"That's what I'm saying, though. He was literally a child soldier. It warps you, it changes you in ways that you can't come back from, and I get that you were trained like him, but you knew them here," she said, tapping his temple. "He lived through it. You knew how to defend yourself, but he worried about people killing him. You had school and had to put walls. He had to worry about Dark wizards murdering him and those around him. The training you have is not what he went through and that's why you aren't like him. You can make the changes that he can't." And that was the most important thing as far as she was concerned.
"They are as warped as he is, Jamie. That entire generation. Even the ones who stayed in school. There was institutionalized torture in the school, for Helga's sake. You don't get normal adults from children who grew up with that. Imagine the anger against the very people who are supposed to be your friends, forced to torture each other, fighting a war to your very survival when the adults listened to the radio. They are enablers because they are fucked up too. I don't know if it's so much that they think that he's the only one as much as the fact that they think they all have to fight all the time and we're idiots for not doing the same. And yes, this is mostly from listening to people, because people tend to forget that I could be a threat," she said with a tiny smile.
The last part was the reason Jamie had driven her crazy. "Stop that! It's not your job to give them that, and don't think you're doing them any favours. You're taking away their right to choose when you do things for them. Worse you take away their right to be there for you. Don't you see? You're doing exactly the same bloody thing, but instead of worrying about lives, you're worrying about emotions. You do not get to decide how much someone else can take and you certainly shouldn't decide what the other person wants to do for you, and I can say this as Savannah and as Lilu, although she loves you so much that she will never say it, but I can, so fuck you for wanting to play God's with our feelings. We care for you, she loves you. We want to be there for you."