Obviously, it's best that all people be good people all the time. But people do not exist in a vacuum. It is made very clear that the Director of SHIELD answers to the WSC, and also that they are a toxically sociopathic organization. I find it hard to believe that anybody could climb to power under their aegis without first proving that he can be just as remorseless as they are. Empathy goes both ways. You can't keep it as a tool allowing you to read people and assess the best way of using them without damaging them when you have been forced to suppress its effects on your own emotions so that you can prove yourself to evil people and still be able to sleep at night.
I could easily believe that a good man named Nick once made the decision to pay the necessary cost so that he could gain the power to veto arbitrary nuking of Manhattan. That his counterbalance, safety net, and leash was his friend Phil who could be shielded from enough of the frankly immoral necessary decisions that he could /stay/ a noble, empathic man. And that when he suddenly found himself without that necessary guidance on how to handle a group of brilliant, powerful, emotionally damaged individuals, he went with a dramatic gesture that worked perfectly in the very short term and had messy fallout afterwards.
Re: Why I love Phil--
I could easily believe that a good man named Nick once made the decision to pay the necessary cost so that he could gain the power to veto arbitrary nuking of Manhattan. That his counterbalance, safety net, and leash was his friend Phil who could be shielded from enough of the frankly immoral necessary decisions that he could /stay/ a noble, empathic man. And that when he suddenly found himself without that necessary guidance on how to handle a group of brilliant, powerful, emotionally damaged individuals, he went with a dramatic gesture that worked perfectly in the very short term and had messy fallout afterwards.
--manchieva