I understand why they killed off Penny at the end of Volume 8. But, given the rigamarole of giving her the Winter Maiden powers, THEN the bullshit of giving her a human body, just to kill her off and give Winter the powers anyway...that is some roundabout storytelling. I suppose they didn't want the utter shock of Pyrrha all over again, but it's some weird backwards logic.
In the end, it made Winter uber badass as the tradeoff, so I suppose I'll live.
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"Evening caress, Always yearning, I must confess, The stars aren't burning" Copernicus - Candlemass