Rushing Garlemald is one of the biggest tragedies in FFXIV's storytelling pre-DT. Spending 8 years hating Garleans and working towards finally wiping them out only for them to rush the story beat of us being a part of a contingent that goes over there for humanitarian aid. I couldn't, and still can't, swallow that. It basically expects you to 180 your opinion on Garleans immediately while still beating you over the head with how much they despise you and see you as less than human. I often have people go "omg you have no empathy, they're all brainwashed by propaganda." and it's like, no duh. Anyone that's done Highschool reading has seen this theme done to death. Not to mention that they are still actively attacking us in some zones, like the Weapons storyline. Issue is that the change from wanting to kill them all for invading my home and killing my friends & family to "we need to help them" was handled horrendously. All the interesting Garlean stuff happened offscreen where we couldn't see it. Now it's a singular zone and all the true parts of Garlemald are 'destroyed' and inaccessible.

What a waste. I wanted to be the one to lay waste to Garlemald. lol So many years of hating their faction and nada to show for it in the end.