One of my biggest issues with this game atm is the MC. The further we move along in the game the more I grow to like him less. My issue with him is that it feels like he just sits there and watches as others actually do things. I don't like the feel of being a passive observer when he should be more interactive in situations. It frustrates me to no end.
I think it would be more accurate to say that rather than being a bystander, the MC is the catalyst for change within the lives of the girls. He doesn't need to be the person who changes the world, he just changes their individual worlds.
Take Lin as an example. When we first meet her, she's meek, she's scared and she's kind of useless. But through the interactions they have together, Lin grows, becomes more confident...maybe not the smartest, but her heart is still in the right place and she does accomplish a few major things that have an impact on the world.
Or maybe we go to a smaller, but no less important, example, Maria. Finding out she was half-elf was always going to happen, she was always going to have to go for a medical test at some point and they would find out and she would be enslaved. Were it not for the MC, Maria would probably be sold to some sweaty asshole or just left in a cruel situation. But even just the act of the MC tracking her down, getting her home safely and just treating her as Maria sparks something in her. The revolutionary and the desire to carry on her mother's fight. Will it change the world? Maybe not, but it certainly changed her world.
The important thing here is to remember that we aren't playing the MC's story, we're seeing the stories of the girls' unfurling through his eyes.