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

[Lauront]

I mean, the game is based on real life, so you can't really divorce the two.

Only ever selectively and only to a degree, when it wants to make a specific point. Without getting into a drawn out discussion about political systems, which goes beyond the scope of this thread, suffice it to say, there are those of us who enjoy monarchies and associated systems as part of fantasy settings, and so tracking what happened to occur in the real world as a matter of specific historical scenarios does not feature particularly prominently in that respect. Part of why I find Amaurot so interesting is how unique its own specific form of technocratic (?) government is and how their society is structured around their unique traits.

The situation with Garlemald was a messy one, with Elidibus initially assuming executive control but then the writers chose to throw in the wildcard of Zenos, both of whom undermined Varis, in different ways. I think he was unfortunately the victim of those writing decisions, much like Elidibus himself was. Given that Garlemald hasn't got a mature monarchy and how their experience with one ended, I can understand why they might not be the best case to retain the system in its hereditary form, so I'll grant that, but all the stars aligned for it to implode into a civil war, going beyond its political system and including a Zenos-ex-machina, who foiled their plans, coupled with Fandaniel putting his own puppet's connections to use. I consider it a mistake to have written Garlemald purely as an instrument of the Ascians' agenda, especially when there are several aspects to the Garlean state that could've been wed to Venat's own ideology/viewpoints, however that could maybe be attributed to shifting or not yet formulated plans on the writers' part.

"Forging ahead", a key thing I'd like them to focus on is how it plans to position itself to deal with neighbours who may still be hostile after the empire's fall, including some of which have always been nipping at its heels until they ended up being subdued by it, as well as those provinces which may remain loyal to it in some respect and not want a return of old regimes (much as with the Bozja plotline.)