Staring into space thinking about Roathe. Thinking about how almost everything he did to make him a commander and survive abuse started when he was a kid.
Using lying as a tool on his soldiers and even himself? I know in my heart that at least one those "creative techniques" he learned to keep the other kids from beating the fuck out of him was to lie. Just like him cultivating the image of being "a devil" and "a monster" to keep everyone away from him. He says lack of familial connections helped him focus on military stuff, but I read that "I needed a distraction." and it simultaneously taught him tactics on how to survive attacks from other kids.
"I understood from the start - both on the battlefield and in the bedchamber - the path to victory through seeming submission.”
The part of me that takes things literally is reading this as he learned this lesson when he became a commander and was with Nitokh, but the other part of me is like...that can't be when he first learned that. Roathe was learning about military strategies since he was a child, it had to have come up then. When he was getting beat up, one of his ways to get through it was probably to not fight back and just to wait until it was over.
"Where the enemy finds you yielding, there you can be sure he will push; and so you may easily trip him.” What an interesting choice of words, Roathe. You're talking about the fall of the Orokin Empire here, but that gives me a very specific image. Tripping? Hmm. (Again, that may be me reading into things too literally.)
Thinking about how Roathe is a character that shows how trauma doesn't make you a good or bad person, it just makes you traumatized. It's what you do after that defines your life.
Thinking about how as the Drifter, if you follow your preconceived notions and biases about the Orokin and project them onto Roathe, and tell him that what he did was just in his nature as an Orokin, and that he doesn't need to be held accountable, you basically foster a mentality in him of "I am what I am." (in his view, devil and a monster just like all the Orokin) and turn him into a villain.
Idk just thinking.
