Oh I agree with all of that. I think his actions and his way of handling situations is quite similar to the victor in the book(narcissism, avoiding responsibilities, apathy towards his creation), I just wanted to hear more of OP’s thoughts on the matter cause I thought it’s ironic they said not to “dumb down victor’s actions” while dumbing down the criticism of him to just “people think he’s evil.”
It depends on your definition of evil, so I agree with you on that note... Me saying there’s more to Victor than him just being “evil” is not me saying he’s a good person or excusing what he does. I’m just saying his behavior doesn’t come from nowhere. Every comment I see here is just dogging on him for being cold to Heart without even acknowledging that the guy is seriously mentally messed up. That doesn’t erase the harm, and I’m not downplaying his neglect at all. But if you actually read the story, it’s pretty clear he’s not acting out of pure malice, and he has serious mental issues. Reducing everything to “he’s just evil” is exactly the kind of oversimplification I was talking about, and that is the constant criticism I see under this story. So I don't think I'm "dumbing down the criticism," most of the hatred I've seen towards Victor holds that exact form of "Victor neglects Heart, I hate him." That being said, I didn't read the book yet, but I was planning to, so I'm not fully versed in his behavior. I think it's less about me ignoring Victor's wrongs and more about hating the way that some readers make everything seem so black and white, if that makes sense? (Also, just a side note: I feel like if Victor did just run away with heart and just live happily ever after, that would seem too easy and frankly wouldn't make an interesting story in my opinion...)

lets not dumb everything down to "victor evil he ignore heart wah wah" please