The most compelling part of Cassandra Cain's character for me continues to be how her self-hatred conflicts with the way her life experiences have shaped her into a person for whom it is pertinent and necessary to believe that everyone—especially those who have "proved" by some metric or other (the justice system, personal opinion, Batman's direction, her own abusive upbringing, actively shooting at her) that they should be given up on in favor of doing the "righter" thing—deserves to be given the chance to do and be something good, and that it is not up to anyone else—let alone her—to decide that their life is unprecious, unwanted, and sacrificable.
She clings to this belief so strongly that she would rather take bullet after bullet for a stranger trying to kill her than move out of the way. There is almost zero exception to this—save for, notably, herself. Her life is at odds with her own conviction in redemption; every opportunity to protect a life is also conveniently one in which she would be fine with being rid of hers. Her inability to conceptualize and treat herself as anything other than, to her core, an eight year old little girl who will forever be a killer is in stark contrast to the gentle approach she takes with other children.
This is a direct parallel to her relationship with Cain, which she believes has doomed her to be fundamentally bad. However, Cass wholeheartedly believes in what she's telling him; she wants this little boy to understand that he is independent of this "badness" that his father carries—that it is not a reflection of his capacity for being good. He can be different because he is different; he is not his father.
His silence and inability to look her in the eyes tells her that this divide from one's father is something that he—much like her—cannot apply to himself. The issue ends with the best she can offer him: a silent, understanding hug.
Cass is capable of extraordinary amounts of compassion and kindness. She has a compulsive need to keep trying. The Father's Day issue with Cain is a fantastic example of this.
Here lies David Cain—the man who shot her from behind with bullets as a little girl—bloody and beaten on the floor after fighting with her... in a moment in which she acknowledges he was a terrible father... yet something still compels her to leave him with a Father's Day gift (a flower and a note labeled "DAD").
She knows he doesn't deserve it. He's a terrible person and a terrible father. Yet she got him a gift in the first place—and still gave it to him after he once again proved undeserving of anything from her at all.
Even when confronted with the most extreme situation in which she believes someone (the person who transferred this 'badness' onto her) doesn't deserve what she can give them—she continues to try. She is able to extend a fundamentally kind act to Cain—how does that reflect back on her view of the self?
Maybe one day her self-hatred can become a background influence in her life, as opposed to a dominant one that fuels the continuously self-preservative-lacking actions she takes (like Bruce acknowledges in Gotham Knights #2 in which she plans on going down with a sinking ship: Her experience of being trained almost from birth as an ASSASSIN leaves her less than fully able to acknowledge her own capacity for GOOD. Not for DOING good. But for BEING good.) in the name of helping others. Maybe she can offer her younger self the same understanding she gives to that little boy. But, for the time being, she will have to consciously carry (and treat) herself (as if it's true) with the knowledge of what she thinks she is always a step away from devolving into.
