#rentyr

I'd say the people that he was closest to and meant the most to him was the gang of youths he'd run through the streets of Dromund Kaas with, making about as much trouble as they could without getting in major trouble. He was among the oldest of the lot, and took that very seriously. He cared a lot about giving those kids someone to look to. He wanted to imagine there was life for them all that wasn't under a Sith's thumb. He fervently wanted to make it all feel possible. They were meant for more than being cogs in the Imperial machine.

In that way, Ren valued their futures more than anything. He wanted them to live ... happily, if he could manage to make it happen. They were all a troublesome sort, but he never wanted himself or any of those kids to end up rotting in a cell or in a labor camp. There was a point to the troublemaking, so he liked to hope.

Ultimately that's at the core of where the hell it all wrong. Because one of those kids crossed the paths of someone they shouldn't have, through no fault of their own, and the next thing he knew, he'd lost a friend (more than that, someone he considered himself personally responsible for) to the Sith. Literally. A child, in every sense, slaughtered by a Sith apprentice for sport.

Once, Ren loved his people very, very fiercely. And he would go to great lengths for that, for them. To the point that he did the unimaginable and unforgivable - he gave that Sith a taste of their own medicine. And, depending on the 'verse, accepts an offer from either the Cabal or Imperial Intelligence. It's better than rotting, or dying.

But either of those routes, he ends up valuing people so much less. He gave everything up for the people he cared about, and he went down the route he chose under the guise of "making it all worth it". Doing something about the Sith. Because just killing one of 'em would never be enough. Like cancer, they all keep coming back if you let even a single cell live.

This is especially true of the AU where he joins the Star Cabal and takes the codename "Hunter". Ren as a youth was passionate - rough and fierce, but so fucking loving. A bit overzealous in his protectiveness over his people - having drafted many a plan in the privacy of his head to take care of his best friend's (Tyr Deckard, courtesy of @tiredassmage) horrid adoptive mother and sister (the reason he ended up never doing it wasn't even because of the consequences he might face, but not being able to ensure Tyr's safety). But, god, Ren loved. And he cared. The thing he detested the most about the Empire was its callousness and complete disregard for people's right to be happy.

Then Ren joins the Cabal, and in pursuing this goal of finally making the Sith pay for all the suffering they've wrought, suddenly anything and everything became an acceptable price to pay. The human cost lost all of its weight. There was no price too high to pay. And it truly did cost him everything.

Which eventually leads to the second question. Which, "hard to love" is both loaded and entirely subjective. But I don't think any of the people he knew prior to joining the Cabal would recognize him, or take him back into their lives (if he even wanted them to). Except, of course, for Tyr. And Tyr's a special sort of person, frankly, as we know /lh.

But if you asked Ren if he thought he was easy to love, it would be a resounding hell - fucking - no. And, yes, there's all the atrocities he committed in the name of his goal of taking out the Sith, which he really only regrets because it didn't work. He only regrets it because it ended up being for nothing. But Tyr's not the sort of man who's going to even blink at that. Hunter and Cipher Nine's hands are both soaked with unquantifiable amounts of blood, and there's no point in competing to see who caused the most suffering for their ideals.

It's more about what Ren ended up doing as a result of that ... that raging determination to make it worth it. What he did to Tyr especially. Because all the other sins, all the other people he hurt or slaughtered for the Cabal, they're all strangers. Even the people he had to get close to for a job, none of them ever actually mattered.

But Tyr having known him before it all wrong, and the relationship they had ... did not make a difference. Ren ran him through, too. And I think he went into their final confrontation fully willing to kill him, if it meant that he "won". Tyr won that fight not because Ren held back, not because he'd given up hope on his fight, but through superior skill.

That's also why Ren ended up surviving his defeat. Tyr wasn't going to let him get out of living, of having to face the fact that he failed, and it was all for nothing, and he had to figure out something new.

Anyway, point is ... Ren bears so much weight, and so much resentment and bitterness and rage for the fact that even after everything, everything he did, to make it all worth it, it was for nothing. He's utterly ruthless. He's lost all regard for most people. He burned out any semblance of mercy or compassion that he had, and fighting to nurture the embers of what's left is an everyday battle on his part.

So, he doesn't think he's easy to love. He wonders if he's even possible to love. But ... he's trying to make Tyr's efforts for him worth it. He won't soften his edges, he won't declaw himself, he won't pull out his teeth - these are all he had to survive, all that time, and at this point, that's so much of who he is. He's not going to turn around and see the world like Tyr does. If earnestly asked his opinion, he'd say they're all a lost cause - that someday, they're going to destroy themselves.

But, y'know. He might as well stick it out and see what happens. If nothing else than to keep Tyr around, and guard that heart of his.