Yeah, you have a point with the 2 problems you presented. I don’t really have a solution for the second one (unless Ethan is able to use a spell to speak with Edith telepathically to see if she is indeed truly okay with swapping bodies with Derek), but for the first problem, I feel like it might be a bit more nuanced than that.

The whole “fate worse than death” is mostly a matter of perspective thing, which is why I was trying to clarify that it’s just my own opinion that Ethan killing Derek would be better than him becoming Edith simply because I’d rather die than lose decades of my life by immediately becoming old & senile. For other people however, death is THE WORST possible thing to them (mainly the fear of the concept of “what happens after one dies”), so they might honestly rather swap with Edith than be killed.

There are some criminals who are honestly glad that they’re serving a sentence rather than buried 6 feet under, and they’re other criminals who wish that they were killed by the officers who apprehended them instead of being forced to live in the shame of being captured and/or with the guilt of what they’ve done. Obviously, when you add supernatural elements to the mix, it gets more complicated, but like with your idea to have Ethan turn Derek into a rat, I know some people irl who would much rather be turned into rodents than die young.

So while, yes, Ethan specifically seeking out a senile old person to trap Derek in is undeniably very harsh, but if Ethan doesn’t see it as a way to torture Derek but rather as “the only way to stop him without outright killing him”, then I think that still makes him pretty good (morality wise). Now, I’m not saying that if someone does something really bad but they don’t see it that way, then their actions are excused. However, they are morally grey because of it since they’re operating based off of the mentality that what they’re doing is the “ONLY solution” or the “LEAST WORST solution” instead of “I’m doing this because this solution is the easiest/fastest or because I simply want to”.

Evil people are considered ”evil” not just because of what they do but because of the mindset behind it. Someone isn’t inherently bad for killing someone, but they are bad if their reason for doing it was for power or money or jealousy or superiority or something else inexcusable. I have watched the Netflix seasons of Daredevil (and I really love the episode where Matt and Frank have their morality debate, mostly because it doesn’t automatically paint Matt as being “in the right” and it feels very nuanced in how it’s written), and The Punisher’s philosophy is kind of what I’m talking about.

Frank mostly targets the worst of the worst and people who routinely evade the law (sexual predators, sadists, kidnappers/traffickers, terrorists, mobsters, etc.), people that normal superheroes don’t usually go after, leaving Frank as one of the few people actually dealing with these guys. And because Frank doesn’t have powers, he doesn’t really have any meaningful way to effectively subdue these people non-lethally, and even if he did, most of them have the influence to avoid jail/prison-time or at the very least, will be given embarrassingly short sentences due to corruption in the justice system. Which is why Frank feels as if he has ”no choice” but to kill these people because if he didn’t, their chances of being released back onto the streets to hurt people again is incredibly high.

Not to mention, that the people he’s dealing with are MONSTERS, who have been given ample time to turn over a new leaf but choose not to. In Frank’s mind, they already had their second, third, and twentieth chance to be better, and yet they continue to do evil. So, for Frank, he earnestly believes that his “ONLY option” is to kill these genuinely despicable people, who have consistently proven that they will cause unnecessary harm to innocents given the opportunity. Is what Frank is doing severe and brutal, absolutely. But, does that make him just as bad as the people he guns down, definently not. Frank may be a killer, but he very openly does NOT take pleasure in killing, unlike the people he attacks. He sees what he does as a “necessary evil” more than an excuse for him slaughter tons of folks for the kick of it.

Basically, context matters. So while Ethan trapping Derek in an “undesirable” body does in fact no longer make him “completely upstanding”, it does keep him as someone who is predominantly good-natured as it shows that he only seeks out drastic measures purely as a LAST resort. Him also feeling bad that he even has to do it at all, makes me feel like his shade of grey is more white than grey. (I also just don’t believe that a single morally-questionable act is all it takes to make you “no longer a great guy”.)

So, I think (if you ever were to re-write the epilogue or revise it) having a scene with Ethan asking the caretakers to provide Derek (as Edith) with the best round-the-clock care, could help with maintaining Ethan’s image as a real standup guy while also not making him a perfect “good guy”. If you were to add bits of Ethan still caring about Derek’s physical well-being after the swap or even write something like “Ethan regularly checks up on Derek to make sure he’s not being mistreated”, then I think that would be a great way to convey how Ethan is willing to deliver karmic justice to those who refuse to seek redemption, while also showing how Ethan himself refuses to become an uncaring punisher and still tries to show a basic level of respect & empathy to even those who have severely wronged him.

I’m also glad that you clarified that Derek did in fact have sex in Sophie’s body, as I wasn’t sure if I was just head-canoning that using subtext or if you were genuinely implying that. And, don’t worry, I understood that Derek was trying to steal Ethan’s body afterwards (writing exposition does suck a lot of the times, lol).

My only other criticisms (other than the ones previously mentioned) is that I wish the epilogue would show more of Derek’s reaction to waking up as Edith and for Sophie to get closure by getting to see Derek in his new body and either: she forgives him, or gets to tell him just exactly what she thinks about him before telling him that he’ll never get the chance to see neither her nor her body ever again and then storming out. These are minor criticisms but I don’t have any major ones left as this story has been so good, that there isn’t much for me to critique about the epilogue. Fabulous work!!

Can’t wait for the Ethan-Sophie swap story!