English Translation
After the accident, the car was turned into a twisted pile of metal.
I find it illogical that this happened after (después de) the accident, not in the accident, especially when the Spanish sentence uses quedó and not quedaba.
The nuance here is that “después” is not really indicating the order in which the actions occurred, but rather that one is the consequence of the other. Think of it as the accident being a process at the end of which the car is a wreck. Something like, after all what happened to the car during the accident, all that was left was a pile of metal.
The same reasoning applies to the use of quedó instead of quedaba, you are talking about the end result of the accident. If you were talking of what was happening during that time, then yes, you would use “quedaba”. An example of that could be:
- The person could only watch as their car (or while their car) was turned into a twisted pile of metal.
- La persona solo podía observar como su coche quedaba convertido en un amasijo de hierro
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The Spanish logic seems clearer to me now, thanks!