daredevil is a real word and was long before the comic book hero. Evel Knievel was a daredevil. It wasn’t named after the marvel hero
But Evel Knievel was a person who used a motorcycle to perform deadly stunts to impress an audience. That kind of daredevil has a very high level conceptual relationship to the specialization of being daring. While Daredevil, the marvel hero embodies several aspects of the class’ abilities.
I don’t know at what point in the cycle they decided to name the thief specialization daredevil, but it would be extremely unimaginative at best to straight up copy a name from another intellectual property, and that doesn’t sit well with me at all. Of course, it’s entirely possible that ANet came up with the thief specialization’s name before the Netflix show aired and gained popularity, but then the timing is just unfortunate in making them look suspicious.
Daredevil is obviously a legitimate word in the English language, and it’s not like it legally can’t be used in other contexts, but the fact that it’s a word that rarely appears in everyday usage outside of references to the currently popular Netflix show makes the copying seem intentional. I mean, as stupid as it sounds, imagine if they called the engineer elite specialization the “iron man” spec and made the announcement right after Avengers 2 came out. That’s how this feels to me. Granted, if they did that and threw in a flying iron man suit for engineers to replace gliders, I might be able to get on board with that idea.
But even if this was not just a clumsy attempt at piggybacking off of the show’s success, I also have bad memories of the Affleck movie, so I’m not a big fan of the name in any event.
