The larger tragedy of Evelyn’s story (spoilers all)

For a start, I’m not about to give her some noble justification or make her out to be innocent - but I also do really enjoy her character, especially from a writing pov.

To make a long story short - Evelyn tried playing with the big leagues and lost pretty horribly.

For all intents and purposes, this was her first time trying to run an operation like this on her own - and given that her job requires her to be charming and confident, its very easy to fool yourself and talk yourself up. To put it bluntly, Evelyn thought she was hot shit, talked herself into being something bigger than she was, and suffered horrible, unjust consequences for it.

This does act as a commentary on life in night city - either be content with what you have, or try to get out, literally die trying. Evelyn intended to betray everyone involved (including V, and possibly the Mox), no doubt about that - not because she’s a horrible person, but those are the plays one has to make on night city.

She was too overconfident and thought a little too highly of her abilities, and everything backfired pretty horribly - of course, there was some bad luck in the from of Yurinobu killing his father, but the Voodoo boys were already a few steps ahead of her regardless.

When you think about it, it’s really a tragic “get rich or die tryin’” story - she tried playing in the big leagues, overestimated her own ability and suffered horribly.