Ethlyn could understand why bandits did what they did, true. It didn't make it acceptable, especially when so many of them resorted to rank brutality to keep helpless villagers from defending themselves, but she could at least conceive of the desperation that would drive someone to brandish an axe at someone and demand their belongings.

But something like this--she still couldn't understand why someone would do something so drastic, so cataclysmic. "Maybe... but what could they possibly gain from such wholesale destruction?" She wondered if the question even had an answer. "Maybe it was some kind of religious conviction... seeking reward from the beast, or to rule over us with it as their god."