This is long overdue:

Hermes

A character who clearly has not received enough criticism in large part due to the controversy surrounding Venat. He is someone who has passed under the radar and given that the Famitsu interview and Omega quests seem to imply he had some positive benefit on mankind this needs to be addressed.
  1. I've not gotten the impression from anything I've seen that it was Ishikawa's intention to depict Hermes as mentally ill, autistic, or any other diagnosis I've seen applied to him. (Feel free to post information to the contrary.) He is spoken of as a rational individual with no disorders that would have led him to making the decisions he did. This is important because many of his thoughts and actions have been excused for these reasons.
  2. There's no indication that the Song of Oblivion was anything short of an extinction level event. Not just for Etheirys, but the universe. How am I to accept the Final Days as a 'test' rather than an execution sentence? Additionally, the fact that Hermes is a universal issue rather than localized to Etheirys seems to be ignored. Assuming I accept that the Final Days served a purpose, what about all the worlds that didn't survive them? Do we write those off because Etheirys benefitted?
  3. Hermes knows how the Final Days play out due to the WoL. Just because he erases his memories with Kairos doesn't mean he doesn't already know the end result, he does. This makes it more likely it was spiteful rather than any true test of mankind.
  4. The gaslighting with him is eerily similar to Venat. We're told he has a "pure" and "noble" soul, yet he acts in contradiction to this. He may have moments where he expresses a seemingly sincere desire to change society, but beneath that appears to be a deep seated resentment towards others not thinking and feeling the way he does. (This seems to be a theme of EW that if people aren't behaving the way you want it's okay to force that behavior through violence.)
  5. Learning from Meteion's report that Etheirys is essentially the best place in the universe must have been particularly galling given his issues with his people. As Teraq said, he's a first world problem. :P
  6. If the Final "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" Days is somehow a net positive, then why doesn't Omega acknowledge that rejoinings would also make Etheirys and the people on it stronger? The double standard between rejoinings and the Final Days (and Sundering) is still perpetuated. This quest line seemed to have been meant to address some of that, but it continues to condemn one type of genocide while asserting the other two had benefits.

Random list of thoughts I've had that I couldn't figure out how to write coherently any other way. I'd like to know if anyone else had an issue with how Hermes' character has been presented in interviews and this quest chain? Do you think he had a point? Do you think the Final Days taught mankind anything or improved them in any way?