Yes--there's two things going on there. On one hand you can understand *why* a student responds the way they do to somebody taunting them. But otoh you have to really look at what they're doing and call a spade a spade. Like, self-defense is not the same thing as getting angry at someone. Or even if somebody is asking for it you're still giving it. Also, I think a lot of times in fandom even if you can understand what somebody's doing if you think about it further it brings up problems later on, but that's my point really, that we should just be able to talk about everything honestly, not that X is wrong and Y is right all the time.