Of all the controversies people have had about the final season, the one I've heard a lot about is Cozy Glow's final fate. Yes, I guess the show wanted to demonstrate that even a filly was capable of being a country-wide threat and needed to be punished accordingly for her actions, but many people still felt that her punishment was too brutal. However, I think I have a theory that can both make her fate less polarizing while also explaining her origins and why a little filly was intelligent enough to set up a magic-stealing ritual.

What I'm thinking is that what if Cozy Glow isn't what she seems? Suppose she, like three certain fillies, stumbled upon a magical plant, but unlike the trio, gained a reverse of what it granted them. Unfortunately, it ended up overdoing it and instead of eternally keeping her in her prime, it ended up permanently giving her the appearance of a filly? Suppose that Cozy Glow has been passing herself off for a cute, innocent filly for a long time, maybe even using different aliases to avoid law enforcement?

What if Cozy Glow is actually a senior citizen of Granny Smith's age?

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Honestly, I've never been a fan of Cozy Glow and she was in desperate need of better writing. Your concept is actually an idea I've toyed around with in my own head-canon series. It kind of brings to mind Baby Dahl from Batman: The Animated Series, which is a good thing as she was a great character with a tragic background but still came off as intimidating. If the writers had done something similar for Cozy Glow, I might've really liked her instead of wishing they would've written her out of the series and replaced her with King Sombra.

I've seen this theory before. It is definitely an interesting one. In my story, she's still just a filly and although she hadn't told anyone for a long time, she's actually a supposed orphan/foundling who lived in an orphanage and was sad that she never got adopted and angered over the fact that her parents left her there on the front steps when she was a baby. She's so resentful about this that it caused her to become a villain and no one still knows who her parents are, but Twilight is searching for them.

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That right there sounds like a really intriguing idea

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What I'm thinking is that what if Cozy Glow isn't what she seems?

Yeah but she's not, though. The show never presents any evidence that she's anything other than what she's called, says she is, and is treated as: a kid. Trying to say "no, she's actually an adult" is just plain making stuff up in order to try and ignore what happened.

What happened, by the by, is merely made worse by the fact that Cozy was just a kid - but if she wasn't a kid it would still be horrible, that being what amounts to the summary execution of three individuals who'd been gaslighted, abused, and egged on by Discord into doing what they did, and not once - not a single time - does anyone try to reach out to them or try to get through to them. Not even when they're powerless and at the heroes' mercy while the heroes have a literal army backing them up while the Trio have nothing but bluster left to them.

But yeah, regardless: pretending that Cozy Glow was an adult or a demon or something other than a kid, does nothing to soften the harshness of what happened, because it's not the case. It's not what was said, it's not what was shown, it's just ignoring a problem rather than confronting it.

I mean as long as we're doing that, why not go the other way? What if Celestia is really a vindictive and bloodthirsty tyrant who wanted to get one last bit of cruelty and vindictiveness in before passing the crown? There's about as much evidence to support it.

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It's not pretending, it's headcanon. And I gotta say, you're pretty morbid, saying we can't theorize what we want. That's the point of fandoms!

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headcanon

The term you're looking for is "fan fiction". As in, stories made up by amateur writers and not those that are part of the official lore or canon and so have no effect on the actual official lore or canon.

Pretending that Cozy's actually an adult doesn't take the sting out of what happened in the finale because that's not what happened. Sure, I can write a story where that's the case. I can also write a story where the ending is completely different. But that does nothing for what actually happened, and it's what actually happened that pissed me off.

saying we can't theorize what we want

It's not a "theory" when it's directly contradicted by the actual events and dialogue of the show and has not a singe shred of evidence to support it. Then it's just making stuff up - which to be clear I obviously don't have a problem with in principle (I've written around three dozen MLP fanfics, after all), but I do take issue with when you're trying to elevate it to the level of canon status.

Plus and as well, like I said, it doesn't fix the real problem, which isn't Cozy's age, but rather the actions of the Mane-6 and the Princesses and ESPECIALLY DISCORD towards the Trio, including the thousand-year-old Tirek and thousand-year-old Chrysalis.

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What I assume my like-minded friend here tries to say is that Cozy Glow's fate is cruel due to circumstances outside of Cozy herself, such as entrapment from Discord, no chance to reform, mm. Therefore, any changes you try to attribute to Cozy Glow's character is by and large pointless because it doesn't affect the things that actually makes it cruel.