Antonia Forest fans

Isn't there a third possibility? That he's a somewhat callous and self-obsessed type, but not unreachable (like, again drawing on Austen, those young men like Elinor & Marianne's half-brother or Charles Musgrove whose negative or positive qualities as the case may be are emphasised by the same traits in the women they marry.)

The Gondal stops him trying to be better, in the way (arguably) it stops Branwell trying to be better, because it gives him a romanticised way of being a jerk in a way he can live with internally.