On Azem's role in the story

[Cleretic]

You miss the obvious answer as to how to write to why Azem didn't intervene...because there was another threat that could kill everybody on the star, regardless of whether Zodiark or Hydaelyn won. Before bringing up the Meteion card, remember, there is a LOT about ancient Etheirys we do not know. For all we know there could have been an actual Will of the Planet that was enraged at the Ancients and was willing to use its Avatar to destroy them all (think Chaos from FF7). For Azem, that would be a bigger threat, something that they'd have to deal with immediately. It didn't matter if Zodiark or Hydaelyn won in that case, the Avatar was going to kill everybody regardless.

That of course is a random possibility, but it's also one that warrants thought. Azem always tried to save people and protect Etheirys. The only way a writer could give a reason as to why the world's greatest hero was not involved would be writing in something that threatened everyone.

That's actually what I mean by shooting for a third answer. If you go for 'Azem was off fighting The Real Threat', then it paints both the Zodiark and Hydaelyn sides as wrong because they were fighting over something smaller. It's the same issue as if we learned Azem was pursuing a perfect medium option that wouldn't have required Zodiark sacrifices or the Sundering.

It's a permutation of something that I find plagues a lot of games with multiple endings; the existence of a 'true ending' (either in terms of 'everyone's happy' or 'this one has the real final boss') demotes all other options to 'false endings'. Which sucks if you think one of those false endings was the one with the right ideas.