I still remember the first time this life came to me in one of my self-hypnosis sessions. The question I had asked was: "What is causing me this anxiety?" And I use to forget that Roderic's anxiety must have been comparable, or even greater, to Katrina's in the middle of the war. I concentrate on what they did to him (me), on how I ended up in the gallows, on how nobody listened when I told them we couldn't stay with our arms crossed before so much injustice. And I completely forget how Roderic must have felt inside, with all the pain and frustration he must have carried since he was a child, when he witnessed how his (my) mother was raped right before his (my) eyes without being able to help it. As can be seen, even today it is hard for me to refer to him in the first person. They say we do this when it is necessary to distance ourselves of certain traumatic events. And the reason I avoid talking about Roderic's pain (my pain) is simple, I think: they taught me a man doesn't cry, they taught me a man should be strong. It is easy to express my pain in my current life when I think about Katrina. It is not easy at all to do it when I think about Roderic.
I think this has only happened to me with this past life, to feel physically attracted or identified with certain types of men that remind me a lot of him. The first time was with a singer in a rock band, someone tall, gangly and with very long and curly hair. This was even before I had specific memories. Later I realized that attraction was because he looked like Roderic. Then it happened with a character from the movie The Hobbit, Bard. Besides having long and curly hair, and carrying a bow, he's a very independent man, concerned about justice, and nobody listens to him. And lately I feel attracted to the character from A Song of Ice and Fire, Jaqen H'ghar: what a surprise, he has long, curly hair, he's very interested in death, he's independent, the first time he turns up he's a prisoner in a barred cart —just as Roderic was—, and in his eyes I perceive a sadness and a wisdom I am sure they also were in Roderic's eyes. Not any photo is valid. There is one where it could be very well he in his last days, in the gloom of his cell, alone and awaiting death.
Would I like to be Roderic again? No, of course not. Roderic was a product of his era and his circumstances. I still keep a lot of him, but I am a product of my era and my circumstances, we are not comparable. Then, why do I feel so much nostalgia? I think I was a great man. Physically he would very close to my ideal man. And spiritually he wasn't bad... I use to reproach him he gave up prematurely, though he denies it. Perhaps that's part of the problem. His arrogance will never let him acknowledge to me that he could have done things a different way. His stubborness took him to the gallows. Not that I repent, but how I would have liked to watch myself grow and become a much wiser and experienced Jaqen, totally distanced of the low instincts of the men of that era...