She outperformed them? Yes. At what? Purification. Something the Archangels never tried to do.Purge is a spell which worked on Fraudrin but does is mean that Hendrickson and Zarataras have more Magic power than him? No. Her technique was just the same, it had no offensive property. Right now Elizabeth isn't a Human, she is a Goddess.Nowhere has it been said that she got her strength sealed or anything. She is awakened. Tarmiel even pointed out that Elizabeth failing was natural since they were being pressured by them.
Let There Be Light is a spell which works under specific conditions. Until she shows something of note in a fight I won't consider her as someone at their level because she doesn't have the feats nor the reputation. In no way has she been portrayed as superior to Ludociel. She threatened Derrierie? But in the end she did nothing. Threats are not feats. In the previous chapter Zeldris tanked an Ark from Ludociel and retaliated, Ludociel stopped it and managed to protect the others, those are clear feats demonstrating their strengths. Elizabeth hasn't shown anything putting her at that level of power.
-Elizabeth is awakened to her identity as a goddess, she remains a "
cursed goddess to a
human form etc";
-there's no need for a verbal statement about her power, Nakaba has shown it twice in the canon coloured artwork since her awakening, since, triskele aside, she still has eyes of different colours when activating her power, whereas in her goddess form they were of the same colour.
That visual split is stereotypical to at the very least shounen stories to imply either
a) partial awakening( but that is not the case, she got her curse triggering memories of her past lives and access to her abilities), or
b) lack of control of her power( again, it's not much of a case, since ever she awakened she's successfully applied her abilities/skills, granted, she hasn't had to do so in too dire circumstances);
c)or the likeliest option, she doesn't have all of her power available as a goddess, since she's bound in a human physical form, lacking her wings(which by Word of God are markers of power development for the GC) and with an
incomplete change of her eyes when her power is in use, and the most glaring thing of all, under punishment.
Considering how much the demons complain about the Goddesses brainwashing people and whatever else they can do, it makes sense if the DK was the one to punish her to also deprive her of access to all of her power. That much doesn't really need stating, it's one of the typical shonen tropes for characters that started their existence in a high position in their respective universe, it's happened to Meliodas, though maybe differently from a technical standpoint. Not to mention that all of the mains(excuse me if I omit the usual comic relief and mascot) have had to either reveal/recover all their power gradually, or achieve it likewise. In no way is this form of Elizabeth the same( power wise) as her original goddess form.
Hikari Are was seen doing 2 things:
1)debuffing Monspeet and Derrieri from their Indura forbidden technique, it still counts as a disarming skill, leaving room to offense hard or impossible to block...
2) and, at Corrand,sending the corrupted souls controlling Diane forcibly to the afterlife or wherever they went, which counts as a killing blow, the souls were purified and eliminated from Britannia's plane of existence.
Tranquilize also counts as a debuffer, it took away all the PoD fueling Melascula's actions as a fighter, deprived her of access to her humanoid form and Elizabeth did that to her without breaking a sweat, while in her limited form, as others said.
Also, please don't forget that before she even awoke to her true identity, she dispelled whatever Zeldris cast on Merlin, it got her tired, but it still worked against magic of superior quality(royal demon) from a TC with 61k PL. So whatever PL she may have now and may have had as a goddess, even her type of magic(main ability) must be of a highly different quality to the AAs we know to make up for what I expect to be a quite glaring difference in PL between her current form and TCs of 50k+ PL.
These along with her feat against Derrieri in 188(which counts as clear offense) and the fact that the ark she added to her slap improved the momentum(?) and knocked Meliodas off his feet while knowing his physical prowess. With or without the element of surprise, even I was shocked that it did more than comically turn his face to the side or bounced off.
Also, why are you using Zaratras and Hendy as examples?! Zaratras used a life sacrificing version to simply extract a different, superior powerwise, life-form from his host, but that exchange was still one VS one and he was physically latched to Dreyfus/Fraudrin, in a way he couldn't have been rapidly shaken off, goddess Elizabeth was also dealing with direct pressure from 2 Induras(head-on) which she was handling pretty well while they were still in phase 1 and she a non-physical fighter.
Hendy's employments of Purge only help exemplify its use as debuffer or finishing blow( on lesser demons), as for the power reference, remind me why does it matter the magic power difference when it was used on the kind of energy you not so long ago were claiming it had no bearing on the demons' MP?! Hendy's Purge didn't work at all on Fraudrin, Elizabeth's Hikari Are had to be desperately opposed through the amplification of their PoD by the 2 Indura, she clearly was surpassing both in something, pick your poison.
As for that page example, many of you are reading it backwards if we're to trust that translation: Tarmiel is not surprised they're
starting to repress her, since they
had been overwhelming the 2 AAs. But that phrasing only tells us they admitted that she was expected to still require(by herself) more effort from the opponents to fight off than the 2 of them combined(with all their military experience and raw power). They acknowledged her superiority to both of them, while not falling into the extreme of believing her too far above, she's admittedly, by all parties here, inexperienced when compared to them. However, even as a noob to war...as a goddess, she's still in Ludociel's PL range(the whole wings size/number debacle) and has some abilities of pretty high potency and effect, even when she can't be backed up by very high MP(I doubt her human form's PL changed from 1925...at least, it didn't jump high... till the moment she recovered her memory)
Come on, clearly elizabeth has shown insane magic so far. Even as a human with sealed power her PL was at about 1.9k, as much as gil and howser had at the time. As a goddess elizabeth was able to suppress two induras on her own. Meanwhile even the archangels could not even put a dent on the induras. And sure, she did need help to finish removing the curse but even without the archangels help she still did more against the induras than the other 3 archangels. Add to that her more recent feat of removing melascula's miasma which she did even in her human form in which she still does not have full access to her power. If her magic was able to purify melascula then odds are her power easily exceeds melascula's 35k. And in her goddess form odds are her PL is at least in league with that of the archangels, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to hold back the induras even for a second. That said, that is still different from elizabeth being a fighter, she simply has massive magic power and the ability to use it.
There's also still that feat with dispelling whatever Zeldris cast on Merlin when he attacked her, that was before Elizabeth had recovered her memories. Merlin may have had some resistance due to the blessings(though I'm not so sure they're perfectly working), but it still put her in a coma and was gradually consuming her. So, without having a conscious grasp of her abilities, Elizabeth still used them on magic cast by Zeldris, and I suppose it's safe to say that "curse" was enabled by his "God" ability.
She outperformed the archangels because her magical power affected the Indura's whilst Ludoshel's power didn't; it's not because it's merely purification. If you don't have the fundamental power behind an ability against an opponnent than it will surely fail. Actually no; Elizabeth is not a Goddess at the current moment in the manga; chapter 224 clearly depicts that while she is cursed by her mother; the Supreme Deity; she will be reincarnated in a constant cycle over time as a human. Sure; she has her memories but that doesn't mean she's retrieved all of her power. The ''Let There Be Light'' example I used in her Goddess vs Human form illustrates this idea. It's natural that a human will not have the same equivalent power as a Goddess; even if she's fundamentally a Goddess in her original incarnation.
That statement by Tarmiel only defines that Elizabeth is struggling because Indura effortlessly took out the archangels; a powerful fighting force. In no way it is saying she's weaker than the archangels.
Also; Ludoshel clearly respects her power and position in the clan. When he was individually fighting against Indura; he was freaking out and screaming for assistance by the other archangels but the moment Elizabeth appears he's suddenly calm and wants her assistance instead. If she didn't have any notable power then he would've told her to get out of the way.
Problem with Goddess Elizabeth's character is due to how Nakaba has revealed barely any information regarding her title; power; or reputation. During the flashback arc; any information given about Elizabeth was extremely vague. For example; Ludoshel commented on her ''status'' but never directly mentioned what that specifically mean't (her being SD daughter); then you take into account Monspiet recognised her identify but didn't specifically mention who she was.
Overall; Nakaba has been very vague about any information regarding the Goddess Clan and Goddess Elizabeth is no exception. But with the reemergence of the Goddesses in the latest chapters; then we will hopefully get more information regarding Elizabeth's true position/power.
I'd put this down to agree-disagree (btw)
Regarding your suggestion that "Ludoshel could've told (her) to get out of the way", actually, I have to correct you, were she inferior to them powerwise, they would've put her back in that Ark shield, shoved her aside("for your own safety, lady Elizabeth"

) then proceeded with confronting the Indura and maybe Mel, or just the Indura, cause Mel would've likely prioritised retrieving Elizabeth. Hell, if she wasn't deemed highly competent, they would've never let the dainty flower out of the Celestial Realm and onto the battlefields of Britannia. Cause she wasn't relegated to healing, they wouldn't abide diplomacy with the demons, so I don't see why else they'd let a royal unable to fend for herself out on the violent battlefields.