[On one hand, that explanation makes more sense than any other he's heard so far, and it's one he can truly understand.
On the other, he directly disagrees with the justification, and that disagreement is due to personal experience just like Rose's experience caused her to form her option. Connor also knows what it's like to be the hunter, to have it be his nature--to have it be the singular task he was made for-- and for the alternative, if he didn't succeed, to be death. But because of that, and because he had acted on directives and a long-time unrecognized sense of self-preservation, he doesn't even know how many are dead. Two, at least, that he was personally involved in, and then the countless people in Jericho during the attack.
So he can't imagine not feeling the guilt and the weight of it all, not as a being with free will and the ability to feel emotion, and being able to just justify that it was doing what he had to do to survive. Immediate self-defense, like during the Jericho raid when he'd defended Markus and North, he can write off, but... Hurting people who were doing nothing wrong, just so he could live himself, is something he hates himself for and he doesn't consider it an acceptable reason for the gods' actions.
The rush of emotion, unexpected as it is, makes it difficult for him to focus on a response; it's like it clouds his processing, directing so much of it to feeling that he can't concentrate on anything else. It shows on his face, a little, in furrowed eyebrows and a clenched jaw, his fingers curling and uncurling reflexively just to get energy out somewhere as he struggles to control what he's feeling before he finally replies.]
no subject
On the other, he directly disagrees with the justification, and that disagreement is due to personal experience just like Rose's experience caused her to form her option. Connor also knows what it's like to be the hunter, to have it be his nature--to have it be the singular task he was made for-- and for the alternative, if he didn't succeed, to be death. But because of that, and because he had acted on directives and a long-time unrecognized sense of self-preservation, he doesn't even know how many are dead. Two, at least, that he was personally involved in, and then the countless people in Jericho during the attack.
So he can't imagine not feeling the guilt and the weight of it all, not as a being with free will and the ability to feel emotion, and being able to just justify that it was doing what he had to do to survive. Immediate self-defense, like during the Jericho raid when he'd defended Markus and North, he can write off, but... Hurting people who were doing nothing wrong, just so he could live himself, is something he hates himself for and he doesn't consider it an acceptable reason for the gods' actions.
The rush of emotion, unexpected as it is, makes it difficult for him to focus on a response; it's like it clouds his processing, directing so much of it to feeling that he can't concentrate on anything else. It shows on his face, a little, in furrowed eyebrows and a clenched jaw, his fingers curling and uncurling reflexively just to get energy out somewhere as he struggles to control what he's feeling before he finally replies.]
I don't agree, but I understand.
[That's fair, right? And honest, even.]