Betty said (I THINK it was her, not quoting, but apologies if misattributed):
And Avon, in my reading of the character, is someone who is capable of carrying a lot of guilt over betrying someone or otherwise fatally letting them down (which seems to be the way he reacted to what he thought had happened with Anna).
I think that for Avon there was a simple analogy: that Anna was someone whom he failed to save/loved/needed/suffered for/and killed when he learned the true state of events.
After that, he was conditioned to believe that that was exactly the sort of thing that happened to him. So when he failed to save Blake after Star One/loved/needed/and suffered for him...
-(Y)