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

[Tama-Kanzashi]

I don't see a lot of what's being complained about as a "specifically designated" tone shift, but just the director and the writers building on what they had until they found something they liked. It's also why I never figured they would ever write Hydaelyn/Venat as a bad character. They definitely dropped the ball on writing her motivations but the intention has from the very beginning for her to be a character you're supposed to support. And they gave nuance to the Ascians but when they were written back in ARR as "I don't know what their goal is but lets just have them do bad stuff", they were never meant to be the characters that would ultimately be fully vindicated and "win". Especially since their version of winning deletes the whole game map.

Well if they did not intend to write her as "evil", then I find it very interesting that she did things that could most definitely be described as evil or, if we want to be generous, as questionable at the very best.

She lied to us (and by extension everyone who could hear her) from the start, telling a very colorful tale about how she and Zodiark apparently held hands around the campfire for a long time until he "suddenly" became "hungry for power" and then poor old her had to shackle him!
When in reality nothing of that was true - Zodiark never had will of his own, he had to be imbued with one by giving him a core which was Elidibus.

And about poor her never having a choice when it came to sundering the Ancients, tearing their souls apart? Hydaelyn was from the start designed by the person who dreamt her up (Venat) to be able to sunder with no alternative outcome, the visual evidence being her feet, which look like they were tailormade for that purpose.

Venat did never intend for this to go any other way, she was always perfectly willing to spill blood in order to make a new humanity that is more malleable to her purpose and easier to bend to fit her ideology.

She at the same time pampered the player character by trying to shield them from certain things and also manages to abuse them psychologially with carefully chosen lies to coax them into "heroics".

Jesus Christ riding on Ra-La, she even ripped her world into unstable reflections that, as we later learn, were never even meant to survive, she never considered them. Which results in her accepting that parts of souls could possibly become lost forever.
She also coaxed Minfilia into committing suicide so she could wear her body as a flesh suit, only to then abandon her on the First like an old sock puppet.

And we can even consider the loporrits, she made them and never told them that humanity doesn't exist in the same form anymore, they kept building everything Ancient sized - she could have sent a message through Sharlayan, sent a memo to the moon, anything really during those 12k years. But apparently it was funnier to see their little rabbit hearts explode upon learning that they had been doing everything wrong for an insanely long amount of time.

And concerning her being a bad character? Oh boy.
There is nothing good in the writing of a character that is expressed to be loved by every single person who talks about her, is an expert in every field of study, is the best as creation magic, knows everything about the world, is the strongest, the most experienced, the most loving. It's bad character writing at its finest.

[TyrAtatoskr]

There is nothing good in the writing of a character that is expressed to be loved by every single person who talks about her, is an expert in every field of study, is the best as creation magic, knows everything about the world, is the strongest, the most experienced, the most loving. It's bad character writing at its finest.

It's entirely possible that a person can be the best in everything, but not really as it is now. as you imply, Hydaelyn does come across as a Mary Sue in the current lore. She was in the seat of The Traveler; one which invites world-class good guys by its' nature, so it would make sense for her to be "the best at everything and well-loved." the obvious example of the premise working is your character, the sundered version of The Traveler, the Warrior of Light, being well-loved for good reason and the most powerful and nobody bats an eye; clearly the problem is not in premise but execution. unfortunately, it's poorly communicated in-game and she comes across as a doofus. For example, if Hydaelyn did actually do everything correctly and was good 100% of the time, while also making personal sacrifices (as the story wants us to believe but doesn't show beyond a cutscene that implies it), it would make sense that she was loved for the reasons the cast does. For now, the story in EW feels like 2 entirely unrelated expansions cut together because it was the 10-year anniversary and they didn't want to wait until the 12th for the big finale, which meant they had to fanangle all of the important and meaningful character arcs.

I feel like something that could have fixed her EW character is even a short quest that shows her fear about the job required as well as an actual attempt to change the future, instead of her immediately going "well I'm going to play by the rules of two immensely homicidal maniacs because lol." it would establish her as a well-meaning but imperfect character, and failing to convince the convocation about the final days would make a great failure point to allow for her becoming Hydaelyn as a last-ditch attempt to save the universe.



and a minor side note: the ea (blob aliens) could have easily circumvented entropy forever by time-traveling backward, as we know it's possible and only uses the aether of the future. at least a mention of them trying would be immeasurably better than not for purposes of storytelling, as primals seemingly do not require actual knowledge of how to do something in order to do it, and a severely weakened Garlond Ironworks only took a few generations to figure it out. Honestly, the addition of entropy in my fantasy universe literally killed any sense of magic the game had.

[Rulakir]

I feel like something that could have fixed her EW character is even a short quest that shows her fear about the job required as well as an actual attempt to change the future, instead of her immediately going "well I'm going to play by the rules of two immensely homicidal maniacs because lol." it would establish her as a well-meaning but imperfect character, and failing to convince the convocation about the final days would make a great failure point to allow for her becoming Hydaelyn as a last-ditch attempt to save the universe.

This wouldn't have helped. Venat is an ideological extremist and her reasons for the sundering are mutually exclusive. It wouldn't have mattered if the Ancients changed if she still believed them incapable of defeating Meteion due to their aetheric density. Likewise, it wouldn't have mattered if they could defeat Meteion if they wouldn't change. This means any of her efforts to 'try' to change things come across as little more than a ruse as she's already determined they can't survive or they simply didn't change fast enough for her.

The narrative also failed to make the case for either. Venat is not a prophet, there's no possible way for her to know that the Ancients would become something akin to The Plenty. This was a fear of hers, not a guarantee. Likewise, she herself admits she only has a basic understanding of dynamis and it's not her field of study, so she's also ill-equipped to determine that the Ancients could never devise a plan even knowing they would have at least 12k years to devise something.

Additionally, Hydaelyn is the amalgamation of antagonist ideologies the Scions have historically opposed, yet when it comes to her there are no sanctimonious speeches. This is character consistent to some extent as the Scions have always been irrationally zealous towards her, continually hand waving anything negative and trusting her implicitly. It would've been nice if there were explanation for this. It's not just Venat who's a Mary Sue, Hydaelyn herself appears to suffer from none of the downsides of being a primal to the extent that she's apparently the only one who conveniently doesn't temper (it would make more sense if she did).

The WoL is a whole other can of worms since Hydaelyn is responsible for the murder of their original self. Why we trust her after learning this is beyond me and, frankly, her being Azem's mentor just makes it worse because it exemplifies that she has no love for individuals when it comes to her agenda. In fact, knowing and relying upon the bond between Emet and Azem to work in her favor in the future is so emotionally manipulative it's absolutely sinister. This isn't to say I believe she's evil, but in the annals of history she is one of its foremost antagonists second only to Hermes. Good intentions and feeling like she had no other choice doesn't change this fact.

Venat was always going to be a controversial character given the way she was written. Having the sundering be on purpose and with knowledge of the future was a huge mistake. They wrote themselves into a corner. The best thing they could have done was gone with nuance and it's unfortunate they didn't because it created a lot of dissonance between what her character is responsible for and how it was treated.