Revelations from Patch 7.3: The Promise of Tomorrow

[Dikatis]

This is what I’ve got worked out.

1) Are we Azem?

Just... no though. The Warrior of Light isn't Azem and can't even pass for being Azem. Their aether is so thin that they were almost completely invisible in the time of the ancients until Emet-Selch deigned to offer up enough of his aether to render WoL visible and tangible. Even then, they're still so thin that all of the traps that Hephaistos laid out for anyone coming to investigate the happenings of Pandaemonium failed to trigger because it's like having a mote of dust fall on a land mine.

The glamour argument falls completely flat when Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus both possess a keen sense of soul sight that lets them look straight through glamours and examine the shape and color of one's soul. There's no reason they wouldn't recognize their friend Azem on sight. While WoL's soul is the same color as Azem's, they are most assuredly not them.

It also ignores the hundreds or even thousands of years of history that Azem likely would have had with their friends. Even if you assumed that WoL would be as long-lived as ancient once fully rejoined (note, there's no actual evidence to this. It's faint hope that the Unsundered are clinging to), they would have to keep up an enormous lie that they don't know Emet-Selch or Hythlodaeus or Venat, who are all trained specifically to spot virtually any deception. This would also require Lahabrea, the master of creation magicks that form the foundation of ancient society, to not notice that Azem is constantly wearing a glamour.

Not only that, but WoL would have had to travel tremendously far back in time to create this stable time loop of yours, requiring aether well in excess of Elidibus', one of the greatest and most powerful members of the Convocation and a genius mage in his own right. WoL does not have access to that kind of aether without inflicting ruinous environmental devastation.

Your theory requires too many assumptions to be plausible and undermines the message that WoL, for all their similarities to Azem, is still their own person, hence their decision to kill Azem's best friend Emet-Selch in favor of the present world.

It also has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH PATCH 7.3, which means this is derailing the point of the thread.

[Shookbeast]

Just... no though. The Warrior of Light isn't Azem and can't even pass for being Azem. Their aether is so thin that they were almost completely invisible in the time of the ancients until Emet-Selch deigned to offer up enough of his aether to render WoL visible and tangible. Even then, they're still so thin that all of the traps that Hephaistos laid out for anyone coming to investigate the happenings of Pandaemonium failed to trigger because it's like having a mote of dust fall on a land mine.

The glamour argument falls completely flat when Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus both possess a keen sense of soul sight that lets them look straight through glamours and examine the shape and color of one's soul. There's no reason they wouldn't recognize their friend Azem on sight. While WoL's soul is the same color as Azem's, they are most assuredly not them.

It also ignores the hundreds or even thousands of years of history that Azem likely would have had with their friends. Even if you assumed that WoL would be as long-lived as ancient once fully rejoined (note, there's no actual evidence to this. It's faint hope that the Unsundered are clinging to), they would have to keep up an enormous lie that they don't know Emet-Selch or Hythlodaeus or Venat, who are all trained specifically to spot virtually any deception. This would also require Lahabrea, the master of creation magicks that form the foundation of ancient society, to not notice that Azem is constantly wearing a glamour.

Not only that, but WoL would have had to travel tremendously far back in time to create this stable time loop of yours, requiring aether well in excess of Elidibus', one of the greatest and most powerful members of the Convocation and a genius mage in his own right. WoL does not have access to that kind of aether without inflicting ruinous environmental devastation.

Your theory requires too many assumptions to be plausible and undermines the message that WoL, for all their similarities to Azem, is still their own person, hence their decision to kill Azem's best friend Emet-Selch in favor of the present world.

It also has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH PATCH 7.3, which means this is derailing the point of the thread.

Then why argue so hard to defend your POV in this thread? Your opinion, based on hand-wavy assumptions that writers could easily work over, are simply not the gospel you proclaim them to be.

I like the Azem theory. Other people do too. We could spend all day going back and forth on it.

For the sake of this thread I will quiet down on the Azem stuff though, but I find this constant “oh that’s impossible” to be gate-keepy and exhausting.

Edit:
(But I do think Calyx might be an Azem shard)