The correct word order in the main clause of the "wenn" clause

Question

{Why the need to say}:

... doch wollte diese Person für Gerechtigkeit kämpfen, sie gäbe besser von vornherein auf.

{instead of}:

... doch wollte diese Person für Gerechtigkeit kämpfen, gäbe sie besser von vornherein auf.

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I assume the first part of the sentence is a wenn clause that goes like:

... doch wenn diese Person für Gerechtigkeit kämpfen wollte, ...

So the main clause needs to take the Verb-Subject word order, correct? I wonder why the Subject-Verb word order "sie gäbe" is considered correct in this instance.

Answer 1

I only can guess if your quote is taken from a play, but if so it is very likely that the author wanted to emphazise the main clause.

To achieve this it is helpful to change the (correct) word order in this case to

...doch wollte diese Person für Gerechtigkeit kämpfen, sie gäbe besser von vornherein auf.

for two reasons:

1. Through changing the order into a normal main clause order, this part can actually be read or spoken like a single main clause, which leads to number

2. that if ones sees that the following sentence is a main clause in Subject-Verb word order, one can choose to take a break after the comma which can be considerably longer than in

... doch wollte diese Person für Gerechtigkeit kämpfen, gäbe sie besser von vornherein auf.

So the comma in the first case acts stronger than the comma in the second case.