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

[MikkoAkure]

Emet-Selch himself says in shadowbringers that conquering is easy, what comes after is the hard part. Point was that you need to treat the conquered with dignity. The way Garlean rule has been portrayed and told, even Gaius' rule that supposedly was no different even though it obviously should have been, has always been as bad (and just plain stupid) as possible to justify everyone hating them. Even that stoning scene was less to show Eorzeans as bad and more to show how Garleans don't care unless you're Garlean (and to show why Fordola does what she does). Basically just a grotesque caricature of the worst possible ruler(s).

Yeah, besides the “designated villain fantasy empire” stuff you mentioned, I don’t think the Garleans were ever meant to be seen in a good light and that was part of the point of that whole part of the game.

Emet-Selch purposefully created the Garlean Empire in a way that it would come crashing down, causing as much chaos and death on the way. It was never meant to last very long and it didn’t matter how unstable and unsustainable it was because it was just a tool to cause a Calamity. He just found a group of people who were technologically inclined and had a giant chip in their shoulder and impressed them and fed into their resentment until the conquered the continent and then straight up lied to them in order to take over Othard and begin a campaign in Aldenard.

People can argue until the chocobos come home about how it had potential and could have been good, but it doesn’t change the fact that it was never meant to be a real, lasting country, everything behind it was fake, and the original emperor laughed while talking about how his exit nearly completely destroyed it and caused more mayhem than expected.

We could’ve had a FFXII-esque plot of Varis fighting against the Ascians in order to regain the reigns of his own country but instead, he drinks the Ascian kool-aid and goes to trigger Calamity after Calamity. In 8UC, the Garlean Empire doesn’t even survive the first one he causes. So much for that plan. Then he purged the country of anyone with half of a good idea that could have led to an Empire that could actually survive and sustain itself and went full evil.

[Theodric]

We could’ve had a FFXII-esque plot of Varis fighting against the Ascians in order to regain the reigns of his own country but instead, he drinks the Ascian kool-aid and goes to trigger Calamity after Calamity. In 8UC, the Garlean Empire doesn’t even survive the first one he causes. So much for that plan. Then he purged the country of anyone with half of a good idea that could have led to an Empire that could actually survive and sustain itself and went full evil.

Right, but that's exactly what many Garlean fans were pushing for...and why when people claim to like Garlemald they usually point at the likes of Regula van Hydrus as to why. Garlemald and the Ascians both suffer from similar writing issues as Hydaelyn. Motivations are so readily retconned that retroactively a lot of things simply don't make sense.

Furthermore, by their own admission they never had any solid plans for many aspects of the story so I don't think it's as simple as Garlemald never being intended to be anything more than outright villains. To me it always seemed to be set to have much of the nuance uncovered when finally it entered the spotlight front and centre. Which was likely going to be the case if not for the bizarre decision to cut the story short across the board.

It's also worth noting that a lot of people came to FFXIV from other MMO's such as WoW or single player games that weren't afraid to introduce factions that were darker than the playable choices but who ultimately would shift into becoming something to side with later on.

The Illidari and Worgen in WoW are excellent examples of such. Both were hostile to begin with and then through the natural evolution of the story both became playable options. Such options don't even need to be playable either - just written in a way to reflect the actual nuance that exists given the circumstances of a faction's existence.

I think FFXIV would have benefitted immensely from such an approach. Expecting everybody to root for the self proclaimed 'supreme deity' was always going to be a questionable move and it certainly wasn't Hydaelyn or the Scions that many of us stuck around for over the years.

Much like how in Elder Scrolls Online I care nothing for Orcs but I can't get enough of Dunmer, Nords, Bretons or Altmer.