If- instead of Afife Hatun- Gulfem was the one who found Hürrem attempting to commit suicide in episode 72? Would she stop her? Would she think she and Hatice have gone too far as she did when she found out about Nigar’s suicide attempt? Is this a moment where Gülfem might see Hürrem differently?
Huh, this one's tough, actually.
Gülfem suffers from the side effect of being in a large ensemble cast in that the writing for her character tends to be very one note. In the end, she basically just becomes an extension of Hatice, illustrated all the more in how her arc becomes the same as the woman she serves—moving drastically away from the kind, good-hearted person at the start of the series.
Still, outside of when she dares to tell Nigar that she's responsible for the death of her own daughter because of her "sins" (horrible behavior, I won't stand for anyone trying to tell me otherwise) we don't really see Gülfem move towards a darker version of herself until after Ibrahim's death. That Gülfem, who calls Hatice "innocent," despite helping her try to assassinate Hürrem, and bemoans that Fahriye stops Hürrem from burning herself alive, certainly wouldn't lift so much as a finger to save Hürrem.
Still, this is before all of that, back in episode 72 and, yes, I do believe that that Gülfem would stop Hürrem from killing herself, based on, like you said, the reaction she has after Nigar tries similar.
Still, even if Gülfem did save Hürrem and even if, by some chance, she thought things had gone too far...how much would it affect things?
While it sometimes might prove easy to forget given their closeness (and Hatice certainly forgets her elitist remarks can apply to Gülfem as well), at the end of the day Gülfem isn't just of lower rank than Hatice, she's of particularly low rank in the harem as a forgotten concubine of the sultan's. If anything, it could be argued that Mahidevran got her idea for surviving through allying herself as much as possible to the Valide Sultan and Hatice through her since it's really those two relationships that kept her supported.
All of this means that, even if Gülfem did bring this up to Hatice, it might not change anything at all from Hatice's side if she wanted to disregard her friend and keep going.
It might be a chance to pursue a more historically accurate Gülfem who, in reality, was far more Hürrem's fiend than Hatice's but I also don't know if the Gülfem of the show would be as prepared to adopt to Hürrem's way of doing things.
So, like I said...tricky.
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