Quote Originally Posted by Lurina View Post
This is all predicated on the strange idea that stories are written with logical, mechanical intent first and foremost, which obviously isn't true. Azem was probably introduced because the writers thought it'd be cool for the player character to have a direct link to the critical events and actors of the setting's backstory.

Judging by how cool the majority of people (and especially fic writers) seem to find it, it's a hit!
Admittedly, I'm coming at this from a perspective of not connecting to or liking that at all. I put a lot of that on the story of Amaurot being delivered to me in the one way that I would have always categorically rejected; I had no mental space or interest in writing in an insert given I spent most of the span of 5.x doubting that most of the story we were told was even true to any meaningful level. And even now, my answer to 'what was your character's Azem like' is one sentence long and born of frustration ('her name was Echidna and she spent every waking day earning that name's horrific reputation'). I'd prefer to write the character we confirmably are playing, instead of a theoretical character we're not. And in all honesty I don't think the story not having Azem would've stopped the fic writers from writing a comparable character in anyway; Amaurot's a world full of hot people and no real problems, and the explicit statement even without Azem was that our past lives were there anyway, you couldn't have stopped them writing their own OCs into it.

I'm coming at this from a mechanical and functional perspective because from my point of view, Azem can only exist in that space. A character that exists on-screen with personality could easily just exist to be weird, interesting or charming without providing a functional purpose to the story beyond that (and you could shave down the cast considerably with a red pen and 'does this character further the plot'). But when Azem doesn't exist in physical space to have personality, that instead puts them in the same realm as like, King Manfred of Ala Mhigo or the Emperor of Hingashi (and a lot of other political bodies in the game, come to think of it); they can't exist to be charming, so they must exist to further the story. And I don't really think Azem's doing that.