Gary Stu's Off His Leash (and holy shit, he ate all the steroids)

I think it's painfully obvious that Ryo is a godawful nightmare of a Mary Sue (or Marty Sue or Gary Stu, if you prefer) right?

As Ryuu doesn't seem to get that, I'm going to explain how and why Ryo is a bigass Sue with evidence from Ryuu's own works. I will also be running Ryo through the Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test found at Springhole.net, because while the She-Elf did run some of his character sheets through, that was just based on the character sheets and not the assorted comments Ryuu has made on pieces of art, etc.

So, to start with, this means I'm going to take a stab at answering the question "what makes a Mary Sue?". The term is thrown around a lot these days (a lot of times incorrectly), and while there's no set definition, they have a few things in common.

So what IS a Mary Sue?

Is my character a Mary Sue just because they're extremely intelligent? No, of course not!

Is my character a Mary Sue just because they have a tragic past? No again, though if you go this route I strongly suggest doing the research on any possible emotional and/or physical effects of said past (PTSD, depression, etc) and make sure you don't trivialize whatever may or may not be lingering. It's the best way to prevent Mary from getting out.

Is my character a Mary Sue just because they're a self-insert? Not necessarily, believe it or not. This is a pretty big misconception. Like purple prose, this is the kind of thing where your success depends on your writing skills (though also like purple prose, a lot of authors really fuck it up. See: Stephenie Meyer, Christopher Paolini, Ryuu, etc.). It also depends on whether or not you can view yourself realistically.

Is my character a Mary Sue just because they're in a relationship with a canon character? Again, not necessarily. This also depends on your writing skills. Unlike a self-insert, though, being successful here depends on whether or not you can keep the canon character in character.

Is my character a Mary Sue if they're a self-insert designed to fulfill my wishes and desires, constantly portrayed as special, get everything they want with ease, can do things that are completely socially unacceptable and not get told off, fall in love with a canon character almost immediately (and their love interest is completely out of character), etc., etc.? YES. Holy crap, Houston, we have a problem. In this case, I hate to break it to you but your character is a Mary Sue.

This is not the only type of Sue, but this seems to be the most prevalent. Ryuu's hulking maniac is of this particular subspecies and so it's the only type of Sue I'm going to cover. I'd like to cover more types (like the Anti-Sue) but we're going to be here long enough anyway (I'm fairly sure this is the longest article I've ever written, incidentally, so you've been warned), so I'll save that for after Failmas.

See, those traits I listed all apply to Ryo, and there's also a whole hell of a lot more that I couldn't fit there. I'm going to cover the rest in the article, though, so don't worry.

(And by "don't worry", I actually mean "if you want to run, this is your last chance.")

Let's get the ball rolling, then. Mary Sues are usually portrayed as exceptionally beautiful or handsome. They could be bleeding fucking everywhere, covered in skunk juice and have been dropped in a ten thousand gallon vat of dog crap. And they will still be portrayed as the sexiest creature on the planet. Even if they're kind of disgusting-looking to begin with, they're described as super-sexy. Their clothing? It's usually entirely impractical, and it only exists to accentuate how super fuckin' smoking hot they are.

You may remember this sketch from Ebony's posts: Hot Shower, Hot Guy. If you blocked this thing out I'm genuinely sorry you have to see it again.

The only thing hot here is my eyes. Which I may or may not have lit on fire.

Ryuu calls his character "hot" right in the title. Which is kind of gross enough, but it gets better:

"More of an excuse for muscle drawing again, I for some reason got the idea of Ryo in the shower. I think it was a comic of Klavier Gavin I saw earlier. So, it seconds as fanservice."

How fucking presumptuous do you have to be to assume your character has fans period, let alone enough for "fanservice"? If this isn't enough evidence for you, this also indicates Ryuu's rather inflated opinion of his own character. And as if that wasn't bad enough, in the second chapter of Child of the Triforce, Zelda falls for him pretty much immediately.

In the middle of battle.

You know, when Ryo should be gross, sweaty, possibly bloody and definitely smelling like crap.

So I've gone ahead and bolded the key passages for you guys so you don't have to sit through this whole fucking nightmare:

"His body had wondrous proportions but none of them were unattractive.[...] His skin was tanned in a lovely way, [...] He had a lovely sized, pointed nose; not so small to be feminine, yet not large to be ugly. [...]

All his facial features were quite sharp and entrancing. I also looked at the rest of his body, but I kept looking back up to his captivating eyes. His neck was thicker than most, but nothing that would have made him less appealing. [...]

Even behind his clothes, I could see that his chest was huge and deep, even for a man his size of frame! [...]His legs were long and nicely thickened with muscle, but not so much to take away from the appearance of them being pleasantly smooth. [...] He was overall a well developed man and one that I could scarcely take my gaze away from.

[...] His light brown trousers and long sleeved shirt were tough and thick. However they clung to his limbs well enough to display the curves of his strong body well. [...]

This allowed the tunic to be open under his arms to compensate for the great size of his chest and upper back. [...] yet they were still form-fitting to his thick legs. [...] The feet of the boots were also in lined to his feet, which led me to believe truthfully that they had wonderful shape.

I was so amazed and awe-struck by this man's appearance and his deeds, I felt my face becoming hot. I placed my hand on my cheek while I continued to stare. I could only utter in breath to him, "Who are you?""

Clearly, we have an issue. Her reaction shouldn't be "oh, how sexy", it should probably be, "dude, you need a shower because you smell like ass". Assuming she even notices anything about this guy because THERE'S KIND OF A LOT GOING ON.

Zelda's kingdom has been pretty solidly trashed by an army of undead, which is of course going to be upsetting even without Impa being injured and possibly dead (you know, HER CHILDHOOD CARETAKER). The person who raised you being in critical shape would be unbelievably upsetting for any human being with even an ounce of compassion. None of that matters to Zelda, suddenly, because the super-sexy Mary Sue is right there.

In any case, the fact that Zelda's forgotten about all of this to OGLE RYO is a Sign of Sue.

An additional two Signs of Sue are also present in this chapter alone. Hell, in the few paragraphs I quoted you can already see one of the problems.

He's met his canon character love interest, who also represents his real life girlfriend, which means Ryo is very clearly a representation of Ryuu. None of this would be a problem except for one very crucial detail:

Ryo literally just met Zelda. They're already romantically interested in each other.

There's no getting to know each other. They just met five minutes ago and it certainly wasn't a fucking social situation where they could make small talk and try to figure out if they were compatible. Like I said, second Sign of Sue.

This is made worse by the fact that Ryo just wandered in and singlehandedly beat the crap out of an enemy who's more or less decimated the castle. And after a battle with cartoon antics out the butt, Ryo walks out of it with nothing to speak of injury-wise except a sore back.

The villain, of course, is forced to retreat after a single blow to the neck from Ryo, after walking off an entire assault by a shitton of guards and breaking through rock walls.

These are both big, big indicators we're dealing with a Mary Sue, as the protagonist is getting everything he wants with little to no effort, despite the fact that securing a castle, beating a boss and falling in love should require effort and a fair fucking bit of it.

Also, Princess Zelda is completely out of character already. I've covered this in a bit more detail in my Child of the Triforce reviews, but the abridged version is that OoT!Zelda is a woman who went into hiding as Sheik and went to pretty much the shittiest places imaginable to give Link a hand, who (as Sheik) went head to head with Bongo Bongo when he broke out of the well in Kakariko (and told LINK to get back!), and who's skilled at magic in her own right.

This is not a woman who's going to just lie down and not fight back when her life is in danger. However, that is exactly what she's portrayed as. She doesn't even try to fight back and it seems like she's pretty much just there so Captain Steroids can save the day.

Ryuu's pretty much rewritten her character to what HE feels she should be so his character can have his ideal mate. This is a humongous sign of a Sue, as well as a shitty writer.

Another problematic aspect is that, out of 34 pages of artwork in Ryuu's gallery, a search for "Ryo" turns up 21 pages worth of crap. 21 pages (with 24 pieces of art per page) where Ryo is either the subject, one of the subjects (and almost always underdressed so Ryuu can get lots of compliments on Ryo's muscle balloons) or features heavily in the artists comments despite not being present. This is yet another Sue trait. If they're not even in the fucking picture and somehow you manage to work them into the artists' comments in detail, you're doing something horribly wrong.

If you want an example, have this. Ryo's got nothing to do with the picture but lo and behold, Ryuu found a way to fit him in there anyway. Also, even in the comments of this picture (which should be completely unrelated to Ryo), Ryuu's creaming his pants over his special precious steroid ball..

I understand having favorite characters, and focusing on a few specific characters isn't a Sign of Sue. However, when your art is that predominantly focused on your wish fulfillment self-insert to the point of working him into every fucking thing you do EVEN WHEN HE'S NOT IN THE FUCKING PICTURE, you have a problem.

If you can't not work him in to everything, you are probably too emotionally attached. If you're this emotionally attached to your representation of yourself, you're not going to be able to view yourself objectively. If you can't view yourself objectively, you won't understand your own character flaws, and if you can't do that, your self-insert won't HAVE flaws. And then you have a Sue.

(Disclaimer time: this also applies to characters in general. Getting too emotionally attached tends to make someone resistant to criticism, etc., but it's a special sort of ridiculous if you insist your self-insert is flawless and that anyone who's offering critique is full of shit.

If your self-insert is flawless, then the implication is that you're flawless. And I assure you, pretty much every person I've seen doing this is about as far from perfect as you can imagine.)

It should be obvious that this alone is enough to say Ryo needs a huge revamp. However, there's more. So much more. Aren't you lucky.

More traits of Sues? They're usually extremely overpowered by the standards of the universe (some universes have a bunch of obscenely powerful characters that would be classified as Sues in other fandoms) and/or unkillable. And oh look, what do we have here (with fixed formatting, because I'm pedantic like that):

"The Fire Deity is of course Ryukenden Atrineas. This form is more or less his true form. He's super strong, fast, and can fly. His hair flows into fire and in this form, he cannot die. Even though demons may try, it is the sovereign plan of the Golden Goddesses that he will conquer evil."

Ryo doesn't change to this form willy-nilly like DBZ characters sometimes with going Super-Saiyan. This is when the Final Battle has occurred. When Gravitor turns to Archdemon, the only counter to it is Fire Deity. Same for SoulRock, Envvi and Vvortox. When the final battle has come and human effort just won't cut it, it's time to rely on a more divine hands."

That last line of that first paragraph is a real thinly veiled allegory for Christianity. Ryuu, the sermonizing needs to be left out of everything related to Zelda. I can't think even the most devout Christian would want to read this while looking up Zelda fancharacters.

Go to church if you want to preach, asshole.

That aside, HEY RYUU, The only time DBZ characters transform into Super Saiyans is when there's a need and there's a lot of emotions going on. It also doesn't stop them from dying. UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE. NOT NAMING NAMES OR ANYTHING.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, Ryo has a fucking god form, because apparently having him as a demi-god in a realm of mortals wasn't enough to make him fucking special.

So in order to make him really stand out (except it's not in a good way), Ryuu went completely over the top. Because now RYO HAS A FUCKING GOD FORM, HE HAS NO WEAKNESSES, HE IS UNDER DIVINE FUCKING PROTECTION, AND SO HE CANNOT BE KILLED.

I don't know what the circumstances this thing appears in, but this is not something that ever needs to exist. There's no excuse for this crap in series like Bleach or Dragonball Z even if a bunch of the canon characters are extremely powerful (meaning you have a much higher level cap, as it were, as far as character strength).

There is even less of an excuse for this in Zelda. Especially in Ocarina of Time, where both the main villain and the main protagonists were more or less normal humans until they got their pieces of the Triforce.

No one else is a demigod when Ryo's a demigod: Ryo's a Sue.

Ryo's a fucking unkillable, unbeatable god: Ryo's a Sue, and Ryuu's a crappy as hell author.

Also, Rinku pointed out that Ryo being an unkillable, undefeatable god means Ryuu MADE LINK OBSOLETE. That's right, there's no need for Link to protect Hyrule BECAUSE RYO IS ALWAYS WATCHING, AND HE CAN'T DIE.

Even though LINK IS THE GODDESSES' CHOSEN ONE WHO'S SUPPOSED TO DEFEAT EVIL ANYWAY. WE DON'T NEED A SECOND. Especially not one who, it could be argued, is evil in and of himself. More on that later, though.

And just like Link, Ryo gets his own future child form in The Wind Waker:

"Here is little Ryo of the TWW/Minish Cap type world centuries after the OoT world. Little Ryo is trying to defeat the great villain Black Phantom, but he can't do it on his own. Ryukenden the Fire Deity, Son of the Goddesses, lends his power to the child to banish evil.

Epic, no?"

No, actually, it's not.

Also, I think this proves that Ryuu getting any part of the timeline correct in Child of the Triforce is a fluke, as he thinks TWW and TMC were the same era and this was written a few months before Child of the Triforce. (This comment indicates a lack of knowledge of anything related to the timeline, and it was posted three and a half years AFTER the picture.)

In any case, it sounds like both Ryo and "Little Ryo" go through nearly identical adventures to Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker Link respectively. Except Link's pretty much a normal human in both cases, while OoT!Ryo gets help from the fucking Goddesses themselves, and TWW!Ryo gets a boost from a character who basically amounts to Jesus.

Oh, did I not mention that?

Because Ryuu's pretty much ripped off Jesus. Which I don't think would go over well with your church, buddy. I'm pretty sure they usually call what you have going on here BLASPHEMY.

See, Ryo, like Jesus, is the child of a major deity. Jesus was crucified and resurrected after three days. Ryo was also resurrected after dying. But since Ryuu has to one-up everything and everyone, INCLUDING JESUS CHRIST, Ryo is resurrected IMMEDIATELY.

Also, Ryo ends up saving a BUNCH of people from the "powers of evil". He's basically a messiah. The entire situation is of course a slap in the face to Christianity (supposedly a huge aspect of Ryuu's life and faith), but it also makes him one massive motherfucker of a Sue.

Moving on (because honestly, if I stop and think about the fact Ryuu ripped off JESUS I feel my IQ dropping) when I say OoT Ryo goes on the EXACT SAME JOURNEY as Link, I do in fact mean it.

Ryo travels around Hyrule with Tael the fairy to gather three sacred objects from the Gorons, the Kokiri and the Zoras, in that order. As a result of these three sacred objects, he gets a brand new sword, which is mentioned in legends.

Does this sound familiar to you? Yeah, I thought so. And what magical sword does Ryo get out of all of this?

One that amounts to a +1 Master Sword.

From top to bottom: +1 Hero's Sword from TWW, +1 Master Sword and +1 combination of Soul Edge and Soul Calibur from Namco's Soul series

Heaven's Secret is a drastically overpowered version of the Master Sword.

"Heaven's Secret
After receiving all three Key Shards from the three tribes - Zoras, Gorons and Kokiri - Ryo's Old Trusty Sword transforms into a beautiful blade called Heaven's Secret. This weapon is a Claymore, a two-handed sword Ryo uses with only one hand, and it's been said it was forged by the Goddesses. Now, why would the Goddesses do that? They don't use blades. Maybe a gift for their son in the first place...? This sword is capable of blocking most magic attacks like a Mirror Shield and when it swings, fire flies in the air from the blade. This is a weapon that evil will learn to fear."

To start all this off, I'm calling bullshit on a pretty large part of this. Claymores, if you are unaware, are big fucking swords and are going to be unwieldy as hell. And that would be with BOTH hands. I strongly doubt one would be usable with one hand for long periods of time without some sort of intensive magical alteration to maintain the stability of the materials (assuming the thing was made of lightweight and less durable materials to begin with, as that's pretty much your only option beyond lightening the thing with spells. Which I doubt Ryo is able to do).

Well, even if I assume he's strong enough to use a two handed sword one-handed with no alterations, there should be some sort of side effect, like leaving some seriously huge holes in his guard and throwing him off balance. Two-handed swords would be even more unwieldy when wielded with one hand.

Secondly, this is a blade crafted for no better reason than "the goddesses want to help the messiah figure out". But Dark Link was born and defeated five years ago. And since Ryo was created from the remains of Dark Link somehow, that means he's only five at this point. HOW ARE THERE ALREADY LEGENDS ABOUT THIS BLADE? Also, why do the Goddesses have to have forged this, beyond Ryuu wants a super-special character?


Thirdly, this sword not only doesn't throw Ryo off balance, it protects him in a manner similar to Link's best shield in Ocarina of Time, thereby removing the possibility of holes in his guard. As his balance isn't thrown off at all by using a dual-handed sword single-handedly, he is now therefore lacking any and all logical weaknesses caused by his weapon choice. And it's shitting fire everywhere every time he swings it, because apparently having no weaknesses defensively isn't okay unless he's unreasonably overpowered offensively.

Finally, this is clearly a Master Sword on steroids. [EDIT (30/12/12): Rinku pointed out to me that this thing looks suspiciously similar to the Lokomo Sword from Spirit Tracks. While this COULD be a coincidence as the game wasn't released until December '09 (this picture was uploaded in April of the same year), this blade looks nearly identical. And considering Nintendo seems to release a fair bit of official art prior to the game's release date, color me skeptical. Even if somehow this IS coincidence, Ryuu's track record so bad in this department I felt it was worth noting anyway.]

It's essentially an upgraded version of a canon character's legendary weapon. Actually, that applies to all three of those swords, as the first one appears to be a ripoff of Link's Hero's Sword in The Wind Waker, and the third one seems to be some sort of ripoff of Siegfried's forms of Soul Calibur and Soul Edge from the Soul series.

None of this is exactly creative. All of this, ESPECIALLY the goddess stuff and the lack of viable weaknesses, is Sue-tastic. And a canon character's weapon +1 is a huge Sue thing.

Speaking of Sue things, he marries Princess Zelda and becomes king. Not KING CONSORT or PRINCE CONSORT, king regnant. Which means he just waltzes in and takes all the power from his wife. And no one apparently has a single problem with this shit. This is not how this happens in anything close to reality.

Someone should have had some serious issues about this dude that no one's ever heard of wandering in, marrying the queen and just taking over the kingdom. Then the dude fucks off repeatedly for vacations because he can't handle the workload (it's also mentioned that he and Zelda have enough free time to take CRUISES IN TERMINA) But again, no one even says anything. Ever.

Also, Ryo KILLS OFF TWO ENTIRE SPECIES over the course of 24 hours in a mildly disturbing show of sadism. In chapter five of Child of the Triforce, he's asked to go into Dodongo's Cavern and kill the Dodongos. And there's all sorts of traps and new rooms in there that could only have been put in there by the Dodongos, as it's implied the Gorons haven't gone in there at all since they just suddenly appeared.

And Ryo laughs at one eating a bomb, finds it amusing when Bomb Flowers blow up (and a spike lands on a Dodongo shortly after), he blows a Dodongo up and his only thought is "wow, they have some tough skin if it can keep the mush that used to be its stomach inside" and attacks the tails of Dodongos while aware he could feed them a bomb because I guess he finds it more impressive to draw out the creatures' suffering instead of at least making it quick.

Then in chapter six, Ryo hears about a Mothula problem in the Lost Woods, and being a nosy anus who can't leave well enough alone he decides to take care of it. Yet again, no one tells him off. Sue.


So he goes into the Kokiri Forest and eventually the Lost Woods. And he doesn't turn into a Stalfos in there like any other Hylian would, because the Rules of the Universe don't apply to Super-Sue.

But then on the way into the forest...

"Two Mothulas suddenly sprang out of the trees! These beasts were nasty critters; having white fur on their sectioned bodies, thin black legs, small, but noticeably sharp pincers, three black eyes, antennae like feathers and very large yet thin wings, four of them and covered with toxic powder. The pair came diving down on me, forcing me to to dive to the wooden bridge which shook at my weight. When they passed, I got up and drew my blade.

One of them immediately turned around and began to slowly come at me, as if taking a better look. It then lunged for me and I responded by holding up my sword, which it bashed its own head into. It yelled in surprise as it began to fly off and the second one came for me. It shook itself before flying away and powder came down all over me. I coughed in a fit, for the toxic powder was making a very scratchy feeling in my throat. I coughed hard enough to shoot out a heated spark from my mouth. The spark hit the powder and caught the airborne toxins on fire! The fire consumed the powder at a very high rate and chased after the Mothula giving off the dust! I watched the fire pursuing the fleeing bug and was satisfied with an explosion once it reached the source."

This is the Mothulas territory. He takes offense to it coming over to see what's going on, bashes it in the face, explodes it, and finds it SATISFYING.

But wait, there's more:

"I took in a deep breath and spat out a fireball to instantly fry one of the bugs. However, this turned out to be a foolish thing to do. The other Mothulas - all at once - decided to make payback for the one I had burnt so quickly. I realized my mistake then, but I dealt with it how I could. I breathed in again and this time blew out a stream of flames instead of a fireball. I kept turning my head to get a wider range of foes injured by the heated assault. But something extraordinary happened!

The burning Mothula landed on the ground, which was covered in toxic powder. The flames consumed the powder and spred out on the trails of falling powder which led it right to the others! The fire wave rocketed through the air and blasting other Mothulas! All I could do was watch as the fiery trails solve their own problems. Again, I couldn't help but laugh as the show progressed. The remaining Mothulas saw the chaos and were afraid, so they flew away to get out of the fire. The dead Mothulas burst into more black smoke."

He attacks without provocation, decided to BURN these creatures to death (which is a horrible, miserable, agonizingly painful way to die) and he LAUGHS AS THEY DIE. He laughs, and is clearly enjoying their fear and the sight of their corpses going up in smoke. Sicko.

Also, you did read that right. He just started breathing fire seemingly out of nowhere this chapter. Another Sign of Sue is having random powers and abilities appear out of completely fucking nowhere, usually when the Sue's in a tight spot. Guess what happened here. 

Well, other than the torture of sentient creatures, which goes on for quite a while and spans at least three chapters. In chapter seven, for instance, Tael has a Deku Nut fired at him. It's what Deku Scrubs do, but this sure as hell isn't how Ryo sees it:

"I've seen a similar being to this in my past, so I know what it was: a Deku Scrub.

I drew my sword and pointed it at the creature. It saw my blade very clearly but didn't seem phased. It spat out a Dekunut at me from its tube mouth. With a swing of my sword, flat side out, I hit it back like a stick would a ball. It struck the wooden being and it turned around and ran away, squealing as if I had mortally injured it. I couldn't help but grin at the foe's sudden fleeing. I sheathed my sword and patted softly at my pouch."

(See? No weaknesses. Just horrible, horrible euphemisms. "Patted softly at my pouch", bleargh. Someone get me the brain bleach. Ryo, do that somewhere else or even better, never again.)

Then a bit later:

"That Deku Scrub I scared off earlier had come back and I could tell it was angry, especially at me. It screeched loudly, throwing punches into the air insanely before holding up its fists at me in a challenging manner. Something in my mind told me right then, this Scrub wasn't going to flee so easily like it did earlier. It began bouncing around with its fists up in a battle ready stance, then suddenly, it kicked my leg! I grunted an "ow" as I glared at it. It laughed at me. I said to it, "That's not fun-OW!" as it spat a Deku Nut on my face, bruising my nose."

I guess this is only allowed to be funny when Ryo assaults other creatures. I, however, thought this was the only remotely entertaining part of the story (unintentionally, but still) because fuck you, Ryo, have a taste of your own medicine.

Incidentally, despite the fact that he's stated to be hard to anger, Ryo throws a hissy fit worthy of a three year old and completely flips shit. Massive contradictions between the character's stated personality and the reality isn't always a sign of a Suethor (they might just be a bad writer), but there's times where it's a fairly good indicator.

Especially if the person who wrote the story you're reading has ripped off everyone from Link to Jesus Christ.

"After having my hand over my face for a while, I growled at the mocking Deku and showed it what I could throw from my mouth. I blasted it with a fireball and the Deku shrieked as it was set ablaze, running around on fire and soon dropping and rolling to get the fire out. The one expression on its face after told me it was very VERY angry, along with the redness of rage in its wooden complexion. [...] It hit a tree and bounced off, very wobbly. As I began to move sideways while keeping my view on it, I slipped a little over a soft soil patch. I got an idea. I grabbed a Bombflower Seed and planted it before the Deku had a chance to recover.

Once it did, it began rushing at me again. I held up my sword like a shield, and it smashed its fists against it several times before I shoved it away. The Bombflower grew up on the spot now and the Deku came rushing back like the dizzy top it was. I rolled to the side and it struck the bombflower, detonating it and sending itself flying into the air! It fell to the ground in the center, completely dazed. I rushed over and struck it with my sword sideways and sent it flying into a thick tree. It got up in a daze after a minute of laying on the ground."

The scrub gets justifiably pissed off about being blown up and lit on fire. So it spits a series of Deku Nuts at this psycho who thinks it's okay to light someone on fire in response to being kicked (spoilers: IT ISN'T.). Ryo throws a tantrum:

"Something I didn't figure happened, though. The returning nut smashed against one of the oncoming nuts, canceling them both out. I wasn't happy, so I sent over my own projectile, a fire ball. That consumed the nuts it hit then crashed into the Deku with an explosion, and the sound of its own holler in pain. The Deku Scrub lept out of the bushes and started to roll around in order to put out the fire. I couldn't help but chuckle as this strange Scrub was getting its payment for evil deeds."

I find the fact that this sickass is calling other people "evil" horribly inappropriate.

Why? Because later in the same chapter he lights the (SLEEPING) queen mothula and all of her larvae on fire with his bullshit-powered fire breath. This isn't portrayed as anything of the ordinary, either. It's shown as something completely normal. Like this is how a hero should behave, and something people should be proud of.

And of course, this dude is still portrayed as completely fucking perfect.

He's a king, a god, demi-god, savior of Hyrule, etc, except he's also a genocidal psychopath.

The genocide is legitimately upsetting to me, clearly. If you enjoy watching people or animals burn to death I'm going to go out on a limb and say there's something mentally wrong with you. It's fucking sick and I could make a fairly strong argument that you shouldn't be allowed out in public due to being a danger to yourself and more importantly, other people. Needless to say, you shouldn't be in charge of anyone else's lives.

And yet they just hand the kingdom over to this dude without a single "hey, maybe this is a bad idea" from anybody, and he's portrayed as some sort of great hero who gets the girl, has a super happy fairytale life and oh, he ascends to the heavens in a blaze of glory when he finally chokes it.

Ryo's backstory is just tacked on to explain why he's a Link ripoff because Ryuu can't be bothered to create a character from scratch. Ryo's super-strong,super-fast, super mentally unstable (and somehow no one cares!), and he can't be killed. That's a thought that sends chills down the ol' spine.

My final verdict:

KILL THIS MONSTROSITY DEAD. There is no part of this character that is remotely salvageable at this point.The best you could do is take him back to the remains of Dark Link when he was a completely blank slate, because everything Ryuu's done after that is a giant pile of DO NOT WANT.

I can't find anything salvageable in this character, and believe me, I looked. Through all 21 pages of garbage in Ryuu's gallery, in fact, which was how I spent a fairly large part of my 23rd birthday on Friday.

It's time to let Ryo go, Ryuu. Actually, it's way past time to let him go. You're 23 years old and you're still doing this. 14-year-olds do this. You're a grown fucking man, not a teenage kid. You should start over and try again.