#he's not a perfect viddathari he's been told this to the point where he sasses the people responsible for telling him

[skyheld]

GATT ON HISSRAD

His state of mind? Am I supposed to say he wasn't angry? Is that what I'm supposed to say so the reeducators can fill him full of qamek and send him off to break rocks with a hammer for the rest of his life? Because he was angry. Of course he was angry, after what the Tal-Vashoth did to those children. He's always been angry.

I remember the day he raided my master's ship and rescued me from the bastard. He butchered them all, and he wasn't calm as he did it. I'd have been terrified if he was. No, he fought with a righteous fury. He was every ounce of anger I'd been pushing down in my fear. He was rage, and I would have had it no other way.

He was angry when I finished my education and join his team in Seheron. He'd smile when he greeted the locals, and he'd banter about the food at breakfast, but underneath it all, there was always the anger. How could he be anything else, after watching his friends die from poison or a knife in the back?

Did you know his last commander became Tal-Vashoth? Of course you do. You've got records on everything, including the attitude I'm displaying right now that will doubtless come up as an area for improvement. Your people will tell me, and I'll sigh, and I'll take it, because I've seen the world outside the Qun, and while I might bang against the walls of this life I'd rather me here than anywhere else.

So would Hissrad. The difference between him and me is that he's never known anything else. He grew up in this orderly world you all made, and it all makes sense to him, people make sense, and he thinks that if he does the right thing, then everything will work. He's been in Seheron for ten years trying to make everything work,telling himself that he's the tool you made him to be, doing the job he was meant to do. He hunted down and killed his old commander. He killed civilians working for the rebels. There are times I'm grateful for those Tevinter mages coming in to attack. At least Hissrad doesn't have to argue with himself after killing them.

Now he killed the Tal-Vashoth who killed those children, and he broke himself doing it. He thinks it's his fault, that he failed to live up to the demands of the Qun. But we all know that isn't really true, is it? Seheron was a mess. We and Tevinter made certain of that. We grind ourselves down until we end up dead or turning Tal-Vashoth, and Hissrad would rather die than do that.

He's a good man. He believes in you. You owe him better than what you've done to him.

-- Post-mission deposition from team member Gatt on mental state of his commander, Hissrad (from world of thedas II)