Just finished S2 , i think Holden gets too much unnecessary hate
Holden isn't driven by ego and arrogance alone , he's also driven by lot of curiosity , he tries to genuinely try to understand killers rather than simply condemn them which is a really valuable trait in the kind of work he does
The entire Behavioral Science Unit exists because he keeps asking questions that everyone else is uncomfortable asking , what makes him the most interesting to me is how he rejects convention and tries to think out of the box all the time for which he is even ready to take steps that put his job into risk , i also found this interesting because at the start of the show we start with the theme of "crime is changing" and Holden's unconventional methods and thinking process is him adapting to this change.
A lot of his awkwardness comes from the fact that he's usually thinking about ideas rather than social conventions and like when u see patterns others miss some amount of unwavering belief in yourself is necessary.
I would not agree he is not empathetic at all , i think he does try to empathize with the killers he interviews but because he sees understanding them as a means to stop them which makes him seem cold and detached so he's not empathetic in the traditional because he is trying to study people all the time but the entire basis of his work is trying to understand people that everyone else has written off as monsters so he stop similar people in the future.
when things like intelligence, ambition, obsession, and social blindness exist in someone their personal relationships are bound to suffer , we see this in scientists , writers and other successful people(mostly geniuses) irl all the time but we admire them for the results they got us.
