In the howling void that is the fandom outside FRAF, I keep running across a rather peculiar opinion. Many people honestly believe that Hussie killed off so many of the trolls out of sheer perversity, as a "Screw You" to the fandom for liking them. Which is certainly an opinion.
Thing is, from early on in Act 5, we know the trolls' lives are marked by violence and revenge. They aren't living in a heroic adventure story. They are living in a classic revenge tragedy, like "Hamlet," "Titus Andronicus" or "The Duchess of Malfi."
Nearly half the Alternian trolls are sucked into the spiral of revenge triggered by Vriska sending Tavros off the cliff. This "Tragedy of the Scourge Sisters" involves Vriska, Tavros, Terezi, Aradia and Sollux, resulting in one death and three mutilations before the main story has even begun.
Its aftermath stretches well into Act 6. For me, the real emotional payoff to the Retcon is the two seperate endings to this tragedy. One pair of Scourge Sisters find each other again beyond death and utmost despair. The other pair can only forgive each other because the whole Multiverse has been rewritten for them.
Others are destroyed either by their own flaws or by the flaws of those who love them. Eridan's jealousy plus his blend of arrogance and self-loathing does for him and Feferi. Equius's extreme class prejudice does for him and Nepeta.
(And that's before getting into the Ancestors or the Beforans...)
To me, none of this is an accident. None of this was motiveless trolling from the author. The seeds of their destruction were written into them from the start.
