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If this were Dostoevsky the story would now shift to an empathetic study of the misunderstood Dolokhov and how it was we all along who had misunderstood this seemingly cold sociopath. But Tolstoy is more nuanced that that – Dolokhov, though a complicated figure, is not let off the hook so easily. He does not ask us to forgive Dolokhov, he only shows us complicated people are – what we think is up to us.