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

[Rulakir]

Ultimately, the moral is 'it's okay if we do it' or 'it's okay if we win in the end and get the result we want'.

It does seem ideological.

How did we go from antagonists on the level of Emet-Selch and Elidibus to these?

It felt like they tried too hard to make Hermes and Meteion sympathetic. There was a thread on another forum where the discussion centered around whether or not Meteion should've been allowed to do anything after her trial and only one person spoke up on her behalf, everyone else considered her far too dangerous to not be eliminated even if they liked her and believed Hermes was ultimately at fault.

I never see much discussion about Hermes/Fandaniel. It kind of seemed like the writers/devs thought if the players could forgive Emet they could forgive Hermes, but the situations were entirely different. Emet was trying to restore their world, Hermes wanted to destroy it.

It's time to go back to the writing board or better yet summon back the Heavensward/FFXVI writing team.

I adored HW. I loved Shadowbringers too, but EW was a mess. I understand covid was an issue (which may have been to blame for EW's insufferable platitudes) as well as time factors and Yoshi-P's executive decision to end the story in 6.0 opposed to 7.0 or 8.0 like Ishikawa wanted, but as a result I am not confident about the story going forward. I've heard Ishikawa wants to hand the reins off to junior writers, but what have they done that I've seen in game? Not to mention the "conflict of values". I definitely don't want to see more of that after EW where I consider the writers/devs to have been on the wrong side ethically. I'm not looking forward to being pitted against another tragic antagonist who my values may align with more than my own character.

And I have to agree with your assessment about the story's message compared to real life. I get where they're coming from, but at the same time it feels pretentious as well. They depicted people who wasn't able to overcome their despair as "weak", and in venat's case "not worth saving" I guess.

I mentioned in another thread about a discussion on Reddit among people with depression saying they'd just be screwed during the Final Days, it would've ended up being a filter for the mentally ill who wouldn't be able to stop themselves from turning into blasphemies. I doubt the writers considered that, but it's still a bad look.