And the main gal just became a good character when she's supposed to be sort of reformed evil. Luckily there are plenty of evil characters to go around, but it means revamping the whole plot, several years into the past. But the original way doesn't work as well.
*sigh*
Ya know, a character like that could be real interesting. Maybe she's still evil by the readers' standards, but relative to the real baddies she's the good guy.