YMMV / Wakfu

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • When Nox has his Villainous BSoD, realizing his 200 years of collecting wakfu to reverse time and prevent his family's deaths were All for Nothing. Does he shed tears because of the realization he can never get his family back; and/or because of the realization that he's irreversibly exterminated and harmed millions of people for nothing, and the world will keep spinning forever scarred by his actions; and/or because his mind is finally free of the Eliacube's influence after 200 years of madness, enabling him to really see just what he's become?
  • Whereas the TV series portrays Qilby as a deranged and selfish Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist, his hidden messages in the Islands of Wakfu game — which he left before being sent to the White Dimension — suggest that he drew Orgonax to the World of Twelve partly because he wanted Revenge for his people's (and probably specifically Shinonome's) deaths, and he was tired of the Eliatropes (who apparently don't recognise the Mechasms) not knowing the truth of their past; as this video theory points out. One could interpret Qilby's role in the game as indicating either that he was a Well-Intentioned Extremist until his imprisonment increased his insanity, or that he just wanted to get back to cruising the Krosmoz and was making excuses.
    • Likewise, it's unclear if Shinonome went crazy from being eternal like her twin brother did, though it's all but stated by Qilby that she supported his scheme to start the war against the Mechasms. Based on her actions when she turns on Qilby, it could be that she was sane all along and had her doubts about her brother's actions; or she just isn't as crazy as Qilby was during the show because she hasn't spent millennia trapped in the White Dimension in a state of sensory deprivation; she simply had a Heel Realization in the thousands of years she spent trapped in her Dofus alone to reflect on everything that had happened; or she is indeed nuts like Qilby, but she has to draw a line somewhere when he starts attacking the children in Emrub.
  • In Season 3, Adamai became a bloodthirsty monster who not only killed Tristepin but also attacked a pregnant Evangelyne and also tried to kill Yugo as well, he did all because he was affected by the 6 Eliatrope Dofus inside of his body or because he really become more monstrous for his brother betrayal?
  • In the conclusion of the Season 3 finale "Inglorium", Yugo start to cry when Oropo prescence/illusion disappears in front of him, Yugo cries because he can't save Oropo? or because all of the events of Wakfu are indeed his fault?, or both?
• Adaptation Displacement: While the show isn't too well recognized in the West, even fewer people know it was based off an MMO (which was originally supposed to launch along side the show but was constantly delayed until 2012), which itself was a spinoff of Dofus.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Adamaï. Some find him an enjoyable addition to the cast, others aren't too fond of him, finding him annoying or disliking him because of his Jerkass moments in Season 2 and the third Special. His Face–Heel Turn during Season 3 as well as the fact that he ends up Easily Forgiven when he turns good again, even though he attacked and kidnapped Evangeline, Flopin, and Elely, and even attempted to outright murder Dally (and technically succeeded), only broke the base even further.
  • Sadlygrove. Some find his hot-bloodedness entertaining and his stupidity funny, while others find him annoying and think he is a spotlight-stealing Creator's Pet.
• Broken Base: Fans have some disagreements over the character's names, depending on which localization said fans prefer.
• Captain Obvious Reveal:
  • Those who already guessed that the Masked Gobbowler is a woman by episode 10 of season 2, please raise your hands.
  • Also raise your hands everyone who guessed that Oropo was an Eliotrope. Bonus point if you also guessed that Oropo was also a clone of Yugo and not a human turned Eliotrope like the games suggest, though that one takes a few more episodes.
• Complete Monster (includes Islands of Wakfu): Orgonax was the youngest and the prince of the Mechasm people whose heart was stolen by the Eliatrope traitor Qilby to foment war between the two people. Beyond any hope of reason, Orgonax, in retribution, spearheaded a war with the end goal of the utmost destruction of the Eliatrope people, slaughtering countless numbers of them until they managed to escape the Mechasms' wrath. Orgonax persisted his genocidal crusade long after the rest of his people had retired, tracking down the Eliatropes to the planet that would become the World of Twelve and restarting his campaign of destruction all over again. A being of absolute, unrelenting hatred, Orgonax would let nothing—from the murder of the Eliatrope children, to allowing his Lu-Fu servants to suck the Wakfu dry from countless other species merely cohabiting the planet with the Eliatropes—stop him from exacting his revenge.
• Creator's Pet: The Iop race in general. Iops always get major focus. It wasn't too bad in season 1, though Tristepin received the biggest visual change during it. During season 2, he got a fair amount more fights than a lot of other characters, but it still wasn't too bad. But then during the special episodes, it came out that he was the new incarnation of the Iop god and went to go fight OGREST all by himself, though Yugo comes to help him. And then it reached it's worst during season 3 where Pinpin and Eva's kid's receive more focus, but Elely, the Iop daughter is with the main group the whole season while Flopin, the Cra son is trapped with Eva and doing generally nothing for most of it. And Elely got the entire fight of episode 2 all to herself. And then Pinpin gets the second solo fight all to himself. And Amalia and Ruel don't even get any solo fights. And then the child Eva is pregnant with turns out to be an Iop so powerful that he is more powerful that Oropo, the Big Bad, before even being born.
• Cry for the Devil: This trope is a standard must for every Big Bad in the series with the exception of Rushu.
  • Nox evokes this reaction nigh on universally, not least after his full origin story was revealed. He's as likely to be acclaimed for being an intelligent, creepy badass as he is for being someone whom the audience just wants to hug and say they're sorry for by the time his full story is revealed. The first glimpse of his history is a dream of a loving wife and children on a beautiful summer day. Given that he's now a cackling maniacal villain looking to turn back time or break the very fabric of reality in the attempt because nothing else matters to him anymore, it's safe to say things didn't go well for his family. The bonus episode "Noximilien" is entirely made of this and Start of Darkness. In the end, he finally achieves his goal and rewinds time, hoping to save his family and undo all the horrible things he's done over the last two hundred years... and it only goes back twenty minutes. All the atrocities he's forced himself to commit, all the struggle he's caused, all the pain everyone's suffered, rendered completely pointless. He's so broken by this he goes to the graves of his family and kills himself. And because the world never knew about his motives, he'll go down in history as a Generic Doomsday Villain. Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds doesn't even begin to cover it.
  • Although he's widely considered far less sympathetic than Nox, Qilby still does this. He's a remorseless, treacherous, planet-destroying Straw Nihilist who cares entirely about his own benefit and refuses to show regret for his many crimes, but he's become the way he is due to thousands (possibly even billions) of years of being cursed with true immortality and forced to retain his memory of it all, and knowing that it will never end, and furthermore having no-one but his dragon twin Shinonome who understood his burden. It doesn't help that it's implied that the rest of his siblings did in fact neglect Qilby and undervalue the vast intellect his immortality afforded him, regulating him to being a glorified librarian. Qilby arouse pity when his own sister turns against him in order to stop his madness and he's left crippled, crawling and desperately begging for her help. Him being locked again in the Blank White Void where he spent thousands of years in catatonia, all alone and suffering the fate he feared most, is very much an Alas, Poor Villain moment that has a strong impression on the audience.
  • It's difficult to not pity Oropo's and his people's plights. Helps that, unlike the other villains, he had unambiguously altruistic motives.
• Cult Classic: Despite not being as profitable as its sister franchise, Dofus, the show itself has enough of a following for at least two successful kickstarter campaigns and continuing well over ten years after its original release.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Nox gets a bit of this. While he has a point that if he succeeds in his goal to reverse time, all the evil acts he's committed and their consequences will be retroactively erased and everyone he's harmed will get a fresh start with no harm done; people do tend to overlook the bit where Nox laughs off Grougaloragran's claim that attempting to reverse time will rip the world apart instead because Nox thinks he's too far gone to care if that scenario happens so long as his suffering ends.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Kabrok, to the extent of justifying his own graphic novel. His wife, Miranda, is also quite popular too for obvious reasons.
  • Every member of the brotherhood of forgotten are considered this, special mention to Black Bump for his personality and weird hobby of collecting underwear of his opponents and Mishell for her Badass Adorable character.
• Evil Is Cool: The list of reasons why people like Nox is basically just his character page on this wiki. He looks (and sounds) like a Magitek Darth Vader, he rides around in a giant clock with legs, he practically runs circles around the protagonists on a regular basis, and to top it off, he's got an incredibly heartbreaking backstory to boot.
• First Installment Wins: Although all three seasons have their fans, Season 1 is generally regarded as the strongest overall due to its tighter pacing and character writing and less filler, not to mention Nox, who isn't so much regarded as the show's best villain as he is one of its best characters period.
• Genius Bonus:
  • The draconic message left by Grougaloragran to Alibert (in episodes 1 and 2) is a cryptic message from the authors, written in an imaginary alphabet. The official Wakfu art book contains a French-Draconic code-breaker. Turns out it's just a transcription of the message that Grougaloragran left for Yugo.
  • Every time "dragon speech" is used, it's a French sentence played backwards.
  • Subverted: The message etched on the wall in Ruel's cell in episode 20 is similarly written in another imaginary alphabet and turns out to be a rather crude insult directed at whoever's obsessive enough to have managed to read it.
• Growing the Beard: While the first half of season one is still very fun, it's with the advent of the three episode Gobbowl Arc that things begin to take off and truly become interesting. It introduces a lot of world-building for it's characters and setting, features a number of hilarious moments, has Amalia and Evangelyne in revealing cheerleading outfits, and features one of the best animated sequences in the show's history, really showing off what the animators can do. After this arc, the following episodes begin to tie back into the Myth Arc of the season, and become more plot oriented from there. It's not coincidental that the final episode in this arc is the one that began to draw interest to this show.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The scene in Season 1, Episode 16, where Ruel prays to Enutrof for a miracle only to be rejected is already funny enough on its own. Come Season 3, Episode 8, and it becomes even funnier (or harsher, depending on how you look at it), when you realise that his request was turned down by his own father.
• I Am Not Shazam: Nobody and nowhere in the show is named "Wakfu". That is merely the name of the divine energy utilized in the show. The protagonist is named "Yugo", and the world is known as "The World of Twelve".
• Les Yay: Eva and Amalia; although their relationship is platonic, they did hold hands in episode 20, if you recall.
• Like You Would Really Do It: "Oh yeah, like Ankama would really have the balls to kill off the lovable Idiot Hero." They didn't. Not even in the Darker and Edgier Season 3.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Nox, the mad Xelor and keeper of the Eliacube who serves as the Big Bad of the first season, is an audacious and brilliant Time Master who devotes himself wholly to one thing: to turn back time two-hundred years, back to when his Eliacube-induced insanity resulted in the death of his family. Nox drains the wakfu from entire countries and leaves all around him in ruin to store the captured wakfu in the Eliacube, affording himself no setbacks and firmly convinced turning back time while simultaneously erase all of his own atrocities, allowing him and the World of Twelve a fresh start. With his ruthless, unfettered agenda leading to the defeat of everyone who tries to stand up against him — with Nox effortlessly tricking the entire Sadida military into wasting their soldiers on a diversion Nox sets up, and even defeating the ancient dragon Grougaloragran and Yugo himself — Nox's defeat only comes when it's revealed he never could have gotten enough wakfu to bring his family back, even his final defeat cast in an immensely sympathetic light.
  • Oropo is the remaining Eliotrope, a species created by Yugo's fight against Ogrest, and founder of The Siblings. Aiming to replace the gods, who ignored his people's extinction, Oropo weakened their standing by causing Ogrest's Chaos and Nox's Eliacube-induced insanity. Executing his plan to destroy the gods' realm with an Eliacube-bomb, Oropo stays one step ahead of the Brotherhood of Tofu, exploiting their fears and regrets, nearly swaying Amalia to his side and defeating Yugo by predicting his every move. Showing unexpected vulnerability and care towards the Brotherhood and Siblings alike, Oropo only loses when he gives up on his life-long goal to spare their lives, reconciliating with his partner Echo as they die together.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Any variation of ANKAMA IS EVIL/ARE JERKS.
  • It's become a minor mutation to take the last two panels of this comic and edit it to make something referring to the season 1 finale and/or something ridiculous (as a warning, most of the edits are heavily spoilerific).
  • Smug Duck.^ExplanationA scene where Eva gets into a bath is censored by a rubber duck with the biggest, smug-looking smile on its bill.
  • TWENTY MISERABLE MINUTES!!!.^ExplanationNox manages to kill Yugo and rewind time...only for his hard work to amount to only twenty minutes into the past.
    • In general, anything to due with Nox and 20 minutes.
  • Referring to the Season 3 Big Bad Oropo as... Oreo. Came from a misspelling on a 4chan discussion thread and instantly became a hit when talking about the character.
• Moe: Wakfu has been described on this very Wiki as "Gurren Lagann, but with Moe rather than Hot Blood". The worst offenders are Yugo and Amalia, but Eva has her moments◊ as well◊.... Which is not to say that the characters are totally helpless and huggable.
  • Elely and Flopin, Sadlygrove and Evangeline's daughter and son, are very cute in an Adorkable way.
• Moral Event Horizon: In season two, Qilby seemingly kills Adamai via beheading after revealing his master plan to kill everyone on the planet to rebirth their race. Then throws baby Grougaloragran into his engine of destruction for an And I Must Scream fate.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: A very light example during the last half of season one, as Sadlygrove and Evangelyne's relationship begins to get hinted at more and more. It never overtakes the main plot, but their relationships with almost anyone but each other stop being explored. It can make it kind of jarring in the season finale when Yugo is spurred into an Unstoppable Rage after he feels Sadlygrove's wakfu disappear and Evangelyne has a Heroic BSoD when the Tree of Life dies, "killing" Amalia, because it's so easy to forget that they had meaningful relationships with other characters, too. And it happens again in season two, which has several episodes focused on a fight between Sadlygrove and Evangelyne and a Love Triangle between those two and Cleo.
• Rooting for the Empire:
  • Nox is what happens when you have a villain who's so much cooler than the heroes that the fanbase starts rooting for him to win even if it kills everyone else in the cast. The most shocking part about it? Nox's justification that all his horrible acts won't matter if he wins because every bit of damage he's done to the world will be reversed by his victory actually makes sense. And this isn't even getting into his incredibly tragic backstory...
  • Somewhat with Qilby. The show tries to make the rest of the Council of Six out to be heroes who are in the right for stopping him from destroying entire worlds and throwing him in the White Dimension, but those who do feel sympathy for Qilby are probable to argue that Yugo and the rest of the Council are the real bastards; pointing out that Qilby's brothers act like they're not in any way to blame for what Qilby became despite the fact that he is their family and therefore partly their responsiility, and especially Qilby's multiple hints that his siblings neglecting him played a significant role in his Face–Heel Turn, and several fans have also pointed out that banishing Qilby to the White Dimension again runs the risk of him being even worse than he already is if he ever escapes again.
• Seasonal Rot: General consensus is that while Season 2 is still fairly good, there are still a number of major hiccups, such as lopsided plot and character focus issues, glaring pacing issues, overuse of filler episodes, and the main antagonists lacking interesting traits. The final episodes recover some lost ground by shaking up the status quo and implementing more world-building, although new characters are introduced almost abruptly.
• Sophomore Slump: Season 2, as mentioned above, was less well-received for its Pacing Problems and Denser and Wackier tone. The Quest for the Six Eliatrope Dofus and Season 3 were seen as a return to form, with better world-building and Character Development, as well as season 3's darker tone.
• Subbing Versus Dubbing: As is par for the course, there's some minor controversy over whether the English dub is any good. It didn't help that the English dub was the only version of the show on Netflix for a while (although a French option was added shortly before Season 2 was on the platform), and the dub itself seemed rushed and incomplete, such as missing dialogue and sound effects.
• Superlative Dubbing: Season 3's English dub is a vast improvement over what came before, due to finally nixing the infamous Kickstarter-funded dub cast in favor of more professional voice actors, who have the emotional range much more befitting the characters, as well as a more appropriate variety of sound effects, and perfect mixing of all audio; appropriately, just in time for the show's darkest season.
• Sweetness Aversion: The shorts Mini-Wakfu at the end of each episode of season 1 are Denser and Wackier, using chibified models of the characters. For the most part, it wasn't really a problem. However, when the show underwent Cerebus Syndrome and became Darker and Edgier during the last few episodes, they began to stand out like a sore thumb in the eyes of some. The biggest offender is episode 25, which ends with Sadlygroove's death and Yugo going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge... And then comes the goofy short with Nox and the machine that killed Sadlygroove.
• Tough Act to Follow: After Nox, some people were rather underwhelmed about Rushu and Qilby, who come off as much more by-the-numbers and lacking in complex and sympathetic qualities.
• Toy Ship: Yugo× Amalia. All of the fishing, stargazing, playing and greeting each other first they do together doesn't help matters either. And that's before you even get into all the hugging. Made even clearer in the Comic. Not so much in season three when both are in their 20's but because Yugo ages a lot slower then his friends he is physically still a child, much to his frustration.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Hands down one of the most gorgeous-looking Flash-animated series out there, which is pretty surprising considering it's made for an MMORPG.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: And how! This series doesn't bother holding down horrifying, or raunchy moments. It gets even worse from season 3 onwards. As for the English dub, it's surprisingly more mature than dubs of other shows belonging to the same demographic (for example, "hell" is uttered a lot; the producers didn't bother substituting it). All of this boils down to the fact that France has looser guidelines on what content is considered "for kids" unlike in the other side of the Atlantic.

---