Since you all seem to have been guessing at the Exarch's motives/intentions at some point, I'm curious... had you played the Crystal Tower raids prior to this, and if so did you guess who the Exarch was before the reveal?
Coming from the opposite direction and being certain it was G'raha since we got the first poster, I was wondering what it would be like if you didn't have assumptions about the Exarch's identity, or didn't even do the CT raids until afterwards.
(And if you haven't done CT yet, go do them. And then go rewatch the scenes after the Innocence and Hades trials with quest progression turned on to get the proper versions of those scenes.)