[If someone like that can turn around, and even be seen as turning around... Hope is difficult, but sometimes he sees glimmers of it.]

They're knights specifically employed by the Chantry. A few join because they have faith in what the Chantry is doing, but most? The job draws the cruel. Who of that sort wouldn't come running when they hear that there's a group of people they can do anything to and it's not simply accepted, it's praised? They joined in droves and steadily grew bolder. Some Circles were not as bad, but none of them were without cruelties and captivity simply for what someone was born able to do.