Okay since no one is talking about it I will. I think there is a whole another layer of messed up when looking at the whole Grimwalker situation. So let me explain:
So far we don’t have too much information on the whole Grimwalker process and how Belos even found out it was possible in the first place. So you may be wondering! What could make this crusty puritan wrinkly balls old man even worse? Well, it’s the fact that he likely raised each and every golden guard from “ birth “ and then watched them die when they ended up betraying him. And I use betray lightly, however, I’m going to come back to that later.
So far we can assume that there as been over 15 versions of the golden guard/clones of Philip’s brother. This means he raised 20 children himself,( to make things simpler I’m going to round up and assume that all made it to or close to adulthood ) Because the Emperor’s coven was only established 50 years before the start of the show that means that before he became emperor he was taking personal care of/looking after each clone. So you can’t really say that he was just pushing them onto someone else and only taking an interest within them once they became old to enough to be useful. It’s common sense, by making himself the only adult/parental figure in their lives, he would be alienating the clones and making them solely loyal and dependent on him due to them not knowing any different.
He had to be something to them. How many stories did he tell of a broken or dead family, how many lies did he tell of who he was to them? An older brother? A father, distant relative, maybe an uncle? There had to be some emotion attachment, some bond that tied them together apart from isolation. Otherwise why would the clones stay loyal? Inklings of kindness, of course, only when they did something right, something that pleased him, after-all, he was family and he took them in out of his grace.
It’s the fact he likely named all of them, held them, took care of them, taught them. This is not me trying to portray Belos in a sympathetic light, but only to demonstrate how much a horrible monster he is. Because even if they were his family, that was never enough to save them from the tortured fates they met at his hands. Someone who was supposed to love them unconditionally, at the bare minimum care for them in some capacity, ended each and every life he made.
And this made me wonder, what did the clones do to make Belos think they deserved such fates? How did Belos come to suddenly decide this, and not only do it once, but over and over again? I think back to what the Collector said, about how Belos probably likes to destroy them. What if he was looking for an excuse to kill them? To take out in built up resentment and anger upon them over small transgressions? This leads me to this:
Belos was likely using each one as a replacement for his brother, trying, over and over again to create the perfect version of him. However, none of them met his expectations. He wanted the perfect brother who wouldn’t betray him, the one he remembered, and they didn’t fit. So when the time was right he found an excuse to kill them off, replace them with another and try again. Even if he did raise them, nurture them, he murdered them all in cold blood. The clones probably loved Belos, or at least cared for him deeply, and in more dark sense, saw him as their father.
So essentially the part that makes the Hollow Mind reveal entirely all the worse was that Belos was essentially the only parental figure/father figure in their lives and raised all of the Golden Guard clones by himself to adulthood, only to later slaughter them every time.
Sorry if this doesn’t make sense, this is just some of my thoughts strewn together incoherently but I just wanted to point this out. Also I didn’t see anyone talking about this. So just to emphasize the point. Dusty Puritan Bitch basically killed all of his kids repeatedly.