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I'll have to agree with Ian Atrus here.
It is still a little early, from the Explorer perspective at least, to be assigning tags like "good" or "evil" to anything.
In any situation, either side can be the villain. We really can't tell until we understand the intent of any given party in any given conflict.
How many of history's villains would have been considered heroes had the outcome been different.
I think you hit your intent most squarely on the head with the "blue pages" entry in the poll. The search pages in Myst were as much about the seduction of the stranger further down a path of deception leading to betrayal. It be argued that it is not really until Myst IV that we are given any data about who is truly the villain of the Myst story, if even then.
If a player is ready to invest sufficient time and effort to develop and deliver a parallel storyline where their Explorer is ultimately going to betray those that follow to his or her own interests, does it really matter if there is an alignment with Yeesha, DRC, Watson, Phend, Engberg, Sharper, Cate or the various Guilds, hoods or other groups?
Is there a goal that an Explorer wants or needs furthered? Is that Explorer willing to resort to politics and subterfuge to achieve the results? Even possibly lie to others, maybe not outright, but in small ways to encourage participatory behavior. And maybe it's not outright betrayal, but a desire to exploit others "for their own good."
Mechanically, there isn't anything in MOUL that is going to track the pilgrims progress towards any potential outcome. Even the pillars and donuts and roses and pages and books are more trophies than milestones.
But that may be something that frees a player from having to make inconsistent choices about how they pursue their program of whatever qualifies as villainy.
The villain in the real world is not always the guy with the black cape and long mustache tying the damsel to the tracks. There are many choices that a player can make about what they believe in the story. Follow Yeesha and try to hold off or defeat the Bahro who want what she has. Try to appease the Bahro by helping them get whatever it is they want from her. Try to get Cate back, with her funding and continue the restoration her way. Work with the remaining DRC to do something different.
Sure, we are limited by what we can do in the client, with the game mechanics.
This is the point where I ask the question: "How much do you want to be spoon fed?"
There will be players that want to be presented what may be a false dichotomy of "right" v "wrong" But I think more may be achieved by picking our own roads. But then, I don't know how much I'm even willing to invest in doing something that may just lead off into the deep dark corner of a dead end of an unplayable storyline.
But I won't fault anyone for trying.
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