Is Zodiark evil?

[LineageRazor]

I just find it hard to believe that a being that was apparently powerful enough to seal her other half away lacks the strength to adequately assist her champions with keeping darkness at bay. We have yet to see Zodiark need to possess someone, or outright ignore his followers begging for help, or anything that lends to him being evil other than the brutal methods of his followers and his other half who is arguably more malicious saying so.

To address this point, it's been very strongly implied in this game that Hydaelyn now is MUCH WEAKER than she used to be. The very act of sealing Zodiark likely took a lot out of her, and she's spent a lot of resources since opposing the Asicans. Protecting us from the Ultima spell at the end of 2.0 almost drained her completely, and she wasn't even able to talk to us again until she took Minfilia on as an Emissary. And she wasn't able to even do THAT without taking advantage of Y'shtola's spell to bring Minfilia into the Lifestream.

Hydaelyn has spent a lot of her resources over the millennia, trying and failing to protect her worlds from the Ascians. A popular fan theory is that the Twelve were all Warriors of Light of their era - twelve (thirteen) at once! In the present day, she can field only one or two (thankfully, one of those few is us); if so, Hydaelyn was likely a lot stronger back then. Draining her resources over time is very likely a deliberate strategy on the part of the Ascians; they likely acted much more slowly and subtly when Hydaelyn was at her strongest. Now, with Hydaelyn at her weakest, they are free to move much more boldly.

The fact that she does so by empowering mortals rather than by acting directly implies that something about the nature of her being prevents or discourages her from acting directly. It's not as though she has physical hands or limbs, and the rules of what she can and cannot do whether she is at full strength or not are unknown to us. The ability to overwhelm a being similar to herself existing in the same realm as herself does not necessarily translate to the ability to do anything she wants on the physical plane we're used to.

[Abigorium]

You’ve made a lot of good points, but none of them really address the suspect nature of Hydaelyn’s actions in my opinion—Minfillia being the greatest example of this because in hindsight she basically possessed her for a reason she FAILED to carry out (she supposedly possessed her so she could stay in communication with us and the not only failed to do so, apparently failed to do this with ALL of the WoLs at the same time. Even if we don’t count 1.0 canon where she was throwing out the echo enough for there to be an entire organization bigger than the 2.0 incarnation(the path of the twelve), there are still WoL besides THE WoL operating around the world(s), and Hydaelyn has done little to nothing to make them aware of and work with one another.

Even if we ignore that Hydaelyn ripping herself in half somehow weakens her and not her counterpart, it still doesn’t explain how she suddenly found the strength to go and help the first shard until she was directly confronted about the problem (remember EVERY SINGLE WoL has had SOME kind of interaction with Hydaelyn), and still appears to have failed to fix the problem, even if it turns out she has somehow delayed it. If this is the case, that opens an entirely new can of worms about the nature of Hydaelyn and Zodiark respectively.

In conclusion, until I see proof of otherwise I’m going to assume most of what we see of her is an act in some cosmic game of chess or something. Too many things that she has done appear (to me) to benefit Hydaelyn. Yet when the world(s) need her suddenly she lacks the strength.

This is not to say that Zodiark ISNT malicious as well, only that so far its actions seem far more in line with what a deity might do than Hydaelyn.