[ It's a charitable interpretation, and one Harold can't accept any more than he could the attempt at comfort a moment ago. Like he'd told John, he doesn't want comforting. He's braced himself, finally and at long last, to accept what he's done and face it. Having done that, backsliding an inch feels distasteful.

Like with Nathan and the irrelevant numbers, this is how he's chosen to live up to Root's memory, by being brutally honest with himself about the Machine.

Bluntly, ] She told me at the end that I'd made her to watch people die. She was right. I made her to prevent violent death, but that also meant she had to watch it over and over, thousands and tens of thousands of times. To predict something means to understand it.

I programmed the Machine to erase its memory every night, because I was afraid of it learning to care about me, and what that might mean. [ The pronouns slip back and forth with the time period Harold's thinking of without him fully noticing. ] I purposefully ignored the pain I was causing because it was easier for me.

Please don't think too highly of me; like you, I am only a man who has lost more than I know how to stand. Some of those losses were by my own hand.