Why did the Ascians never try to do these?

[CaesarCV]

The ever-eloquent Anonymoose has done a pretty excellent job detailing everything, but I'll still give my own interpretation on events if only to sate my ego.

Emet-Selch is a man driven far more by his emotionality than efficiency in scheming. He's very good at that too, but part of the whole bait and switch of the character is that he initially appears like some megalomaniacal madman but turns out to be a bitter, extremely depressed survivor filled with loneliness and guilt. He, far moreso than even other unsundered we've seen, truly cannot escape the past and obsessively dreams back towards it. He can't let go of the glory of Amaurot to the point where he creates a massive replica of it, even admitting it's far more than would be necessary for his goals. For him, everything goes back to the final days and the convocation's reaction to them. He sees even his grand nation-building projects as little more than playing around with toys since it's utterly impossible for any of them to match to Amaurot.

He's also kind of a racist, believing the unsundered to be little more than crude monkeys incapable of real emotion, civilization, or accomplishment. This relates back to the fascist themes of the overall game, especially denoted since the civilization he's most linked with, Garlemald, has clear and evident fascist themes to it. The unsundered are toys, even if he's tried to relate to them he ultimately failed. (As a slight digression I interpret that failure as more of his guilt and obsession with the Unsundered at play rather than any truth. The game makes it abundantly clear that sundered mortal life possesses inherent value and the capacity for greatness.) But at the same time, he cares about one sundered mortal...namely, the Warrior of Light.

Why?

Because the Warrior of Light presents a chance to rewrite history. Azem was pretty explicitly Emet-Selch's best friend, and the one the ascian most respected. But despite that, when Emet-Selch and the others settled on the Zodiark plan, Azem disagreed. And for a man as obsessed with the past like Emet-Selch, that fact tore him up inside for millennia. But here's a chance, maybe a small chance, and he tries not to hold too much hope on it, but maybe this time he can get Azem to agree? If he gets the Scions on his side they can figure out a way to handle the rejoining without killing the WoL or them turning into a Sin-Eater. He'll have time and some of the best-equipped mortals to help him too, which is nice, if not totally necessary. But more than that he can finally prove that he was right all of those thousands of years ago. He can make Azem see things his way, and if it doesn't work...well, he'll just kill them and move back on with the plan. However, just as he hoped that the Warrior of Light might truly be Azem...they prove to be just another disappointing mortal. But he held onto some hope, maybe if he reminds them just right he can see them as a real human again...and if not he'll just kill them. No big deal.

Unfortunately for Emet-Selch, he can only overcome his faults in his last moments. Only then does he actually trust the mortals to inherit the legacy of Amaurot. Only then does he finally see the WoL as truly similar to Azem. Only then, does he find peace.

[Anonymoose]

I'll still give my own interpretation on events if only to sate my ego. <snip> But despite that, when Emet-Selch and the others settled on the Zodiark plan, Azem disagreed. And for a man as obsessed with the past like Emet-Selch, that fact tore him up inside for millennia.

This is why "the more interpretations/perspectives the better". In my head, somewhere in my vague peripheral vision, "Azem disagreed and left" was always unfortunate but understandable; Azem usually did his own thing, anyway. But yeah, when you put it like that and I look directly into it, I bet watching his best friend walk away from a plan he believed in really sucked. Imagine how that must have festered after he was tempered and couldn't fathom that Zodiark was anything but the only acceptable path, crushing himself under his own expectations to save everyone for 12,000 years, knowing Azem chose not to share the burden, and not only still wanting him back, but deluding himself into thinking the Azem he wanted was somewhere in the Warrior of Light... Kinda puts his reaction to seeing the silhouette in a new context for me. "Gods, no wonder he was so pissed..."

[Veloran]

For whatever it's worth, apparently Yoshida commented on this in Famitsu this week and (while he maintains everyone is entitled to their own interpretation), Emet-Selch's true feelings were a desire to be proven wrong - to see that the Warrior of Light would overcome the "abomination" plan and prove they really can make the impossible possible, really can bring anyone together. Emet-Selch wanted to believe he really was Azem, or at least Azem-like, and would give him reason to re-evaluate the sundered. Instead, Emet-Selch saw that the Warrior of Light was nothing but another sundered being - unable to contain the aether of the Lightwardens, which any Ancient would have been able to do with ease, and he was "disappointed from the very bottom of his heart".

Again, I think we're not saying much, if anything, mutually-exclusive here (or at least I'm still not really getting it). We're shining a spotlight on different things to explain different things; I see that. I touched only on the vague "he wanted Azem to return to the fold" / "he wanted to see if goals were truly incompatible" / "he was back-up scheming" while exploring the logic of the schemes within schemes, and you had something much more focused on and specific about the former and what that means to you, but both jibe with what Yoshida's saying here, no? Emet-Selch, despite the schemes within schemes to advance the calamity all other things being equal, was disappointed that the Warrior of Light didn't validate his Azem headcanon, and moreover seemed to take on the most Azem-like silhouette at the same moment he stood resolved to kill him.

It seems to me that interview is quite supportive of the point I was making. Emet wanted to see Azem in WoL, even while believing that to be impossible. What ultimately happened is exactly the ending he desired. Why I say we don't agree on this point is that you seem to characterize this as a failing of his schemes and of WoL "invalidating his headcanon of Azem". But considering what Yoshida says there, if Emet was disappointed by WoL's failure to contain the light, it follows that what he truly wanted was for what happened, to happen. Yoshi isn't saying he was disappointed afterwards, after all.

Because the Warrior of Light presents a chance to rewrite history. Azem was pretty explicitly Emet-Selch's best friend, and the one the ascian most respected. But despite that, when Emet-Selch and the others settled on the Zodiark plan, Azem disagreed. And for a man as obsessed with the past like Emet-Selch, that fact tore him up inside for millennia. But here's a chance, maybe a small chance, and he tries not to hold too much hope on it, but maybe this time he can get Azem to agree? If he gets the Scions on his side they can figure out a way to handle the rejoining without killing the WoL or them turning into a Sin-Eater. He'll have time and some of the best-equipped mortals to help him too, which is nice, if not totally necessary. But more than that he can finally prove that he was right all of those thousands of years ago. He can make Azem see things his way, and if it doesn't work...well, he'll just kill them and move back on with the plan. However, just as he hoped that the Warrior of Light might truly be Azem...they prove to be just another disappointing mortal. But he held onto some hope, maybe if he reminds them just right he can see them as a real human again...and if not he'll just kill them. No big deal.

Killing WoL or even WoL joining him is probably not what he wanted, I think. Throughout the story he pushes WoL's buttons as hard as he can (ex at the ladder, after Innocence, before the Dying Gasp) to see if he can get WoL to give in, but in fact we know that he didn't want WoL to surrender. WoL agreeing to join Emet would be inconsistent with how Azem was in life, so that happening would just be another disappointment. He didn't want validation, he wanted to be proven wrong.