8. If your muse could feel the emotional pain of the people they hurt, would this deter their villainous behavior? (seems like an interesting question for any of them)
Villainous Muse Questions (accepting)
This becomes an interesting yet simple situation when you consider Ansem, because he already can. He’s a Heartless, and he feeds off of all that darkness spawned from pain and negative emotions. It’s not a lack of empathy that allows him to do terrible things, its that he is an existence with a completely new and different set of rule and priorities.
Xemnas is tricky. He certainly has no real emphathetic concept of other’s emotions, including their suffering, whatsoever. If he did, would he start to regret the pain he was causing? Or would he, as usual, shift the blame to the nature of the heart itself, see it as proof of his views, and only let it drive him even harder towards the goal of a world where hearts are no longer the supreme power?
Xehanort would be the most likely to be deterred, if by deterred you mean “continues to push desire for knowledge on one hand against his conscience on the other, until a spectacular meltdown is achieved and he is no longer functional enough to do anything, evil included”. As with Xemnas, there is the view that any suffering he causes (or endures) is a sacrifice towards a far greater end.
So in short: none of them are evil simply through lack of empathy. Xehanort has it but supresses it. Xemnas doesn’t have it, but if you could flick that switch back on it wouldn’t change much. And the form of empathy that Ansem possesses actively encourages him to make people suffer. (Remember: empathy is not necessarily sympathy)
