I like how they frame ML's distance from the FL as being "oh no poor me my previous wife was murdered", but in the flashback they don't show him legitimately loving/mourning his wife, she took advantage of him / had affairs, and when she got murdered he just had a comedic shocked expression while his aide goes "so THAT happened..." with anime sweat drops. If you wanna make me feel sympathetic for the ML's past as a reason for treating Ram like that at the start, you should make an effort to show him actually giving a damn about his previous wife before he got "twisted" into not caring, lmao. Just seems like he was the same in the past, too.
And then we have the whole "being the ruler means killing the competition" part. It would be sympathetic, if he wasn't actively perpetuating the system. It's like a slave owner crying about being a slave in his youth and how evil the system is while whipping his slaves.
fwiw, I do think it's a bit different, because from the flashback implications, he seems to have changed the system from "murder all the other candidates competition" to "the candidates compete by going to school", which is undoubtedly more humane. So, more like a former slave becoming a CEO and then giving their workers absolutely shit conditions, but ultimately still leaving them the option of quitting rather than being actual slaves.
That's not to say I like the guy though, I still hate his character, and I don't think a competition-based succession is reason enough to ignore his kid like that.