"I'll tell you this: El Patrón has his good side and his bad side. Very dark indeed is his majesty when he wants to be. When he was young, he made a choice, like a tree does when it decides to grow one way or the other. He grew large and green until he shadowed over the whole forest, but most of his branches are twisted."
No matter how one looks at it, Matteo is genetically identical to El Patron. They have the same blood, the same heart, the same brain, and the same potential. Tam Lin uses the simile of the tree to illustrate to Matt that we are not simply the sum of our genes, but the sum of our experiences and choices. Matt may have the potential to be as ruthless and twisted as El Patron, but he doesn’t have to be, and thus he has a chance at a very different future.
"There were eight of us," the old man cried. "We should all have grown up, but I was the only survivor. I am meant to have those lives! I am meant to have justice!"
El Patron here displays the true depth of his twisted mind and warped sense of justice. His siblings were killed, so he thinks he is owed for life for each one that was lost, but when one adds up all the clones he has created and subsequently killed, his scale leans pretty far toward the opposite perspective. El Patron’s belief that the world owes him something in return for his horrible early life has lead him to do despicable things, and get farther and farther from the traditional definition of justice in the process.
“He wasted no tears on the Alacráns or their slaves Felicia, Fani, and Emilia. But he wept for El Patrón, who deserved pity less than anyone but who was closer to Matt than anyone in the world.”
Despite all the terrible things El Patron has done Matt and to countless others, Matt cannot fully hate him. The old man was evil and crazy, to be sure, but he gave Matt the childhood he himself never truly got to experience, and treated him well for many years. Emotions are complicated, compassion and empathy most of all, and Matt cannot help but feel for the old man who was in a way, the closest thing to blood he ever had.
