Dawntrail's MSQ story is a disaster and waste of potential. [full spoilers]

[Remiferia]

Koana has an entire following due to the outside (Sharlayan) innovations he's brought to Tural, and one of the main "moral" points the story sums up is the benefits of combining tradition with innovation...

And yet all of his solutions to each test in the Rite of Succession were met with a prevailing sense of 'Okay, that'll work and you can proceed, but we much prefer Wuk Lamat's solutions of not innovating at all and working with what we already have'. The Hanu Hanu chief among them. They are given an innovative solution for their reed-growing issue that could presumably work in any and all circumstances and yet they are enamoured by Wuk Lamat's genius idea of dancing in front of the flowers and hoping that'll do the trick.

His only real mention in his hometown of Shaaloani is that of skepticism towards the future of industrialisation, and there was potential for a notable subplot using Heritage Found as a possible endgame of innovation and the mutation of culture that isn't explored in favour of giving Wuk Lamat yet more screen time to ramble about smiley faces.

The 'most correct' solutions in the RoS were always the ones that didn't innovate on traditions at all. Pelu Pelu started rooting for Wuk Lamat because she showed a savviness in their trade culture; Hanu Hanu preferred her idea of repairing the float; her biological father wink-wink nudge-nudged her into making the correct traditional dish and also understanding the culture behind it. Koana effectively gave up and endorsed Wuk Lamat on the basis that she better understood the people of Tural despite the fact that he not only wasn't disqualified but also kept her in the running by saving her life.

We go to Solution Nine where they have mixed culture with innovation and spend time talking about how unnatural Regulators are and how they shouldn't be using them. The raid tier is leading directly towards providing an excuse to abandon regulators altogether because Wuk Lamat is never wrong and we can't annex them properly while such an 'icky' cultural difference exists between the two.

But yeah, a few people walking up to Koana when he walked out in the crowd is enough of a foundation to sell me on the moral of the story being at all cohesive with how they got there.

[ZXN]

...The Hanu Hanu chief among them. They are given an innovative solution for their reed-growing issue that could presumably work in any and all circumstances and yet they are enamoured by Wuk Lamat's genius idea of dancing in front of the flowers and hoping that'll do the trick.

To add to this, The Hanu Hanu elder KNEW what Ihih'hana does to the reeds the whole time and just kind of...stayed quiet about it to the village apparently. Yes, the story does say they have been slacking on keeping the float repaired and not taking Ihih'hana seriously and just using it as a day to party, but the fact that the Elder and Wuk Evu knew about Ihih'hana's true purpose and just kind of...didn't tell or teach the younger Hanu Hanu about it, or how the older Hanu Hanu just somehow "forgot" it's importance is kind of dumb.

It would've been more believable if the the story was that most of the older Hanu Hanu went to live in Tuliyollal and the ones that stayed in Kozama'uka were just too old to properly perform Ihih'hana themselves now, leaving just the younger generations of Hanu Hanu to do it. However, the younger generation don't care enough about performing Ihih'hana "properly" because the harvest has always been solid all these past several years and they grew under the assumption that "The magical focus of the float and the Hanu Hanu's prayers for a good harvest are what is keeping the reeds healthy" is just some dumb old story to get them to take things seriously when they don't want to. But now their lack of respect or care for their own culture comes back to bite them after the storm and now they don't have enough food, so in a last-resort desperate attempt to try ANYTHING to get their crops growing again, even though they are all skeptical it'll actually work, they are convinced to give it their all and perform Ihih'hana the proper way and learn how important Ihih'hana really is to their way of life. Maybe even in a similar vein to how the Pelupelu who made the Saddle for Wuk wanted Zoraal Ja to win they could've made it so that some of the younger Hanu Hanu didn't care about Wuk's suggestion of Ihih'hana because they are more interested in Koana's innovations instead of performing some dumb festival.

Instead we get a cat going "Even though you are starving and mourning, you should dance and be happy and have fun" and being told as a result "Oh my goodness, you're a genius! Thank you for saving our harvest!" and another cat solving the reed issue using alchemy and being told as a result "Yeah, thanks, I guess."