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

[Teraq]

Him being irredeemably arrogant or evil is still a possibility because he is that way by the time 2.0 comes around. 12,000 years later, he even had a moment where he had to be reminded by Elidibus that the work the Ascians were doing was by Zodiark's will and not for his own. After his death, his own fellow Unsundered called him an idiot, so I don't think he's meant to be a well-liked figure who will be fully empathetic, even among his own people.

Never mind my personal opinion on how boring this would be, the relationship the Unsundered had with each other wasn't this simplistic. We know that 12,000 years of being the sole three survivors – that care, anyway – of a planet-wide genocide took their toll on all three of them. From Emet-Selch's POV in the short story describing Lahabrea as a tireless workaholic respected by his peers to Elidibus remembering his praise in his Echo flashback then clutching at his crystal and Igeyorhm's as he is defeated, all signs point to Lahabrea's psyche severely deteriorating over the millenia from the man he once was, so judging his past self on what his 12,000 year old Ascian self was like seems to me a rather hasty judgment. I'd rather go from what we do know about his Ancient self: brilliant, hard-working, appearing cold and professional to his colleagues, cagey about his personal relationships and not very sociable. In fact, I would say he makes me think of Fourchenault, more than anyone else.

As for his fellow Unsundered calling him "an idiot", you'll have to refresh my memory on that. Reckless and brash, yes; burning himself out from overly enthusiastic body hopping, yes; but insulting him? Perhaps Emet-Selch did, because Emet-Selch is a grumpy jerk with a heart of gold whose thoughts tend to be kinder than what comes out of his mouth, tsundere that he is. Then we have the "his will – Zodiark's will" line, which is a pure invention of the English localisation as things often are. All Elidibus says in FR is that Lahabrea's plan seems perfect, but Zodiark's resurrection must come above all. And given the precedent with localisations – EN doing its own weird thing while FR and DE stick much closer to the original JP –, I'd rather trust the latter on that one.

Anyway, I would much rather have a three-dimensional fallible but human jerk rather than the cardboard cutout you are making him out to be. But can I really blame you for having such a take? This is, after all, Endwalker we are talking about, where nuance goes to die and the antagonists are definitely wrong and their society a horrible cryptodystopia. You might as well be perfectly right – and I will hate it all the way.