[Eleanor wasn't quite certain what she thought as she listened to the other girl explaining her life. It was unsettling to realize how some of these people (and she'd finally settled on the fact that this wasn't some trick of her mother) could come from places nearly as terrible as Rapture. Perhaps just as terrible. Sending children off to fight in an arena, slaughtering each other for the sake of entertainment and control...it was something out of a horror story.]
[And yet...to hear the wat Katniss talked about it, it almost sounded like she was justifying it somehow. Defending herself, which from the sound of it, she had no reason to. Eleanor might not have approved of her choice, but it was an easy to understand, something she could see herself doing in the same situation. Easily. The only thing that held her back was her father...and not very well, judging by the body count they had amassed during their escape.]
[She almost doesn't say anything, not even quite certain the girl wants people to respond, but she can see that they are. Hmm. So eventually...she opens her book. She's curled up on the floor of her apartment, in the space between her bed and the wall, somewhere small and safe, a reassurance in a panicking world to know people couldn't sneak up on her.]
My father would have said that vengeance is wrong. Sparing the people that have wronged us proves we are so much better than them. [Her voice is quiet and sad, her accent far more noticeable than usual.] But it's so hard to live that way, when the world throws demons at us and expects us to be angels. I think I might have done the same thing. In your place. I did things just as bad in mine.
[A pause. She's not sure. She wants to believe she would have done something else, that she'd live by her father's example, but given the chance...]
It doesn't make you terrible. Good people can still do terrible things when pushed too far. When I came across one of the people who harmed my sisters...they did not survive either.
[video]
[And yet...to hear the wat Katniss talked about it, it almost sounded like she was justifying it somehow. Defending herself, which from the sound of it, she had no reason to. Eleanor might not have approved of her choice, but it was an easy to understand, something she could see herself doing in the same situation. Easily. The only thing that held her back was her father...and not very well, judging by the body count they had amassed during their escape.]
[She almost doesn't say anything, not even quite certain the girl wants people to respond, but she can see that they are. Hmm. So eventually...she opens her book. She's curled up on the floor of her apartment, in the space between her bed and the wall, somewhere small and safe, a reassurance in a panicking world to know people couldn't sneak up on her.]
My father would have said that vengeance is wrong. Sparing the people that have wronged us proves we are so much better than them. [Her voice is quiet and sad, her accent far more noticeable than usual.] But it's so hard to live that way, when the world throws demons at us and expects us to be angels. I think I might have done the same thing. In your place. I did things just as bad in mine.
[A pause. She's not sure. She wants to believe she would have done something else, that she'd live by her father's example, but given the chance...]
It doesn't make you terrible. Good people can still do terrible things when pushed too far. When I came across one of the people who harmed my sisters...they did not survive either.