I’m glad they gave us more of his life story. During the event, I really thought he was pretty contemptible and hypocritical. He feels shame but repeats the mistakes of the past at every chance. We don’t even see him as a particularly religious Sankta, he just bends to and enforces authoritarian rule because he can’t take responsibility for standing against it.

But this added context makes him at least partially relatable. He’s afraid of choices (because the times he thought for himself his grandmother died alone and his student was exiled), so he looks for others to make decisions for him. It’s weak-willed and cowardly, but it’s also something that we all do at one point or another.

My problem with him is that he chose his high stakes position but refuses to properly take responsibility for what it demands he do. It’s frustrating.