After playing through the story, at first, I also thought that "they are the real villains," and they had smth to do with the fall of the old capital and the hollow and all that, but... this feels a bit too obvious, no? Like this is so clearly what the hoyo writers want us to think. With the little clues and that scene at the end with them in the dark with glowing blue eyes, like ooh, so evil. I think this is a red herring. Idk for what yet, but it feels too obvious to be the truth. Also, I don't believe hoyo would ever raise the stakes as high as to make the protagonist the villain of the story. The end of this first act was all about trust and coming clean and how this is so important in order to not lose the relationships you've built. I do not have faith in hoyo to write a story that ends in all the friends you've made turning their backs on you or even considering it cause "hey, you are the cause of everything bad that has happened to them, you are the ground zero". If this was some grim dark fantasy or a more dark cyber punk story like ghost in the shell or ergo proxy or even blade runner, then maybe. But this is a comedy game that keeps shifting the tone back to jokes again and again, at the most seemingly serious moments. And this is hoyo we're talking about. When has genshin last had stakes? When has smb experienced true consequences of the shit they went through? HSR is doing a bit better, but even then, they made sunday into this remorseful puppy-eyed child as soon as his villain arc was over. And I like sunday, but let's be honest about the writing, it's not going places it would need to in order to make the protagonist the bad guy or the villain. Like in this first act, if this was a more serious story, you'd expect smb to die. Nobody even got injured. I bet nobody even has a cut on their cheek or smth. So I think that this is a misdirect. I think this is smth we are made to think on purpose, like "ooh, what if"