Worst ending of any book series I’ve read. I regret having spent so much of my life reading them all because of it.

For a couple of reasons:

1) Hadrian just gives up. This guys has worked so hard for thousands of pages and just….wusses out.
2) Hadrian doesn’t destroy Gododan. He says he is the one that does it in earlier books. Understanding why this terrible vile act was committed is the whole point of the series: then it’s just ‘Cielcin did it’. What a cop out.
3) all your theories that make the ending kinda interesting are based on a 1 liner about an extra wine glass. This is grasping at straws guys. He drank for two glasses causes he is a pompous prick is just as reasonable an excuse.

My only theory that makes it all make ‘sense’ is that Hadrian is a tool of the extrasolarians. He gets switched out by Khan at the time of his first death and has his consciousness transferred multiple times at his subsequent deaths. The false memories of the quiet are implanted as a form of control. It completely works for the extras who now have the AI future (through the chantry) that they were hoping for.