Éliane being Garlean felt like a pretty fluff decision at the time, but among other things, it's been tremendously fun to think about all the ways the canon experience gets slightly distorted, like...
- Every single infiltration mission in 2.0- til partway through Stormblood is SO easy. She just waits til she's out of eyesight of any allies and takes her damn mask off because she has a fucking Garlean third eye and literally nobody can imagine someone being dipshitted enough to do that. Thancred can't stand how efficient she is, because it's NOT like she's stealthcrafty otherwise. He's the least surprised when she 'fesses up to everyone.
- That one terrible Garlean scientist giving her this asinine lecture about how Garleans are superior in every way but cannot manipulate aether, and she just smirks then slams him with Stone
- Horrific terrible guilt at the idea that seeing her be able to wield magic is what gave Zenos the idea to experiment with Krile et al (that isn't true, of course, but that doesn't matter to horrible thoughts)
- A lot of NPCs actually being significantly less suspicious of Asahi because they've already had to start thinking of Garleans as people rather than a monolithic evil