Is there a way to buy a story skip for "Just" Heavensward? (Spoilers)

[Lunaxia]

There are a few things you have to understand here.

First of all, Nidhogg was the one perpetuating the war. King Thordan and his knights instigated it, but they died well over a thousand years ago, and Nidhogg knew this. He chose to lock the Ishgardians in a prolonged war of attrition purely out of vengeance and retribution just to make them suffer, and made no distinction between the current day Ishgardians who had nothing to do with what happened to Ratatoskr and those who had wronged him. As Jojoya said, there was never any hope of reconciliation so long as he lived. The other dragons who were not of his brood had no part in it, and kept mostly to themselves. Truthfully, they likely suffered more at the hands of Nidhogg for refusing the call to join his campaign than as a result of anything the mortals did to them.

If you're looking at who lost the most, it's the Ishgardians who are the victims here. They were manipulated and lied to their entire lives for generations by senior members of the Church in order to ensure their compliance in giving their lives fighting a meaningless war they had no idea they could never actually win. You can hardly blame them for struggling with the truth that everything that had defined their lives until that point for over a thousand years was built on a lie, after having been indoctrinated since birth into believing theirs was the righteous cause - and all of this on the word of individuals they had been raised to see as their nation's mortal enemy. All things considered, they actually adapted rather well.

Fundamentally, Heavensward is not a story that lends itself well to black and white views of morality, and in general that's what made it so popular - it's a much more honest and realistic view of how people behave rather than a "the baddies are bad and the good guys always do the right thing" morality tale, and it makes the characters all the more relatable and interesting for it. Nobody is truly innocent or solely to blame here, save for Thordan and in his own way, Nidhogg, and your view that the Ishgardians should be bending over backwards trying to win the favor of the dragons because technically they "started" it oversimplifies what is a much more complex situation.

I'm also a little sceptical of how much attention you've been paying to parts of the story when you're highlighting Ishgard's attitude towards outsiders as a problem and then claiming you managed to grow fond of Gridania of all places. I'd maybe go back and replay that portion again, lol.

ETA: Full agree on Iceheart, though. That was a cheap shot and I share similar feelings on how they tend to deal with certain kinds of female characters.