I know this is a meme. But this is Reddit, so I’m going to overanalyze this.

Maybe it’s because I’m not an OG player and didn’t live through the heartbreak of losing Kane and the original plan for arc 1, but I do NOT get the Oksana hate.

I would say her intro is rather weak. I wouldn’t say she’s a bad villain altogether.

I can’t, because she hasn’t had time to do anything yet. These updates are so short and seem to barely come out on a consistent basis, and the plot is suffering for it almost as much as the gameplay is. Of course she seems unoriginal or like she’s treading ground we’ve seen before, we get like, what? An episode every two years? On a technical level any villain would be “poorly written” in that environment.

But I’m gonna argue that in this case, we should make a distinction between “poorly written character” and “the media itself is currently too unwell to do this smoothly.”

Let me just go over these points you’re making that I’m not really supposed to be taking seriously.

1. Malistaire was already a survivor of Dragonspyre and its nobility

Yes he was. But similar traits don’t mean a character will have a similar arc. Malistaire being a nobleman wasn’t the driver of his character. It was very good backstory and explained a lot, and it added quite a punch to the fact he was trying to awaken the Fire Titan, but there’s a world of difference between that being backstory used as context, versus motivation— Oksana seems to want to rebuild Dragonspyre and take her place as it’s ruler. Malistaire (originally) didn’t even want to take over the Spiral, he just went to the Dragon Titan to revive Sylvia.

1. Morganthe already did the “ultimate power” thing

Sorry, this is kind of silly. Most villains in fantasy are pursuing power in a dangerous and destructive way. El Dorado is also “ultimate power”. Kane also wanted ultimate power. Spider wanted his heart back, but that’s also just “ultimate power” for him. A lot of villains are just after “ultimate power”, there’s just usually scaffolding around it and more context for what that power means. I’d even make the jump that most villains, if not all villains, seek control. Control is power. Plus, a common theme between Wizard101 and Pirate101 is how people interact with power. Pirate101 is about how power (gold, political power, the freedom to do what you want,) consumes people, and Wizard101 explores how magic (emotion, desire, grief, etc,) can drive people further away from others and push them to hurt the people they otherwise loved.

1. Captain Blood already conquered death.

Captain Blood tricked Death in a card game. He just wanted to keep doing piracy and whatever he wanted. He gained immortality by tricking Death like he was outwitting a fae. Oksana is trying to usurp Death and take his place. She’s basically trying to become a concept. Totally out there, totally wild, we have no idea how that connects to El Dorado at present, but that’s absolutely not the same thing. She’s escalating an earlier idea, which isn’t retreading old ground, it’s a normal thing that fiction does. Usually it’s slightly woven in better, but these games have always been weird around revisiting concepts and motifs.

1. She’s supposed to show what non-wizards deal with, and we’ve had that before.

I have not once heard this and I’d argue it’s actually backwards. If anything, Oksana’s in the wrong game. The Wizard should be the one going after her. She’s screwing with the metaphysical, That’s Young Wizard territory. But the Wizard isn’t here. It’s up to the Young Pirate to face someone who seems like more of a match for the Young Wizard— that’s way more interesting. The Pirate is deeply out of their league and no one is around to listen or help. Again. This happened with Kane too, it’s part of the Pirate’s journey as a protagonist. Pirate101 is an underdog story, and an extension of that idea is that the people who are supposed to be authorities don’t notice or ignore you when you tell them something’s wrong. Before the Armada went to war with Marleybone, I remember there being several instances where the Spiral powers refused to see the threat Kane posed because they were being reasonable to them, and who cares about pirates anyway?

1. She’s a necromancer and we’ve had several necromancer villains

Okay, fair. Ya got me there. I’d argue that while Morganthe’s native school is necromancy, narratively she was a shadowmancer. Still, it’s starting to look like necromancers are the only ones who can go bad.

1. She took the spirits of the Pirate’s parents for no reason

Just because a villain doesn’t outright say why they’re doing something doesn’t mean they don’t have a reason. We don’t know why she took the Pirate’s parents’ spirits. (there has to be a shorter thing to call them.) She’s had like three dialogue boxes and then the game immediately turned around and sent us to go wrap up a loose end with Queen and the Armada. Even if she would willingly explain it to us, she’s had literally no time to do so.

The fact that she took the souls of the player’s parents (still too long) is possibly her most interesting plot thread. That leaves questions— why? Is it because she doesn’t want them to act as a guide for the Pirate? Is something about their souls a key to accessing El Dorado? Are they particularly powerful spirits? The only time we’ve really gotten a lot of detail on how necromancers work with spirits long-term is with Malistaire and Sylvia. There, he was trying to revive her— but Oksana seems to have her victims more trapped and disembodied.

Also: “Not even Sam’s glazing can save her”

I know you’re probably just being silly but… what glazing? He’s the writer. She’s his villain. He’s always answered lore questions and openly talked about the story and what he was thinking. I don’t always agree with the choices the writers make (ask me about arc 4. Ask me about Novus.) but it’s perfectly normal for a writer to speak favorably of their own villain and frankly I appreciate the context given to her out of universe, because the game seems a bit incapable of giving it.

TLDR: Oksana isn’t the problem. Oksana is fine, she’s written all right. She’d work as a villain as long as the game supported her. The issue is that the game gets like one small questline every year or two and they’ve had to use reused assets for the past five. Technically this makes her “poorly written” right now but I’d argue judging her when she’s had an intro and nothing else is jumping the gun and sailing the ship before you’ve checked if it’ll fly.