Palamedes and Harrowhark are both geniuses but the difference is that Pal spent his life in an environment that valued effort, ability, intelligence, and teamwork (well, to a point) while Harrow grew up knowing that 200 people were killed just to conceive her and had to run a planet while playing Weekend At Bernie’s with her parents’ corpses for 7 years starting at age 10, and also the reason they died was because they committed suicide when she told them she broke the rules and expected her to do the same so completely that they didn’t even wait
so that’s why each of them is the way they are