[ john isn't sure what he was thinking. how he'd interpreted her Role probably felt much worse at the time — as everything had while they were suffering in that place — and had stuck in his mind all wrong. he hates what it says about him and all the ways he feels exposed by people knowing too much. ]

The logic is a bit different now, anyway. Death was eye-opening.

[ better to pivot to something easier. ]

Maybe questioning what we believed was the point. I would still be wasting my time pursuing a useless territory dispute otherwise.

[ and he has already directly undermined his own efforts in that dispute at this point. ]