Quote Originally Posted by Brinne View Post
Emet-Selch is a psychological trainwreck in Shadowbringers. That's the whole point of his arc. He's doing and saying things that are contradictory to one another and not speaking to what he truly wants throughout the entire thing, and those things will weirdly shift from one action to the next - because he's in a position where he can't make any decision that doesn't feel awful to him, so he struggles to commit to any of them, and is Waffling Real Hard. He also makes a lot of over-the-top evil speeches at Varis, and becomes pretty verbally vicious (because he's frustrated on several levels at the situation, at us, and himself) after defeating Innocence. He says deliberately obnoxious, antagonistic things because--even though--while he'd genuinely like to bond with the WoL and the Scions and understand one anothers' perspectives, and possibly bridge them, he's also an insecure dumbhead who both a) doesn't know how to connect with people at this point except through being irritating and obnoxious in an affected way and b) is yelling at himself for being stupid enough to actually want to try to give us yet another chance after 12K years of cruelty and betrayals.

But in his heart of hearts, Emet-Selch--solidified basically beyond doubt through Endwalker--is fundamentally a kind person who is viscerally uncomfortable with hurting other people or even seeing them in pain, most of the time. That he's forcing himself to go ahead because the alternative is leaving his people in horrific state is why he's so unbalanced and self-sabotaging throughout Shadowbringers. He's a complex, well-written character. There are layers to him. You have to take the things he says in the greater context of understanding where he is, mentally. And also that he's a raging tsundere.

Abd the canon--through the text itself, especially via Endwalker--and through Yoshida's own word, have it in pretty indisputable terms that he was desperately hoping for some justification to stop the bloodshed while still being able to save his people. If you can't accept that as text at this point, I dunno what to say.
He's quite consistent throughout Shadowbringers. He doesn't just try to kill us outright because that hasn't worked the last two attempts and he needs to find out how the Exarch brought us here among other things, which is why he keeps asking us about him and questioning the Exarch himself. He's focused on the job at hand, which is rejoining the First, he just wants to see if we are capable in his eyes of allying with us. My quote was from before we failed the test, he referred to the people of the first as "halfmen" This isn't his first test of humanity either, the first was his "son" Who he also saw some hope in and took it back when he died.

In his heart of hearts hes devoted to his people and his world. What we see in Shadowbringers and all points before is how tempering to Zodiark has warped that.