User blog comment:Wrath022/Chapter 516: The Truth About Enchantment, Review/@comment-5303512-20161227040743/@comment-1776824-20161227180817

I try to ignore the things that people tend to call "bad" for Fairy Tail, because odds are, for Fairy Tail, the development or writing is comparatively good. All manga have convenient writing, but this arc has just been...convenience for the sake of convenience. Even Sting and Larcade, which I liked, is, yes, convenience. But this isn't even good convenience.

This development is a microcosm of everything that is wrong with Fairy Tail. There is nothing even remotely good about anything that is happening right now, because given the actual, written circumstances, none of this makes any sense. Irene has totally flipped character and gone from a complex, mysterious character to a generic, everyday, overpowered villain who created her own pathway to defeat. And that, in and of itself, is infuriating. Even Mard Geer, who I am convinced to this day was made at the last second simply because the editor said "You are literally curb stomping Tartaros too fast," didn't even get this level of treatment, and he was a terrible villain from the start. Irene was a great villain, who acted for her own benefit in the small, but for the empire at large. Now, she is completely saying "fuck it" to her empire that she would do anything for, abandoned her own body to get a weaker one, and all for...what? Wouldn't have kidnapping Wendy for use after the war been more beneficial? She's already waited 400 years for a human body, and instead she lets herself get triggered and makes a totally out of character, impulsive decision that while, yes, can be justified in a sense because of her story, still makes almost little sense because if Irene remained consistent, then she'd still be furious, but in her own body, having rekt her own daughter and taken Wendy captive.