I am now going to talk about Erik Lensherr a lot. Only Scott will care.
My first thought on getting to him was "oh, this is right", and I meant in the sense of the unending rage. I am very, very pleased with his lack of reliance on others, his brutality, his single-mindedness, and his anger. I was most especially pleased with the tight, angry smile as he sat there drinking beer with these Nazi fucks in Argentina; it all rang deliriously true. It is very hard to get a handle on this - on the one hand, there's a fine tradition of people Going All Batman on seeing a parent murdered in comics, but that hand is providing there is someone to guide them, which Erik clearly didn't have. It's also clear that he has a tremendous - and I mean tremendous strength of will, not just in his single-minded pursuit of revenge but also in not becoming utterly servile to/attached to Schmidt/Shaw in the first place in one of those deeply unpleasant captor-headfuck situations.
And I just don't think, regardless of his DICKHEAD MOMENT of declaring that he'd totes felt Erik's agony, that Charles has the mental equipment to deal with what any of this means. He hasn't been held in captivity and experimented on and made a thing. He hasn't got a honking great cultural memory of horrifying oppression hanging over him next to a very acute personal sensation of loss, pain, degradation, and extremely apposite rage. I can't stress this enough. Yes, Charles is right inasmuch that rage is holding him back and clouding his vision, but in expecting him to just remove a fundamental plank of his being without any trouble at all he's expecting the impossible. You can't do that. No, killing Shaw evidently won't bring Erik peace, because what would bring him peace is security that he doesn't have to fear will end at any minute.
That's what's been in Charles's life and has been violently missing from Erik's all along the way. They've both learnt self-reliance, but Charles has learnt self-reliance within society and protecting others, and Erik has learnt to protect himself because there is no one else who can or will do it and he cannot stop protecting himself, not for a minute or a second, because no one can be trusted. Anyone might turn around and shoot his mother again. No one. Is. Safe.
IDFK BUT CAN YOU SEE THE POINT OF OVERIDENTIFICATION.
Seriously, Xavier, could you not maybe have understood that the trust you got from him was disproportionate and special rather than trying to push beyond the limits of what his person could take? You are a douche. I AM NOT SURPRISED HE PUT ON A HELMET TO KEEP YOU OUT, YOU KEPT TRYING TO CONTROL HIM. Being in control of his own life and at the mercy of no one but himself is REALLY REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT TO THAT GUY, okay? He spent a shittonne of tiime being experimented on, tortured, and imprisoned. I think maybe that not allowing anyone to have control of him again - and certainly not to have control of his MID - is probably a fucking massive deal for him. Massive. HUGE. And the self-protection and anger and generally I just identify hard with him and my parents aren't even dead of Nazis and I'm pretty sure I've never been in a concentration camp (this whacking great chunk of mym family were, but they all like, died, and so basically it's not really related to me beyond "we have some common ancestors" and the answer is "Roma" in case you were interested which you're not).
SO ANYWAY. My main feelings on this are that while Erik's actions are not justified they are at least explicable, his personality is a logical (and kind of an impressive one) based on his experiences and emotions, and Charles has no fucking idea what he's talking about. You can't just damp-eye someone like that into doing everything you say, Charlieboy. You have to WORK. WITH. HIM. It has to be a two-way street. You have to actually learn some shit yourself from looking into his mind, like maybe, IDK, the value of letting other people make decisions. Or how the fuck people who haven't grown up in a bajillionty dollar mansion and gone to Oxford tend to be different to you, Charles.