Endwalker was a great mess(SPOILERS)

[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.