Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-14138255-20160807005311/@comment-14138255-20160828165851

I'm kind of reminded of the Star Trek: TNG episode where a torturer is torturing Captain Picard for information. In an attempt to get sympathy from his victim, the torturer tells a story of when he was a boy on the street, he was beat up and his arm broken for trying to hide valuable food from his sadistic peers. Instead of giving him sympathy (as many characters and people in real life do), Picard instead points out that his job of torturing people is his way of not being a helpless child beaten up over food, and will always see him as such from then on.

I wonder if something similar is happening with Merc. He's been beaten down by the cruel and unfair world and is told that there is no hope after meeting Salem, and now he's fighting back and enjoying it in the most childishly destructive way possible.