Quote Originally Posted by Theodric View Post
Thordan received a pretty raw deal. In his own way, he was a hero simply seeking to do what he thought was best to ensure that his people survived. He also had twelve knights following him, each with their own distinct personalities and differing degrees of honour, as confirmed by their biographies within the lore book. Even Zephirin who is the one to put a certain someone to death is described as an honourable figure yet is unfairly criticised by many simply he happened to kill a fan favourite who would no doubt have tried to kill or at least harm the Archbishop himself if given the opportunity.

It wasn't as if the Archbishop took pleasure in killing in the name of his goals. He simply wished to put an end to a bitter war that had waged for a thousand years with no end in sight. Much like the Warrior of Light, he sought to use divine power to achieve that goal. Something that Ysayle herself did, yet received very little criticism for. Let's not forget that she also cheered as the barrier protecting Ishgard fell and the Dravanians flocking to her side assaulted the Ishgardians within - non-combatants included. She may have expressed her regret at a later date but that was someone literally blessed by Hydaelyn.
We were already on a path to freedom when Thordan decided to go full primal so if he let us just do our thing then we would have achieved peace without him turning into a primal and all the tempering that ensures. Yes part of the knights were honorable but they were tempered by Thordan! He is the reason why they went that far and his goal was far from just ending that one war. He wanted to be the king of all and probably would have used tempering as a mean to gain that. This is far away from Ysayle even though she also killed innocent people but she never went as far as tempering. Thordan was also against telling anyone the truth so his rule would have all been built on lies and tempering. How is that good?

We found out the truth thanks to our echo, which was also known by Thordan and we saw how he reacted when his own son spoke to him about this. He tortured and imprisoned his own son and wanted to use force to end this war which would have meant countless of deaths, lots of consumed aether and people that are living a "good" life thanks to being tempered.

So he knew about the lies but kept it up like all the ones before him and when his own son wanted to change it, he took great measurements to insure that the truths will remain hidden. This is far away from Ysayle who also lived a lie (which was unknown to her) and who changed her view when she found out the truth. Thordan never wanted the truth to come out.

And in the end we would never know if Ysayle would have gotten off completely without any punishment, she is death, so anything that could have theoretically happen is only a theory and nothing more.