I wasn't disappointed that Hydaelyn didn't turn out to be "evil." I was disappointed because I kind of went into EW hoping we would end up exploring a "third option" that I felt was hinted at back in Shb since we know Azem left the convocation and also did not respond to Venat's group. It would have been interesting for the writers to touch on something like that. My headcanon right now is that Azem didn't agree with either side and was trying to find a 3rd option.

Quote Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami View Post
Tbh ignoring all of the venat bad emet bad stuff for a second, one of my beyond biggest gripes this expansion is just how absolutely biased the story is in favor of Venat/Hydaelyn. We’re told and shown basically that…Zodiark saved the world, essentially twice, once during the final days and then again with the whole meteion shield, and Elidibus basically sacrificed himself to help us go back in time yet…they don’t even get a passing mention for what they did. It’s all venat venat venat. She gets her own minion depicting her as a hero, the whole minstrel’s ballad paints her as this tragic heroic figure….so where is all this attention for Zodiark? It’s just a very strange double standard in how we’ve treated Zodiark and Elidibus vs her.
I also got this impression. Does anyone else notice how the game has sort of taken over our character by having us "react" in certain parts of the story instead of the more general blank face our characters used to have? It made me feel like they were pushing the audience to the conclusion they wanted us to have. All the times we see another character and automatically reach for our weapon like we want to fight...things like that I'm not a fan of. So when we get to Hydaelyn at the end of the 89 dungeon and my character smiles at her and the other Scions look at her with this sort of reverence, it just made me a little annoyed. And the way they portrayed Zodiark in the trial like some monstrous looking being called "Eternal Darkness" and then in the Hydaelyn trial she's this angelic looking being named "Divine Light..." But that "monstrous" looking being actually kept us alive and shielded for 12k years.

I get that they're both neither evil or good, but I definitely feel like there was a bias in how they portrayed Hydaelyn's side.