How is that questionable? There are very few female characters in the game as we have established, so immediately shantae is already adding something whether you personally care about that or not is irrelevant. And the fact that that somehow degrades my argument is kind of laughable to me. You would have to be so fixated on that one point I made that it would overshadow everything else that I said. It's kind of funny to me also because you can;t seem to counter anything else I said about why she deserves to be in smash, all you can do is cherry pick that one point. Your argument does not seem to have much of a foundation.
I told you before that I didn't try to "counter" your other points because I didn't think they deserved to be countered, simple as that. I agree with most of it. I just don't think her being female makes her anymore deserving than any other character, that's all. You're also free to disagree, like I told you.
Second, I completely disagree, there are indeed many objective ways of looking at this and I proved it. If by your logic, every character is equally deserving of being in smash, then why are Mario, Smaus, Fox, Kirby, etc. in the game instead of a goomba, a waddle dee, a metroid, etc. ? The character's importance in the franchise alone is a factor otherwise Mario would not be in the game. You can sit here and pretend that there isnt a way of quantifying how deserving a character is but even Sakurai clearly follows SOMETHING because again, none of the major character like Mario, Samus, Link, etc. would be in the game instead of other random characters from their franchises, or other franchise for that matter. And no **** sakurai gets the final say, that doesnt change the fact that some 'characters' really don't deserve to be in the game.
You proved nothing. You stated a lot of criteria and then whined about the inclusion of characters that didn't fit the criteria you yourself made up. Either you're unwilling to expand your "objective" criteria to include the characters that obviously got included (like WFT, Villager, etc.) or you can't justifiably call your criteria objective. That's all.
I even agree with some of the criteria (like importance for a franchise, etc.) but using those to discredit the inclusion of characters that already made it in, just doesn't make sense, because apparently there are other criteria than the ones you mentioned because if they were actually true, characters like WFT wouldn't be in Smash.
You seem like the type of person that thinks everything is subjective.
I do, because that's how it is, but that doesn't mean I'm hung up on that. I still want to argue within system that follows a set of rules and logic. That's the thing about your argument about "objective ways to determine who's how deserving of being in Smash". If your criteria actually were objective, you wouldn't start ranting about WFT, Villager etc., but you would try adapt your criteria to include them, because the fact of the matter is that they're in Smash. I don't say that your criteria are wrong, but they're lacking.
If for example I am writing the ending to a story, I have a million different ways I could make the story end, and there are objectively bad ways I could make it end. Like ignoring the established lore, retconning characters, dues ex machina devices, not providing any closure, changing the tone, etc. But because I am the writer, I can't make any mistakes, right? I can't write something that's bad, right? because I get the final say, that means I can't possibly do anything that's not perfect, right?
See, here's something I disagree with. Whether the ending of your story is bad will be determined by every reader on their own. You can quantify it by looking for an average opinion but there's no universally objective bad or good way to end your story.
That's also why I don't give a crap about review-scores. There's some reviewers that I know share my own tastes and that's why I can rely on their judgment. When I say something is good or bad I always state it as my point of view. I for example think Metroid Other M is a really bad game, but there's a lot of people who don't think so and that's ok.
You can of course evaluate a certain product according to a predetermined set of rules/criteria, but then you have an evaluation of good or bad that's linked to these rules that have at some point been decided by someone.
But please note that I'm just saying this in the context of entertainment media and not in the context of science and measurements with scientific instruments. Of course, even there you can't completely eliminate the element of subjectivity, but it's by far not as bad as when trying to "objectively" evaluate something like a story, a game, a movie, etc.
There ARE objective ways of looking at what characters that should or should not be added to the roster. Like it or not.
Nope, there are not or at least not ONLY the ones you mentioned. If there were, they wouldn't be in, but they are.
EDIT:
This is also where I end this. I've made my point and I still have to prepare dinner.
And just to be clear, no hard feelings. It's not like I've got anything against you. ^^