Quote Originally Posted by kozzi24 View Post
In #24, the Artificer "needs" "one who loves him, one who hates him and one of great power" to rescue Walter's soul. While this quickly proved to be a trap, why would he bait a group of rescuers with one who hates him unless he could sense that hatred? I always figured he hated Aurora being with Walt because he hated Walt.
Again, it was just my original take, but intense feelings can easily become hate when spurned.

Mantlo's later confession by Northstar to Wanda of "preferring the man you were" as an eye candy factor, not lust.
It could work either way, but I'm basing it simply on Byrne's initial conflict between the two.

Think about it. In their high school years, JP was a self-aware gay kid and Walt was a jock and a bully. It's very reasonable that JP would truly hate him.
Would J-P have known that from their initial meeting? I'm not saying 'love at first sight' as I hadn't mentioned love, just feelings, but a physical attraction on first impression. THEN he discovered he was a bully THEN he started a relationship with his sister THEN he genetically altered his sister and distanced the two of them after only recently finding each other (in the grand scheme of things).
That'd be enough to have feelings become confused as hatred, or even turn into hatred, and certainly enough to cause tension within the ranks.

But again, it's been years since my first reading and it was just my initial thoughts.