Ah! I see. That makes things clearer.

I would, in fact, agree with you that it would be a bit loathsome. I just don't think that would preclude it also being awesome at the same time.

It's like... mmm. Take the Anthy-on-Nanami action from the source materiel. What Anthy does to Nanami is kind of petty and cruel; Nanami is a deeply damaged adolescent girl who lashes out because she's emotionally traumatized, and Anthy is a deeply powerful witch many times Nanami's age who can read her like a book. So messing with Nanami's head the way Anthy does is kind of messed up.

It's also awesome, though! She tricked Nanami into thinking she'd laid an egg! She sent her on a maybe-real, maybe-hallucinated trek across the world in search of a body-switching spice, sent surfing elephants to harass Nanami during said trek, and then had her familiar trip the girl at the finish line. That is choice.

It helps that she isn't real, of course. Anthy-the-character can do stuff that is, narratively, pretty awesome, but that reflect less than well on Anthy-the-person.

I feel the same way about her brother, really. Akio is deeply loathsome in all his forms, but he's also impressive. He did a lot of stuff that left my jaw hanging slack going "Damn, yo. The writers know what they are doing here."

TLDR: something can be narratively awesome without it necessarily being a positive or laudable thing for the people involved. Well, at least to me. I'm not the arbiter of all things awesome.

EDITED TO ADD: Also, I am always excited when you let Anthy's ruthless side shine through. I love me some moral ambiguity in my protagonists and my narratives. I know that's not really your thing on a large scale (and there's nothing wrong with that!) but it totally is mine. :)

-Merc
Keep Rat