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

[Atelier-Bagur]

Can I get an AMEN?! Hell yeah.

Just one minor correction.

WoL is 8 times rejoined by the end of SHB. There were 7 successful Rejoinings and Ardbert fused with us from The First.

I have no clue how you guys even come up with such weird mental gymnastics of what was presented with the story. Is there just some extra dialogue or external lore that I missed regarding that Hydaelyn was a twisted power hungry maniac?

[Vyrerus]

I have no clue how you guys even come up with such weird mental gymnastics of what was presented with the story. Is there just some extra dialogue or external lore that I missed regarding that Hydaelyn was a twisted power hungry maniac?

Atelier-Bagur sets up a scarecrow and talks to it. More news at 11.

[Absimiliard]

I have no clue how you guys even come up with such weird mental gymnastics of what was presented with the story. Is there just some extra dialogue or external lore that I missed regarding that Hydaelyn was a twisted power hungry maniac?

This isn't so much a comment on the rest of the conversation at hand, but I can think of one thing most people missed out on that kinda ties in a bit; the NieR side of ShB's crossover event. The FFXIV content over there covers from just before the sundering, through the sundering itself, and on into the post-sundering era. Some of what it shows is pretty damning insofar as the whole "Hydaelyn is a heroic figure without spot or blemish" thing some people want to push.

Turns out the sundering was way worse than what we were lead to believe initially. More damning still is how it's delivered; a narrator, and not the unreliable kind, commenting on things as they unfold while also elaborating on what Emet-Selch and the other unsundered see, feel, and think about it. Between the narration, the artwork, and the understanding everything on both sides of the crossover event would be canon, it becomes very difficult to simply dismiss the additional lore they slid into NieR Re[in]carnation. The artwork in particular is quite telling, as it clearly and cleanly illustrates the tattered state the bodies and souls of the sundered were left in.

tl;dr: the sundered were reduced to gibbering masses, incapable of communicating even with the unsundered, who we know can communicate with any creature capable of communicating, and left in a state of absolute agony. It took ages for them to stabilize, and ages beyond that for them to relearn language and begin building new civilizations.