The Observer made a single, unbreakable vow at the moment life first appeared in the universe it had created: it would never intervene. It would watch. It would witness. It would know -- as it always knows everything -- what was coming, and it would not move to stop or assist any of it.
This vow was not cruelty. The Seven Primordials, particularly Lenne, have interpreted it as cruelty for the entirety of creation, and they are wrong in the specific way that characters are wrong about authors: they can only see the story they are inside. The Observer can see every story simultaneously, including all the ones where intervention made things worse, including all the ones where the willingness to let things reach their crisis was the only condition under which resolution was possible.
The Observer knows whether its oath is wise. It has not told anyone. It watches. Its silence is not absence. Its silence is the most concentrated form of attention in existence.