Even villains see themselves as the heroes of their own stories. Bloodraven believed that he was fighting for a good cause, and that that cause justified any action or sacrifice done in its name, no matter how repugnant.
In the name of preserving House Targaryen, Bloodraven became a kinslayer and a murderer, allowed Dagon Greyjoy to burn his way all along the west coast, did nothing while starvation and drought and crime punished the interior, and constructed a fearsome police state the likes of which had never been seen before. He violated every conceivable taboo and custom, save for slavery. But he also kept Daeron’s line on the Iron Throne, brought Dagon to justice, stopped the spread of plague in King’s Landing. And at least he recognized that his own actions were abhorrent, hence why he accepted his punishment for the murder of Aenys Blackfyre.
Even now, Bloodraven remains an arch-utilitarian, like Varys. He turns children into his instruments of his twilight war, and while he would probably point to the heart of winter and say that anything to eliminate that existential threat is justified, I can’t help remembering the “bones of a thousand other dreamers impaled upon their points.”
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