【 h.c. 】 ー love as a transaction, not reciprocation.
been thinking a lot recently how this fandom discusses whether or not doflamingo can 'love' the people in his life he considers valuable (ie. his brother, his crime family, etc.) in a pretty black-and-white way. it usually comes down to "he does love" or "he doesn't love". but, honestly, it's both.
neither of those answers really take his quite obvious mental illnesses (narcissistic tendencies, antisocial personality tendencies, etc.) into account. neither of those answers really take into account that a person with those illnesses can love and even believe themselves capable to, just... they're missing pieces. something is off. really, really off. he does, but he doesn't. it's complicated.
doflamingo doesn’t love like a normal person. he quite literally can’t; his base capacity for empathy is too low, and his sense of self-importance is too high. in his eyes, no one is his equal and very few people even come close (and you need to be of comparable value to him for him to take interest or you're a waste of his time) which means for the majority of his 'loved ones':
he attaches, but doesn't connect.
his love is transactional, not reciprocatory.
he can experience strong attachments to people he values, we even see it happen. law attacks trebol in ep. 799 and he stops his fight with luffy to intercept him. he gives that mini speech in ep. 683 after pica gets made fun of for his voice. he had a whole rule in place specifically so that no one would harm rosinante (you could argue that he did this because he needed him alive for the whole op op fruit thing and couldn't take any risksーbut i'll make another post eventually about how his attachment to rosinante was actually the strongest. the closest to real 'love', even.)
but he also... very conspicuously doesn't correct law in ep. 724 when he's trying to rile trebol up by saying doflamingo really doesn't give a shit about him at the end of the day. because law's right. he he doesn't. kind of.
he cares, but only because he realized, when he does nice things for people, they praise him.
he cares, but only because having people who love him around makes him feel good about himself.
he cares, but only because he realizes if he doesn't do favors for you sometimes, or offer you things of value in exchange for your value, like protection or status, you'll leave.
his capacity for empathy is so low that, really, the only time he can empathize is if thing he's supposed to be empathizing with physically happened to him (but, even then, you could argue it's not really empathy, it's projection). hence, his closeness with the top executivesーbut, even then, his 'love' is more akin to love for an object than love for a person.
we all have favorite things that we get attached to that we are very possessive & protective over:
you store it in a safe place
you're gentle when you clean it
you look to take it out & just admire it sometimes
you might even brag about it or show it off to people
you don't lend it out to just anybody, if you lend it out at all
if it gets broken or damaged, you get upset.
you attach memories to it (ex. the day you got it, the person who gave it to you, an event you wore it to, etc.) that make it even more valuable to you.
but, at the end of the day, it's just an object; if you lose it one day or it breaks, you'll be sad for a while (depending on how much it cost, or the memories attached) but... you get over it. it's only a thing, what's got you so upset? just buy another one, or at least a close substitute. in a couple months, you won't think about it and cry like you might if an actual person you loved died. because it's an object.
so, to answer the question: does he love?
yes, and no. it's complicated.