Quote Originally Posted by Rulakir View Post
Despite ShB showing that excess light can be bad and foes can come in the form of angelic beings, I still felt that Zodiark was undermined by having a 'demonic' appearance especially as we don't have much (if any) experience with dark beings who look monstrous but are good. Hydaelyn, by comparison, being a beautiful angel even if it fit the lore just felt like more visual manipulation compared to Zodiark looking like a Lovecraftian horror.
I just felt their looks fit with their elemental aspects. As you said, we just had an expansion that put up a giant neon sign of "Looks can be deceiving". It's also possible part of his look is because Elidibus isn't there.

I also think back to Yoshi-P's comments before EW along the lines that things weren't as black and white as we thought. And I felt there was a lot of grey in Endwalker and with Emet in Shadowbringers. There's no great evil setting out to hurt people just to hurt or be cruel. There's flawed humans taking actions they think will help or fix things.