This story pegs the god Dionysus as the god of fun, wine, and madness while an underlying theme also seemed to be following tradition and just blindly performing rituals to respect the gods. Dionysus punishes Pentheus gravely for questioning and refusing to just blindly carry on in a manner that he thought was improper. Even the characters at the end mention that the punishment was really disproportionate to the crime, especially in my opinion since even though he was a god they were his relatives on his mothers side. He had his cousin murdered on a matter of pride, which even though a good portion of the dialogue stated over and over that he was a god that eased men’s suffering for those that believed he caused Cadmus so much pain and then banished him. I feel like this story is meant to inspire a great amount of fear about disrespecting even the gods that one might have considered minor, but in the case of Dionysus in particular if you’re supposed tone about having fun and loving and living i’m not sure how much of that can be genuine if you are essentially feeling a grave pressure to enjoy yourself and party.