"Who...what are you?"

[ArcaviusGreyashe]

The ascians probably do, for the beastmen that oppose the humans. For them, summoning their primal, be given the chance and power to do so, that's a marvelous blessing. They can exist without the consent of humans that try to impose them their rules. But on the other hand, primal summoning is considered an act of agression and must be repressed, or else, the beastmen will impose their rules to humans. Truly, I don't think Ascians are evil, it just depends on which side you stands...

I'd also say that it's not the Warrior of Light that does all that (saving beastmen and stuff), but the character who's the warrior of light. We are the Warrior of light when we have to destroy darkness, when Hydaelyn tells us to do something... We are people when it's not the case. Of course, people still refer to us as the WoL, keep seeing us through that prism (not sure that can be said in english, so sorry if it sounds weird to you x) ), but we are in fact the character we see when you do the 30-50 DRK quest : a wanderer that's being put a massive pressure on. Yet, we still help goblins, it's true. Because our character is kind. But that doesn't mean the Warrior of Light is.

Not sure if I made my point here, so... feel free to tell me it what I said was unclear x)

What you say about Hydaelyn is true, but that's not my point. What I'm saying is that : Thordan wanted to hurt Hydaelyn (and Zodiark). He knew that becoming a primal would hurt her, and... well, that was his objective, so I don't see any contradiction here x)

On Thordan's last speech, in all honesty, I don't know how it's been translated in English, maybe it was more agressive, but in French, he did say he wanted to enforce order, and watch over the world... But what I understood there was that it would still be a mortal, or someone who knows what being mortal is, that would rule, a deity that can understand the peoples' struggles. And if that would have been possible, I think it would have been better that way than be ruled by Hydaelyn or Zodiark.

Aymeric... I didn't like that character from the beginning, and I really saw (and still see) him as an ambitious and pretentious man... To me, it never seemed like he cared about his father. He just focused on the surface of things (and never tried to change a thing before we were there... I guess heroes can wait...) and blamed his father for everything... He believed in the theocracy, no doubt, but he also wanted to be king/archbishop, I think... But that part is highly subjective for me, I don't like that character and his behaviour, so I may think poor of him even if he doesn't deserve so.

So we kinda agree on Thordan, in fact... He was some "nice guy" that wanted to save the world but ended up doing bad things for the greater good... I just think, if we could have talked to him, if he wasn't so afraid of us, maybe we could have been allies.

[Morningstar1337]

Of course, people still refer to us as the WoL, keep seeing us through that prism (not sure that can be said in english, so sorry if it sounds weird to you x)

It can, but I think "lens" is the term you were looking for

In any case, it seems that your devil's advocacy seems to keep in mind the shades of grey in XII's conflict (Gods being evils, shades of grey all around), the thing is Despite that and certain mobs designs coming from XII the two settings are different, maybe Yoshida will take the story into a simialr direction to XII or he may keep things like in the early titles, with the heroes being ambiguously heroic in service to the (well A) crystal. (Come to think of it, didn;t someone mentioned that Yoshi loved A Song of Ice and Fire?)

I should also mention that the primals and beastmen seem to think that the Characters had became tempered by Hydaelyn, and as Final Coil shows, being a primal would not protect you from tempering. With that in mind

I'm not gonna take sides in your debates so I'll just leave by reminding you that more often or not History is Written by the Winners, a fact that should had been apparent since the Aery