Over the course of its run, Fairy Tail has had plenty of characters that fans have felt were under-served by the story. This page is dedicated to them.
Fairy Tail
- Jose Porla. The Guild Master of Phantom Lord, the primary Guild rival of Fairy Tail, a Wizard Saint, and a relatively young but powerful Wizard. Given his status as something of an Foil to Makarov, and the first major antagonist the story has, he had a lot of potential to be a credible threat after his arc ends, either as a Dark Mage or perhaps later defecting to Alvarez later in the story. Despite his potential and being very powerful (notably he could casually toy with Erza, Gray, and Elfman at the same time, and Makarov outright says he is very strong), after his defeat and the disbanding of Phantom Lord, he vanishes from the story and never gets mentioned again in the story unless dealing with flashbacks relating to stuff he did. Fairy Tail ZERØ adds onto this by revealing that Geoffrey of Blue Skull was his ancestor, meaning his family and guild had been long-time opponents of Fairy Tail from the very beginning...something revealed only as the series was coming to a close. He's one of the only main antagonists in the series to not have further exploration in any way after his arc ends, which leaves his potential wasted.
- Lisanna however, is a prime offender of this trope, if you think that her new scenes in the anime and backstory with the core cast give her prime placement to be used more. Of course, there's always the opposition who think she's been in the spotlight long enough, that her fairly pointless-in-the-long-run extra scenes in the anime were already pushing things, and are really happy that she now has a prominent but supporting role that allows her to develop Natsu, Mira and Elfman's characters without pulling focus.
- Mystogan is thought to be a major case of this. Him being the mysterious, elusive guild member, only showing up to get jobs or when the guild was in a crisis made him appealing. As well as the fact that be was a unique guild member, not needing some ancient magic, or being part of some powerful family to be considered powerful, and not needing a tragic back story to be heroic and selfless. Instead he turns out to be another Jellal and gets stuck in Edolas before we really even get to know him.
- Even as another Jellal, his backstory and relationships are pretty underdeveloped. We never learn what caused him to turn against his father and how he joined Fairy Tail. His close relationship with Wendy when they were younger isn't really followed up on in the present with her having more screentime with Earthland Jellal. It would have been interesting to contrast his relationship with Erza Knightwalker to Earthland Erza and Jellal, but the two of them barely interact. Despite his importance to the Edolas arc, he's barely in it only showing up for the beginning and end. He also never gets a proper fight outside of his fistfight with Natsu at the end.
- Hades also has a case. He was the first character in the series to beat Makarov through sheer power alone, had a deeper connection with Fairy Tail than any of the previous antagonists, held great charisma and an intriguing philosophical outlook on the Fairy Tail universe and magic, and overall possessed qualifications to be a central antagonist for the series. Instead, after he beats Makarov, he simply retreats back into his ship, lets his subordinates be beaten down one after another, then holds one final fight against the main characters. After that, he's killed by Zeref. Mashima seems to have a similar opinion, since he briefly reappears as a spirit in the Tartaros arc, is a supporting character in Fairy Tail Zero, and is revealed to have large connections to the plot in the Alvarez arc, specifically the creation of Lumen Histoire.
- Crime Sorciere, a group of atoners who have set out to get rid of dark guilds and, ultimately, Zeref. While the original lineup of Jellal, Ultear, and Merudy get a decent amount of screentime and characterization during the Grand Magic Games arc, the group really hits this once the former members of the Oracion Seis join during Tartaros... and procede to do nothing for the rest of the arc. Their vigilantism against dark guilds is entirely offscreen (the closest we get is giving Erza and Gray the job of infiltrating Avatar, something they themselves don't take part in), they only show up well after the war against Alvarez gets started, and they never even see Zeref during the final arc, despite Zeref finally becoming the Arc Villain. Jellal, Angel/Sorano, and to a lesser extent Merudy and Cobra/Erik are only ones who get much focus at all in the Alvarez arc, with the rest getting group shots and a fight scene at best. Ironically, Zeref even states he expected Jellal to get there before anyone else to face him, but he was too busy dealing with Acnologia.
- Ivan, related to two major characters (Makarov and Laxus), just disappears after the Grand Magic Games. Especially odd given the redemption for Flare, who received sympathy even before the Sun Village arc even though her battle with Lucy involved some of the most amoral actions of any Raven Tail member. Even though Lumen Histoire, the information that he possessed that caused Makarov to be so worried about him, later becomes a plot point in the Tartaros arc and the entire cause for the Alvarez arc, Ivan is only mentioned in passing once during the latter.
- Wally and Sho are notably absent from the Grand Magic Games arc, considering Millianna and Erza's involvement, when they could have easily shown up to cheer on their friends and dealt with their own issues with Jellal. Mashima did intend to include them, but dropped them due to the glut of new characters being introduced.
- Future Rogue is another major example as someone who started off as a fan-favorite moments after his introduction for his curb-stomping over Natsu, but as his appearances went on, many readers came to believe that the guy had hardly any motivation or goal for why he ended up the way he did. His last wordsforeshadow that big events surrounding his present self are going to take place on the next future, but nothing really comes out of it.
- The Celestial Spirits have always been side-lined characters to the point that the 2nd anime felt they were deserving to have a Filler Arc centered around them, but later chapters have been heading this direction even further due to Lucy's Next Tier Power-Up where she can now take on the form of the Spirits to fight the battles herself rather than act as a summoner for the Spirits. At this point, there's no reason for the actual Spirit personas to show up anymore.
- God Serena. Hyped up as being the most powerful mage on Ishgar, his rank as number one of the Ten Wizard Saints left his fellow Gods of Ishgar and Levy referring to him with awe, and the revelation that he had defected to the Alvarez Empire left readers dreading the implications of that. While he does get one fight scene where he trashed the other Gods plus Jura, we never see his other three elements of Dragon Slayer Magic (he has eight in total), and he's killed shortly after by Acnologia in one hit. While this is clearly meant to reinforce just how stupidly powerful Acnologia is, we're ultimately left with only a hint as to why God Serena defected, the ability only to speculate on his other powers, and absolutely no backstory on an otherwise interesting character before he was killed. And when he was brought back by Historia, there was a chance, only for him to be one-shotted by Gildarts. The sequel manga at least comes to the rescue by revealing/confirming the rest of his elements and brings him back as an antagonist.
- The Ten Wizard Saints in general. Two of them are never revealed (and that's only if God Serena, Jose and Jellal were never replaced), and the Gods of Ishgal aside from God Serena served little purpose in the war other than worfing to God Serena (though Warrod at least got a decent amount of characterization in Zero).
- Anna Heartfilia earned some curiosity given her connection to Zeref and the Dragon Slayers, but fell into this trope when she was revealed to have come to the present with them. She leaves several Plot Holes in the process (such as how people in on the 400-Year Plan like Zeref and Aquarius did not seem to know this), making it unclear why she never contacted anyone for the past 15 years, and only served to introduce a plot device that would give Acnologia an anticlimactic end while denying readers the long-awaited showdown between him and the Dragon Slayers. Her plan doesn't even work, instead making Acnologia even more powerful, though it did set the stage for two cathartic final battles against Acnologia's dragon persona and his human persona when his power became so chaotic that the two separated. However, the epilogue reveals Anna is now a teacher, and that gives her a chance to impart some of her wisdom from the past to future generations.
- Acnologia received considerable derision for this by the end. While he was initially quite popular and got readers interested in learning more about him, he ends up having very little of his backstory revealed. The audience only learns shortly before his defeat that he bears a grudge against Dragons for causing death and destruction, which doesn't exactly gel with Acnologia's current Omnicidal Maniac tendencies. How Acnologia learned Dragon Slayer Magic (he is presumably a 1st Gen Dragon Slayer, meaning he would have been taught by one of the species that he hates so much), or what exactly he was doing for the few centuries between wiping out most of the Dragons and the present story, go unexplained. Mashima himself laments in a post-series interview that he should’ve developed him more. The movie Dragon Cry and the anime would flesh out his motivations and backstory.
Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest
- Wraith was shown to be the closest Diabolos had to a Token Good Teammate before the introduction of Suzaku, and seemed to have a lot of set up in regards to discovering who killed him, getting his memories back, and figuring out how a ghost became a Dragon Slayer, while also being an opponent Natsu couldn't beat in a direct fight. His plot and character arc many found to be rushed however in favor of a contrived reveal that he was a friend of Makarov's and former Fairy Tail member, resulting in an unsatisfactory conclusion to his fight with Natsu, and making him come across as just a side quest that contributed to the Wood Dragon Arc dragging on. He does get a little more in the Labyrinth Arc of all places when a flashback to Kirin's past shows them interacting on good terms.
- For how quickly Alta Face was introduced and destroyed, it most definitely counts, especially given how big of a threat to Elentir it was.
- Soon after that, Faris and Touka decide to remain in Elentear, despite having been main characters up to that point, even though there was still major potential for them to contribute greatly towards the heroes' efforts for the rest of the manga.
- Master Georg for getting offed before he had a chance to meet Fairy Tail in person or display even a fraction of his numerous magic abilities.
- After the reveal of Kurnugi, the source of Suzaku's Sword Saint Dragon Slayer Magic, to be the son of Selene, the rest of the Moon Dragon God's children were The Ghost. It did not help the fact that Selene never seemed to bother mentioning their names or even go look for them to see if they're alive or not, after finding out that Georg Reizen had killed Kurnugi, which she quickly killed Georg to avenge her son while subsequently took over Diabolos as their new Guild Master.
