Endwalker's story had me, but lost me. Ethical issues especially (spoilers)

[Anonymoose]

Azem being in on Venat's plans is going to cause me to lose even more faith than I already have in the narrative going forward. What we know of Azem's shards, the WoL and Ardbert, they'd go above and beyond to save their world and they wouldn't give up on their friends. I could not accept Azem being an accessory to one best friend sacrificing himself to Zodiark and another spending 12k years on the frayed ends of sanity trying to put their world back together. I'm deeply concerned with Azem being involved with Pandemonium based on what I've seen in EW. The morality of the sundering is questionable enough on its own without having OG Azem act in a way that's inconsistent with their future counterparts. I sincerely hope they are not going in that direction.

You're hitting the nail on the head for why I'm already confused. Why I've been confused. Elpis depicted them all as pretty close before this hit the fan, and yet Azem walked away from the Convocation's plans - turning their back on Emet-Selch and Elidibus - and also refused to join Venat?

I expected Azem to play a role in Endwalker based on that but...crickets. I expected it to be revealed that Azem came back to town with 11 friends or something. That might still be true in Myths of the Realm...but we also see Azem's hand in Pandaemonium, ensuring Elidibus will be in the right place at the right time to intercept the Warrior of Light responding to the blue memory crystal... The same crystal that appeared in the right place at the right time to end up in the Warrior of Light's hands by way of the aetherial sea outpost Sharlayan was using to talk to Hydaelyn...

Therefore, I can't yet discount the idea that the reason Azem never joined Venat's gang was that they knew the plan for for them to sacrifice themselves to turn her into the counterbalance she already knew she needed to become to lead the legacy of the Ancients towards their only means of defeating the Sound... and in that case...what was Azem's role in ensuring the plan worked out?

Again, I lean pretty hard on that Hades gives his assent to being the keystone of this plot in the end; his sole expression of negativity is regret that the only path leading away from victory over the sound could not wind back to the world he loved. ("That's why I fought you, and why I lost."). But he says he's ready to move on. That his message from all the beings of our world - past, present, and future in chorus - is to refuse the ending Meteion prepared. He tells the Warrior of Light to "let the curtain fall" on the Ancients and the Sound and "set the stage anew" for whatever form he returns in.

If even Hades can say that, the possibilities for Azem are pretty open, no? lol

Even just making Venat the previous Azem I feel upsets the neutrality optics by quite a lot. Or is that classic misdirection? lol