Endwalker was a great mess(SPOILERS)

[Theodric]

That part of the story has less to do with whether everyone can live with the final days or not. Venat saw that her people were incredibly eager to pony up and sell their souls for anything that would make their lives comfortable again. Now, showing that alongside a literal apocalypse is a harder sell (since that's hardly "seeking easy lives") but that's what the story was going for. The Ancients were willing to create a monster to run away from their problem. Venat saw knee-jerking and shortsightedness and knew that the next time something horrible happened -and it would eventually- she might not be there to make running away no longer an option.

There's a message in there about growing up and facing your issues like an adult instead of putting them off in unhealthy ways like a child.

Venat had information relevant to the prevention of the Final Days and opted not to inform anyone of what was coming, then blamed others for daring to mourn the fallen and seek to restore what once was. She's the definition of an abusive mother figure, insisting on forcing hardship on others for no reason than to stroke her own ego.

I think the true message to ever watch out for subversive elements within one's society, which is ultimately what Hermes and Venat both ended up being.

She's also a complete hypocrite - not only was her backup option to flee the Star if things went south again, she actively gave the Warrior of Light the ability to bring back his dead companions...which is exactly what she was criticising her own people for. Though moving goalposts in such a manner is to be expected from such a spiteful, manipulative individual I suppose - especially one that fashioned herself as a goddess and shunned many opportunities to aid her 'children' more directly.

[Rulakir]

It's baffling to me that the game paints Hydaelyn as some sort of tragic hero. Consider this: Venat thought that the best chance of defeating Meteion was the WoL, 8x rejoined. So, why create more than double the amount of shards necessary? Fodder for the Ascians. The Ancients are consistently judged on their sacrifices to Zodiark when Hydaelyn literally created 8 additional stars' worth of beings to be sacrificed for a future that was not guaranteed, in fact, her contingency plan was to abandon the remaining shards to destruction.

I feel like the writers just did not think this through at all. One moment of clarity where Hydaelyn admits what she did wasn't a kindness doesn't even begin to address the atrocities she's responsible for nor the game's heavy handed narrative of forcing the player character into a 12k year bond with her complete with emotional cutscenes and only positive, reaffirming dialog, nothing remotely in the way of disapproval.

Edit: The icing on the cake is that the WoL gave Venat the playbook to follow thanks to the time loop. So, guess what? Your character is now an accessory to genocide. Have fun with that.

[Lauront]

It's baffling to me that the game paints Hydaelyn as some sort of tragic hero. Consider this: Venat thought that the best chance of defeating Meteion was the WoL, 8x rejoined. So, why create more than double the amount of shards necessary? Fodder for the Ascians. The Ancients are consistently judged on their sacrifices to Zodiark when Hydaelyn literally created 8 additional stars' worth of beings to be sacrificed for a future that was not guaranteed, in fact, her contingency plan was to abandon the remaining shards to destruction.

I feel like the writers just did not think this through at all. One moment of clarity where Hydaelyn admits what she did wasn't a kindness doesn't even begin to address the atrocities she's responsible for nor the game's heavy handed narrative of forcing the player character into a 12k year bond with her complete with emotional cutscenes and only positive, reaffirming dialog, nothing remotely in the way of disapproval.

Edit: The icing on the cake is that the WoL gave Venat the playbook to follow thanks to the time loop. So, guess what? Your character is now an accessory to genocide. Have fun with that.

Worst part is, the entire Ascian agenda is because their world is sundered out of the blue with no real explanation as to why, leaving them with what they see as fragments of their own people, more reminiscent to them of the familiars in Elpis than what they were like in their fullness. It's remarked in Ultima Thule by Y'shtola that how Emet-Selch set up Amaurot's shades suggested he moved away from seeing them that way, to closer to children - that softening in his stance plus recognising the WoL as Azem's soul probably swayed him quite a bit. While the actions of the Ascians are no doubt understandably cruel in the eyes of the sundered, she does not escape responsibility for it and the situation she left them in, IMO.

[Driavna]

Right until EW and the discovery of the cure for tempering to me the reason of sundering was simple: primals drain the land from aether, the more powerful the more aether to keep him around. If left uncheck a summon will create stuff like the burn unless is feed regulary (and, pretty much that was the plan of the Ancient after stopping the end of days Zodriak will again be boosted to bring everyone back. After that another excuse to summon him again will be bring to the table and blablablabla). Also, any tempered is bound to want to keep her god around or summoning it once more, and since there is no cure you can't reason with them, only to put them down.

It's not without reason, knowing that Hydaelyn was less powerful and could not confront Zodriak directly, that sundering the whole star was a last resort since I doubt they will want to kill their own kind, now out of control due tempering.

Anyway, at least to me, FFXIV always had a plot that the less you think about it the more you enjoy it. By ShB it went for cheap emotional moments and during EW got out of control (the whole Venat cutscene after Elpis is that. Amazing if you don't think about it but if you do is a big mess).

Oh, one last thing: according to the whole main point of EW the Ancients were doom and low key the last dungeon show us their ultimate fate even without the final days. They could have made a better job delivering Venat point, about learning that suffering is part of life and having to deal with it instead of using primal copium to fix any problem and eventually fall to nihilism (or just like: hey our mission is done everyone back to the star!)