YMMV / The Adventure Zone: Graduation

• Broken Base: Graduation divided the fanbase like never before. Some fans praise the grand world, the various characters and the underlying mystery. The other side have pointed out the slow moving pace, extensive railroading from Travis and the fact that there are so many characters that none of them gets any real chance to stand out. The only thing most fans seem to agree on is that the Player Characters are a clear positive. The divides over Graduation were so large that the Adventure Zone subreddit saw a splinter sub, TAZ Circlejerk, form in response to overly strict moderation and tone-policing regarding what criticisms of Graduation were legitimate.
• The Chris Carter Effect: Graduation featured plenty of potentially interesting plot threads; such as the Unbroken Chain, the real intent of the Heroic Oversight Guild, the difficulties of school life in a school where you're either thought to be virtuous or villainous, Alithea Song place in the world, but pretty much all of them were dropped at some point in the story so that it could fit better with the Demon lord fight.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Rainer is well-loved for her sunny personality, necromancy powers, dancing skeletal animal friends, and overall being a good friend and ally to the Thundermen.
  • Her father Gordy the Lich King is popular for similar reasons, plus his Doting Parent tendencies.
• Fanon: A lot of people liked to headcanon that Gordy's adoptive parents are Barry and Lup.
• Fan Nickname: Most fans have begun calling the Firbolg either "???" or "Redacted".
• Growing the Beard: The arc with the centaurs and the introduction of Chaos is said by fans to be where the story really gets picks up. Of course, that is also a matter of opinion.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Bingus ^ExplanationA reddit post cataloging every character introduced into the campaign added a very Mary-Sueish character named Bingus during one of the later episodes as a personal joke to the reader, and the fanbase decided to adopt this character as though they were an actual NPC in Graduation, complete with fanfiction and art for them.
  • "This is where Graduation really hits its stride!" ^ExplanationA recurring sarcastic response to the idea that, to some fans, Graduation is finally getting good.
  • Travising ^ExplanationA coined term for a game master playing multiple characters talking to each other, at the expense of the actual player characters, after criticisms of Travis's DMing style.
• Portmanteau Couple Name:
  • Fitzrain = Fitzroy/Rainer.
  • Maplekeene = Fitzroy/Argo, using their last names.
• Recurring Fanon Character: Bingus is a hairless cat with Mary Sue traits that fans pretend is an actual character in the story. He has received a lot of fanart and fanfiction. See Memetic Mutation on this page.
• Shocking Moments: The way the Thundermen resolve the conflict between the centaur clans. Somehow, the Firbolg manages to flip a tent. Then, the battle with Calhain ultimately ends with one of his hands mostly-severed by Argo. Fitzroy proceeds to grab the limb and tear it off, leaving Calhain a gibbering wreck and the centaurs are so horror-struck that they are very amenable to listening to Fitzroy's suggestions on how to resolve their conflict. It's noted that on the carriage ride back to school, Rhodes and her sidekick are impressed with how it ended, but not in a good way.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: The first few episodes are mostly just set up and the PCs doing school tasks, with Foreshadowing placed throughout. Later episodes reveal more interesting plot elements before episode 12, the Wham Episode, comes and makes things a lot more interesting.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: While all campaigns of The Adventure Zone play pretty fast and loose with plot threads, Graduation seemed to hit a land-speed record for dropping potentially interesting ideas into set-dressing for what was ultimately a relatively unremarkable "fight some demons" campaign. Just as a sampler:
  • Most glaringly, the entire concept the campaign was advertised with, a magical school that trains commodified heroes and villains is unceremoniously dropped remarkably quickly. The concept is basically entirely irrelevant by the halfway point, despite being major influence of the character's livelihoods and a source of school-related goofs.
  • The Unbroken Chain initially seeming like a group that actually goes out and does real good gets dropped nearly immediately when their secrecy is more or less broken by Argo and the Commodore/Gray takes center stage.
  • The "heist" and destruction of the HOG and it's consequences are basically ignored as soon as it's over. The Thundermen seemed to be trying to approach the situation in a way other than "fight a big demon war", but as soon as the heist is done, they're just dropped right back in the middle of it to fight said demon war. The ramifications of devastating an entire economic system based around the heroes/villains are not addressed at all.
• The Woobie:
  • The Firbolg, so very much. He's a good-natured Gentle Giant who has been outcast from his clan and wishes nothing more than to return home, a dream he knows is probably not to be. He's frequently dragged into situations that make him uncomfortable and go against the world he knows, and while Argo and Fitzroy like him and try to look out for him, they can't fully understand what he's going through. And while he is allowed to return home briefly, it is only because his father is dying—as soon as he passes, he has to leave again.