[ The rumination suffices to give her the answers she seeks, even if the words fall short to come up on something decisive and clear and final—she can almost see the hallways he meanders down in his thought process, and what dark pathways they are. His consideration skims him across memories of holding power, exercising it, and feeling righteous in that moment, but it's a metallic tang of righteousness, like it's just off-kilter in some way—enough for Rey to recognize it, at least, but perhaps only because it's been tinted by her mind, or by his sorrow.
The question is a philosophical question: how much of his regret is acknowledgment of wrongdoing, and how much of it is adaptation to a new set of circumstances that demand a different role, a different set of norms to follow in order to reach some sense of success, of righteousness? But then, Rey imagines that he will never feel conviction such as that again—if he is to stay on their side, it will be humility that tethers him to it, characterizes his time spent there, not dominance. ]
So you do feel it. [ Characterizing and qualifying it aside, that's what it boils down to. The rest is just a question of how much that regret is worth to either of them individually. ] You just wish it were more. [ That regret had a greater power than it does—that its force could undo his crimes, that it could rewind time, that it could afford him a sense of control again that he has only ever believed himself to have. In retrospect, the control of the First Order surely must feel lackluster, knowing the insidious ways in which he was only fulfilling the path that Snoke set out, only achieving as far as the Supreme Leader demanded. Surely. Rey wanted to believe that.
But she also knew the inexorable truth of rewinding the clock, taking things back, and reclaiming what was lost. With no small hint of sorrow, she reminds him, ] Nothing has that power.
no subject
The question is a philosophical question: how much of his regret is acknowledgment of wrongdoing, and how much of it is adaptation to a new set of circumstances that demand a different role, a different set of norms to follow in order to reach some sense of success, of righteousness? But then, Rey imagines that he will never feel conviction such as that again—if he is to stay on their side, it will be humility that tethers him to it, characterizes his time spent there, not dominance. ]
So you do feel it. [ Characterizing and qualifying it aside, that's what it boils down to. The rest is just a question of how much that regret is worth to either of them individually. ] You just wish it were more. [ That regret had a greater power than it does—that its force could undo his crimes, that it could rewind time, that it could afford him a sense of control again that he has only ever believed himself to have. In retrospect, the control of the First Order surely must feel lackluster, knowing the insidious ways in which he was only fulfilling the path that Snoke set out, only achieving as far as the Supreme Leader demanded. Surely. Rey wanted to believe that.
But she also knew the inexorable truth of rewinding the clock, taking things back, and reclaiming what was lost. With no small hint of sorrow, she reminds him, ] Nothing has that power.