Critical is a difficult word in terms of PoN, as its human characters are very ambiguous, few stand out as someone you are meant to root for, but you are essentially correct. Akka is probably his most humane, replete with weaknesses and failings, but possessed of a sort of universal decency and a doubt that PoN considers desirable, and contrasted with that we do have Kellhus, inhuman, amoral, all-powerful. Yet PoN is not a boring 90's reddit-atheist screed either, Kellhus's miracles are genuinely inexplicable, and Bakker is constantly forcing you out of your comfort zone by emulating, with virtuoso brilliance, the traditional lines of fantasy (and nothing less then excellence is required, otherwise you are just a lazy ironic hipster) only to break them.
==Spoilers==
Kellhus is both a monster AND the last best hope of humankind. In his unchained nature is the flawed nature of man revealed. I think only if you measure him against the evils of the Consult, servants of a race designed for Damnation, can this work, and it does, beautifully. Definetely a Fuck You book, but a grand and glorious one, forcing a sort of introspective loups, and not sacrificing its sobering message for some pet political cause. Grand.
Compare Cnaiur Urs Skiotha. Madman, Killer, Rapist. But who did not feel that spasm of awe when he walks into the howling maelstrom of the No-God, persuing his mad and futile vengeance even as the skin is stripped from his face. Easily the best fantasy of this millenium.
