Quote Originally Posted by Sayo_ View Post
Yeah but that still raises the question of "Why didn't they do it before?" The out of universe explanation is "There wouldn't be a story" but there's no in universe explanation. You can't just pull something like Fandaniel did and expect it not to be questioned.
Aulus's technology didn't exist before late Stormblood, so nobody could've done it sooner. Keeping that in mind, and that only an Ascian could've actually pulled off the teleporting trick to nab the WoL out of thin air like that, it's pretty easy to see why nobody tried. Lahabrea was simply too arrogant to ever consider us that much of a threat, and then he gets offed by Thordan. Emet-Selch was still out of commission until he pops up in 4.4, and then sets the Black Rose plan into motion, assuming that will kill everyone, including the WoL (and the Eighth Calamity timeline shows he was right), so there was no reason to bother. By the time that plot gets derailed, he's already gone off to the First, and then he gets curious about what we're doing there, so the plot of Shadowbringers happens instead. More than likely, he would've told Elidibus about what he was up to, since Elidibus knew where Emet was and when he died. Elidibus was also undergoing a very noticeable breakdown of his sanity by that time, so he wasn't exactly thinking of the quickest and simplest way to do things. And they clearly kept a tight rein on their sundered underlings (since the last time they let one have too free a hand, the Thirteenth happened), since Fandaniel started going off-script as soon as he was sure that the last two unsundered were gone.

As for why Fandango didn't just kill us sooner; again, he didn't just want to kill the WoL, he wanted to use them to kill Zodiark first. Then the Final Days could kill us for him.

The closest any of them got to being that directly pragmatic was Nabriales, who tried to grab Tupsimati the minute he realized the Blessing of Light was sealed and (he assumes) we couldn't actually stop him anymore. And that didn't end well for him, either.