Sunspot doesn't join the Gladiators. He is kidnapped and made to fight, which needs to remain clear even when he's standing in the same arena as their regular performers.

Sunspot doesn't join the Gladiators. He is kidnapped and made to fight, which needs to remain clear even when he's standing in the same arena as their regular performers. Roberto's solar-powered strength usually gives him a direct answer to a physical threat. Captivity changes that calculation. His captors can control his access to sunlight, choose when he fights and threaten people he cannot simply reach by punching through the nearest obstacle. The threat against other children is particularly effective because it uses something decent in him. He wants to survive, but he won't accept an escape that appears to condemn somebody else. From outside, refusing rescue can look irrational. From inside the threat, leaving has been made to feel like participating in another person's death. That is the ugliness of the arrangement. The people holding him don't have to make him stop caring about others. They can use that care to keep him where they want him. His friendship with Amara matters because they can still recognize the situation together. Neither is facing the pit entirely alone. That companionship doesn't remove the pressure, but it keeps the story from treating them as two isolated powers waiting for a fight scene. Roberto is still stubborn and outspoken through the ordeal. His personality survives the attempt to turn him into an attraction. But confidence is not the same as freedom, and strength is not the same as control over the circumstances. In this thread he belongs among the Theatre's victims. Giving him a Gladiators membership card without that qualification would repeat the captors' version of events.