I don't know if anyone's seen this yet but...
In Episode 1, when Hermit falls down in the void of the mysterious orb machine...a black void engulfs the nearly dozen players fighting at the time and we come to this mysterious area (reminds me of Morganna's Area) with a giant tree and dozens and dozens of coma victims are trapped in cages. Sophia is walking around, seemingly data draining (I assume it is data draining or an updated version) and taking character's PCs prisoner. In Episode 2, she is blacked out and inanimate. I think Hermit, being an AI (or connected to the area in some way) or part of the system, was a trigger. IE, when that PK hit Hermit on the head it triggered a switch in Sophia and she did her job, imprisoning those who would hurt Hermit...kinda like the Twilight Guardian in SIGN but with a much greater purpose. It's heavily hinted that Hermit has a PC behind his character BUT Sophia never touched him. There was a transitional scene where we see a kid put his MD glasses back on and Hermit wakes up but I think that's meant to misguide us. When Hermit wakes up, he's wondering where the heck he is. I think Hermit IS an AI, but his actions and those of Sophia are being GUIDED by this little boy. Notice when Sophia was active, Hermit was nowhere to be seen? Maybe he switched active controls to Sophia and he did her thing and then switched back to Hermit...it's plausible...I mean, didn't a 10 year old cause the Internet to go down?