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

[Lauront]

Potentially, but I think you could also have a midway scenario, where you have entities which could be guided in that direction amongst the more straightforward cases of fauna and flora, like the forebears of what are now the 'beast tribes'; bearing in mind we don't know what the WoL told her in precise terms, and some of the creations do exhibit some potential for sapience, even if the star generally does not deem them fit to stick a soul into in the case of familiars. Nonetheless, it seems like a plausible scenario to me.

Also, it really comes down to the degree to which that was just to get them to stop going down that route, to avoid her true concern, which was the Plenty, and to embrace "suffering". Again, all the language around those scenes is very pragmatic in nature, suggesting any division over the sacrifices connected more with whether they were in the best interest of the star. Given what Emet-Selch said in Elpis, I think their overarching concerns may have been whether those souls in Zodiark would've approved of them taking such an action, or whether they'd deem it insulting. There is also the question of could it be done? I'd suggest from there that Elidibus's return probably answered those questions.

There's a difference between intent to portray something as negatively, from an author's perspective, versus the execution of that portrayal and whether it actually aligns with the manifested details within the writing. There is actually no question that the writers were hoping/anticipating we'd be disturbed by aspects of the Ancient society. We weren't, and many of us, for many reasons described, found the methods they used to achieve that either ineffective, unconvincing, or actually doing the opposite in making their society more appealing. So I feel like people are sort of having two different arguments here.

In that long Famitsu interview, there's a bit that wasn't translated directly where Yoshida actually goes into how he thought players would leave Elpis thinking the Ancient society was "scary" - listing all the reasons he figured they'd be a little disturbing - but that instead, most people came away with thinking they were just "good people" instead.

I think it just goes to show he and I (and I suspect some others here too) are on entirely different wavelengths. Not to mention how the Elpis sidequests don't really seem geared to eliciting that kind of reaction.