Asher is the perfect example of Herr's quote, even furthermore the description of Herr's quote that follows, about the Nazi general who reads his children bedtime stories and kisses them goodnight who spent the whole day gassing Jews and dragging their dead bodies from the chambers to graves. Asher has created a false persona to hide the trauma he experienced as a child and consequently the monster he became. At school, and then at home in front of his parents, he is a perfect, popular, angelic child who can do no wrong, or at least he intimidates people into believing that. However, only Leo and a select few other victims see the side of Asher that is a true monster; the manipulating, abusive, violent, and evil person he became. As a reader, we can clearly identify Asher's role as the villain in this novel, because of the damage we can see he has done to Leo. Although Asher's personality changed as a result of him enduring sexual abuse, and likely rape, from his beloved uncle at a young age, it is not enough to make us see Asher as the victim, because he then does the same and worse to Leo, as well as bullies and hurts other kids. Through flashbacks and memories from Leo, we see that Asher was once a fun, bright, kind and energetic child who truly cared about Leo; they were practically brothers, which ultimately makes his shift into being Leo's sworn enemy and a monster particularly dramatic. We see the 'human' side of Asher, and well as the 'monster' side, as did Leo, which explains why this quote from Herr resonates so strongly with Leo.