User blog comment:Raised By Wolves/CYOA: Total Drama All-Stars - Evil Dread/@comment-11883116-20170210031334

Good choices so far, I guess. I'll definitely choose the same (at least most of the time :P ).

RBW, I know you hate when someone brings up Noah, but I wanted to analyze whether the readers can indeed be mad about his portrayal in this or not. Plus, everyone's allowed to talk about whatever they want and your hatred for Noah makes him a stand out topic early in the story. ;) _NOTOC__

Overall
Yes, RBW hates Noah and yes, it is clearly visible in the story. However, RBW's already proved to be a great writer. He knows letting his bias ruin a character would be bad and he clearly tries to make his hatred for Noah be subtle in this not to affect the quality of the story.

Unnecessary abuse
Yes, RBW as the author of the story can make any character suffer as much as he wants to. He can choose anyone to be a pain magnet or the butt monkey of any situation. However, Noah abuse can also be seen in areas where it's really unnecessary. And I mean the promo picture. There was no need to edit it several times to make him less and less visible. RBW, it wouldn't kill you if you let Noah be visible there. If you wanted to hint his (potential) early elimination, you could just make him stand backways, like Lindsay on TDAS promo picture. In this case, you wouldn't have to look at his face, foreshadowing would still be there and there wouldn't be any unnecessary abuse of him. This is definitely something weak, but at least it isn't connected to the story at all.

Not being among OC's friends?
I've noticed a subtle way of Noah abuse back in the first episode when OC's best friends were brought up twice. It's obvious that in this CYOA his best friends are Noah (in fact, he was OC's first friend ever) and Tyler. Lindsay is his best female friend and Gwen is his girlfriend. However, only Tyler and Cody were brought up at those moments, meaning that RBW replaced Noah with Cody. Sure, Cody's also OC's friend, but they didn't have that strong bond. However, both times the list was meant to go on and was just interrupted. Plus, as I said, Lindsay and Gwen weren't brought up either despite also having stronger bonds with OC than Cody. This was a subtle and well-written way of showing RBW's hatred towards Noah, as it can be easily justified.

Noah being disliked by everyone
Noah is clearly disliked by everyone in the story, which is another way of showing RBW's bias. However, once again, it can actually be justified. So far, the ones who showed their hatred for Noah were Chef, Jo, Courtney and Heather. Chef is the evil host who despises everyone and the villains are... well, the villains. Expect someone like Noah (physically weak) being hated on a team like that. Although OC also seems kinda cold to Noah nowadays, but it's minor enough to say that this part was also well included.

Noah being the pain magnet
As I said earlier, RBW has the right to choose who the pain magnet in his story will be. And frankly, judging by how he's the only one of "OC's group" to be outside of the Heroes team, he wouldn't have too much plot, so he needed something else. Definitely justified. Plus, the way he screwed up was actually realistic enough. Cody didn't hesistated to jump for a while, so the sharks obviously paid attention to Noah and beat him up, which caused him to forget about the key. Well-written way of screwing up the challenge that could happen to any character.

Noah being on the Villains
OK, RBW's bias clearly got in the way. In the real series, Noah is purely neutral character, especially during TDI special-TDWT era. Not a hero nor a villain. He's one of those for whom there actually should be a neutral team created, the others being Sierra, Izzy, Leshawna, Anne Maria... The reason why Noah was selected for the villainous team wasn't properly explained here. Even Mike and Sierra, who also don't fit the villainous team that much, got much better reasoning. Not to mention that CYOA Noah is actually way more heroic than TD one. He's even been a protagonist in TDWT. The only bad thing he did was getting a depression. This isn't something villainous. Calling the others names, like OC mentioned? Again, doesn't sound like a too big deal. If that was a deal, CO would have to be a villain for abandoning Zoey several times too. This also works the other way. Anne Maria is someone who hasn't been exactly heroic either and her placement on the team also wasn't well-explained. Sure, she got development, but she was neutral for the most part. And she was sill the antagonist of her conflict with Zoey. She didn't get to be a villain for always saying what she thinks, no matter how harsh it is either.

So, was it poorly written? Yes and no. RBW does give some reasoning, however it's not the best one. The thing is that Noah isn't the only one with a poorly explained role here. Anne Maria is one too. Mike and Sierra got rather weak explanations too, although they definitely can be understood more. However, I agree with Cody (user). Ezekiel or Trent would fit the role of villainous male from 1st gen better than Noah here.

Noah being (probably) an early out
Again, this is nothing to complain about. RBW as the author has the right to decide about every elimination that cannot be triggered by OC. And frankly, it's even better that way. Keeping him for longer could end in RBW letting his bias get out of hand at one point (although he seems to be a solid writer able to avoid this).

Noah not getting lines?
I also noticed Noah was the only one to not get any line during his introduction. Not even a description of what he was doing. However, that's not something bad. Although it was a short conversation, OC still got a chance to talk to him later on. And he even got that choice twice. Plus, it may be hard for RBW to write in-character lines for him now. Maybe it's actually better he tries to avoid using his character too much.

Conclusions
So, out of all the examples of RBW's bias against Noah, whether more or less hidden, the only bad ones are the unnecessary abuse (promo picture) and the reasoning for his villainous role. However, as I said, promo picture isn't a part of the written fanfiction that is a major point of the story. As for reasoning, I've seen lots of people who in their fanfictions put Noah as the villain just because "he's not a hero either" (although here he is more of a hero). So I guess Noah's portrayal here definitely isn't that bad. It could be way worse. Remember what happened to Trent and Ezekiel? But hey, even their roles were actually well-explained by the plot and their characterizations. Trent went crazy due to his love for Gwen, but that's something that happened in the show itself too (albeit not in such way). Ezekiel became an antagonist due to his poor social skills and naivety that caused him to fall for Heather's manipulation. Definitely in-character and way better than what happened to him in the real series.

So yeah, there are only like two things the readers can actually complain about in Noah's case, both of them are rather minor. One of them (promo picture) could also easily be fixed by RBW editing the picture once again to make Noah noticable like the others.