If you ask me, what's more harmful to the plot than Shartoji, my answer is going to be the millions of squinty ratmen that inhabit china. The fact that characters HAVE to be subservient blank slates instead of compelling characters that actually do cool shit to fuel their own motives hurts the setting and characters worse than Shartoji ever could if he had free will. I really liked Phainon's trailer and it made me think how much better it would have been watching it if I didn't hate him so goddamn much up to that point, but ultimately its the writers' inability to write good stories because not only do they fucking suck, they are also slaves to the chinese playerbase that are afraid of real characters and skeletons. Also they will never stop churning out twinks and make real gigachads because chinese "people" prefer the former.