That'd be a pretty cool premise in of itself, though. The gods are actually trying to harm and manipulate humanity, but the MC is on their side rather than on humanity's side XD
While stuff like that's not typically my cup of tea, it'd be a variation of this setting I've never seen before...
TO BE FAIR, the thing he said about the death penalty? According to the novel, both him and Elria thought it was like that, since that was actually the law 1000 years ago.