Cirrin and morality

Cirrin's lusus did not teach him a great deal. The only part of Octodad's lessons on friendship that really rubbed off on him was the superficial aspect of hugs. And his lusus was never critical of him or tried to correct his behaviour.

Instead he learned by watching other trolls act. He came to the conclusion that while people may say a lot of Big Words about right and wrong that he might not understand, when it comes down to it that it's the biggest, strongest troll who pushes everyone around and who ends up being right. Even the hemospectrum he sees as this but on a massive scale. Basically the only morality that matters is might makes right.

Related, he saw the word 'sorry' as a submissive gesture to be said after youve been caught as a last ditch attempt to avoid punishment. Hence why the phrase 'you'll be sorry' is used as a threat. He simply does not know a way to express true regret that doesn't come from a selfish fear of punishment.

This world view doesn't exactly benefit him as a weak lowblood. He doesn't exactly /like/ it, it's just how the world works as far as he can see. What it does is let him accept a lot of the bad parts of his life. He rarely gets to take advantage of it to justify pushing around trolls weaker than him. That's why he jumped at the chance with Paloma. And he saw his subsequent unfair disproportional punishment, and that which Ranigi later received, as vindication that his behaviour was perfectly acceptable. If only he hadn't got caught. Might makes right, the only law. And when he thought Solena was about to kill Kateia way back, he was incredibly close to just accepting that. Of course she would get away with it, there certainly wasn't anyone to stop or punish her, certainly not Cirrin who wouldn't want to even if he could.

If he retains this world view and gets a superpower advantage, say by becoming grimdark, then suddenly he's the one who gets to push everyone around this time. He would feel he could kill anyone he didn't like or got in his way and be justified because if nobody could stop him then everyone would just have to deal with it. It would be very difficult to dissuade him with mere words without defeating him first. In the end, being on the bottom of the pile hasn't given him the empathy to look back to when he comes out on top.