About the Emperor [Major Spoilers for 4.4]

[Anonymoose]

It's comments like this that make me realise that a lot of people on this board don't necessarily understand what I post. I've long argued that there was more to Garlemald than initially apparent...and that has been proven true time and time again. Garlemald's ideals are misguided, though they're not technically wrong. Eikons are a threat that need to be destroyed. It's but a matter of adjusting the methods used to deal with them.

Except the part where guy who founded the Garlean Empire and sent them on a crusade against the primals was himself one of the immortal wraiths giving humanity the knowledge of how to summon primals and the motivation to put that knowledge to use, founding said Empire specifically so trick people into going to war at the cost of catastrophic global chaos. I think that part may have skipped through the cracks, lol.

The "Garlemald is also sort of good!" interpretation works mostly because some Garleans were tricked so hard that they wanted to make a better, more stable, more reliable, more benevolent Empire, unaware that that was never the intention or the point. Combine these people with the Populares and those with a lingering idea that the Republic was a better place before Solus got his hands on it, and you have plenty of room for idealistic diversity ... incidentally. Or that could just be more of Elidibus's set-up to have their wars cause Calamity.

Case in point, my man, Gaius van Baelsar: right hand of Solus zos Galvus, slayer of nine usurpers to the crown, meritocrat, aspiring "good leader", mistake maker.
This also suggests Solus just happened to throw Gaius under the bus to Lahabrea.