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

[Guntank81]

• The mighty Zodiark, which has been build up as this mighty(evil) entity over several expansions, turns out to be nothing but filler trash for the first Endwalker trial
• The true cause of the Final Days is a pet-project from an ancient which goes mad after observing countless dead world and possibly causing the death of several world by projecting negative emotions unto them, and is thus dead-set on bringing despair to every world, upon which said ancient goes mad and is now letting her run her course to test humanity if they can withstand/fight despair
• Venat, who hasn't had her memory wiped + still remembers you from being in Elpis, quite apparently doesn't lift a finger to learn about Dynamis herself or to mobilize the other ancients to end Meteion then and there, and instead chooses to turn herself into Hydaelyn, sunder the world and the inhabitants, thereby forcing them to live with and face despair and gambling that their resilience against despair might be enough to face Meteion one day

Really?
This is the best SQ could do in terms of story after ShB?

-Zodiark is a symbol of the chaos and destruction that the true villain, Meteion, later represents. Therefore, Zodiark's role in the story is not necessarily filler, but rather serves as a representation of the stakes and consequences of the conflict.
-Venat's actions are driven by a desire to protect and preserve the world and its inhabitants, rather than causing harm or despair. Venat believes that by forcing the inhabitants to confront and overcome despair, they will be better prepared to face the ultimate threat of Meteion.

[Graeham]

-Zodiark is a symbol of the chaos and destruction that the true villain, Meteion, later represents. Therefore, Zodiark's role in the story is not necessarily filler, but rather serves as a representation of the stakes and consequences of the conflict.
-Venat's actions are driven by a desire to protect and preserve the world and its inhabitants, rather than causing harm or despair. Venat believes that by forcing the inhabitants to confront and overcome despair, they will be better prepared to face the ultimate threat of Meteion.

• Zod is summon use by the King Solus to making the No Shadow God mustard race. He is not bad guy is just hungry. He does not do the destroy he is just do the eat. God Meteo is summon use by the skullface to defeat Loprabbit army. Is not bad guy but listen to the emo music. In remake script he is main one who kill the Venar and Loprabbit in the Crystal Land. Venar is main badguy. This was predict by guild story expert in the Shadowbringing so must be true. Is like how the Bigboss is friend who giving the quest at the start but haha you are fooling he is badguy. Is the smartest plot twist only guild can foresee. Venar can be using the futuresight to see all bad thing that come. But did he stop them no he did not. Forum paladin and the Venar are the evil and guild and No Shadow are the good. Is why story is bad because badguy win and goodguy come in the last. Is why guild is upset. But is way to fix. Game using the time travel magic. So use the time travel magic to go to the Shadowbringing and make the Solus King create mustard race.

[Solarra]

-Zodiark is a symbol of the chaos and destruction that the true villain, Meteion, later represents. Therefore, Zodiark's role in the story is not necessarily filler, but rather serves as a representation of the stakes and consequences of the conflict.
-Venat's actions are driven by a desire to protect and preserve the world and its inhabitants, rather than causing harm or despair. Venat believes that by forcing the inhabitants to confront and overcome despair, they will be better prepared to face the ultimate threat of Meteion.

Re: Zodiark - I didn't interpret Zodiak's nature that way at all. He is the opposite of Hydaelyn (stasis) and represents uncontrolled growth/activity rather than destruction. I saw it more as a Yin/Yang type issue where balance between the two was desirable and neither one was evil.
The game also tells us explicitly that Zodiark is the will of the star, but then at the end of EW we have people referring to Venat/Hydaelyn as 'the will of the star', which she obviously couldn't be if that role was already filled by Zodiark.

As to her actions being driven by a desire to protect and preserve, they are anything but as far as I can see. She seems to have taken the idea that nothing can change the timeline where we travelled to Elpis and warned the Ancients but nothing was changed by our actions. All her actions seem to stem either from the idea history cannot be unwritten (Shb called and would like a word) or that it could be changed but the Ancients were somehow unfit to continue and that the only way forward for humanity is to continue with the timeline we had told her about and literally rip everything up (the sundering) and start again. You can't get a more radical or destructive path than that, besides killing everyone outright so there is no possibility of rebirth.

For me, the mixed messaging that has emerged over this expansion has been a large source of my discontent with it.
We should trust our friends and do everything to keep them safe but it's bad when the Ascian's try to do that
Genocide is wrong and that makes the Ascian's evil but it's ok when Venat/Hydaelyn does it.
History can be changed but not when the plot demands it can't be
The Garlean Empire is evil until EW when actually it turns out they're just a bit misguided and we bush aside the brutal supression of other races, human experiments, torture etc

It's not like there haven't been retcons before but the sheer number and scale of them in EW is a problem for me. It feels like this expansion turns so much that we'd come to believe on it's head and not in a particularly believable fashion, because most of the time it the story doesn't acknowledge there has been an about-face.

[Necrotica]

As to her actions being driven by a desire to protect and preserve, they are anything but as far as I can see. She seems to have taken the idea that nothing can change the timeline where we travelled to Elpis and warned the Ancients but nothing was changed by our actions. All her actions seem to stem either from the idea history cannot be unwritten (Shb called and would like a word) or that it could be changed but the Ancients were somehow unfit to continue and that the only way forward for humanity is to continue with the timeline we had told her about and literally rip everything up (the sundering) and start again. You can't get a more radical or destructive path than that, besides killing everyone outright so there is no possibility of rebirth.

For me, the mixed messaging that has emerged over this expansion has been a large source of my discontent with it.
We should trust our friends and do everything to keep them safe but it's bad when the Ascian's try to do that
Genocide is wrong and that makes the Ascian's evil but it's ok when Venat/Hydaelyn does it.
History can be changed but not when the plot demands it can't be
The Garlean Empire is evil until EW when actually it turns out they're just a bit misguided and we bush aside the brutal supression of other races, human experiments, torture etc

It's not like there haven't been retcons before but the sheer number and scale of them in EW is a problem for me. It feels like this expansion turns so much that we'd come to believe on it's head and not in a particularly believable fashion, because most of the time it the story doesn't acknowledge there has been an about-face.

Still disgusts me what Venat did. Because she did it against her own people. Emet didn't turn against his own people. He was trying to save them. Venat wiped out her own race so that another race could live. Doesn't get more evil than that.