[Spoilers] I’m irrevocably Unimpressed

[Granyala]

While I dont agree with the "they should be winning" part, we... did kinda shonen pull this victory out of nowhere, didn't we? Emet was handing us our backside the whole time, WoL and Scions included. The Exarch pulling in the different WoLs was also really deus-ex-ey, given what we know about the difficulty and energy required for such a summoning. We even had a super-saiyan moment!

Yeah, I said to my peers when we defeated him: why the hell were we even able to make a dent here? This is a sorcerer of eld, we should not have stood a chance whatsoever against THAT kind of knowledge and power.

Though the way I see it, we only managed to win due to the accumulated light of the wardens. That gave us the energy required.

Definitely deus-ex machina. But what else is a DEV to do if losing would mean there was no game anymore?

[Vidu]

Yeah, I said to my peers when we defeated him: why the hell were we even able to make a dent here? This is a sorcerer of eld, we should not have stood a chance whatsoever against THAT kind of knowledge and power.

Though the way I see it, we only managed to win due to the accumulated light of the wardens. That gave us the energy required.

Definitely deus-ex machina. But what else is a DEV to do if losing would mean there was no game anymore?

...or maybe - and I'll admit that thats a very big maybe that I dont have that much evidence for after all, I'll freely admit that - maybe he wanted us to win, at least subconsciously. Police assisted suicide, so to speak, considering we're probably the only ones who can kill him.
I could see him being tired of all of this, after being pretty isolated (only two more of his kind left, and if I recall correctly he isnt exactly best buddies with at least Elidibus) for over a thousand years... even if his race is immortal I can not see that not having an effect on someones mind.
The whole time we was traveling with us, he claimed to look for signs that we're worth living, yet he tells himself (and us) that he cant find any, despite trying desperatly, testing us again and again. What if he did find those signs after all and realised that hes actually been killing some sort of life after all this whole time? And now hes just done with all of it - he might have even "groomed" us to be the one who finally slays him, guiding us to collect the amount of energy (=light of the wardens) that would be needed to accomplish that.

As I said - I know that this is very, very reaching and just one possible scenario and maybe not one that can be fully support with everything he said and did... but maybe he just wanted to die after feeling sort of alive before by battling an "equal" foe of his design who could actually kill him off. He must have known that there was at least the possibilty of that happening after we finished Lhabrea off and I could see him just aiming for that after thousand years of loneliness...
Very much specualtion, very much nothing I can pull a quote out of my hat to point at - but something I could see being at least part of the reason we won: He wanted us to.

Edit: Looking at his last lines of "Remember us", how he tells you a bunch of stuff about the Ascians and such during the story if you ask him and that he created Amarout for us to see and understand what was lost - maybe that was his solution in the end: Turning himself and his folk into a legend to live on that way...? Again, reaching and I'm not sure if he'd really be the character for that, but... maybe possible?

[Lersayil]

...or maybe - and I'll admit that thats a very big maybe that I dont have that much evidence for after all, I'll freely admit that - maybe he wanted us to win, at least subconsciously. Police assisted suicide, so to speak, considering we're probably the only ones who can kill him.
I could see him being tired of all of this, after being pretty isolated (only two more of his kind left, and if I recall correctly he isnt exactly best buddies with at least Elidibus) for over a thousand years... even if his race is immortal I can not see that not having an effect on someones mind.
The whole time we was traveling with us, he claimed to look for signs that we're worth living, yet he tells himself (and us) that he cant find any, despite trying desperatly, testing us again and again. What if he did find those signs after all and realised that hes actually been killing some sort of life after all this whole time? And now hes just done with all of it - he might have even "groomed" us to be the one who finally slays him, guiding us to collect the amount of energy (=light of the wardens) that would be needed to accomplish that.

As I said - I know that this is very, very reaching and just one possible scenario and maybe not one that can be fully support with everything he said and did... but maybe he just wanted to die after feeling sort of alive before by battling an "equal" foe of his design who could actually kill him off. He must have known that there was at least the possibilty of that happening after we finished Lhabrea off and I could see him just aiming for that after thousand years of loneliness...
Very much specualtion, very much nothing I can pull a quote out of my hat to point at - but something I could see being at least part of the reason we won: He wanted us to.

Edit: Looking at his last lines of "Remember us", how he tells you a bunch of stuff about the Ascians and such during the story if you ask him and that he created Amarout for us to see and understand what was lost - maybe that was his solution in the end: Turning himself and his folk into a legend to live on that way...? Again, reaching and I'm not sure if he'd really be the character for that, but... maybe possible?

I wouldn't say he was actually going for the suicide route, seeing the last cutscene where he pulls himself back from the brink of dissolving by sheer will and determination for his cause (whichafter we pepper him with auricite). He did say however that he's always testing the lesser races. It's possible that he fighting us, is the ultimate test given after we dragged ourselves to him after the last failed test, finished his illusionary dungeon of a world ending scenario, and making a somewhat convincing argument for our case? Something akin to newfound respect maybe?

He did say that given the choice he wouldn't fight us directly when we first met him.

[Vidu]

I wouldn't say he was actually going for the suicide route, seeing the last cutscene where he pulls himself back from the brink of dissolving by sheer will and determination for his cause (whichafter we pepper him with auricite). He did say however that he's always testing the lesser races. It's possible that he fighting us, is the ultimate test given after we dragged ourselves to him after the last failed test, finished his illusionary dungeon of a world ending scenario, and making a somewhat convincing argument for our case? Something akin to newfound respect maybe?

He did say that given the choice he wouldn't fight us directly when we first met him.

Yeah, I'm struggling a bit with expressing this the right way - I'm not trying to say "Oh, he wanted to die from the beginning and would have just jumped of a bridge if he could".
Its a bit mor subtle than that - more along of lines of "If I get killed in the end, thats fine". Or maybe not even that he wanted to die, but that he wanted to lose.

I'm mainly basing this on his numerous tests - if we wanted to kill us, he could have easly done so at any point that we werent prepared. And even if he wanted to play it fair (by his standards, at least), we had already lost in his eyes. The battle against him is our final test, but a test that felt a bit like... mmh... "made up on the spot". A bit like when you play with a child and you play something where one will win and one will lose and the child is losing but you make up some twist or final challenge that you know the child will win, maybe because you let it (if this makes sense at all).
His final test seemed to me like he finally wanted us to win - I got the vibe that he wanted us to win throughout the whole story. He didnt set out to kill us - and he kinda even saved out life by offering us a way to get rid off the light by channeling it for a cause.

I dont think he was suicidal, but I could imagine him being just tired. But thats still reaching, of course.

[Lersayil]

Yeah, I'm struggling a bit with expressing this the right way - I'm not trying to say "Oh, he wanted to die from the beginning and would have just jumped of a bridge if he could".
Its a bit mor subtle than that - more along of lines of "If I get killed in the end, thats fine". Or maybe not even that he wanted to die, but that he wanted to lose.

I'm mainly basing this on his numerous tests - if we wanted to kill us, he could have easly done so at any point that we werent prepared. And even if he wanted to play it fair (by his standards, at least), we had already lost in his eyes. The battle against him is our final test, but a test that felt a bit like... mmh... "made up on the spot". A bit like when you play with a child and you play something where one will win and one will lose and the child is losing but you make up some twist or final challenge that you know the child will win, maybe because you let it (if this makes sense at all).
His final test seemed to me like he finally wanted us to win - I got the vibe that he wanted us to win throughout the whole story. He didnt set out to kill us - and he kinda even saved out life by offering us a way to get rid off the light by channeling it for a cause.

I dont think he was suicidal, but I could imagine him being just tired. But thats still reaching, of course.

I can sorta get behind that, but I still think that he was seriously trying to kill us at the end (at least from the point where the trial started). In the scenes beforehand we've earned the right to fight against our demise. He had no intention of letting us win, but we've earned the chance via the dungeon and the quasi-philosophical banter after.

Also, he said he'd try to recruit us if we passed his test, or kill us if we reject. What he didn't mention is that if we manage to kill him, we basically proved (in his eyes too) that the "lesser" races deserve to live over the ancients. After all, judging by his tests, banters and even the types of empires he nurtured, he did subscribe to the philosophy of "might makes right".

He also knew that our goals are irreconcilable. If we win we proved ourselves worthy of existing and he has no place in the world, as his sole raison d'etre left, was to bring back his people.