This is something I’ve been thinking about after rereading/discussing MR, and I’m genuinely curious how others feel about it.

Does one of Gazzy’s main powers actually become counter-productive as he gets older?

Gazzy’s power makes sense when he’s a kid

Early in the series, Gazzy’s gas/stench power works because:

He’s young

MR leans into gross-out humor

It keeps fights non-lethal and YA-friendly

It disrupts enemies without turning Gazzy into a killer

At that stage, it feels like:

A childish but effective distraction

Comic relief that offsets how dark the premise actually is

And that works — especially early MR.

But what happens when Gazzy grows up?

As the stakes rise and the characters mature, the power starts to feel… awkward.

As a teen or adult:

It’s socially humiliating

It’s impossible to deploy subtly

It actively undermines credibility in serious situations

It clashes with adult leadership, planning, or negotiation

A power that boils down to:

“I can biologically incapacitate people in a very embarrassing way”

doesn’t scale cleanly into adulthood.

The weird part: Gazzy is actually very smart

This is what really gets me.

Canon Gazzy is:

Highly intelligent

Technically gifted

Skilled with explosives

Creative under pressure

But his gas power:

Locks him into the “comic relief kid” role

Encourages people (in-universe and readers) to underestimate him

Feels increasingly out of place as the tone darkens

Compare this to Iggy:

His blindness doesn’t “age out”

His skills scale with maturity

He grows into his role

Gazzy’s power does the opposite.

Why didn’t his power evolve?

This feels like a missed opportunity.

A more mature evolution could’ve been:

Controlled chemical release

Non-odour-based incapacitating gas

Precision deployment

Tech-assisted amplification

Instead, it largely stays the same — which freezes Gazzy developmentally even as everyone else grows.

The meta reason (I think)

To be fair, I do understand the YA angle.

Gazzy:

Anchors the “kid appeal”

Keeps humor in an increasingly bleak story

Prevents the series from going full WTWB/TLH in tone

So I don’t think this is a mistake so much as a deliberate tonal choice.

But it does mean his power doesn’t age alongside the readership.

Final thoughts

I’m not saying Gazzy is a bad character — far from it.

I am saying his power feels like one of the least future-proof abilities in the series.

It works brilliantly when he’s a child. It becomes awkward when he’s not.

Curious what others think:

Does Gazzy’s power still work later in the series?

Should it have evolved?

Or is it essential that at least one Flock member stays “child-coded” for balance?

Genuinely interested in hearing different takes.