#90% sure that the nc will implode when nyx comes of age

[flat-neines]

I think the primary reason in universe that the ic could easily write off the plight of HC/Illyria despite having severe personal reasons to never allow it to happen again is the fact that velaris exists and they spend their time and money there.

What I'm trying to say is that they don't have to look at the side effects that their inactions caused unless they want to. And since they don't unless they need something from the very people they condemned, the ic can spend time patting themselves on the back by getting blackout drunk at Rita's. Velaris is basically a filter on their reality, where responsibility and consequences don't exist for the group as government officials.

(There's an argument that could be made about windhaven functioning the same way, but I'd say it's a little more insidious than that; windhaven is a performance, with the inhabitants as unwitting actors in a grander show)

If the inner circle's respective roles forced them to be in the same environments they neglected, with the magic of the land binding them to the seats, all of them (with the exception of rhysand and armen) would be changing their tune. Mor wouldn't get away with wearing red to flaunt her superiority if she had to be present binding and burying every single child bride in Hewn, looking as if she's eager to send someone else to the slaughter. Cassian wouldn't make a show of buying blankets for poor families being all he can do if he had to share those winters without protection or infrastructure, the same ones that killed bastards unluckier than him. Azriel would be pissed at rhysand constantly if he could only be in dungeons of those imprisoned, reliving his childhood on loop as he forgets the difference of his victims keening in pain between his own.

Do I think they'd change for altruistic reasons? Not really. But their agreement to rhysand's "change takes time" would drastically change if they were equally as affected by the "takes time" part like everyone else.