What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[PawPaw]

I never took that speculation too seriously, because Fandaniel was just spitballing at the end of the day. What did strike me as a possibility was that Emet-Selch may have ferried over a specific soul to become his. Some people actually think it's fact that he was experimented on, but I think they're misreading what Elidibus and Varis were discussing, certainly supported by the fact that the FR version has Elidibus attribute his use as a test subject to Varis and not the Ascians - a more logical reading of that, IMO, is that Elidibus was referring to being able to observe the outcome of Zenos's self-experimentation using the Resonance following Aulus's dismissal from the imperial court. Even if Varis thought his son was a madman, Aulus's research could (and did) prove valuable to the Empire.

I never believed any of that "Emet-Selch experimented on Zenos" theorizing, but that wasn't a popular stance on reddit (shocker). I can't count the number of times I've seen that theory stated as pure fact. And the suppositions have almost entirely been based on Fandaniel's line of "Could Emet -Selch have found a way?". Elidibus' and Varis' conversation never meant anything other to me than what we already knew, that he experimented on himself regularly.

I assumed it was genetic because, just look at Solus' descendants; they're beyond massive. Zenos towers over most characters and Varis towers over him. And if, from reading Emet-Selch's short story, I can deduce that Varis is barely a shadow of his own father in stature then I can only imagine how abnormally large that first son must have been. With Solus musing that he and his wife were completely ordinary Garleans in terms of height and build, then I have to assume that freakish height must be genetic somehow. And if that could be passed down, they why couldn't other things?

Basically, I took Fandaniel's like to mean "Hmmm, Emet-Selch had sex and created hybrids in the process?!"

[Lauront]

I never believed any of that "Emet-Selch experimented on Zenos" theorizing, but that wasn't a popular stance on reddit (shocker). I can't count the number of times I've seen that theory stated as pure fact. And the suppositions have almost entirely been based on Fandaniel's line of "Could Emet -Selch have found a way?". Elidibus' and Varis' conversation never meant anything other to me than what we already knew, that he experimented on himself regularly.

I assumed it was genetic because, just look at Solus' descendants; they're beyond massive. Zenos towers over most characters and Varis towers over him. And if, from reading Emet-Selch's short story, I can deduce that Varis is barely a shadow of his own father in stature then I can only imagine how abnormally large that first son must have been. With Solus musing that he and his wife were completely ordinary Garleans in terms of height and build, then I have to assume that freakish height must be genetic somehow. And if that could be passed down, they why couldn't other things?

Basically, I took Fandaniel's like to mean "Hmmm, Emet-Selch had sex and created hybrids in the process?!"

I've seen it happen quite a few times on there - you get wild theories that outgrow any basis they have in the lore, and I wouldn't mind it, because speculation is all good fun, if people actually acknowledged that what they're doing is speculating. But instead they take it as established fact and tend to get mad if someone points out contradictory lore to what they're claiming.

Zenos's backstory made it out that he'd even risk injuring himself greatly to wield aether, and given how much of an affinity Emet-Selch had to that, it must've passed down to him as some kind of urge in need of an outlet.

*snip*

The Azem thing you mention is something a lot of us were expecting may be the case. I honestly would've liked this kind of scenario better.