What did you miss?

Thanks to u/waltzintomordor, I was just reading though the podcast transcripts while writing this comment.

I realized I had missed something fairly significant last year. And I wondered if anyone else felt like they had missed something along the way.

I remember that everyone on the other subreddit was commenting about how angry Adnan had become when Sarah Koenig asked him about stealing from the mosque. Many people wrote that this was Adnan’s true nature and “now we see how he really is.” I wasn’t sure about that. I’m sure he felt betrayed in some way.

Here's what I missed:

• Adnan said that he felt like Sarah went from his “savior to his executioner.” This tells me that the Sarah Koenig interviews had been presented to Adnan as though they would be helpful to him. He wasn’t told that she was an impartial reporter who was going to be objective and fair. He was led to believe that she might “save him.” I’m guessing this was done to convince Adnan to do the interviews in the first place.

• Adnan does not offer an explanation right away. Sarah has to wait a few days. It’s as though Adnan might have wanted to call it quits, and may actually have done so. But after a few days, he calmed down, and they got back on track. And in those few days, Adnan came up with an explanation.

• He said he had performed many unpaid chores at the mosque, so that taking the money was like being paid for things like shoveling snow. He said that at the time, he didn't think it was bad. This was the perfect time for Adnan to say he didn’t behave well, but instead, he says, he was just taking what he was owed...

Per Sarah Koenig:

Adnan says back then, he didn’t think he was hurting anyone. They spent so much time at the mosque and they shovelled snow and they helped set up events and clean up. So to him it was akin to taking twenty bucks from the till of the family store at the end of the night. He says of course as an adult he knows how wrong that is, but back then in eighth grade he didn’t fully get it.

The first time around, I missed that.