#And I'm fairly certain the end game will involve John in some way refusing some possibility of help or forgiveness.

[katakaluptastrophy]

John either lacks or refuses to exercise the empathy to recognise the reality of Harrow's situation.

Many of the elite Housers likely do have lives where his comments would make sense: the Third talk about lavish childhood birthday parties and tennis, the Fourth teens are taking part in recognisable aspects of rebellious youth culture, the Fifth cook for fun and Abigail collects ferns (and had a childhood bedroom painted yellow with glow in the dark stars, where she played dolls), Dulcie reads romance novels, and even the Sixth's rather institutionalised childhood had treat rations and kid detective fiction. Even Judith, who joined the army at 11, attended Corona's birthdays and decorated her quarters with the flowers Corona sent.

But Harrow is so terribly obviously not from that world.

John was responsible for the circumstances that caused a grim tomb cult to arise on the dwarf planet he made thanergetic in a fit of millennial nostalgia, where Harrow was raised in lonely and bloodthirsty fundamentalism.

He also fully has the context to recognise that Harrow has not enjoyed the luxuries the nobility of many of his Houses have enjoyed. And that Harrow is evidently in a fairly extreme state of mental distress.

The problem is, John sees himself in Harrow. As we learn in NTN, John spent the last months before the end of the world sleepless, desperate, and hounded. Already becoming something terrible and poised on the brink of becoming something even worse. John knows that Harrow cannot possibly find any remedy in the things he suggests. But he also needs to let himself believe, on some tenuous level, that she could. Perhaps his friends in the cow dome tried, lacking any other options, to get him to sleep or read or help grill the beef - anything other than sitting in the dark with his corpse army fixating on vengeance. And Harrow's like him, right? The lifetime of suffering in his name isn't relevant here, right? And even if it is, it sure is useful...

Just saw a comic by ari-larsen (go check them out if you haven't) where John tells Harrow to "do something normal"before making some suggestions.

It just hit me then.

John's view of normal doesn't exist anymore in the Empire he created. Sure maybe on a Cosmopolitan world like the third or the fifth it does... But not on the Ninth.

Harrow doesn't read books for leisure, there are no other meals apart from cooking snowleeks, Harrow doesn't do relaxation or rest.

And it, much like everything in this twisted universe, is all John's fault.