About the Emperor [Major Spoilers for 4.4]

[Ramesses]

I seriously don't mean to derail the ongoing conversation with this non-contribution, but by the gods, he's gorgeous. WOW.

No worries Jyera, conversation is still on track, chugging along nicely.

I have to side with Iscah here, I didn't like his face... those eyebrows gave him a sinister disposition. Strangely enough, I find the other Garleans attractive... Eula, Gaius, Lucia, even Zenos... but this chap, no. However, I thoroughly agree, his voice acting was spot on.

[Cilia]

As I stated much earlier in this thread, I enjoyed Solus' return to the stage. Flippant villains are my favorite - from BlazBlue's Yuuki Terumi to Fire Emblem Heroes' Loki.

And I am fine with them being outright villains. Not everything needs to be ~morally grey~ or ~nuanced~. He's not a Saturday Morning Cartoon villain, either. Those tend to take themselves seriously; Solus is clearly just playing around through most of his monologue at Varis, even if he speaks truth.

Physically, he's... not what I expected... but the only image we had of Solus beforehand was an old man wearing Golbez-esque pauldrons, so a youthful man with purple and white hair was a surprise.

[Remedi]

It was but when you an an immortal body that you can recreate, why keeping the old senile one? Especially since he shouldn't be seen by living being.

As for him not being mustache twirling villains, they tend to be a bore, since he's going to be the main obstacle in the near future him being boring would make the narrative very very veeeeery dreadful to go trough, not to mention very predictable

[Ramesses]

It was but when you an an immortal body that you can recreate, why keeping the old senile one? Especially since he shouldn't be seen by living being.

This very notion is what has thrown several speculations and theories into complete and utter disarray... and is what many of us are seeking clear answers for in 5.0. Speaking of which, this reminds me of a related question I need to ask Moose later on.

[Remedi]

In fact we know very little of what Solus is, We don't even know if he is a greater ascian or just a normal ascian.
Would be an interesting twist if he isn't a top dog though

[Jyera]

In fact we know very little of what Solus is, We don't even know if he is a greater ascian or just a normal ascian.
Would be an interesting twist if he isn't a top dog though

It would, haha, especially since he spends a delightful amount of time in his CS talking smack about the other high-ranking Ascians. XD

[ObsidianFire]

I'd say that if Solus isn't a high-ranked Ascian (and I'm pretty sure he is) he's on the fast-track to becoming one. According to him, the reason he hasn't been around until now was because he did exactly what he was supposed to do and has been essentially on vacation ever since then. He and Elidibus are effectively tag-teaming Varis at this point, and he mentions he does respect Eldibus. At the very least, he has the set-up as being more effective at what he does then Lahabrea was. Also, someone has to replace Lahabrea as the high-teir Ascian from the Source and that can't be Elidibus since he's already the Emissary.

[Cilia]

The only thing we can be relatively certain of in regards to Solus is that he was an Ascian when founding and setting up the Empire.

Personally, even if he's outright deliberately evil, I don't think he's going to be boring either. In all honesty very little in the story surprises me anymore (the biggest surprise I got in 5.0 was Zenos firing on Specula Imperatoris, and that was pretty well foreshadowed; other than that Grynewaht showing up as a cybernetic monstrosity was the biggest surprise, and that was because I'd skipped the cutscene foreshadowing it for a queue) and I don't expect it to with Yoshi-P's comment that he doesn't want to betray peoples' expectations.

I like flippant villains like Solus precisely because their next move isn't always predictable. That's also why I don't want things to go the Ivalice route - that would be much more boring (predictable) than Solus being a capital E evil villain. (That's not to say I want a war or for people to die.)

[Remedi]

Tbh the final boss of SB was a surprise since I expected Shinryu to come out in the Omega story, I knew I would be fighting Zenos, but I had several theories of what could happen at the end.
Unlike HW where you know who is the final boss from halfway trough the end.

However the problem with flippant villains is that they tend to be very hard to write and give a good reasons for their villany, a villain with a weak backstory will feel bland and boring with the resultant reasoning "I do these stuff because I'M EVIL".

[Cybylt]

Solus came off as, while being prone to theatrics, fully believing in the mission statement of the Ascians as presented by Elidibus. So I suppose that leaves it to be what would cause a young soldier/officer of the at the time republic to come to the thinking of Rejoining as salvation for the natural order of all life.