Endwalker was a great mess(SPOILERS)

[Floortank]

for one she is pretty much the embodiment of despair, saying "baby had a nightmare" is ignoring that she is literally supernaturally empathetic

You cut the part of my post where I acknowledge what she is. I understand perfectly what she is, and it makes her trivial. Like a child having a tantrum rather than a villain.

however, even if that wasn't case, why do we need "a villain" ? first and foremost we are an adventurer, what we "need" is a problem so we can solve it, that is a role easily fullfilled by what meteion has become, villain or not.

Why do we need a villain? Probably to avoid threads full of people angry that the antagonist sucks. And she sucks precisely because in the final moment before we fight her, as we're loading into the fight and watching the pre-trial cutscene, they have her renege, and beg herself "not to do it", robbing us of a villain and making her very clearly just a victim.

Think of the final battle with Emet-Selch, where, after you do the ATE, and the blessing of Hydaelyn stops him from killing you, he *raves* at you, something like "That light sundered the world and every life upon it!" while bombing you with AOEs until his HP runs out. He never reneges or turns back his position even a little bit, until his HP hits zero. He is a satisfying antagonist because he believes in what he is doing and we believe just as strongly that he must be stopped.

[Akiudo]

Why do we need a villain? Probably to avoid threads full of people angry that the antagonist sucks. And she sucks precisely because in the final moment before we fight her, as we're loading into the fight and watching the pre-trial cutscene, they have her renege, and beg herself "not to do it", robbing us of a villain and making her very clearly just a victim.

and you seriously believe giving us something that was evil "for the evulz" would not have a ton of people complain ? zodiark could never have been the final villain for the simple fact there wouldn't even be a zodiark without something "bigger", that was established years ago and implied even further back. sorry but people will quite literally allways find things to complain about, and a thread that starts with the premise of the story being a mess is by default either dead by page 10 or predepositioned to tend towards people agreeing that the conclusion was unsatisfactory turning it into at least somewhat of an echo chamber.