Prabhas' depiction of Deva's emotions:
or more specifically, their supposed 'absence'
his character was MADE to be that way.
the only emotion we've seen him feel in the present is a child-like sort of contentment (and we've only seen that around the kids) or rage.
any peace or even the ability to express any other emotion freely does not come to Deva easily.
he is currently in a state where only rage serves him any purpose, and the only thing that can come closest to giving him any joy, is when he's interacting with children.
to add on, he does have a sense of guilt attached to his violence now, even though it comes so naturally to him, because his mother has made it something that brings him shame to express but he is so familiar with the emotion, that if he's restricted from showing it, he may as well stop himself from feeling anything.
so prabhas choosing to play the character like this, including prashanth's direction of his character, is very deliberate: it takes effort (in it's own way) to act emotionless while maintaining screen presence and intensity
adding onto that, we see deva multiple times, show very nuanced, specific emotions throughout the movie:
which shows that deva (and by extension prabhas) expresses emotion, but the state he is in right now, has him "shutting off" his emotions, unless it is in regard to his mother, or varadha, and that is definitely intentional.
