Looking at his friends and the crowd who were beginning to become intense over this casual topic, Andrew was simultaneously chilled and puzzled, his mind fully active.
"This is stupid. It's a story and a character. Why are we having a morality tribunal over this?" Andrew thought to himself, wondering if he had gone mad.
Yet… he knew exactly why this was happening deep down.
This was a peaceful society governed by laws, norms, unspoken agreements of mutual survivability.
No matter how 'free' speech was, there would always be certain opinions that were safe while others were not.
Defending a fictional mass killer - no matter how logically, no matter how contextually - was already enough to mark you as 'sus' in some people's eyes.
Andrew could see it in plainly in Emily's expression the most. As a white woman who had grown up in the current system, her values were strongly tilted to the left axis.
