Something that I loved about how both Zerxus and Cerrit, despite loving their kids they were bad fathers. Both choose their work, the city over their kids. As well as how the city demands so much but gives very little back.
Zerxus hadn't seen Eilas in 7 years, his son had to mourn and deal with the death of his father relatively by himself because the city pressured Zerxus. Which I think adds a layer as to why Zerxus is somewhat resentful of Avalir and why he doesn't consider it his home. This city being so opulent and has some of the most powerful people on Exandria, they literally don't experience weather, couldn't help his husband who dedicated his life in service of the city. The same city, while he was still mourning his husband, pressured him into taking up a mantel that stripped him away from his son and a living breathing reminder of Evandrin's existence.
Avalir demanded his servitude. And he had no other option but to feed the broken system.
The same thing happens with Cerrit. So much of his work consumed his life, his eyes were everywhere apart from inside his home. It was all consuming, to the point in which when his wife left, it seems like Cerrit didn't put up much of a fight. It was so bad that he didn't even know where she was, he had to learn who his children were as people quite literally during the end of the world. Cerrit making it out was a promise to do better. A promise that Zerxus didn't get to fulfil.
Patia is another example of Avalir's constant demand to be better, do better, how it eats away at a person. She dedicated her entire life, hundreds of years to Avalir, and all she could return to was a statue of her Grandfather. The same person who set Avalir on this path of destruction, people like Vespin were merely a symptom of a larger issue. Patia didn't have a lover, didn't have kids because the city would have consumed her, like it did Cerrit and Zerxus. The Ring of Brass was Patia only family, and in her final moment, she for the first time placed her family above the demands of Avalir.
Avilr in a sense was what Aeor eventually became. A living city, that feeds off the misery of its inhabitants.
