The Greatest Gift: What Happens In Haygas-Page 16

I still feel kind of sorry for Venus, even now. She did attempt murder in cold blood, but that hardly warranted her summary execution. It was just a necessary evil, that when someone fires at you, you might have to kill them. It's good that she didn't hurt anyone, and there was no good in her at all, but... to lay there wishing you could see the next sunrise, and knowing you never will, that's something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. We all have to go through that horrible experience, but there's no good in hastening it.

Learning about her in pages beyond this, I became even sadder, because there are trained psychopaths, and there are natural psychopaths, and she seemed like the latter. Not just disdaining others, but genuinely unable to feel empathy for them. Not just attempting murder over small slights out of pride, but displaying a profound lack of restraint or judgement, throwing herself into a certain death situation not because she was too proud to accept her loss, but because she genuinely lacked the mental capacity to consider that she might not be the one who makes it out alive. She really had no chance to be a decent person her entire life, because her brain was just... malformed. Sure there was her upbringing, but Aster turned out fine, and even as foals, Venus was just... broken.

The difference between Venus and a truly evil person is that she genuinely never wanted to hurt anybody, and was just trying to do the right thing. It's just she was unable to think about anybody besides her as people, only seeing them as obstacles or possessions. She was unable to control her temper, and ruled by her anger. So... this happened. I thought I might come back and say a few words about her, and about people who really do suffer a mental disorder like this. I wish we could find ways to heal them that weren't just... dying in a fire fight.

Kudos on making a character who actually fits the diagnostic criteria for a sociopath. I don't see that very often.