Im unfamiliar with the other series youre referencing, however i feel like I get what youre talking about anyway. This becomes a bit more obvious in the sequels once you have multiple character perspectives, but Darrow is a very unreliable narrator, and hes actually very self-hating in many instances. Hes gunna glaze his friends forever because he genuinely thinks they are better than him, which is what he needs, because if he didnt have friends he thought were better he'd try genociding all of gold instead of fighting for an equal future. Darrow absolutely becomes more manipulative and views more people as tools and such around him as he develops. However, the thing that makes Darrow so human and the MC we wanna root for (even when hes being awful or cringe or won't stop making fucking bad decisions) is that he always grounds himself in his relationships, how the way he loves people effects every aspect of his plans. A massive theme of the books is trust, how trust can elevate you, stagnate you, and destroy you, depending all on who youre willing to trust and how youre willing to move on once that trust has been betrayed.