whenever i watch scenes with the Camerons, something stands out to me,they almost always exist in a small bubble. most of their real interactions happen with one or two people, and they rarely seem emotionally connected to anyone outside that circle. the only real exception being Sarah.
i’m assuming that ward has heavily drilled into rafe and sarah family loyalty. ward seems to have two groups of people in his mind, with the family and against the family, when someone does not display that loyalty they instantly go to the latter (john b, sarah, gavin) and there’s little to no middle ground.
rafe displays wards worldview almost entirely, for him, loyalty becomes the biggest display of love. when you take a look at his actions throughout the show, they’re less focused on personal gain and more driven by proving loyalty (killing peterkin to protect/save ward, attacking and harming people he believes are a threat to the family, repeatedly showing intense loyalty to ward to try to gain his approval). if that loyalty requires violence, then he becomes violent, if it requires lying and manipulation, he lies and manipulates, if it requires killing, he kills, and he convinces himself that that’s what has to happen.
sarah goes in the opposite direction, and frequently struggles to decide where her loyalty belongs. she leaves topper for john b, her family for the pogues, the pogues for the kooks, john b for topper, and then topper for john b again.
whereas once rafe decides someone deserves his loyalty, he will endure everything for them, but when they ‘betray’ his loyalty in his eyes (ward wanting to donate the cross, barry calling the police on him, sofia working with hollis) he discards them, though not for long. he regrets calling the hitman on ward, he eventually goes back to work with barry, and we haven’t yet seen him go back to sofia but she’s in a lot of behind the scenes so we can assume he will.
this could be one of the reasons rafe becomes so hostile towards sarah, before season one sarah isn’t just his sister, she’s part of the cameron bubble. when she then chooses john b over the family (even if rightfully so) he sees it as betrayal, and within wards worldview betrayal is practically unforgivable, so it makes sense that rafe reacts so deeply (not that this justifies his abusive behaviour towards her at all, though it does explain it).
if you’ve been raised to believe there are only two categories, with us or against us, there isn’t much room to interpret sarah ‘leaving’ as anything other than betrayal.
