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

[CrownySuccubus]

I went over this a few months ago, but I feel like everyone is remembering this scene wrong. There wasn't a "shocked" moment. Our responses were "Oh turn living beings into clothing? Just like that?" and "Won't someone be angry with us for using those creatures?" both responses are given with a blank face and no shock.

I don't think the writers intended for us to go "hmm" there, but at the point where they were making flying wolves that can breathe fire for no better reason than that they could.

I don't agree, simply for this question: why bring attention to it in the first place?

If we, the players, are not meant to see it as a big deal, what is the point of that quest objective and dialogue (aside from padding)? They could have easily had Hyth grab a couple of flowers with the same "aetheric resonances" or whatever, and make your robes that way. What purpose does having the player go out and weaken these pretty butterflies, have Hyth turn them into clothes, and then have the WOL comment on the process serve?

To me, the answer is obvious: to make the Ancients seem "less human". Even if we look at this from a less questionable standpoint of "The WOL was surprised they can do it so efficiently"....who cares? We've known since ShB that all of the Ancients have creation magicks. Even if the goal was to recap this for the players, they could have said, "Oh, that must be the creation magicks I've heard about." But the way the issue is raised in both questions (although, I'd love to see what the original Japanese wording was for the second option) makes it clear that the Ancients are very callous about how they use living things.

Especially given that they basically see the WOL as just a "more complicated" version of the petaloudai, it gives a very "They could do this to you, next" vibe.