Sundering stuff established in the Q&A

[Lauront]

I'd disagree with that characterisation of Lahabrea. Emet-Selch clearly related it to a decay that occurred over time, much as he had with Elidibus's memories:

I closed my eyes, letting out a measured breath, or what passed for one in the emptiness of the rift. He was right, of course. Lahabrea's boldness had only grown with the passing of ages─segueing inevitably into recklessness. Across many vessels and many worlds he blazed his trail, each mad leap forward leaving him that much more broken. Not satisfied with having brought about the Seventh Umbral Calamity, he labored needlessly to prolong it.

Was it his affinity for concepts of flame that made him so like the fire itself? From peerless Ifrita to that hopelessly immortal bird, his creations had burned bright and beautiful─as did he.

He should have known what becomes of the flame once all else is ash.

I opened my eyes to take in my brother's face, but the lips visible below his mask bore no expression. Would he never again show what he felt for us, as he once had so readily? Were those very sentiments long lost?

"What is it, Emet-Selch?"

"Nothing. I was only thinking how similar Lahabrea was to his creations."

"His creations?" I had little difficulty reading Elidibus's uncertainty this time. He couldn't remember. If his clenched fists were any indication, he shared my conclusion: yet another part of him had been lost. Ever since the day he had reappeared to us as the embodiment of "hope," time's tides had conspired to wash away what bits and pieces remained of the person he once was.

Then there is this from Yoshi:

11. Elidibus once described Lahabrea as "unique" after taking a long pause to choose his words. Did he, like Emet-Selch, have less favorable judgement of their colleague in recent years while being too polite to say so?
Oda: I believe that Elidibus's feelings towards his colleagues and the other Ascians' feelings towards each other will be explored in the story itself. The plot has been submitted to Yoshida and he is revising it. Once it gets the green light, we'll explore it more.

Yoshida: This has close ties with the upcoming story so there's not much we can say today. There was a sort of respect between them, I believe, and if you look at Emet-Selch’s dialogue, he said Lahabrea would wear himself down. Lahabrea was a workaholic, like me. He works a lot and can seem crazy. It has a similar meaning there.

From Pandaemonium:

Themis
Ah...I see. “She is no longer with us.” An expression to convey the end of a life.
I have known only the public face of Lahabrea. While he is lauded for his ability to maintain composure in the face of unnerving circumstances, I must admit that oft he comes across as...cold.

We've seen these sort of characters before, be it Fourchenault or Severian. Lahabrea is described as a genius at various points, so he is going to be eccentric, and as such, I'd caution against any such conclusions until they unveil his full story.

See there are just too many unknown variables to come to a conclusion anyone will be even halfway satisfied with. Zodiark's tempering, the proper timeline of events; we are left in the dark on all of it, when we really should not have been. I get leaving some things to the imagination, but at this point we are making entire headcanon scenarios out of the tiniest scraps. I don't think this avenue is really gonna lead anywhere.

Agreed - once more, we're asking to see these scenes to help wash away some of the lingering ambiguity. Trying to fill in gaps and then using this as an argument against demonstration of these scenes is just not going to convince any of us.

[Absimiliard]

Correct. Lahabrea grew worse with time. I have not and will not dispute that fact. You may notice that I even said as much my post a moment ago. That being said, at least a couple of the NPCs in Elpis do make reference to Lahabrea not exactly being the most sane individual. Even putting that aside, there's a whole prison filled with experiments that would be (and are stated to be) considered abominable even by Ancient standards. When I say off his rocker, I don't mean the raving lunatic we saw in ARR in Heavensward. I mean seemingly lacking in a properly functioning moral compass as relates to the rest of his people.

I maintain that Lahabrea's greatly affected mental faculties as of ARR/Heavensward mean we should not use him as an example of Zodiark's effect upon the Ancients, as his zealot-like devotion appears to stem mostly from his own damaged mind rather than any actual primal influence.

[Lauront]

Correct. Lahabrea grew worse with time. I have not and will not dispute that fact. You may notice that I even said as much my post a moment ago. That being said, at least a couple of the NPCs in Elpis do make reference to Lahabrea not exactly being the most sane individual. Even putting that aside, there's a whole prison filled with experiments that would be (and are stated to be) considered abominable even by Ancient standards. When I say off his rocker, I don't mean the raving lunatic we saw in ARR in Heavensward. I mean seemingly lacking in a properly functioning moral compass as relates to the rest of his people.

Fine, but I suppose I don't really consider studying failed arcane creations to be the result of the lack of a properly functioning moral compass - but then again I wouldn't make such an inference of scientists in our own world studying a range of subjects many would consider unsavoury. However, I'll agree that it meant he is not indicative of his people as a whole.

I maintain that Lahabrea's greatly affected mental faculties as of ARR/Heavensward mean we should not use him as an example of Zodiark's effect upon the Ancients, as his zealot-like devotion appears to stem mostly from his own damaged mind rather than any actual primal influence.

I don't think we can dismiss the primal's influence, because tempering itself is at least strongly implied to correlate inversely with maintaining identity and memory, both of which Emet-Selch did. Lahabrea's predicament is related to his penchant for body hopping with reckless abandon. That, combined with the tempering, appears to be what they're pushing as the reason for Lahabrea as he appears in ARR/HW.

[Absimiliard]

I don't recall any references touching upon his sanity as such - the nature of his work alone is not sufficient for me to conclude anything about his sanity, any more than it would to conclude similar about the sanity of scientists studying all manner of unsavoury phenomena. The entire point of the facility is to learn from the failed creations.

Fair enough. Perhaps I am misinterpreting some text somewhere? As my understanding of Lahabrea's research was that it was of the "pulling the wings off a butterfly to analyze its reactions" variety. Failed creations or not, it's difficult not to look at "oh, so he's actually ripping sentient lifeforms apart for study purposes" as lacking in a functioning moral compass.

I don't think we can dismiss the primal's influence, because tempering itself is at least strongly implied to correlate inversely with maintaining identity and memory, both of which Emet-Selch did. Lahabrea's predicament is related to his penchant for body hopping with reckless abandon. That, combined with the tempering, appears to be what they're pushing as the reason for Lahabrea as he appears in ARR/HW.

I'm not saying to dismiss it. I'm saying Lahabrea's mental instability makes it difficult to tell how much is Zodiark's influence and how much is just him having run himself into the ground. This is why Emet-Selch seems a better candidate for the criteria put forth in the prior discussion.

[Lauront]

Fair enough. Perhaps I am misinterpreting some text somewhere? As my understanding of Lahabrea's research was that it was of the "pulling the wings off a butterfly to analyze its reactions" variety. Failed creations or not, it's difficult not to look at "oh, so he's actually ripping sentient lifeforms apart for study purposes" as lacking in a functioning moral compass.

We're not given anything like that level of detail. The facility takes creations which were too difficult or dangerous for other researchers to succeed in perfecting to learn from that and provide a more tightly controlled environment to that end. Our knowledge is limited to these beings being quite dangerous and managed through interment if necessary, so that they could not get out and wreak havoc on the world, or need to be put down; the facility has safety protocols that would result in its detachment from the world if a risk were to arise or its destruction. Lahabrea is credited with taking the flawed Phoinix concept, which other researchers abandoned, and devising the perfected phoenix. Even that is simply an arcane entity at the end of the day, as per Hades's short story (a soul wandering the Underworld accidentally attaches to it but that's the extent of it). I can't say I see much of an issue with experimentation upon these things (the most monstrous of arcane creations) and to me what distinguishes this facility is more how dangerous the creations are, as opposed to the mere act of experimentation being that unorthodox say, compared to Elpis. And even then the philosophy driving it is this:

Athena ever drove home the fact that our subjects should be treated with the utmost care. 'Twould be best if we could see them confined once again rather than disposed of like beasts gone feral.

To me it seems consistent with what we saw in Elpis, other than how dangerous the concepts are and that they didn't want these to perish by going on feral rampages.

I'm not saying to dismiss it. I'm saying Lahabrea's mental instability makes it difficult to tell how much is Zodiark's influence and how much is just him having run himself into the ground. This is why Emet-Selch seems a better candidate for the criteria put forth in the prior discussion.

I agree with that - I suppose the way I'd phrase it is that Lahabrea is the worst-case scenario and Emet-Selch the best-case of how 12k years of tempering's effects might affect an ancient. There's still other factors at play, like the mere effect of operating under such circumstances (alienated from their people, the sheer isolation, committing acts they consider gruesome on some level, being disembodied etc.), but insofar as retaining independence of will, Emet-Selch does appear to do that, enough so to deviate from the plan.

[Lyth]

Emet's account in 'Ere Our Curtain Falls' fairly clearly illustrates that Elidibus the primal who emerged from Zodiark to see to it that the Ancients 'made the right choice' (as Elidibus himself put it) was a very different entity from the enthusiastic Amaurotian boy who offered himself up in sacrifice to Zodiark. It sounds like he had already started to flake off fragments of his personality and memories as a mortal even from the time when he first emerged.

As for Lahabrea, I think that to really understand his descent into madness, we'll need to understand his relationship with Athena. Hopefully her soul hasn't been grafted on to the family dog.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Emet's account in 'Ere Our Curtain Falls' fairly clearly illustrates that Elidibus the primal who emerged from Zodiark to see to it that the Ancients 'made the right choice' (as Elidibus himself put it) was a very different entity from the enthusiastic Amaurotian boy who offered himself up in sacrifice to Zodiark. It sounds like he had already started to flake off fragments of his personality and memories as a mortal even from the time when he first emerged.

As for Lahabrea, I think that to really understand his descent into madness, we'll need to understand his relationship with Athena. Hopefully her soul hasn't been grafted on to the family dog.

If i recall the direct quote from there states as times tides affected him, meaning it wasn’t something that happened immediately. Either way, i think in the grand scheme of things Elidibus was more of an unbiased source compared to either Venat or Emet. As far as Lahabrea’s madness goes, unless they retcon it it’s something that took quite awhile to take root. Again, i’m curious on how they’ll do it seeing as that he seemed relatively fine in the Elidibus flashback which would be post- Pandemonium. In the end though we may just get another twins situation where the child and father make up at the end. I remember all the conspiracy theories about Eden and it turned out to be a fairly simple storyline.

[Absimiliard]

Just gonna....

[Skyborne]

The topic seems to have been driven into... "ancient man bad for experiencing basic human feelings". Next up: Themis is sinister and evil because he smiled at us the wrong way. Also, Hythlodaeus is pure evil because he inhaled an oxygen atom that could've gone into a butterfly. A butterfly that he turned into a robe, to boot.

[Tehmon]

I can't believe the quality of the discussion has become this, AGAIN.
Nobody is saying anyone is bad for experiencing basic human feelings, but certainly your emotions and hurt feelings can't justify horrible actions?
We have certainly come to that conclusion with Venat.