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

[Lauront]

[*]The gaslighting with him is eerily similar to Venat. We're told he has a "pure" and "noble" soul, yet he acts in contradiction to this. He may have moments where he expresses a seemingly sincere desire to change society, but beneath that appears to be a deep seated resentment towards others not thinking and feeling the way he does. (This seems to be a theme of EW that if people aren't behaving the way you want it's okay to force that behavior through violence.)

To me it almost seems like Ishikawa is suggesting that the goodness of the society surrounding him coloured his perceptions, i.e. resulted in him going on his search for answers in space with a positive mindset, not realising how unique Etheirys was in some respects (and this frame of mind collapses when he doesn't hear what he wants, triggering the worse aspects of his persona); we see in a more debauched environment, someone like Amon could emerge. Whatever one thinks of it, the story is putting forward the notion that his inherent soul propensity is to a kind of dissatisfaction with his surrounding society (and the concept of purpose when confronted with finality or death), which in Allagan society manifested more clearly in its uglier aspects.

I don't think the narrative re-framing for him in the Omega quest helped his case at all, really, but perhaps it is a case of Ishikawa testing the waters to see "well, if we try show some positive aspects to his actions would this sway anyone?". However, his 'test' is so far divorced from even what the Omicrons ruthlessly aspired to that it's not really possible to transplant this logic to him (and as Rulakir said, you cannot in the same breath dismiss this aspect of the Rejoinings, which in the end Venat made use of to bring her plan to fruition.) As was said before, it is a spite-driven execution of all life. Crowny's explanation of the differing meaning of "purity" in this context across cultures at least helps make sense of some of the words being used to describe him.

I do find myself wondering why Yoshi-P never thought to seek clarification as to why Emet-Selch was so popular...

I suspect that by doing so, he would have been forewarned of the pitfalls to avoid. Another problem is the desperation to make almost every antagonist and villain tragic and sad. It worked for Emet-Selch but that was due his circumstances being so compelling. He was forced to do bad things because his loved ones were wiped out for dubious reasons. Hermes...basically threw a fit and decided to risk the extinction of all life but then we're meant to believe that he did it because he...loved all life? That just doesn't fit. If the game was more honest about him being unhinged and having snapped rather than having a point then that'd be a bit different. Though we still get attempts to try and pretend as if what he did was in any way acceptable.

A good test, I suspect, would be to propose the actions of such a character to be inflicted upon the Scions, City State leaders and all of their loved ones.

Would they accept what Venat and Hermes did being inflicted upon them? No? Then it's probably not an act to glorify then, is it?

His story is one where you could sort of see a society like that of the Allagans resulting in such a viewpoint (still wouldn't justify condemning his people and the rest of existence to death), but they then go try force this in the context of a society which they portray in virtually all aspects as paradisaical (yeah, with some flaws, but again... relatively speaking, it is), and only mildly dubious in one aspect, and even then, there were others who shared his views, so he could've worked with them using his influence to change things if he was genuinely that unhappy with them. So in the end it just comes across as a rather ridiculous temper tantrum. I don't care for him to be justified as a character, so I am happy with it remaining that way.