Another cool thing - you mention the gods as “bound to their fate” as much as peoples. This in fact stands out as one of my favorite aspects of hierarchical/agricultural religions.
Every belief system holds an incredible amount of wisdom, about a way of life. Dualistic good/evil belief systems will teach you a huge amount about the struggles, ecstasies and insights of that way of life. Three choice systems do the same.
So Norse religion, though casting it as a battle between order (norse gods) and chaos (nature giants, at the same time has a story to tell about the ultimate futility of imposing order on the world. Ragnarok represents the failure of Order, and the ultimate categorical rebellion of nature under the yoke of control. The Norse myth cycle admits we can’t really do it.
Much like Christianity says, the path of choosing good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, ultimately will destroy itself, with god sorting the good from the bad and then closing the curtains.
The eschatology (end times) aspect to hierarchical religions, to me, expresses their innate wisdom that they know this experiment in agriculture can’t last - that one can’t subjugate the wild and irrepressible land forever - that it can only end in disaster - and unless one casts an environmental cataclysm as a “moral victory” (which some make sure to do), the experiment doesn’t end with anybody having achieved anything at all, except their own doom.
When you find a belief system with an end times aspect, I think it speaks to this: in some way, the people’s dream selves know that their relationship with the land has a built-in countdown clock, for whatever reason. Unless they change to a more long-term sustainable lifeway, they will always acknowledge this somehow, even if only on the deepest level.
I haven’t explored this as much as the battle between the gods and giants though, so this may have some holes in it, but it sure explains a lot for me!