An important thing to note about Hal is that he is getting on in years – he’s in his late fifties and has lived a very hard life at sea for nearly forty of them. He has – as a result – varying troubles that come with that advanced age. 

His sleep isn’t what it used to be, his bones ache more than ever before ( especially when the barometric pressure shifts ) and his hands – which have been arthritic since his late thirties – are getting quite bad. 

His eyes have deteriorated – he needs glasses to read, and in fact this deterioration is what forced him to retire from his position in the nest taking the long shots needed to turn the tide of battles. 

These are all things a man can suffer in silence or grumble about. What he can’t keep quiet is the fact that his memory is not what it used to be. He forgets conversations entirely – can confidently hold the exact same dialogue on multiple occasions with no real awareness he is repeating himself. He shares the same stories, and when confronted on it, forges forward with that story stubbornly. If he doesn’t address it, then it isn’t there. It can’t affect him. 

It is a short term memory affliction above all else. And while bad days can see him frustrated with it, for the most part he has found ways to cope by focusing hyper intensively on the things he deems important to remember, and dropping the rest. This can mean he is not as observant as he once was, and he is easier to manipulate because he forgets grievances and his particular reasons behind certain arguments because he didn’t deem them pressing enough at the time, and has lost them when it comes round that they might be more relevant. 

However, for the most part, he has perfected his way of coping with it to make it appear like he is just fucking with people – and as long as that keeps working, he sees no reason to worry about it. 

A fun note: When he deems something important, he plays it over and over in his head, and sometimes, will write it down in a journal he keeps on his person. The notes are all in a shorthand of his own devising from his Navy days, which means that – due to how he built it and how long he has used it, he is unlikely to forget his meanings for a great deal of time to come.