being honest. Because we have season end retrospectives and the writers will intermittently answer questions about their choices. Not only that, but there’s also additional content not within the main series. When you have that muddying what is and isn’t canon, it’s obvious that those who only listened to the 200 episode canon will have different opinions than those who consumed everything. Especially when it comes to the characters and what we are expected to interpret their motivations as being.
That being said, this most egregiously rears its ugly head when it comes to discussing the final three girls motivations and places in the narrative. In my opinion. There is a dissonance between what was intended, what was implied, and what was interpreted.
What this means, for me at least, is that I have a hard time believing what the writers say was intended. Which leads to my scalding hot takes. Unfortunately.