Tuesday DE: Repentance and Regret

[galen_erso]

What is the one thing your character regrets most in life?

Comments

[runningred]

Jay - getting killed by the Joker. Not killing the Joker.
Bodhi - Not getting the message to Saw sooner. Leading the Rebellion to Galen's location.
Sinric - Not having more time with Constantine. Not saving Probus.

[varadia]

For X, I think it's not her mother or her sensei. She regrets most that the little boy with the spiderman doll, the one she didn't kill? She didn't stop herself before she killed his parents. That's the thing that haunts her most about all the things she did with the Facility. Couldn't she have figured out how to choose just that minute sooner? Shouldn't she have?

Ysalwen: Sometimes I think she regrets executing Loghain, because it's made things with Anora very awkward, but it never really sticks? Probably the whole Anders thing is what wakes her up at night imagining she figured out something that would have saved him and Justice. And thus Kirkwall, but the real ball of regret and shame that fuels the rest is about Anders and Justice.

Wonder Woman: I think for her, when she falls into that place of looking back at her failures, the one that stings most and can start a cycle of all the names and faces of people she couldn't save, is Vanessa Kapatelis being turned, by Diana's villain's gallery, into the Silver Swan. Just because she and Diana were friends.

Sombra: Sombra looks at her skills now, and looks at the Omnic War then, and what happened to her city, and to her family, and she is so fiercely angry that time is what it is and there is no way for her to have saved them. So angry. It covers the regret. But the regret is really firmly there. That is . . . honestly probably the only thing she does regret. Or maybe also she regrets being nice to Baze while he was injured, because he keeps talking about it and she has a reputation to maintain!!!!!!!

Flemeth: She super regrets getting murdered that one time! Er. I think, though, what she really regrets is that she's a terrible mother. She honestly didn't think she was, but looking at what Morrigan thinks of her . . . yeah. Obviously she fucked up big.

Nynaeve: The obvious answer is every person she tried to heal and failed, every person that died in Emond's Field because she didn't know she could channel and hadn't accessed her skills yet. She regrets she couldn't grow Rand's hand back. But the small petty most personal thing is that she regrets she didn't march up on that bloody Myrelle sooner and make her give Nynaeve back her husband. Sigh.

Thrawn: You know, that's a good question? I'd like to think he will look back and regret what he turned himself into under the Empire, but I don't think he will. For one, he won't let himself, and for two . . . he's not that sort of man. Anyway. I guess he probably mostly regrets, right now, not having that pirate dude that died be the one he sent back to the Chiss instead of his aide Eli Vanto. His aide would be super-more useful than anyone Pryce has on her staff. Or any of his current own staff.

[iprotectyou]

Ack, sorry, Sombra! So sorry. Baze won't talk about it anymore now that he's (finally) aware of how uncomfortable that makes her. And he definitely hasn't told anyone else!

[bjornwilde]

Future Ahsoka, but before facing Vader: Not killing Maul.
Future Ahsoka, after facing Vader: Walking away from Anakin.

Sabine: Major spoilers.

Scrapper: Not dying. Not killing Hela. Not saving any of the valkyrie. (I'm pretty sure this is all clear from the trailers, but I will be happy to delete if folks think it's spoilery.)

Sam: I'm not sure. Surviving when Rhiley didn't maybe?

Hank: Tell Raven she'd never be considered beautiful as her natural self.

Danny: Walking away from K'un Lun.

[for_everyone]

Hera is disinclined to let herself feel regret, beyond what her mistakes can teach her. There are plenty of things where she can think "if I'd known what I do now I would have done things differently." But often there was no way she would have had that knowledge beforehand, often the results of her choices are just as much if not more about things that are totally out of her hands, as frustrating as that is. And she can always regret every action she didn't take, everyone she didn't save or help, every second that she knows awful things are happening elsewhere but she's just one person and there's only so much she can do. But then she'd get overwhelmed, and she knows practically that can't all be on her shoulders, so. She tries not to let herself wade into that feeling too much at all.

I think the only thing she really lets herself regret is how she left things with her father. It is something she really, actively wishes she could change, or that she'd handled better at the time. But even after several years she's not sure what she can do, or could have done differently. She just hopes she'll figure it out some day.


Kanan, on the other hand… what's interesting is that I'd say normally Hera is the one who allows herself to feel the enormous responsibilities and complexities of her situation, whereas Kanan really has to set them aside to operate. But in this case where Hera can't let herself feel regret because it'd be too overwhelming, Kanan can't really help but feel it. He regrets not saving Master Bilaba, he regrets running when she told him to even if there was no other option. He regrets that he never became a full Jedi and so feels he can never be a proper teacher for Ezra. He regrets the years he spent thinking of nothing but his own survival, before he met Hera, and he regrets the years he'd spent neglecting his abilities and his identity. And sometimes he has regretted having that identity, having ever been brought into the Jedi Order in the first place.

But at this point, rather than weighing him down, that regret is good for driving him forward. It gives him a clearer idea of the path he wants to take, and how he wants to be different from the person he was before, whether that's Padawan Caleb or on-the-run Kanan.

[just_cant_lose]

Jim regrets ever running into Sherlock at age 12.

See also: things he's most grateful for in life.

[wayward_sun]

This one here and Eric Northman will tell you that they have no regrets whatsoever (because Eric did kiss Sookie before he thought he was going to die - and Lucifer is - not super introspective?)

Elrond has a list.

It's a long list.

He goes over it at night when he cannot sleep.

[oldmancreed]

The things Tess would like to have done over were beyond her control at the time so they're not really regrets, per se. Anything she did have control over, she doesn't regret.

Rose regrets cutting off the hand of the man who killed her mother.

Kylo... I'm going to say right now regrets nothing.

Creed isn't a regretful man. He maybe wishes he'd run away sooner, but then he wouldn't have had Jimmy with him.

[iprotectyou]

Baze has so many regrets. So many. He regrets letting the temple fall, even though he couldn't do anything about that. He regrets losing his faith. He regrets letting Chirrut die, although he couldn't do anything about that either.

[death_gone_mad]

Amascut regrets teaching cats how to be cats. Even though she was a cat, and cats already knew how to be cats.

She taught them how to be extra catty? It's not something that makes sense; it comes from an extremely irrational part of her brain.

[cottoncandypink]

I don't think Wilford even has the ability to regret something. The closest he gets are fleeting moments of "well, that was stupid" before moving on.

[configuration_birdwatcher]

Bastion regrets most things about their involvement in the war, although they couldn't have changed very much about it. They wish they'd tried earlier to abandon the fighting, but they're cynical about whether their commanders and their combat programming would actually have allowed that to happen, and about their chances of resisting if they hadn't been fortunate enough to meet Ganymede.