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

[Lauront]

Did you read what your screenshots say or did you stop at the word "appearance"? It even says: "reduced in all respects", which he goes on to list some facets of. We know that they lost their immortality, the full span of Echo powers, the ability to use creation magicks, and more besides.

I certainly agree this should've been depicted in XIV, but it is nevertheless a canonical depiction of what occurred in XIV, authored by the lead writer for SHB and EW, detailing Emet-Selch's story as it introduces him to the crossover.

I believe the "malicious intent" thing is your own reading. Posters here were in fact disputing that malicious intent is required to be a villain. No one is trying to cast her in a purely Manichaean light.

Had the writers not wanted me to blame Venat for all the evils in the world, they should not have given her such a great role in bringing them about - again, consult the pre-6.1 Q&A on this front. And I am sorry but they are not all the same to me. Hermes throwing a cosmic temper tantrum and dooming all life because of his own self-indulgent sadness and discomfort with the concept of death/purpose is very much intentionally evil. Whereas with Venat I can at least agree that her motives were not purely destructive, even if they caused her own people a great harm.