People turned around for Terry pretty quickly. Hero only seems to be contentious among the competitive scene who want him banned from tournaments. Byleth probably had had the misfortune of being a safe first party character following four totally unexpected inclusions though having characteristics of being an "anime swordsman" from Fire Emblem didn't help. I bet there would still be mass disappointment if it was a Pokemon instead or any other first party pick for that matter.

I'm almost 100% certain we will get a Sword and Shield Pokemon for Pass 2, the question is if it'll be the first reveal or not. I say that because, as I said elsewhere, there seems to be a certain higher level of expectations regarding the first and last reveals for these sorts of season pass DLCs. Hypothetically speaking like say Cinderace or Inteleon gets revealed as the first character of Pass 2, I almost wonder if it'll be a Byleth situation all over again. But also hypothetically lets say the first character for Pass 2 is someone like Dante or Geno, and then a Pokemon is the second or third character, said Pokemon will likely avoid catching too much heat some certain parts of the internet.