What would the path be had you been able to contain the light?

[Cleretic]

If they wanted to be vague, they should've said that Azem just disappeared, never to be heard of again. Instead they specifically wrote them to OPPOSE Zodiark's summoning, and remain silent regarding the plan of sundering/summoning Hydaelyn. So it feels a bit silly to now essentially say '' Azem was doing what the player wanted to and we can't really reveal anything on the matter (yet?) because it might upset some people '' when you've already made it very clear that Azem did not support the convocation and Zodiark's summoning. Pick a lane, please.

I think 'disappeared' would actually be even more suspicious than Azem basically just opting out. If they disappeared that'd appear to us as an active mystery to solve, that looks like something happened to them, whereas 'left the Convocation, wasn't heard from/talked about after' could just mean that they went on a fishing trip.

I think they want to avoid leaving a plot hook that big. I don't know what they plan to do with Azem (it has to be something we haven't seen, because right now all they're doing is adding unnecessary complications), but I feel like they're well aware at this point that not every planned story that they leave hooks for actually happens; Save the Queen is probably still quite fresh in their minds. They know how much people care about Azem, and the worst thing they could do with everyone's hopes is to get them up only to not actually follow up on them, so the best thing they could do probably is to have them be a fairly quiet presence. It lets people speculate without outright saying any level of 'this is gonna be a thing'.

[Tehmon]

I think 'disappeared' would actually be even more suspicious than Azem basically just opting out. If they disappeared that'd appear to us as an active mystery to solve, that looks like something happened to them, whereas 'left the Convocation, wasn't heard from/talked about after' could just mean that they went on a fishing trip.

I think they want to avoid leaving a plot hook that big. I don't know what they plan to do with Azem (it has to be something we haven't seen, because right now all they're doing is adding unnecessary complications), but I feel like they're well aware at this point that not every planned story that they leave hooks for actually happens; Save the Queen is probably still quite fresh in their minds. They know how much people care about Azem, and the worst thing they could do with everyone's hopes is to get them up only to not actually follow up on them, so the best thing they could do probably is to have them be a fairly quiet presence. It lets people speculate without outright saying any level of 'this is gonna be a thing'.

I mean didn't Azem kind of disappear in the current story as well?

[Cleretic]

I mean didn't Azem kind of disappear in the current story as well?

I mean, yes and no? There's rather a difference between outright saying a character disappeared, and what they've done, which is basically just not mentioning them after a certain point. Like I said, outright saying they've disappeared sounds like an actual plot thread, it sounds like 'where did Azem go' is a thing we're supposed to speculate about because the answer will be important. But just not coming up in that story anymore, that's different; it could mean that they're waiting in the wings for a big return, but it could also just mean 'nothing they did after this point mattered, their actions are no longer narratively relevant'.

To compare to other characters in this game: Right now, Azem's presence during the End of Days is like the presence of that absent leader of the Arcanist's Guild from their storyline; yeah, they're off doing something, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will matter. If they instead wrote that Azem disappeared, we'd be looking at a situation with Louisoix and the 1.0 Warriors of Light, where the events around their disappearance are an active plot thread. And you might remember that in their case, that active plot thread was followed up on pretty much instantly, so we can assume they wrote that hook in knowing they'd be immediately answering it rather than leaving it to the uncertainty of future plans.

Considering we know that Azem did not join Venat's group I feel it is quite clear he wasnt interested in either "solutions" and was possibly looking for a third way out or some other thing, which is good because it means Azem did not really choose a side unlike us though which we very clearly did.

The thing about this isn't that Azem didn't join Venat's group exactly, it's that Azem didn't respond to them. And we only hear about that from Venat's group's side of things; basically, they gave Azem's number a ring and they didn't pick up. That actually makes a huge difference.

Yes, it is entirely possible that Azem deliberately ignored their summons. But it's also possible that Azem would've joined them very readily, but missed their call. Possibly for an innocent reason like 'they're a weird wanderer that's hard to get a message to' or 'more interested in building a cool house', possibly for a more alarming reason like 'too busy doing a Secret Third Plan' or 'too dead to pick up the phone' (that last one I think is kind of implausible, but not an impossible story to wrangle). Azem's situation is deliberately so vague that we can't read anything into their intention, at all, so going 'well obviously they were working on a Secret Third Plan' isn't actually a theory with evidence, it's just what you hope they're gonna be doing, and I've said before why I think that's unlikely.