P.P.Kukel

Azimuth had revealed to us that he does not view this current time he is in as "real" and, as such, has been treating everything he does and everyone he meets as temporary until the present gets back on track and he fixes his mistake. He sees talking to Ratchet about the past as pointless because it'll be "fixed," so why does it matter? (But even he can't stop himself from gushing about Kaden.) He even declines to help the Vullards while they're being attacked by the Agorians until they offer him something he needs to reach his goal. He views everyone as just another stepping stone to reaching his goal. He's detached himself emotionally from this world because it is not real to him.

This is similar to how Nefarious views everything in ACiT as well, just less exaggerated and silly. In a way, the two are pretty similar. Nefarious copes with his loss believing he can rewind time to "wrong" the "right" while Azimuth copes with his mistake, chasing after the idea that he can still fix it. Both are consumed by their failures in the past.

While Azimuth does try to care about Ratchet, it's clear that he doesn't let himself care that much about any one individual more than his goal. He doesn't even care about himself making it out alive after being captured by Vorselon— he only cares about fixing his mistake (and pushes this duty onto Ratchet as well). He is still putting up that emotional wall between him and Ratchet, so he won't get attached. Because to him, Ratchet won't exist once he "fixes" his mistake. This Ratchet he is currently fighting alongside will be gone, replaced by a completely different person— a Lombax that got to be raised by his father and mother, and never had to face the hardships "Ratchet" went through.

In Azimuth's mind, once he achieves his goal and fixes the past, this "Ratchet" will die. There is no point crying over someone you already accepted will not exist. He will simply care about the Ratchet that he will "save" in the past, not the one he doomed in the present.

Azimuth believes The Great Clock will fix all of his problems. Ratchet going back into the past to find out what happened to Orvus only strengthens Azimuth's belief that this will work. It has to. He does not even want to entertain the idea that it won't work, because that would mean he'd have to sit with himself and think about all of the awful things he did to get to this point.

"For the Lombaxes," he says, as he kills one of his own. "For Kaden," he says, as he kills his best friend's son. "To fix the past," he says, as he ruins the present.

It's only when he is faced with the fact The Great Clock won't fix his problems, that Ratchet (just like Kaden) is desperately trying to salvage the mess he made, that he has doomed the universe... that is when he realizes that he was chasing after something that was never going to work. You can't run from the past. You must learn from your mistakes. Azimuth wouldn't listen to Ratchet, just like how he wouldn't listen to Kaden. History repeated itself, and now his mistake was going to get Ratchet killed. All of his guilt from everything he did washes over him at once. He apologizes, but that doesn't change anything.

And he knows that. Azimuth's redemption comes from the fact that he doesn't run from this mistake. He faces it head-on, and his last words break the emotional wall he had set up before—

"Take care of yourself, Ratchet."

He's finally acknowledged the past can't be fixed and that he's doomed Ratchet to being the last Lombax yet again, but his final words are one of care and hope. He sacrifices himself for Ratchet and the present. In this action, he atones for his mistake.

And gah. This character is so amazing. I hate him. I love him. He's one of the best characters we have in the series, and I could fill an entire video essay just babbling on and on about this beautiful ending. Every character in this ending can be dissected for their choices, and this ending has definitely impacted the series far more than any of the others. I would dare Insomniac to top this ending, but I think it's dumb to even try. There's no topping this.