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I agree that her image would suffer. But she'll drag at least two regional departments down with her, first because she was their responsibility and they screwed so bad that she became a villain whose focus is to damage the PRT/Protectorate as much as she can rather than other type of crimes.

Then there's the fact that Taylor is literally untouchable. The humiliation of seeing her do a ruckus in the middle of a PR event, tell some uncomfortable truths to gathered media and fans and then leave while both troopers and capes throw everything at her without effect and without her actually doing anything to escalate to physical violence would be hard and painful to spin. It would also be terrible for morale, especially for the Wards of either Boston or BB (for different reasons of course).

If any investigative reporter do try to confirm Taylor Hebert accusations and talk to Winslow students who will confirm a lot of rumors, and Taylor's father who will be very hard to keep quiet about this mess. Maybe not to the point of countering her villain status, but it will paint at least two other Wards as de facto villains and will force to dedicate a lot of time and effort to prove that the ENE region Ward Program isn't rotted to the core, probably by culling some of the adult personnel and nailing them in public.

And there's the fact that Taylor is the kind of person that will be doing vigilante work between sabotaging the PRT's PR Department, and knowing her she will be surprisingly effective at it, undermining her official status as a villain and forcing the PR Department to issue a lot of statements.

And then there's the internal politics of the National PRT/Protectorate. Two different Ward teams will be in absolute disarray and with the Young Guard looking for blood since a non-criminal Ward becoming a criminal will raise a lot of complaints, plus those directors who pestered Kamil to deal with Phase ASAP will definitely smell the blood and add more pressure to an already painful headache.

As a criminal ex-ward actively acting against the PRT Watchdog will be crying for blood since Phase Stranger power is legitimately scary for them, especially if she ends working for Accord or another high level Thinker. So both Boston and BB will be under a lot of pressure to arrest her and bring her to justice, but I cannot think of a power capable of incapacitating her in either office, which means external support, and that will require haggling and expending political capital since with her Thinker/Stranger combo anyone lended to the heroes will need to stay for a while since finding Taylor for a quick grab is virtually impossible.

While I doubt either director is at risk of being fired I expect that the whole debacle will have the Protectorate and PRT supervisors for both Wards teams demoted, the team leaders careers stalled and many attempts to poach the Wards for different departments.

So while a villain declaration would definitely make people distrustful of Taylor and less willing to think of her as an innocent victim it still makes the life of both Boston and BB a lot harder.
 
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What is the image that first pops into someone's head at the term villain.
That depends on what their view of the government in general and the PRT in particular is. It could be anywhere from "evil mass-murderer" to "some poor bastard being screwed over by the PRT". While the extremes are not very likely, we don't know how much the culture leans one way or the other, especially not when there are villains famous for fighting the Endbringers.
Probably a more nuanced mix of the two like in real life when regarding the government.
Agreed.
 

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