I noticed on a number of threads over the last few weeks there have been suggestions that Jean would be much better of without any connection to Scott. This got me wondering if the reverse was true--what would Scott's life have been like if he never would have been romantically connected with Jean? One caveat here worth mentioning is that I'm very much a Jott shipper and a fan of Jean as well as Scott. This is just a mental exercise, not a comment on whether I appreciated their relationship, which I did.
Let's connect the dots. If Scott and Jean had never had a romantic interest:
1. Scott probably would not have quit the team following the DPS
2. Scott would not have married Maddie for all the wrong reasons, creating a marriage built to fail
3. Scott would not have fathered Nathan Christopher, which essentially began a chain of event that ensured he could never be the father he wanted to Nathan
4. Scott would not have left Maddie and Nathan Christopher following Jean's re-appearance in XF #1
5. Scott would not have been one of the twelve since he was selected because of his relationship to Jean\Nathan and therefore would not have been possessed by Apocalypse
6. Scott would not have had to deal with the fallout of the possession and therefore have likely had a much more positive portrayal in NXM
7. Jean likely would not have died at the end of Planet X as Marvel would not have had a reason to replace her with Emma
8. AvX would likely not have occurred as Jean would still have been alive and in possession of the PF meaning Scott would not have killed Charles
9. Scott would have avoided some confrontations with Sinister (including being partly raised in Sinister's boarding house of horrors) as there would be no reason for him to focus on Scott, assuming Marvel would have paired Jean with someone else, and that someone else would have been the superior genome to combine with Jean's DNA
10. Scott's relationship with Logan probably would have been better over their publication history, and possibly prevented Schism although that's speculation
11. If you chalk up Scott's mutant revolution as requiring possession by Apocalypse to provide him with the correct attitude, then edgy Scott would likely never have existed as well, with a long set of consequences, including his ship with Emma likely having never occurred
So by this logic the worst moral problems for Scott, namely:
1. Leaving Maddie
2. Cheating on Jean
3. Killing Xavier
would not have happened if he had avoided a relationship with Jean. I think a case can be made that Scott would have been better off, or at the very least have enjoyed a much more positive portrayal over his publication history. He also would likely have been a lot less interesting of a character as well. What are your thought?
I considered making this a poll but ultimately I would rather hear some actual opinions than just present a yes\no.