I enjoyed the first season, so read the books during the off-season. Like most show adaptations, it's been moving further and further from the source. You can see where they're trying to incorporate elements from the later books but events are so different it no longer fits. Doing my best to enjoy both stories, and looking forward to a few scenes from the books making it into the show.
I don't look at these as the normal novel series with a grand arc. It's a Slice of Life story where the characters deal with a few major events, but most of the story is just them going day to day. No one (except Alice and Jane) is working towards any great goal. Everyone else is pulled into their stories. You can decide for yourself if you think using a side character as the main focus is an innovative writing choice, or a bad idea. I find it interesting since it's not very common.
I don't think of Q as the villain, he's trying to live his life. So far his life has been pretty crappy. He's a high functioning schitzophrenic with anxiety and depression. The fact that magic and Fillory turned out to be real doesn't change that fact. For all his belief and desire, he's not even very good at magic. He has to master something before he can do it at even the basic level. "No middle gears." All or nothing. So he spends most of his life failing. Constantly being told you're wrong, and constantly failing drains you, even (especially) if you're later proved right. His choices reflect that. He's not a villain, he just kinda sucks at life. He has no grand goals until he adopts someone else's.
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