okay. okay. i've been thinking. hear me out guys. i might be cooking.
X-MEN '97 LATEST EPISODE SPOILERS!!!!
logan thinks of himself as an animal. he's an animal who doesn't deserve love. he can't see the forest for the trees; he is in denial of his best friend (morph) being in love with him because he doesn't think he's good enough for it. he subjects himself to the torture of pining for jean time and time again, and he probably doesn't even feel the same way for jean anymore, it's just some selfish ritual he does to isolate himself and make him feel worse.
he doesn't feel like he can improve, there's still that part of him that believes he can only be one thing - a heartless, cruel, vicious animal stuck in this same hell of pining for jean over and over and over, doomed to never learn his lesson. he sacrifices his friends and his closest relationships, not because he doesn't care for them, but because he DOES; after all, isn't that all he does? hurts the people he cares about, and hurts himself?
that's why he lies and brings them all to weapon x for the sake of getting adamantium on his claws, because he's not enough without it, he's an animal that needs it to survive. that's why he submits to the brood, not even attempting to fight it, because he believes instinct is all he is. that's why he kills maverick and almost kills morph, because he'd rather lash out at his friends and burn all his bridges than allow himself to feel vulnerable. that's why he only stops when morph shifts into jean, because she's the one who reminds him that she will never love him. that's why he can't apologize to morph at the end, because then he'll have to acknowledge that morph is the one who DOES love him.
it's an INSANE parallel to when morph was corrupted by sinister and wolverine chased them down to the ends of the earth just to bring them home. they thought they were nothing but a monster, that they were irredeemable, unlovable, a villain, and they rejected wolverine until he finally got through to them through sheer perseverance. it took a LOT of time and effort on the x-men's part to even convince morph that they were good enough to just come back to them, let alone to start learning to love themselves again - like, that was a LONG arc, morph was missing for a long ass time.
logan is an incredibly insecure, frightened man, terrified of being loved and cared for, who would rather punish himself and see himself as a wild animal than let himself grow close to someone he cherishes. he's spent *many* years lamenting in guilt, self-hatred, and isolation, and he's had to battle with many mental struggles, which is something he and morph find in common. he takes morph's friendship for granted, yes, and he probably would have killed them if yuriko didn't take them or if they didn't shift into jean, yes. but that's the point. he'd rather be an animal than dare think he could try to be someone lovable.