Do you think Abel relates to Iris losing her family and being used as a tool to further the goals of an uncaring authority and even sympathizes with her?
Oh, absolutely, yeah. He's a hypocrite for feeling this way, being the authority that oppresses her in this way beside Bowe and The Foundation, but he absolutely does relate to her.
To me, Abel feels a very stark and strong solidarity with Iris in the way that while in Omega-7, Him and Iris are the only Anomalous individuals around each other. This definitely isn't the only reason he feels closer to her, but it's certainly a reason. He almost feels like he needs to be her comrade due to the circumstance of their partnership, alongside feeling like this is the only chance he has to have an interesting apprentice.
As for if he holds sympathies towards her, I'd imagine yes, but I feel as though Abel feels traditional sympathy much different than how others feel it. He's certainly sympathetic towards her predicament, being oppressed, controlled, and branded by The Foundation, I dont exactly think he cares much about her losing her family, though. In fact, I think he's pretty glad she did. It's another thing they can bond over (and another thing he can level against her) in his eyes. Besides, all his family did was leave him to die. Who's to say Iris's family wouldn't do the same to her?
Abel thinks Iris is awfully similar to how he was as a child. He doesn't think this conclusion is to far fetched. He thinks he can make her more powerful and more useful than they ever could have. He also believed the pseudo family he gifted her (Omega-7) was much more competent than they ever could've been, at least for that moment, before everything went awry.
I think in terms of The Foundations' goals, Abel is certainly annoyed but not very caring about them. He doesn't really care what the Foundation does, I don't think. He's more interested in how he can use them as opportunities to push his own agenda. I almost imagined he sees it like a game, hes a cold and analytical person who enjoys strategy an unhealthy amount, to him I can imagine their agenda pushing on beside his makes him having their task force to run miles more interesting than if he had started it up on his own.
Finally, one of the main reasons why I imagined Abel sympathized with Iris so strongly was because of the fact that I imagined he felt personally responsible for her and her wellbeing unlike anyone he had known for a very long time up until that point. There's a parallel I made that I particularly enjoyed, being that The Foundation gave Abel a gift, much like Abel gave a gift to God. The youngest of their flock, a sheep to lead, an apprentice to take on. That means a lot to him. I always imagined Abel to be incredibly jealous of his brother in every aspect, one of those aspects being how his brother could inseminate other woman and have families of his own, unlike himself, who was infertile, and had never had such a thing after his untimely death. In a way, Abel feels like he must be Iris's guardian because of this. In another, he deeply wants to be her guardian. He didn't think he'd have an opportunity like that for a long time there-after, so he took advantage of that.
