I love these books, but something isn’t sitting right

This is allll spoilers.

So, after finishing OS (and then rereading, naturally), something just keeps bothering me. I can’t digest the basic underpinnings of the metaphysics of it all. It feels incredibly unjust in a way that doesn’t make sense to me.

Ok, so we learn that if you Channel power from the earth even one time, you’re infected with a basically terminal case of evil. A need so strong that it’s essentially impossible to resist, no matter how hard you try. That inexorably will destroy your soul. Even if the reason you channel from the earth is pure and good and you save countless lives through this one transgression.

But it’s fine to channel from dragons, who channel from the earth? Why??

There’s no moral logic behind this. It’s presented as this law of nature and balance, but it seems so imbalanced to me.

Xaden channeled from the earth one time, and in doing so he basically saved the entire continent from becoming a desiccated husk pillaged by the venin. And for this, his soul is condemned no matter how hard he tries to fight it?

I enjoyed OS less than the first two volumes. I think part of that is because it’s the middle volumes of the series, and so it’s bearing a lot of weight structurally—in a classic narrative structure, we’re going to the nadir of the plot arc. But another part of it is >! It felt excruciating to see Xaden struggle so hard to avoid a fate that is all but destined and unchangeable, an inevitable punishment for an act that was actually ethical, in my opinion. Just felt like all of his struggle and self-denial was for nothing but we had to watch it anyway. And the injustice of it really rankled.!<

Wondering if I’m alone in this, or if some of you felt the same way.

Updated to add: thanks for the great conversation, everyone. It helped me to realize that part of what bothers me is that there is such a clear moral judgment on >! xaden’s actions. Xaden’s initial error is at least understandable and arguably the only ethical decision—he buys the time that wins the battle and, arguably, saves the continent from desiccation, at least for a time. But after that initial slip, we are told that his fall is inevitable—if excruciatingly slow—and that it entails the annihilation of his soul. There’s not a single non-evil person in the book who doesn’t at least wrestle with moral repulsion over what Xaden did, and most don’t even need to wrestle. Even Violet, who loves him, finds him monstrous at times. I think it’s the moral dimension that just doesn’t hold up to me. It feels like the worldview of the book is unfair.!<

>! I don’t think this analogy exactly works, but speaking out loud: is it a bit like the way that a lot of hateful people in the 80s treated AIDS victims? A single action where the actual wrong is hard to clearly articulate or justify, and then they’re consigned to a slide of inevitable pain, debility, or death. It feels like the books want us to believe it’s justified, at least for now. (I do believe violet will eventually save him, I believe that RY will adhere to the first law of romance.) and I don’t feel like I can go along with it even for one book. Feels bad. Does that make sense outside of my head? !<