Fortunately I have never been tortured (or had loved ones tortured/raped/murdered), but I imagine that the practical limit of how much you can hate someone is a lot higher than how much you can like someone (not so sure about love, but that doesn’t seem to be what Chelsea’s doing), and if you both liked and hated the same person as much as possible the hate would dominate.
To amend the example: First you are tortured for a long time by a masked person for selfish reasons, then the torture ends and you become close friends with someone, and finally that friend turns out to have been the masked person. I think I would see them mostly as the masked person, and the most the friendship would be worth would be giving them a chance to demonstrate how bitterly they regretted the torture, how much they have become a different person, how hard they worked on making amends etc. If that was less than completely convincing the friendship might as well never have happened, and even if it was completely convincing I still don’t think I could stomach their company any time soon.
Fortunately I have never been tortured (or had loved ones tortured/raped/murdered), but I imagine that the practical limit of how much you can hate someone is a lot higher than how much you can like someone (not so sure about love, but that doesn’t seem to be what Chelsea’s doing), and if you both liked and hated the same person as much as possible the hate would dominate.
To amend the example: First you are tortured for a long time by a masked person for selfish reasons, then the torture ends and you become close friends with someone, and finally that friend turns out to have been the masked person. I think I would see them mostly as the masked person, and the most the friendship would be worth would be giving them a chance to demonstrate how bitterly they regretted the torture, how much they have become a different person, how hard they worked on making amends etc. If that was less than completely convincing the friendship might as well never have happened, and even if it was completely convincing I still don’t think I could stomach their company any time soon.
Sounds like a recipe for some seriously good breakup sex.