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

[Rulakir]

The irony being that EW actually makes sense if Hydaelyn tempers. Considering both Krile and the WoL go from being skeptical to enthralled in the blink of an eye it could be that those already tainted with her Blessing of Light were more vulnerable to her influence.

It would certainly explain Minfilia too who, despite acting like a brainwashed cultist, everyone treats as being perfectly normal. The rest of the Scions, particularly Thancred, also start acting in ways contrary to their values whenever it involves Hydaelyn too.

The idea that she had the ability to temper the entire world also plays nicely into her insistence that she's the Will of the Star. How handy that is when you usurp Zodiark, wipe out the civilization whose will he represented, and are left with significantly less intelligent beings with no memories to mould.

It's a shame they didn't go the antagonist* route with her because she makes a far more believable one than a heroine. EW really does feel like she is the villain (Hermes who?) where everyone has been tempered to think otherwise.

* Given how littered EW is with other tropes even more overused than 'evil goddess', such as progenitor race is responsible for their own destruction, I can't take any complaints that it would've been cliche seriously. I think it's much worse that she is an antagonist in every possible way except for how the characters treat her. It feels forced and like it was rewritten to subvert expectations, which is a particular pet peeve of mine.

[MikkoAkure]

It would certainly explain Minfilia too who, despite acting like a brainwashed cultist, everyone treats as being perfectly normal. The rest of the Scions, particularly Thancred, also start acting in ways contrary to their values whenever it involves Hydaelyn too.

Everyone treats Minfilia as normal because she's the first Echo bearer who decided to gather other Echo bearers, who up until joining the Path of Twelve were ostracized by the rest of society. Louisoix and the Circle of Knowing have been in contact with Minfilia since she was a child and helped her set everything up and Thancred sort of raised her so of course they'd be with her the whole step of the way.

Gonna need a source/example on Thancred suddenly acting in ways contrary to his values. Not sure wwhere that came from.

* Given how littered EW is with other tropes even more overused than 'evil goddess', such as progenitor race is responsible for their own destruction, I can't take any complaints that it would've been cliche seriously. I think it's much worse that she is an antagonist in every possible way except for how the characters treat her. It feels forced and like it was rewritten to subvert expectations, which is a particular pet peeve of mine.

It's less about tropes or being cliche and more about suddenly making the character who supports us and saves our life on multiple occasions over 10 years into a villain just because people caught the feels for the Ascians isn't great writing. Considering Venat was in 3rd place in popularity polls in Japan, I don't think she's the universally panned figure you think she is.

Ultimately the game isn't about the Ancients. Their world died 12,000 years ago, there's no saving them, and they don't show up fully realized until the 2nd to the last level of the entire game and we just go there to find out how to save our own world.

They didn't even exist in the minds of the writers or the lore team when 1.0 and ARR were written and were just added in after the fact, after the Ascians and Hydaelyn were already in the game. Further expansions (except Stormblood) added details and nuance to make it more interesting, but we were never going to end up subverting the whole Hydaelyn vs the Darkness completely. It was never meant to be that way from the beginning and it would completely invalidate large swaths of the game just for a cheap twist.