The Ember Arlo Debate (minor spoilers for 394)

i wanna hear everyone's theories. will arlo end up becoming an ember operative? i personally think he won't, and i'll list my reasons for believing so below, but i'd like to hear some alternate perspectives.

anyway, here's my reasoning, lmk if i missed something

1. kass (and keon)

right so. kass is well aware that arlo's a potential ember recruit. while she doesn't know what to do help him (yet) i do think that if push comes to shove, kass will end up defecting from the bureau if that's what it takes to save arlo. i feel like she'd also be a lot less hesitant to do so now that amelia and jaxon are also in on the secret, and can play the role of 'the insider' in her stead. and then there's keon. whose ability is literally "Memory Recall". after seeing him confirm that he wouldn't rat kass out in chapter 353, i did contemplate the possibility that he might be the one to restore arlo's memories, but thought it was a bit of a stretch considering. it's keon. but then this chapter dropped. and now that kass has to work alongside keon, who knows? maybe she'll end up asking him to help arlo. also it's pretty clear that keon has already used his ability on arlo because.

ch 353

that memory didn't some from blyke. maybe he'll meet arlo and realize that's somethings up on his own. maybe he'll help arlo because he feels guilty about blyke. idk but it's pretty clear that he has been brought back for a reason. another thing to note here is that as a mental ability user, keon can't raise a hand against the authorities even if he wanted to (which is probably why he has dutifully obeyed them for so long, despite clearly being unhappy in his role). but he can help unearth their corruption by restoring the memories of those officers that saw farrah using multiple abilities during the wellston raid, and he can help arlo. (because i'm like, 90% sure that keon can restore the wiped memories despite being weaker than farrah.)

2. arlo

arlo is not a killer. mayyybe this is a controversial opinion, but i feel like remi is actually more likely to end up killing someone (val) than arlo is.

3. elaine

okay so my reasoning for this one is pretty flimsy, but i just wanna put it out there anyway. it seems like elaine's going to play a role in the arlo's memory-loss arc, right? there's a reason farrah and val need to isolate him: the more he interacts with the people from his past, the more he's going to question things. not to mention, his farrah-induced lobotomy is not subtle. anyone that knows him is going to realize something's up. anyway, back to elaine. my guess is that she'll end up being the one to make him question things. this kinda ties into my keon point from earlier; i doubt arlo would be willing to sit still and let keon dig around in his head unless kass tied him up first, orrrr... maybe he'll end up asking keon to restore his memories himself after elaine makes him question things.

but if arlo ends up becoming an ember operative (and by this, i'm talking active agent. if he's recruited but can't bring himself to actually do anything then that's another story. can't really call him an ember operative if he can't do what ember does best: killing vigillantes), he's definitely too far gone for her to help. i doubt ember!arlo would listen to anyone, and elaine doesn't even know that ember was created by the authorities. my girl is out of her depth here. so the chapters where she investigates arlo seem pretty pointless in this scenario because what the hell can she even do at this point.

4. there's no time

the ramifications of arlo joining ember are HUGE. that arc would overshadow everything else and would easily be longer than the king john arc, and there's a lot left to cover already.

there's a strong chance i'm wrong, or maybe we'll see arlo get recruited and receive a new ability via conversion tech or something, but i don't think he'll become an operative that actually kills people. and that's it from me. god this post is long as hell my bad.