What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[YukikoKurosawa]

If the character stimulates you to think about things in a certain way, or gets a certain reaction out of you, they can act as a useful writing tool in that way. I am no writer, and I can't say I am a huge fan of him or even the intended messaging behind him (other than "grow up and stop being so self-centered if you want your one-sided best and first ever hostage friend to notice you"), but I appreciated Zenos in that sense in EW. I think she was aiming to prompt some 'deep thinking' with Hermes but he was under-developed, the civilisational backgrop against which they were trying to demonstrate these points was poorly suited to it and so it came across as relentlessly pretentious. At least in my eyes and self-indulgent.

What I meant was why would she knowingly write a villain who is neither interesting, understandable, or at bare minimum likeable? I didn't mean "villains who are meanies are bad because I don't like meanies". Hermes has zero compelling aspects as a villain and as a character. She suggests herself that she was self-aware of this, and knew he would be poorly recieved, which makes me ask why write such a character to begin with? He fails as a compelling or likeable villain, especially since we just went from Emet Selch and Elidibus. I like Zenos, in fact I think he was one of the redeeming aspects of EW. But Zenos has actual personality and is likeable. Hermes/Fanny-Danny is neither, along with not being understandable nor compelling.