WRT the Garlemald portion of EW: I'm sure that for a lot of FFXIV's history players have been wondering what it would be like to reach Garlemald proper in-game, and daydreaming of epic battles, maybe a sense of "conquering the conquerers"
And it is so, so genius of EW to not give you that.
You don't get any glory or revenge in defeating the evil empire, they already self-destructed on their own. You can't really revel in it. If you're feeling particularly vindictive you might look at the rubble and silently think "Serves you right!" or "Good riddance to bad rubbish." but no matter how much you may have hated the Empire in the past it's hard not to pity what's left.
See, the thing about Garlemald is that in their prejudice and conquest they treated everyone who isn't them as subhuman. But in the end you are all human beings, and so are they. The Empire isn't a nameless, faceless evil, it's a war machine created by the beliefs of humans who saw other humans as inhuman. By helping the survivors you are not only doing the right thing, the human thing to do, you are also disproving their prejudice in the process by reminding them that you're all human. (I'm using the word "human" in abstract sense here, not to refer just to the Hyuran race of FFXIV, but all the races of sentient beings, all deserving of rights, respect, etc.)
I'm trying to shine a light on the significance of this part of the story because it seems like some people have conflicted feelings about helping citizens of a facist former empire, but it would be sheer Reading Comprehension Stat: None to assume that that means FFXIV is condoning their ideology. In fact, it would be antithetical to FFXIV's optimistic, pro-humanity, love-and-peace, a-better-world-is-possible -type philosophy if we instead left the survivors to starve.
Maybe I'm alone in not pitying fascist bigots who dug the grave they now have to lie in. I was raised by racist bigots, in a part of the U.S. where lots of people are still those things; where being in the military/being a cop means you're basically a superhero to the civilian public.
But then I got out of that home, and learned that the things I saw, grew up around, and was taught... were skewed. My government and my culture celebrated things that seemed antithetical to human nature - skin color doesn't matter, and serving in the military/police force isn't actually honorable or anything to celebrate. And I figured this all out while I was attending the military college that fired the opening shots of the Civil War - they even had a mural of the cadets firing those first shots in the campus library. I get it, I know what its like to grow up in a place that still thinks certain types of people are subhuman - young men at my college tried to run out the women attending there, and I matriculated 10 years after the school started accepting women as cadets. Think about that - this school didn't allow black men, or women... and they let black men in years ago... but in 2006, women had only been allowed to attend for 10 years, and were still held to unfairly high standards compared to the men. Did no Garleans ever do the same - become young adults and question what the hell was going on around them?
No matter how much brainwashing their country was doing, you know deep down that some things are just wrong. I always felt uncomfortable when racist jokes were made around me growing up, despite the casual nature of racism still prevalent in the U.S. south in many places.
So all that said? Yeah, I spent my whole time in Garlemald thinking "serves you bastards right," and being disgusted that Ala Mhigan refugees, run out of their homes by these very people... were asked to sew tents and send them to the Garlean refugees. Think about that if it happened in the real world - imagine a country committing genocide/unthinkable war crimes (not hard to do at present), but they collapse in on themselves one day, and their people are starving... would you ask the survivors of that genocide to help them? The very people who violated their women, murdered children, burned down homes and hospitals... you want them to make homes for those hateful people now? It felt like a slap in the face to me and my Ala Mhigan oc. Maybe literally anyone else should have been tasked with that relief effort.
Sure, we're all human - and maybe the dregs of their fascist state (most of whom still openly regard you as filth, even as they starve) will have their eyes opened by kindness, but we see that even that is spit on because "needing help is weak," and we basically have to do the trick you pull with giving a dog medicine by hiding it in cheese/meat - you trick them into a trade deal with the one nation they didn't genocide, just to get them to accept aid they desperately need, but would rather die cold and alone in a cave than accept.
It absolutely tracks that XIV storytelling will have us all hold hands in the end - but it's all a little too sugar-coated for me. I write a character who suffered terribly at Garlean hands, and I have been deeply immersed in the details of the various kinds of heinous war crimes they've committed - one that stands out to me is a man at his mother's and sister's graves, telling you that after what the Garleans did to them, they killed themselves - and that death was a mercy after what they endured. When you know the nitty gritty, (let's not forget the horror that is the Weapon questline either) instead of just standing back and talking about a bad, faceless empire... they're almost impossible to forgive, or want to help in any way.
I don't pity fallen, genocidal fascists - I spit on their graves, and hope that the hateful people they left behind don't sprout a new empire of hate... after all, many children of high ranking Nazis went on to firmly believe in what they were taught growing up. Not all, but many still espoused the disgusting beliefs of 'the Third Reich'... giving some soup and blankets to Garleans won't change what's molded them their entire lives, either. It's pretty obvious that the WoL befriends the very few moderate Garleans there are - all the other NPCs still had rather hateful, bigoted dialogue.
So yes, the story tracks for how SE writes XIV stories - hell, it even aligns with Christian philosophy, that says to love all men... especially your enemies! But I'm only human, and I couldn't drum up any pity for those who made the bed they now lie in. Not with the lines that they crossed, and the beliefs they kept espousing even after being shown how wrong they were. But it tracks for the story SE is telling - because even in Dawntrail, we're told that it's possible to become friends with someone you once thought you hated... and it is a beautiful sentiment! I wish more people were willing to give second chances, and work through miscommunications, and move forward with a better understanding of each other. It's not a bad message - I just can't pity unrepentant fascists who celebrated war crimes, and still hold fast to those beliefs.