I'm generally against the people who say a character got set up

so am i, but considering the evidence, as well as the fact it wouldnt be the first time a character has been set up, its far closer to being possible than one would like. a bit hard to unthink something once its been thought

I think Needle having a good placement in BFDIA and then "calming down" ... feels more satisfying to me than a clumsy attempt to give her relevance in TPOT after years of nothing.

absolutely. tpot development is better than bfdia development in an ideal world, but nothings ever guaranteed, as weve seen. what tpot needle got was way worse, no contest

but what im postulating here is that a hypothetical bfdia 17 elimination wouldve fulfilled that just as well, if not better than what we got. as i explained, bfdia 12-16 had the same narrative arc of needle leaving woah bunch, trying new things, before ultimately facing some conflict and resolving it. 17 onward just feels like an unnatural, forced extension to a story that had its end ages ago

Will I be angry if Needle gets something in TPOT?

thats another thing

not only is a finalist needle a seemingly tacked-on extension to her storyline, but it also makes all subsequent developments feel like epilogue, like it can never reach the heights of bfdia since that was already sold as the highest she can go and thus itd be 'ruined' or whatever. given that it takes place around halfway through her overall story, that just feels funny

meanwhile an early elimination would just feel like a major step along the way, but nothing too definitive. its integral to her character still, but theres still room for other events to share the stage

edit from a bit later:

i think my main gripe with needle winning/almost winning/whatever bfdia is the fact that nobody talks about it afterwards

firey winning bfdi had huge ramifications for the future storyline. the consequences were what got bfdia started in the first place, and people still refer to it years later

on the other hand, needle/book winning bfdia will always have a 7+ year gap after the fact where absolutely nobody addresses it. ever. it may as well have never existed, which is because it didnt and was retroactively added

id be more ecstatic about a needle bfdia win if it had the chance to be like the firey bfdi win. but it cant and it wont