(2)Commander Shepard vs (5)Tharja vs (20)Aeris Gainsborough 2013

Ulti's Analysis
For the most part the quote thing was only passively funny, but that picture is absolutely golden. Tharja staring at Aeris and warning her about death, in a match where Aeris got killed by the upset bug, is golden. This was the second match in a row where people couldn't wait to anti-vote the establishment, and this time around it was Final Fantasy 7 getting its ass kicked.

Early on, Aeris was winning. Either she's more popular than Shepard by herself, or bracket voting put her ahead, or what. She stayed there for quite awhile, too, but never really built a lead or pulled away. While she was going up for the first couple hours of the poll, the biggest lead she managed was 137 votes. But in no time at all, Shepard began coming back with very little resistance. It only took him an hour and a half to get rid of Aeris's lead, and once he tied the poll he just took off. Usually when a favorite is losing a lead, there is a ton of resistance and a tie holds for awhile. When Aeris lost the lead, she just died.

Shepard would end up laughing in the face of the so-called legendary FF7 day vote en route to a 700 vote win, and it was one of the coolest upsets of the entire contest. I love FF7 as a game, I really do, but Aeris is a bad character and is only notable because of the end of disc 1. Yeah she probably wins this match without Tharja in the way, and yeah FF7 anti-voting is running rampant in contests these days, but who can possibly complain when Commander Goddamn Shepard is the beneficiary of it? How many characters in this entire bracket are actually better characters than Shep? Maybe 5?

This was a great win for Shepard and Mass Effect fans, and Shep has come a loooooooong way from getting 13% in a fourway poll in 2008.