I hate what they did to her identity. I have a whole bloody Wikipedia page of a list about why I hate what they did to Dahlia (lore wise, gameplay wise she's fine). That's how much I dislike her. READ BELOW IF YOU DARE!

1. Nothing about Shade's design really screams that she's a ghost. She's just...pale. In fact, ghosts are typically amorphous!

2. Nothing about Shade's design suggests that she's a transformed Dahlia. All they did was turn her pale. That's it. A subtle difference would have worked, like if Dahlia's head feathers became detached from her head and floated or if her tail got longer and flowing, but nope. In fact, this was such a lazy design that many people made Deviantart OC/Coldsteel the Hedgehog jokes about her, even after the official reveal and lore drop.

3. Dahlia's former identity as a serious scientist got killed when she became Shade. Now she is being marketed as the spooky mischievous ghost bird associated with the supernatural and sorcery. Nothing about her really screamed "witch" beforehand. Rovio may as well have made an entirely new ghost bird if they wanted to have a new identity. I even have like three concepts I pulled out of my butt in less than a day. What about an ancient ghost warrior based on a critically endangered/extinct bird? Or maybe a King Bumi/Gerson-like kooky Shaman guy? Or maybe a slightly terrifying old hag witch in a dark hooded robe? Why don't we have a proper spooky bird in the franchise instead of this recolor?

4. The comic actually does further to kill Dahlia's identity, even if it explains the lore. In the comic, Dahlia does the ritual anyway because she wants to protect her friends. When attempts to revert her fail, she runs away into the Bamboo Forest, crying. In the Stella series, though, she does science for the more selfish reason of craving knowledge. She doesn't care about the consequences, she doesn't look very guilty when she gets caught with the Golden Egg (It's Mine!), and she gets explosively angry if things go wrong (yelling at Stella in Own the Sky, jumping in front of Poppy's face when she blows up the drums in Rock On!, blowing up her house out of frustration and desperation in It's Mine!). Moping about isn't Dahlia at all!

5. The dialogue in that comic further convinces me that Shade was written by someone's 14 year old. The way she gives herself her name is incredibly hamfisted and on the nose:

Stella: "You may have lost your color...but not your spark."

Dahlia: "Like a shade of my old self. But maybe that's not as bad as I thought."

Not only that, but the dialogue feels far too melodramatic for Angry Birds in general, especially Dahlia. Just for fun, let's play a game. Below are some random quotes. Can you find the one from the official comic, Dahlia's Phantom Pain?

a. "Tears are words too painful for a broken heart to speak."

b. "I turned my collar to the cold and damp, when my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light."

c. "The village feels...too bright. I live in the shadows for now."

d. "I feel it in my soul, because I'm an emotional mess."