Zodiark: Good or evil? thoughts

[KizuyaKatogami]

Exactly. Exactly.

For all of his talk, Emet is pretty transparently lying to himself and not really acting on good faith. This is best demonstrated in Amaurot, when he starts up the Final Days recreation for the dungeon as a test of the Scions' mettle; when they prevail against his expectations he just says their performance was underwhelming and they still aren't worthy. He sets people up to fail so when they do so he can just say "See? Still not as great as the Ancients!" and if they succeed he just moves the goalposts.

What makes him (and the Ascians in general) particularly tragic is not what happened to them, but their belief they can go back to the good old days of Amaurot if they just complete the Rejoinings and have Zodiark do his disco; the Sound, and Zodiark's summoning to stop it, created an irreconcilable rift in Amaurotine society. Even if they succeeded, it's very, very unlikely things could go back to the way they were before. (I'd even go so far as to argue at least some Ancients would be extremely unhappy with the price paid to bring them back and revolt by summoning a check against Zodiark that's even more powerful than Hydaelyn.) Elidibus realizes the folly of his crusade in his final moments, bound to it as he may be.

It's part of what makes them such wonderful antagonists, in my opinion. They are given to the same vices they condemn humanity for, tragically fighting for a cause that was lost before they even started. Perhaps back in the days of Amaurot the world was a utopia... but that time has long since passed and will never come back, Rejoined world and resurrected Ancients or no. While their motivations are sympathetic, considering that...

This bears reiterating: Zodiark is neither good nor evil. He is only as good or evil as his creators, who despite their declarations to the contrary are demonstrably not perfect beings. (The same applies to Hydaelyn as a corollary, despite attempts to demonize her for her own failings.)

The thing is 90% of this isn’t proven. We don’t know if they could go back to that time or not, or if the rejoinings would work. There’s nothing really to lead us to believe it wouldn’t work that is. They empathize just how superior the unsundered/ancients are to the sundered multiple times and in various ways. We can talk all day about what could happen or what is but it’s best to talk about what we know as fact instead of headcanon because then information gets misconstrued and people start getting the wrong ideas on things.As far as Emet goes, all the short story shows imo is that he had kept testing mortals to see if they could be improved or changed. His son's death seemed to have a big impact on him which reinforces the way his views were. I think its safe to say it was still a difficult task for him, but in the end it doesnt change reality in what he saw. The main reason that they are tragic heroes is that they bear the burden and tough decisions to see their world restored. The sundering put them in this difficult position in the first place, so they can trade some ease and discomfort now for the sake of restoring their world and the original souls/lifespans, or they abandon it all and fade away. I dont think they were "perfect beings" but they were certainly better than the sundered and mortal beings we see. As for Zodiark and Hydaelyn, i dont think either of the primals are necessarily evil. It's moreso the hearts which will dictate that which, we can inference about how they would. Elidibus is described as kind and caring in the short story, whereas we see Venat willing to go against a majority of the community for hers and a few others' for reasons unknown. So if they primals take aspects of their heart on..well. Its hard to say exactly as Venat is very much a wild card right now. But they didnt choose the name for no reason