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

[Lauront]

Thanks for the details! Without more information, I would LIKE to think that our character perhaps leaned more towards the "morality" of treasuring all life outside of the Ancients and that's why they were not involved with the initial summoning of Zodiark, if they knew full well of the entire plan. Hopefully we get more those details before they completely remove themselves from this story line. Going back to the 5.2 cutscenes where we first see Venat, the conversations seem to lead that even with the summoning of Zodiark, they were still doomed. Now either the story was changed(possible) to fit in the new narrative, or they did not think the path with Zodiark was still doomed no matter what, or they were all referring to The Plenty as their impending doom as you mentioned. As for the "tempering" of the three Unsundered to the will of Zodiark, the language could be seen as you described, but I wonder why Elidibus has a sort of "snap back to reality" moment after we defeat his Warrior of Light form as if he had forgotten his path? Though as the heart of Zodiark he would probably suffer the most influence, that and perhaps his young age played into effect. Again, most of this can be explained by missing, conflicting, ill-translated writing, but it is fun to discuss(least for me).

They've basically left the ancient Azem's actions open to player interpretation for now at least and down to how their character would react, without committing to it. With that said, it'd sit ill at ease with me for my character to basically screw over their people for non-ancient life forms, if it amounted to that, which I'm not too convinced of for now, particularly because I believe they're trying to steer clear from that as the focal point given how polarising it could be. Having them be complicit in her actions would more or less be the final straw for me and I think they'd be wise to leave it as it is if that's where they're going with it. As for Elidibus, he is absolutely affected by it via the memory decay (which he allows to happen), but it's different in nature to Lahabrea because he keeps sight of his duty to his people as his ultimate motivator, while forgetting what set him on that path.

How much of it all is down to retrofitting the EW story to SHB is anyone's guess.