In looking at all of Xavier's appearances and relationships since the beginning of the Krakoan Age, I can't help but feel like the X Office has been scapegoating him for most things going wrong right now.
Relationship with Legion? It's always been bad, but now let's make Xavier become an even worse father by retconning Legion's birth to be the mechanations of his parents AND make Xavier perpetually unable to sustain a healthy developing relationship with Legion by making him f-up every opportunity he gets.
Magneto dies with the warning to Storm that we must be wary of good men like Charles. Is Xavier really worse than Magneto here or does Magneto get his sins washed away because he's a bad ass?
Emma Frost feels like Xavier (and Magneto) dealt in bad faith with her, but let's be honest it's mostly Xavier. She...literally used to murder people with Shaw and she's even forgiven Shaw after murdering Kate? But Xavier is unforgivable for trying to make the Krakoan experiment work before entrusting its secrets to the the QC?
I think thematically what frustrates me the most is that we are being fed narrative that Xavier is bad for being manipulative and trying to manufacture outcomes in his relationships and is a hypocrit for saying he is a good man to do all this. But the real world is complicated, politicians and statesmen are complicated and the implications of their work are complex and operate in shades of grey.
I'm not asking for pro-Xavier nostalgia from the past, but I feel like we're losing a lot of complexity in storytelling by undermining the work that Xavier has done in keeping his society functioning. It feels like a very gen Z take on the character - oh gotcha you're a problematic politician and cancelled and you're a failure in all aspects of your life. Its like, let's take this iconic figure and "deconstruct" him because that's edgy and the only way we can make him seem different than previous iterations.
Our characterization of Xavier has become so bad, it's gotten to the point where Apocalypse and Mr. Sinister get less criticism than Xavier nowadays, and yes the standards are different for villains, but we've come to a point narratively where we might think that Apocalypse would have done a better job at steering the QC.
At the same time, I do recognize he is a bad man, a bad dad, and a bad colleague for all of the reasons above. So what do we think are ways moving forward with the character that respects the intricacies of what this character and his character arc are trying to do? Or is his character going down with the Krakoan ship?