Hot take on necromancers (+liches) in fantasy:
They aren't the embodiments of death, nor harbingers of death, they are the embodiment of the inability to ever let go and move on.
While I do agree that necromancers don't respect the natural order and the natural cycle of life and death, I don't think necromancers would realistically love death and hate life, it just doesn't make sense if their whole thing is in a nutshell bringing back the dead and restoring life/consciousness. Like, everything they do requires bringing the dead back to life or a living death not taking life and ceasing it forever, even bending the will of the undead and healing the dead requires to bring them back from the grave in the first place.
There are a lot better types of magic to use in terms of bringing death and destruction than using necromancy, but there is only one type of magic to bring a loved one back from the grave.
You can't even say a necromancer would respect death or hold it to high reverence, if they did they will let the dead lie in peace. The only logic I can see a necromancer who loves death and hates all life is "if I bring them back to life I can control them for power and destroy all life using my undead army *evil noises*" but like you need life to exist for things to die, you know that right? and if you aren't bringing all life back permanently, and your army is completely immortal because they are undead, there is no point in getting more, and if your army can still die and not be resurrected afterwords meaning you need to replenish your forces, destroying all life will make you eventually run out of things to raise from the dead and make your power obsolete.
And even if they're immortal and it's all about world dominance, what's the point when you control everyone? like... For starters that is a management nightmare, lonely, there can only be so much possible expansion before nothing else can be achieved. If there is no one else with freewill but you only you can trigger events and things are up to solely you, things will get dull after awhile without the unpredictableness of externals and even if you do make achievements and advancements you're the only one who can use it, you're the only one who can acknowledge it, there is no one to love you and be proud of you.
That's not very sustainable, dude, are you seriously telling me you are intelligent enough to figure out the magical discipline to bring back the dead and dedication to study and learn the necromantic spells to achieve the ability to cheat death but you don't have the foresight to realize that your main goal is not sustainable? Yeah, I ain't buying it
I think a necromancer would be a person who does love life to a point that they cannot accept death and cling onto it anyway they can. They will be individuals who cannot accept the loss of a loved one, they cannot accept that all things living must die and cannot be with them forever. They cannot bear the idea of the others around them growing old and dying, they can't accept when others die before their time, they can't understand why young children must fall to illnesses, die and miss out on their lives, they can't bear the fact that some people got their lives stolen from them, they cannot allow themselves to outlive their pets, they will do anything in their power to resurrect a grandparent they were close to, and they will cry a river if they ever run into someone they can't bring back to life or make undead and thus immortal. I think a necromancer would be someone who loves so deeply and is so attached to the others around them to a point that they can never bear to let go of anyone.
Heck, it even makes sense for liches to be completely enamoured with life more than anyone because they want to use it to live forever, they may live by the whole "you don't choose the cards you're dealt in life but you do choose how you play them" but they cannot accept the "either way the game ends the same" they never want the game to end, they cannot accept that there is an end, they only want the beginning to last forever, they want to keep on playing they don't want it to be their last game they don't want to say goodbye. They could still want power for sure, but they wouldn't want to live forever, cheat death makes the world a beginning without an end if they hated life so much, they don't respect death for sure, but they don't know how to move on and let go, they can't handle grief, they can't handle the thought of no longer existing, hell, their greatest fear may be dying themselves.
Yeah, necromancers and Liches don't respect the natural order at all, but they would definitely love life and the living so much but can't accept that death is something a part of life and will do anything to prevent the end. They aren't edgy goths, emotionless psychos, sadists, nor serial killers; they are just the types of individuals who cannot let go of anything or anyone that bawl and cry when they learnt about sun will explode in approximately 5-8 billion years killing all life on Earth.
