Lavellan has enough presence of mind to keep from saying but you are a machine, and instead considers this. "I don't think anyone would argue that suffering through pain and emotional turmoil is a welcome part of being alive and real," and she knows a man who'd have argued that even if they were, if it wasn't the right kind of people doing the suffering it wasn't real. At least he'd changed that opinion, a little.

"But nor do I think we would be the same without it." So they made him as real as they could, and then asked him to fight. Lavellan is not sure that's fair -- he doesn't have the choice to pick, but they made him to be as human as any shemlen. In fact, she's certain that makes it worse.