Part of what you are missing is that Momonga is two entities merging and his human impulses are losing. It's more noticable in the light novel, but basically the Overlord physicality is overriding his human soul. And eventually Momonga will have no emotions. He will fully transcend his mask.
It's often shown in the anime how his stronger emotions are being suppressed. In the LN it is indeed a lot better explained. As usual: source material>adaption.
Ok, I think I got the jist of it is you don't like that Ainz isn't more callous and smart considering he is now in his 'lich' body (basically a Demiurge Mark 2)
But there's one thing you're missing from this, all of Nazarick originally came from a game, and that influences A LOT of the characters and decisions since all the NPCs remember their creators from the game.
"Why did you give your Vampire loli thousands of outfits, a BDSM fetish and big fake tits in a goth lolita outfit?"
"Hey! No kink shaming in the guild!"
Gamers like to customise their things to their own preferences and what they think is cool at the time (Pandora's actor), when you have a guild and everyone able to customise, you end up with a vampire that can use holy attacks and a girl looking like she's from a grudge/ring film being one of the best karma characters in the series that she puts her neck on the line to save kids.
The other thing gamers like to do is get every advantage possible which includes misdirection and doing the unexpected. How many times have you played a Dota game and someone picks a tank but builds them to be a high dps character. Same applies here so having unusual combinations for characters which worked, they had essentially everyone raid their guild at once and they never reached the throne room.
Now to the Aniz character, he's a salaryman, a grunt who's only escape was this game. Now that he's stuck as this character he's having to play a role as he's unused to all this responsibility and was early on constantly afraid the NPCs would see through it and turn on him. After that threat ceases to be a possibility, he seems if he can help them evolve individually so that they are less dependent on him so if they find out he's not as infallible and all knowing as he pretends to be, then they'll still be grateful and not turn on him.
He also is aware of one thing, players change everything so he's being cautious not to be too antagonistic in case he isn't the only one teleported here asif a guild of high level players shows up because he's out here genociding, that could cause significant damage to Nazarick. If he can justify his actions each time (they attacked an aid convoy to line their pockets so that's why we are at war) there's more chance a player will stand down or even join them as how many times in a freemode game has veterans come to dunk on a troll.
TLDR: you might be making a mistake applying a D&D mindset to this when you should apply a Gamer role playing mindset to this.
Holy fuck dude you wrote a whole dissertation on some trashy isekai anime lol.
plus your whole argument - which I didn't read but skimmed - is semantic, which is giga-retarded.
Overlord is a fictional video game setting and so it can basically make up whatever rules it wants. The main character is supposed to be a ridiculously OP max level stat stick so he can pretty much just do whatever he wants, since this isekai shit is just blatant power fantasy.
I think you're putting a lot more effort to say that the show with bad world building and filmsy conflicts (exactly how do you build tension when the closest you have to a really difficult fight was in season 1 when the vampire bitch got mind controlled?) hasn't really done all that much to establish a fun setting or interesting plot. This show is like watching one punch man but the fight scenes suck and the main cast are all pricks who never face any real difficulty because they're all overly powerful.
Obviously the source material probably does a better job (I don't read the light novels, especially when I can hear from people who have read it who state they're sick of the story's pacing and how bleak it is). The anime itself suffers from bad pacing and waste of characters (you know those likeable people in season 1? Yeah they're all dead). Then we get to watch season 2 where the stupid lizard people are too busy trying to do the horizonal monster mash then prepare for an incoming war and we already know the outcome of the upcoming battle. Then season 3 hit and they put even less effort than they did before with ugly CGI and trash tier villians (the ones that aren't the main cast but I'd argue that the main cast also fails to be exciting in the anime because they are very one note and don't do anything endearing).
tl;dr its a show where sociopaths fight other sociopaths while some of the sociopaths try to bang the other sociopaths. The fact that world building brings things out of nowhere and does little to be consistent is the least of the shows problems.
TBF since the show does a very poor job of explaining what rules are and aren't in effect (i.e does race affect your morality? Why do some people have powerful stuff while others don't and will never get anywhere close? what were people doing before Momonga came into be? What is even the point of Momonga's adventures? etc) it isn't really out of the question to examine if the characters actually meet their archtypes like the vampire who can cast holy... somehow. It is certainly a setting where game rules seem to be turned on and off whenever it would be convenient to the Nazarick tomb supremacy.
I'm actually even less invested in Overlord than you. I watched a little bit of it and found it off putting. I was actually far more entertained by the Isekai crossover comedy show where Ainz and Kazuma (from Konosuba) become friends and commiserate over the stresses of leading a cracked team of misfits. While I felt that Overlord was at its worst when it leaned into comedy, the characters actually seemed to work best in that context. That realization made me even more frustrated with the original show.
So rather than wading into the meat of the discussion, I'll make a meta observation:
Taking your characterization of the kinds of comments you were getting, I have a feeling that you're up against a lot of willful "support of current thing" that refuses to consider problems and instead attacks the person asking questions.
It is frustrating when people don't want to engage with a critique and instead choose to categorize you as an outsider or enemy because you want to break it apart for study. But it is also frustrating when someone appears who has only that motivation and isn't interested in enjoying the thing as presented. It is easy to assume that a guy appearing with a critique is just "against the current thing" and wants to kill fun for others as a pastime.
When that tribal instinct to "protect" flares up there's not much you can do to quell it. It is very sad and I've quit many discussions for that reason. Finding people whom you can have good discussions with is, it turns out, much harder than finding topics to discuss. The result is that topic-focused groups can come to resist depth as a matter of pain-avoidance.
There's probably fodder for a conspiracy theory in that where you can assert that media companies are encouraging tribalism around their products for precisely this effect. Smart people who want to move culture forward now have to overcome and navigate that carefully just to avoid being shanked.
The comedy aspects of it are much better pronounced in the LN. In it we see his inner thoughts and while he shows outwardly to be this smart, composed guy inward he is still the wagey. He is trying but he can't be this smart, he can't reach those lofty expectations the npcs all put upon him, he IS God to them because he and his friends made them so no wonder they have those high expectations. This twin side of his is what I find hilarious at time, laugh out loud hilarious. The anime doesn't do this as well tbf.
Part of what you are missing is that Momonga is two entities merging and his human impulses are losing. It's more noticable in the light novel, but basically the Overlord physicality is overriding his human soul. And eventually Momonga will have no emotions. He will fully transcend his mask.
It's often shown in the anime how his stronger emotions are being suppressed. In the LN it is indeed a lot better explained. As usual: source material>adaption.
Ok, I think I got the jist of it is you don't like that Ainz isn't more callous and smart considering he is now in his 'lich' body (basically a Demiurge Mark 2)
But there's one thing you're missing from this, all of Nazarick originally came from a game, and that influences A LOT of the characters and decisions since all the NPCs remember their creators from the game.
"Why did you give your Vampire loli thousands of outfits, a BDSM fetish and big fake tits in a goth lolita outfit?"
"Hey! No kink shaming in the guild!"
Gamers like to customise their things to their own preferences and what they think is cool at the time (Pandora's actor), when you have a guild and everyone able to customise, you end up with a vampire that can use holy attacks and a girl looking like she's from a grudge/ring film being one of the best karma characters in the series that she puts her neck on the line to save kids.
The other thing gamers like to do is get every advantage possible which includes misdirection and doing the unexpected. How many times have you played a Dota game and someone picks a tank but builds them to be a high dps character. Same applies here so having unusual combinations for characters which worked, they had essentially everyone raid their guild at once and they never reached the throne room.
Now to the Aniz character, he's a salaryman, a grunt who's only escape was this game. Now that he's stuck as this character he's having to play a role as he's unused to all this responsibility and was early on constantly afraid the NPCs would see through it and turn on him. After that threat ceases to be a possibility, he seems if he can help them evolve individually so that they are less dependent on him so if they find out he's not as infallible and all knowing as he pretends to be, then they'll still be grateful and not turn on him.
He also is aware of one thing, players change everything so he's being cautious not to be too antagonistic in case he isn't the only one teleported here asif a guild of high level players shows up because he's out here genociding, that could cause significant damage to Nazarick. If he can justify his actions each time (they attacked an aid convoy to line their pockets so that's why we are at war) there's more chance a player will stand down or even join them as how many times in a freemode game has veterans come to dunk on a troll.
TLDR: you might be making a mistake applying a D&D mindset to this when you should apply a Gamer role playing mindset to this.
Holy fuck dude you wrote a whole dissertation on some trashy isekai anime lol.
plus your whole argument - which I didn't read but skimmed - is semantic, which is giga-retarded.
Overlord is a fictional video game setting and so it can basically make up whatever rules it wants. The main character is supposed to be a ridiculously OP max level stat stick so he can pretty much just do whatever he wants, since this isekai shit is just blatant power fantasy.
I think you're putting a lot more effort to say that the show with bad world building and filmsy conflicts (exactly how do you build tension when the closest you have to a really difficult fight was in season 1 when the vampire bitch got mind controlled?) hasn't really done all that much to establish a fun setting or interesting plot. This show is like watching one punch man but the fight scenes suck and the main cast are all pricks who never face any real difficulty because they're all overly powerful.
Obviously the source material probably does a better job (I don't read the light novels, especially when I can hear from people who have read it who state they're sick of the story's pacing and how bleak it is). The anime itself suffers from bad pacing and waste of characters (you know those likeable people in season 1? Yeah they're all dead). Then we get to watch season 2 where the stupid lizard people are too busy trying to do the horizonal monster mash then prepare for an incoming war and we already know the outcome of the upcoming battle. Then season 3 hit and they put even less effort than they did before with ugly CGI and trash tier villians (the ones that aren't the main cast but I'd argue that the main cast also fails to be exciting in the anime because they are very one note and don't do anything endearing).
tl;dr its a show where sociopaths fight other sociopaths while some of the sociopaths try to bang the other sociopaths. The fact that world building brings things out of nowhere and does little to be consistent is the least of the shows problems.
TBF since the show does a very poor job of explaining what rules are and aren't in effect (i.e does race affect your morality? Why do some people have powerful stuff while others don't and will never get anywhere close? what were people doing before Momonga came into be? What is even the point of Momonga's adventures? etc) it isn't really out of the question to examine if the characters actually meet their archtypes like the vampire who can cast holy... somehow. It is certainly a setting where game rules seem to be turned on and off whenever it would be convenient to the Nazarick tomb supremacy.
I'm actually even less invested in Overlord than you. I watched a little bit of it and found it off putting. I was actually far more entertained by the Isekai crossover comedy show where Ainz and Kazuma (from Konosuba) become friends and commiserate over the stresses of leading a cracked team of misfits. While I felt that Overlord was at its worst when it leaned into comedy, the characters actually seemed to work best in that context. That realization made me even more frustrated with the original show.
So rather than wading into the meat of the discussion, I'll make a meta observation:
Taking your characterization of the kinds of comments you were getting, I have a feeling that you're up against a lot of willful "support of current thing" that refuses to consider problems and instead attacks the person asking questions.
It is frustrating when people don't want to engage with a critique and instead choose to categorize you as an outsider or enemy because you want to break it apart for study. But it is also frustrating when someone appears who has only that motivation and isn't interested in enjoying the thing as presented. It is easy to assume that a guy appearing with a critique is just "against the current thing" and wants to kill fun for others as a pastime.
When that tribal instinct to "protect" flares up there's not much you can do to quell it. It is very sad and I've quit many discussions for that reason. Finding people whom you can have good discussions with is, it turns out, much harder than finding topics to discuss. The result is that topic-focused groups can come to resist depth as a matter of pain-avoidance.
There's probably fodder for a conspiracy theory in that where you can assert that media companies are encouraging tribalism around their products for precisely this effect. Smart people who want to move culture forward now have to overcome and navigate that carefully just to avoid being shanked.
The comedy aspects of it are much better pronounced in the LN. In it we see his inner thoughts and while he shows outwardly to be this smart, composed guy inward he is still the wagey. He is trying but he can't be this smart, he can't reach those lofty expectations the npcs all put upon him, he IS God to them because he and his friends made them so no wonder they have those high expectations. This twin side of his is what I find hilarious at time, laugh out loud hilarious. The anime doesn't do this as well tbf.