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

[Brinne]

I'm willing to make an allowance for the fact that when dealing with state actors in such a setting that they can probably get their hands fairly bloody without their morals being brought into question. Again, it would be nice if you could express some of your views via your character to perhaps dispute it, but I think with Venat it's the sheer scale and extent of it that made it much harder for me to ignore.

I mean, I'm no fan of Hien and could in fact cheerfully criticize him for days over tea, but as I said, it's not game-breaking or anything for me. And I will say that there's a distinction between "I will manipulate these uninvolved people to fight in my war for my country" versus what was ultimately "I will flat out kill everyone over a philosophical disagreement." One is mostly "wow, uh, pretty cutthroat and ruthless methods for your cause, bro, kinda weird though that we don't get to point out how ruthless and terrible to those people they are" and the other is "what is this I don't even."

The EW role quests did at least go over how his rather naïve treatment of "Tsuyu" and other post-occupation matters soured opinions of him; to the extent that he was the only leader that had some of his people actively turning against him.

Hien had some conflict over Tsuyu, but that was very much in a "hm, do I punish a person who is fundamentally innocent for the crimes she committed as a different self and how will people respond to that" - it's a situation where Hien's fundamental goodness of person and intent is never in question - versus "wow, the father I idolized sure did run a country that turned a blind eye to sex trafficking and abuse!" The most he says about what Yotsuyu actually endured is a very vague "uh, we'll make it so things are better? I'll assign the guy who sold Yotsuyu into slavery to another post I guess? I can't judge him?" Which. Hm. Yes.