But to be clear, when I said:
just a lot of killing people and people dying and the usual fruitless perpetuation of a cycle of vengeance, with nothing but bugs for keeping company with
That first word, "just", is rather the crux of my problem! It's not that that concept is in itself workable. I mean, minus the "nothing but bugs for keeping company with", there's a bunch of very profound and human stories that are centered around the bitter truths and ironies, and also the trials and tribulations, of warfare of all sorts.
But if all there is to it is stuff like, "the protagonist shall dominate everything and there shall be great suffering in the land, yay winning is fun", and
furthermore if one's going to make the whole world one's enemy and most all one has for friends are insects bound to one's bidding, that's all in all pretty dreary state of affairs.
Like, there's loads of potential exceptions and ways it could be made to work, as there always are in writing, but I'm starting out here with immense skepticism.