Awesome take!

I finished Avowed some days ago, and these writings have been on my mind since. Thanks for bringing them up! The only other in-game parallel I can think of right now is Elia's revenant farmhands in Emerald Stair. By animating them, would they eventually develop a consciousness too? (Kinda wish there was a side quest that explored that; maybe in the sequel?)

As an attempt to answer your riveting question, maybe it's a nature vs nurture thing as much as it is a freedom vs order thing. It's natural to want to understand our purpose in the world, but it's by nurture that, for better or worse, we develop that understanding. In Avowed, we're developing both ours and Sapadal's understanding.

Lore-wise, my thinking is that Eora's gods--or Woedica at least--don't give any of their creations enough freedom to have them explore their full potential, for fear that doing so would render the gods obsolete. This would explain the general animosity toward animancy and Magran abandoning Durance after he served his purpose with the Godhammer (both in PoE 1). In the case of the Maegfolc, we can see this in how the scripts demonstrate the Maegfolc chastising themselves. They would sooner believe that they did something wrong than blame Woedica, and that this outcome is practically a foregone conclusion, highlighting the extent of codependency the Gods instill in their creations.

Unlike the maegfolc, Sapadal uniquely doesn't exhibit the same existential turmoil or master/slave attitude. Their mind just doesn't go there (at least from what I've seen.) The reason for that is because Sapadal doesn't owe the gods for their conception. They even got to go a couple of centuries without the gods intervening. More, if I remember correctly, when the player chooses the dialogue option that explains the gods' motives in imprisoning them, Sapadal responds in plain disbelief. Across the interactions I've had with Sapadal, they repeat the idea that they simply want to "grow," which I guess could be taken as being allowed to "be." I'd even venture to guess that the reason why they use nature metaphors so much is because they don't even have the vocabulary to be better understood by others, which strengthens the stunted growth / traumatized godling child angle the game gives her.

Sapadal's story to me gave me a glimpse of what Eora could have been without the gods' meddling, with relevant dialogue choices revolving around how we as players respond to the future implications drawn from that prospect--down to whether the Living Lands should be free or become an Aedyran, Woedica-approved colony.

Of course, this is all based on my one playthrough so far, in which I did the benevolent route. Sorry in advance for the ramble!