Bro

I feel like it's him having conflicting thoughts (bc his mental health is absolutely boinked).
He assumed Annette would stay perfect and naive while also believing that the world would love her as she learned of the atrocities and felt sorrow.
His resentment grew since he was blind to her changing, and thought that she was still naive tho she was very not (at least towards the end). I think he was blind also to how much vitriol she was actually receiving and how much he thought she got, he may have felt reasonable given his view of her naivety.

Yeah but not really he knows that she Wouldn’t stay perfect if he murdered her whole family and started a revolution with her being the only remaining thread to the old regime He knew that it wasn’t her fault and that she was being sheltered by her family And that if he ripped the shelter away, she would change because he knew he changed once his shelter was ripped away And he knew how much everybody hated her. The papers literally talked about how much everybody hated her people tried to kill her multiple times all of his subordinates talk about her. He knows how much they hate her. He doesn’t care to acknowledge it.

I mean, logically, he would, yes. He maybe even planned for her to change. But again, his mental health is boinked here. He actively didn't realize she changed until she tried to kill herself (he even said this) and he didn't realize how vitriolic the masses feel towards her until the attempted assassination

Girly pop he didn’t want her to change but cause every change in her every chance he got ? He had constant updates and reports of her and the feelings of the people his closest subordinates told him how serious it was and how much they also hate her He also acknowledged that she changed because she wasn’t the same as she was in the house and he thought she was acting She just didn’t realize that it was real, and how severe the impact was He literally says he wanted her to feel pain or to know what it was to suffer, and he told her that she didn’t understand the masses. He was constantly trying to put her in her place while knocking her down He knows she was hated by everybody. She’s the last person in the regime and it’s talked about by the papers. People stand outside the gates and harass her he knows.

And I’m not saying that he is in mentally ill or that he isn’t an unstable state of mind And I could sympathize with him, but I cannot excuse any of his actions, but he did clearly know he just didn’t care to realize the severity or actually care for the impact He thought he could cage a bird

He only acknowledged her change after she tried to kill herself

He said wanted her to feel pain because he thought she was still the same naive person as before. He didn't really acknowledge his subordinates or the people until the assassination attempt because he chocked it under what he thought she deserved for still being naive (which, ofc she wasn't, he again just didn't see that till after). What I was saying is that I don't think he understood that the vitriol already caused her to change. He wanted her to feel pain since he assumed she never would. It's only on this most recent chapter that he says (from the past) he thinks she would change (become sorrowful etc) in response to learning of the atrocities because of how kind/angelic she is. Somewhere along the line he became unable to see her change that was occurring and became resentful which is prob what morphed into wanting her to "feel pain". Like yes, he did things to cause change (being neglectful at first, mean later on). But he still wasn't perceiving the change (which probably was a feedback loop into it becoming worse). Probably in trying to retain some of that innocence from the past, he subconsciously blocked his vision from seeing her change.

I'm not excusing his actions: explanation does not equal excusing