VeraVertigo

back then, he held onto this vague idea of heroism in order to feel like she had a place in the narrative, to feel like she belonged. a naive, but sincere belief that she was ultimately doing The Right Thing by fighting against "The Villains" (brotherhood), which allowed that purpose to persevere even when the people they originally meant to protect (team friendship) weren't really There anymore. in joining brotherhood later on, silva functionally gave up on that purpose (aside: it’s funny, that the moment he Gave Up on the idea that playing hero would get her anywhere, silva losing the DG mugm duel, took place on the island that team friendship was meant to move to. something about childish dreams that never came to fruition). but the transition to brotherhood went fine despite the loss of that purpose and direction because bhood had a rigid structure in of itself—that being how the team applies roles to its members alongside their pre-established ultimate finale end goal—to give that same sense of security.

it’s kind of funny that what usually would mark a now-forever-jaded type of character development for most other people, silva joins bhood and. gets More empathetic towards others than she was before. the real thing silva loses when she joins bhood is the ability to mark certain people off as Evil Supervillains That Must Be Killed because with their experience with bhood, that means they've been on and seen every side of the argument. so, when even the brotherhood's structure collapsed, silva was thrown into a situation where he deeply understood everyone else’s—nezo feeling used and taken for granted, mugm feeling unappreciated for the work he’s put in, puqi desperately wanting to hold a team together that’s actively slipping through her hands—it's no wonder silva just kind of. Shut Down. nothing was holding him together anymore, and growing past the childish hero/villain mindset he had before now only meant that all he could see now was clouds of grey.

but right before the formation of iris, silva chose to pick the role of protector back up in order to give herself a purpose, no longer wanting to wander aimlessly. but the thing is that this inherently necessitates a mindset separating the "to be protected" from the "to be protected against", something that's directly contradictory to the immense empathy that silva displays, because of what silva understands to be true—that everybody is just another person with their own struggles. and you can't exactly unlearn any of that (which is why we get the moments of impulsive kindness that silva consciously rationalizes herself Out of because they arent Supposed to be doing that, especially not on the bliss smp of all places), so instead, silva becomes willfully ignorant. the idea of morality is no longer relevant to this version of their protector complex. the only thing that matters, above all else, is that quakitus is safe. and so silva represses, brushes off, shuts down her own critical thoughts of whatever quakitus is Actually Doing on the server. because getting caught up in all of that distracts from The Direction. fulfilling Their Purpose.