Wind And Sea

I have referred several times to the pathetic fallacy in Poul Anderson's works. Is it always negative: the sun sets as an empire declines, it rains while someone weeps, war and a storm approach together etc? I have found one ambiguous example:

"'For what you did, be neither arrogant nor guilt-laden; be glad.'
 "The wind cried, the sea growled nearer." (The Shield of Time, p. 434)

Wind and sea are elemental forces, personified in myths. Their crying and growling sound threatening. But Everard and Wanda have just "'...overcome doom itself.'" (p. 435) Thus, there is a threat but they are holding it at bay?

"'Has the universe therefore brought forth sentience, in order to protect and give purpose to its own existence? That is not an answerable question.'" (ibid.)

The question is answerable. Before sentience, nothing occurred "in order to" bring about anything else. There cannot have been purpose before there was purpose. Purpose itself cannot have been a purpose. But now that conscious beings do exist, their purposes can include the protection of existence. And, indeed, the Patrol exists as a stabilizing element.