Apparently oblivious to all of this, King Ben says, "'Wrong' means that something hurts people and there isn't a good reason to do it, like it helping a lot of other people. And 'sorry' means that you realize that the thing you did was bad, and you're going to try to fix it as best you can, and you're not going to do it again."

"Oh, you know, that's fascinating. Those are excellent words that I really think I was missing for important concepts!"

"So, 'King Ben'. It's wrong to trap people who have never done anything to hurt you on an island full of garbage. It's wrong to take away their magic so that, when a plague comes, they die screaming, bloated, and rot in the streets until they burst, and then their families starve because the faeries and half-faeries who might have been able to do something - are powerless!" Her smile is still cold, cold and ruthless.

"It is, then, wrong to make someone live in a world where the richest prizes to claim were what you and yours discarded as rubbish. Wrong to trap them somewhere where the only children to survive are those who are the quickest to steal and eat garbage. Wrong to make others live in a world where men farmed rats to eat who were just as smart as men, isn't it, 'King Ben', wrong to the rats at least? And wrong to put three children together in a room with food for one - but when that one comes to greet you, 'King Ben', you say 'sorry' to her. But you don't say sorry to the dead, because those two just aren't there any more, no one here to apologize to, so you say sorry to me."

Her teeth are very sharp. "Yet here we are, 'King Ben', we are; four off the Isle of the Lost. Only four. Do you say sorry to Uma, 'King Ben', sorry to Jiang Yanli, who are still on the Isle? Isn't leaving them there wrong? Or am I perhaps misunderstanding the rules of goodness, of wrong and sorry? I do like to understand what I'm missing."

"Yes, it is wrong. I tried to get all of you and my dad wouldn't let me. If I were better at being a king, I might have been able to get more, and I'm going to try really hard to get as many of you as I can."

... There are levels of groveling where she cannot stab someone doing them unless she is convinced it is a trap.

"And here I thought you were king," she says drily. 

(But the tension has, at least partly, lifted. She doesn't think he can just lie to her face, however insane his signals are, and you don't just deliberately signal false powerlessness, seriously, what's the point.)

"Yeah, my dad still does most of the actual ruling, he just delegates to me everything he doesn't want to do."

Why is he being deferent to Alida, seriously, this is bizarre! Does she have secret magic powers or something?

Every sentence out of his mouth is just bizarrely alien! How does she respond to this??? The point of being a boss is that you don't do things you don't want to! Things a boss has to do are "maintain power" and "don't die" and you can't delegate those!

She needs to find someone she can milk for Auradonian Philosophy of Rulership or something so she can translate, this is bizarre.

Weird fucking dude.

"Anyway, you can come to me if you need help! --My friend Asher will show you around."

Asher was, apparently, in a tree!

Asher also has very coherent body language from the Isle's perspective. His body language says, very clearly, "I have more food than you, don't fuck with me."

He sure does, wow.

Decent stealth skills, too.

See, King Ben had a bodyguard hidden, she was right not to stab him.

She'll give him a polite nod, as one gives to people outside your chain of command who can take you in a fight.

Cool! They're meeting Prince Asher. He always seemed nice from the television. 

"I'll be showing you guys to your dorm rooms and helping you get set up, and I can answer any questions you have."

Having questions would require knowing anything. She can't ask about power structures or magic items or where to find books on explosives-making - "What are you teaching us?"

Fine question. "Do you have books?" Hey, things have been going well, might as well shoot for the moon!

"I can show you the library after I take you to your dorm rooms."

"I think library first."

"I want to go to the library too!"

"All right, library it is. This way."

Wait, that worked?

Time to follow Prince Asher, then.

Library? They just have libraries that people can go to?

... Do these libraries by chance have books on science and chemistry and engineering, to pick three random examples?

The library has more books than the villain kids previously knew existed in the entire world. The shelves reach up to the ceiling, and there are signs-- New Fiction, Romance, Folklore, Philosophy and Psychology, Arts and Recreation, Social sciences, and (yes) both Science and Technology.

Tetley makes a beeline to New Fiction.

Science!!!!