To me Gabriel isn't one of the best villains because he's scary, but because he's a little more complicated to me. Though I'm not going to argue that he should have won at the end of the movie.
If you haven't yet seen the film I would highly suggest watching it before continuing to read this post.
While still in their mother's womb, Maddy and Gabriel fought a war for dominance. This is based off of a real thing. Sometimes one twin will devour the other while both are still in the womb. But in Maddy and Gabriel's case, the latter was not completely destroyed.
Instead Gabriel was barely able to hold onto life. He barely managed to have only part of himself embedded into Maddy which left him completely at her mercy after they were born.
Since Gabriel had to fight for survival since before he was born, his survival instincts have always been strong. The problem with his strong survival instincts is that it means he has less of an instinct to be empathetic.
While it is only confirmed that Gabriel was feeding on Maddy once they were admitted to the Simion Research Hospital, it's very likely he was doing so before then. It's not due to him being evil but due to his survival instincts telling him not to die. The interesting thing about nature is that it's neither good nor evil, it just is. This does mean that Maddy was suffering for a long time by her own flesh and blood.
Serena May, birth mother of both Maddy and Gabriel, abandoned her children when all were very young. Since it was an age in which a normal child would just be learning how to interpret the world, Gabriel would have taken their abandonment to be an important life lesson: that no one, no matter how loving they seemed to be, could betray you.
Thus his strong survival instincts would be coupled with intense abandonment issues. With that it would be nearly impossible for Gabriel to form attachments to anyone. The most likely path of his life would mean doing everything to be in control. Having a life all of his own would mean he would need his own body. A body he would need to steal from Maddy.
Shortly before Gabriel killed Victor Fields, the doctor seemed ashamed about working at Simion Research Hospital. Thus it can be assumed that the place wasn't all sunshine and roses. While the doctors had the best of intentions, most likely, they could never be the help Gabriel would need to repair his lack of empathy.
He had been abandoned and was now being looked at like some experiment. Even people not as mentally damaged as Gabriel was before entering the Simion Research Hospital would be hard pressed not to come out of it with some mental scars. Even Maddy didn't come out undamaged as she got into an abusive marriage which imitated her relationship with Gabriel.
Gabriel's history makes me pity him as he had no control over being evil. He was destined to be evil when he survived being eaten by Maddy in the womb. Even if Serena May didn't abandon them and he was allowed a loving family, he might still have turned out evil.
By the time of Malignant, there was no turning back from an extremely dark path for Gabriel. He not only kills out of revenge, but out of a need to remove any of Maddy's loved ones from helping her. Thus showing that he's like her ex-husband.
Gabriel can't be allowed his freedom or else he would kill a lot of people. He killed everyone in the jail cell merely because they were physically harassing his host's body. He could have just killed those that were actually harming Maddy but chose to take out his rage on everyone.
Now if Maddy and Gabriel could have a symbiotic relationship, he would more than deserve his freedom. But, sadly, that's only possible in the realm of fanfiction.
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