That’s because words like “genocide” and “murder” require a certain amount of baseless cruelty by definition. When we consider those things we associate them with the worst of modern deeds and they are rightfully depicted as something that can only be done by the most evil people alive.

Clarke doesn’t portray that type of cruelty, nor rarely does she act out of malice or hatred. So there’s some distance between what her actions can be technically classified as (like you said, “genocide” and “murder”) and what she actually did. That’s why it’s easy to emphasize with Clarke. She didn’t actually do those things by their modern day definition that we understand them as.