There’s a myriad of characters for players to meet in Borderlands 3. Some epic, some annoying, and some apparently are being compared to a certain puppers. So what is it exactly about Ava that has Borderlands 3 players comparing her to Scrappy-Doo?
The absolute hatred for Ava is intense in some communities, especially Reddit. So much so that one user, in particular, took it upon themselves to offer some insight into the viral comparison and yeah, OK – we’ll bite.
Warning for Borderlands 3 Spoilers Ahead
The explanation from user ‘ironangel2k3‘ is a lengthy one but offers a unique insight into the character and her placement from an author’s perspective. “When you write a character, the audience starts immediately making subconscious judgements about whether or not that character is adding anything to the story, or if they are taking away from the story,” begins the lengthy Reddit post. “A character who adds something to the story doesn’t necessarily mean they are a good guy, what it means is they are an element of it that is contributing to the audience’s enjoyment of the story. A good way to test if your character is adding to the story is to remove them completely and rewrite any major plot points that hinge on their existence. Does the story get less interesting? If yes, leave the character in. If no, remove them. Complexity is not to be confused with depth.”
This user also mentioned that removing Ava from the narrative could only mean positive things because of the nature of her personality and her overwhelming presence throughout the story. She also mentioned that unlike Tiny Tina, Ava has no real payoff for her abrasive nature.
“Beyond her personality, she gets a fan favorite killed. When you introduce a new character into a story and have them be the reason an old one the audience likes dies, you have to understand you are immediately directing all of the anger and sadness onto that character. Whether or not you think she’s actually responsible is up to the audience, but the thing is, no matter what, Ava made the situation worse and contributed nothing. If she hadn’t disobeyed Maya, Maya might not have even been there. Maya only stayed behind to scold Ava for disobeying her (Correct advice which Ava casually blows off, contributing to our scorn for her when Maya is ultimately proven right moments later).”
Ava, as seen by the author and a majority of the community, is a brat and one that is very self-centered in her curiousity. She doesn’t bring anything of value to the table combat wise and she’s not significant to the story as a whole. According to the Redditor, she’s just there to be there and in a way that rubs a lot of players the wrong way.
The Redditor concluded their theory by mentioning: “The worst part of all of this, however, is not that she’s scrappy doo. Claptrap is kind of a less-egregious scrappy doo; He’s incompetent, loud, and stupid as well, but the audience raction to him usually ranges somewhere between tolerance and love, and for a lot of people, he’s actually a woobie, condemned by his programming to be an irritant even though he just wants to help and thus life shits all over him.
“No, the real issue is that despite bad decision after bad decision, Scrappy gets handed the keys to the Crimson Raiders and no one stops to think that maybe this teenage girl who has already shown a penchant for terrible decision making and selfishness should not be the one in charge, and maybe literally anyone else would do a better job. Not only is she the scrappy, she gets rewarded for it. That’s why people hate the character. She got a fan favorite killed then blamed another fan favorite who not only had nothing to do with it, but didn’t like Maya’s idea of going in alone in the first place – And then got rewarded for it, and was never reprimanded for her poor decision making.”
What about you, do you agree with the Ava assessment or do you think the community is being too unfair? Hit us up over on Twitter @PrimaGames!
