[ It is much to his credit that he doesn't - too often in her life she was told that what she had been through - that they understood but they wouldn't do what she had done. That they understood but she wasn't thinking. That they understood but didn't she understand, she was just a woman. ]

No, far more usual than that. Lies, blackmail, money. Quite usual means. Members of their rank rose to prominence to be able to move uncheck and unchallenged.

[ Maybe it would all be easier to swallow. If it was some kind of removal of will, that somehow that would excuse the inaction of good men - but it never had been. As long as the right men were kept fat and happy, why should they care? ]

I used to write letters, plea after plea. I did not go to war, to start with you see? I thought perhaps they did not know either. I asked for help, again and again, for even just instruction on how they might be combated, how I might spare my people even once from such fates. Nothing ever came, and then when it did, I was told I must be mistaken.

[ More than once, both here and there, she's been told she's bloody-minded. Quick to the jump. Quick to always escalate before anyone had ever started.

It was not for nothing. ]