[ Ben listens to Arya's reasons, and he can see how much it's hurting her, giving these answers. He should have found a way not to ask it - even if he had wanted to know, and even if the answer makes his heart go out to the girl. She may think it makes her sound like a monster, but it would be very hard indeed, to make Ben Hargreeves think any child was a monster, no matter what they did.
And Arya by the sound of it has many, many reasons. War. Grief. Revenge. Righteous outrage and justice. Coping. Self-defense.
He doesn't think she is a bad person, and he doesn't think she is weak, for being scared and needing to find ways to deal with it. He'd done awful things because he was scared, too. Her insistence that she felt nothing at all... he isn't buying it. There's a difference between being cruel and cutting off your feelings to survive. Ben's been in that place. Only briefly, but. He knows what it's like. ]
You don't have to apologize. I did want to hear it. And I don't think you're a bad person. You sound like you have had a very hard life, and like you are doing the best that you know how to do.
[ After all that - war, the loss of her family - Ben's own little tragedy seems very little, indeed. He shrugs. (These are the things he does, too, to diminish it, distance himself from the reality of all the violence). ]
It's what I was taught to do, all my life. I was born with powers that make it very easy for me to kill a lot of people very quickly, and so my dad made me into a tool to do that. I didn't- I didn't want to but. There are lots of ways to get people to do things they don't want to do. Especially when they're just little kids. So he would lock me up and starve me til I was willing to hurt animals and then he would lock me up and starve me til I was willing to hurt people and eventually he would just threaten my siblings and after a while he didn't have to do any of it. I just stopped fighting. I wanted to be useful, and I believed it when he told me I was a monster. I could at least be a useful monster for him.
cw abuse
And Arya by the sound of it has many, many reasons. War. Grief. Revenge. Righteous outrage and justice. Coping. Self-defense.
He doesn't think she is a bad person, and he doesn't think she is weak, for being scared and needing to find ways to deal with it. He'd done awful things because he was scared, too. Her insistence that she felt nothing at all... he isn't buying it. There's a difference between being cruel and cutting off your feelings to survive. Ben's been in that place. Only briefly, but. He knows what it's like. ]
You don't have to apologize. I did want to hear it. And I don't think you're a bad person. You sound like you have had a very hard life, and like you are doing the best that you know how to do.
[ After all that - war, the loss of her family - Ben's own little tragedy seems very little, indeed. He shrugs. (These are the things he does, too, to diminish it, distance himself from the reality of all the violence). ]
It's what I was taught to do, all my life. I was born with powers that make it very easy for me to kill a lot of people very quickly, and so my dad made me into a tool to do that. I didn't- I didn't want to but. There are lots of ways to get people to do things they don't want to do. Especially when they're just little kids. So he would lock me up and starve me til I was willing to hurt animals and then he would lock me up and starve me til I was willing to hurt people and eventually he would just threaten my siblings and after a while he didn't have to do any of it. I just stopped fighting. I wanted to be useful, and I believed it when he told me I was a monster. I could at least be a useful monster for him.