Santino is at no point shown to make an effort to apologize for his past actions though he attempts to show his regret and good will through actions. But Santino likely, unless forced, will not apologize at any point. His reasoning for this is that he is not capable of redemption and to ask for it in the first place would only add insult to injury. Of course with this thinking he is cutting out a crucial step for the other party, namely the satisfaction of denying him. He does it for them. This ultimately only makes him appear unrepentant.
Santino doesn’t hunt the evildoer. The short version is that he does not believe he has the right to decide who deserves a death sentence. He spent many years as judge, jury and executioner and he no longer wants to do it. He also grew up in deeply Christian times, when a death sentence for a criminal did not only mean the end of life but also certain damnation of the soul. While he does not actively believe in God anymore, specific thought patterns remain. He doesn’t want to be the one to decide who is beyond saving.
Santino considers turning someone a crime worse than murder. It condemns the victim to a perverse existence which can only sustain itself by the harm it does to others and which ultimately might just drive them mad. Santino despised his maker with a passion and finds the dependence fostered between maker and fledgling very repulsive.
When highly intoxicated, Santino might fall back into a medieval Abruzzese dialect of Italian which has quite a handful of Germanic influences and as he speaks it very quickly, it’s near impossible to understand. He has not intentionally spoken this dialect since he left his hometown.
Santino has an impressive knack for languages. He picks up on grammar and vocabulary with rapid speed and even speaks dead languages with ease, to such a degree that he is able to have whole arguments. For example: He used an ancient Egyptian dialect to fight with Maharet while Jesse was staying with her. Because he was actually fighting with Maharet about Jesse and he didn’t want her to eavesdrop.
Has Santino ever deliberately set out to emotionally hurt someone?
Oh yes, and many times! Emotional trauma was his bread and butter in the cult. Most prominently of course is everything he did to Armand. Certainly he meant to convey the irredeemable evil of their vampiric nature when he sent Armand’s best friend down into the dungeon to be devoured by him but he still did that fully knowing it would traumatize the hell out of Armand. And it sure did.
