Whatever animosity Josie gets is kinda deserved. She betrayed the prince; took away agency from the player; gives little information and absolutely worst of all: separated the player from the girls, leaving this open question of if the world has moved on. That is a poor situation to be in. She's a much more apparent villain than the ephemeral father.
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I think it was justified to a degree, Josie definitely should have found a way to explain what she knew to the MC before shit hit the fan, but that would have been almost impossible without the mind meld especially considering the condition MC's mother is in.
Her own autonomy was threatened by the political machinations around her and she could have easily left MC to deal with everything on his own but chose to do what she thought was best for him at the time.