God Serena would clown any Spriggan bar the top 2 given how easily he handled Gajeel.
Feats are not even a contest.
You have Erza who lost 3v1 against Azuma + Ikaruga + Kyouka in a mid diff. Yeah, she was injured, but nothing worse than her state when she started fight against Eileen
God Serena in his
base, no diff'd 3GOI + Jura who are collectively >>> the trio Erza faced. The weakest amongst them - Jura > the strongest amongst trio - Kyouka.
God Serena no diff'd x793 ISM Gajeel, who scales to x793 LFD Natsu
x792 base Gajeel matched roar with Bradman, supposedly God Serena's "equal"
I for one think GS got stronger due to whatever the Duke did. But so did Gajeel, basic powercreep between x792 and x793. GS faced a far stronger Gajeel than Bradman faced, and no diff'd him.
To me that’s just lazy writing but at the same time feats sometimes don’t matter because people will downgrade them if they’re not good enough
Downgrading when feats are shit is what people without agendas will do. But as you can see, there is too much agenda at play within this fanbase lmao
Portrayal truly has only mattered amongst the "good guys", that is the only relative portrayal Mashima respects and is adamant on preserving. Stuff like:
- Gildarts will be strongest (bar DF Natsu), no matter what. Which is why he's just getting stronger along with others as a middle aged dude.
- Natsu/Gajeel/Gray will always be comparable in their base
- Laxus/Jellal will always be comparable, right now can add Erza there trailing
- Mira will be somewhat relative to Erza even if she's trailing
Portrayal here is important for Mashima, because they are recurring characters.
Portrayal for villains is different, it serve primarily one purpose for Mashima - to act as a hype tool.
Mashima doesn't want to bother with building hype for multiple villains, so he uses a villain with established hype and/or feats to build hype for others without putting effort.
Mashima doesn't care beyond that, because villains are for the most part one time usage characters, so once they serve their purpose, their hype is of no value to him. He just wants the villains to have some hype before they fight the "good guys" and serve their purpose, after which they are mostly just irrelevant.
This is why the OGs shit on the leeches, once everything is said and done:
- God Serena to average Spriggans
- August to Eileen, and Larcade
- Acnologia to dragon Gods (Ignia will be a possible exception because he is actually relevant)
- Suzaku to other BDSK (Kirin is a possible exception)