The Terminator’s mission in the first film is to perform a “retroactive abortion” by killing Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) before her son is born. T2 is about creating a surrogate father figure for John Connor, and even Sarah acknowledges in voiceover, “In an insane world, it was the sanest choice.” But it’s her narration before this line that really subverts Reese’s description from the first movie. In The Terminator, Reese says of the Terminator:
It can't be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.
But when Sarah sees the T-800 interacting with John in T2, she narrates:
The Terminator would never stop. It would never leave him, and it would never hurt him, never shout at him, or get drunk and hit him, or say it was too busy to spend time with him. It would always be there. And it would die, to protect him.