What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[KizuyaKatogami]

It wasn't bad for humanity. The Occuria had used the Sun-Cryst to completely control Ivalician history. They crowned Dynast Kings who would do what *they* wanted and run things their way. They locked away beings like the espers who disagreed with them. Venat's actions freed humanity from Occurian control by ending the Age of Stones.

They were using Rasler to manipulate Ashe into doing what they wanted the entire game. The Occuria were the true villains.

Except they were the only thing keeping humanity from collapsing on itself and they were preventing it’s extinction. Yes they locked up the Espers because they literally led a revolt against them with Ultima at the head of it all. Yes they manipulated Ashe, because what Venat was doing would doom both sides and in the end it essentially did. Magic is slowly sucked out of the world. We see partial results of all of this in 12-2 as well. Venat’s actions caused untold suffering for the rest of humanity and the worlds existence. The “freedom” was a bit of a sham as humanity itself mostly had freedom, it was only until they would cause themselves to wipe themselves out that the occuria intervened.