But they did find two ways out to explain the cackling, moustache twirling Ascians of ARR and Heaven's Ward. Lahabreha was corrupted by the Heart of Sabik and as we've seen with Amon/Hermes, the lesser, sundered Ascians can be dominated by one of the lives they lived as sundered souls, so they might be drastically different than their original Ancient self. So it's at least a well covered-up retcon. ^^