One reason Miko snapped

[SowZ]

you guys are pretty tough on Redcloak. He strikes me as someone who has admirable goals and realizes that very unsavory methods are required to accomplish them. He's never really given the vibe of being a weak individual, rather demonstrating on several occasions that that is a facade he maintains to preserve his ability to manipulate the lich.

You really have to read Start of Darkness to realize what a hypocritical and bad person he is. I thought how you did too until I read SoD. His motivations are not nearly as simple as the good of goblinkind. That is his goal, but not his primary motivation. While he does care about it, he actually has far more selfish reasons to do what he does.

Revenge and a pathological case of the sunk cost fallact not being the least of these selfish motives.

She did not have time to think. She went from one extremely stressful situation to another. This actually happened her entire life to some extent as far as the comic seems to indicate.

V reacted very poorly to being confronted with her (much more extreme) evil deeds at first. Not to mention she had it spelled out that she was taking the Evil way. It took time to pass before she set on a road to change. Miko was young and immature, there is no indication she had ever received a strong signal that there might be something wrong before. Yes, people might indicate it towards her, but she would be comparable to a professional that pursues her career with maximum vigor until she burns out. Not understanding that she is like other people until it happens.

Soon understood that redemption is reserved for only a few. Miko is many things, but she is not ordinary however. She could have been one of the few.

The comparison to Redcloak really does Miko no justice because of two reasons: Redcloak has shown he will not redeem himself despite age and chances to do so and Redcloak is a weak individual compared to Miko. His weak will compared to her is shown by the fact that any meaning he has in OoTS is derived from outside circumstances: the cloak is what gives him power, his master is what gives him power. Miko on the other hand forged her own way into this world. She is an orphan that willed herself into becoming the strongest warrior of the Sapphire guild at the young age of 28.

Why would she change though? One thing about psychology, one of the first things is taught, is that people only undergoe serious and painful change when motivated. If losing her Paladinhood wasn't that Catalyst, I don't think anything would have been. There would be no strong motivation for her to change if the falling wouldn't do it. So why shift gears?

She is clearly not an introspective person at all, since she was immediately willing to kill her second in command, someone she know to be very Good, instead of spend some time in thought. Rather, she selfishly pursued her own freedom and ego at the expense of good peoples lives. Her moral code was far more flexible and self oriented than she would have anyone, (even herself,) believe. Becuase she has no problem murdering good people to avoid the law when it is after her.

She believed herself above retribution, above the law, above introspection. Since she never takes the chance to do it. If she has lived her life up til 28 pursuing new goal after new goal, never stopping to spend time in thought, why change now?