[ Bastien nods in a wobbly, considering way, and for a few seconds he's quiet. Some of those seconds are to think about what By's said. The others are to bask in being cared for, and in being so utterly certain that he'll still be cared for just as much even if they have found something they might not agree on. ]

You know I would still love you if you became the Empress' own bodyguard, [ he says, in case that certainty isn't mutual, as he nudges one of his slightly-achy knees into the path of By's hands. ] And I think you are probably right about tyrants.

But the king who has sent the men to kill you—maybe he is not a tyrant. Maybe he’s good to his own people and thinks yours are barbarians who need to be rescued from their backwards ways through his fatherly subjugation. [ A little eyebrow raise says he knows that's a low blow argument to make at a Fereldan, and he is sorry but not very sorry. ] Maybe he has an earnest disagreement with someone about whether or not their land is his. Whether they owe him taxes.

If all the harm in the world was only done through sadism or paranoia, there would be much less of it.