There's something to be said about the similarities between what Laerryn and Evandrin were trying to accomplish and what the Lloys did manage to do in Aramán. When Evandrin had his conversation with Zerxus in the astral sea he told him that:
Which is just a beautiful way to start questioning if the gods even deserve the name, no matter how it ended. At the same time when we look at Aramán and the shapers war and how it ended a very similar idea arises, that the gods can be killed. That they were shapers not even gods. I think the different results from both attempts to diminish the gods has to come from where the desire to do so came from. While we don't know how every shaper was killed in Aramán I think it's safe to assume it was a group effort, in Avalir the ascension of the city failed in part because all the people involved in it couldn't trust each other. I'm sure Cerrit was right and taking the whole city out would have been disastrous, but at least if the Gau Drashari had trusted the mages Laerryn would not have hated the Calix to the point of destroying it. I can't help but think that in part Aramán's attempt was sucessful because they were trying to bring down tyrants for the good of everybody while in Avalir they were trying to raise just themselves to their level. I suppose that the difference between Hope and Hubris.
