I feel like there’s probably about 50 different directions that one could take that idea, and the story very clearly paints that act as a Bad Thing™ to have done.
But to play devil’s advocate (just because I have also been missing this type of discussion), one could argue that experiencing love would compromise Miquella’s plans for his planned age of compassion. An age of compassion would be one which treats everyone equally, to try to universally end worldly suffering.
Love, on the other hand, is what allows one to play favorites, and is also something that cannot really be controlled. Having a stronger attachment towards some people over others because of love would result in discontent, and sabotage the type of egalitarian compassion Miquella wanted to create.
Marika’s reign became rocky because there were conflicts between those she favored and those she shunned. She absolutely played favorites, and did not love everyone equally. Her solution to break the cycle of suffering was to simply remove death from the world entirely, but as we saw, that just ended up making its own whole host of problems.
So I think Miquella was trying to avoid making that same mistake of favoritism we saw under Marika, but ended up making another mistake which could have been just as potentially consequential as his mother’s decision to shatter the rune of death. A dispassionate “compassion” wouldn’t really be compassion at all.
Honestly, the only thing I don’t condone him doing is literally giving up his love. How can he be a benevolent god without that?
I feel like there’s probably about 50 different directions that one could take that idea, and the story very clearly paints that act as a Bad Thing™ to have done.
But to play devil’s advocate (just because I have also been missing this type of discussion), one could argue that experiencing love would compromise Miquella’s plans for his planned age of compassion. An age of compassion would be one which treats everyone equally, to try to universally end worldly suffering.
Love, on the other hand, is what allows one to play favorites, and is also something that cannot really be controlled. Having a stronger attachment towards some people over others because of love would result in discontent, and sabotage the type of egalitarian compassion Miquella wanted to create.
Marika’s reign became rocky because there were conflicts between those she favored and those she shunned. She absolutely played favorites, and did not love everyone equally. Her solution to break the cycle of suffering was to simply remove death from the world entirely, but as we saw, that just ended up making its own whole host of problems.
So I think Miquella was trying to avoid making that same mistake of favoritism we saw under Marika, but ended up making another mistake which could have been just as potentially consequential as his mother’s decision to shatter the rune of death. A dispassionate “compassion” wouldn’t really be compassion at all.