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Few people are as perfect as their public image, especially when they are perceived as a saint. Nor did the 2015 election represent as much of a break with Myanmar's past as it first seemed -- the military kept a firm grip on power, while the ethnic strife and civil war which have racked the country since independence never went away.
There is also a major different between being an opposition figure and actually having to govern. As de facto president -- she is barred from formally taking office under the military-drafted constitution, but wields huge authority as state counselor -- Suu Kyi has to maintain public support for the NLD in the face of intense challenges. These include multiple ethnic uprisings, growing anti-Muslim sentiment and maintaining the approval of the West that had been key in getting sanctions relaxed and boosting Myanmar's economy.
That she would stumble at some point seemed inevitable, but for many of her supporters in the West, instead of maintaining influence with her and pressuring the generals to continue giving up power, they instead drew a line under the Myanmar problem and moved on.
"When discordant news got in the way -- a communal riot here, a clash between the army and insurgents there -- it was easily swept aside as peripheral to the main story. The story was too good, a much needed tonic at a time when the Arab Spring was giving way to extreme violence. Burma, at least, was a morality tale that seemed to be nearing its rightful conclusion," added Thant Myint U, referring to the country by its previous name, Burma.
Divided country
Many of the problems that Suu Kyi inherited in 2015 were put in place long before the country gained independence from Britain.
Though Suu Kyi's father, independence leader General Aung San, succeeded in uniting Shan, Chin and Kachin groups with his Burmese nationalists, hardline Communists and Karen separatists soon launched insurgencies against the newly independent state.
Over the next five decades of military rule, Suu Kyi emerged as a leading opposition figure, boosted by her impeccable heritage and her strong international ties.
"There was no attempt to analyze the roots of authoritarianism or Burma's complex interethnic relations," Thant Myint U writes. "Nor was there an effort to understand the country's traumatic past or reflect on the legacies of colonialism. To the extent that people thought about Burma's myriad 'ethnic groups,' they were seen as victims too of military repression and on the side of 'democracy.'"
Fallen idol
Had she offered even tacit criticism of the military as it launched its campaign of ethnic cleansing in 2016, her international reputation might have survived. She could have justifiably pointed to the limits of her own power and that of the NLD, and the need for Myanmar to undergo a full democratization that would finally remove the military from power.
Perhaps she has changed. Or perhaps she simply never was the person she was presented as, but instead a far more flawed figure, who, faced with an intensely difficult balancing act, chose to follow the path of least resistance and shore up majority support while sacrificing a loathed minority. She was hardly the first leader to do so, and likely will not be the last.
If there is any lesson to be learned from Suu Kyi's downfall it is that Nobel Peace laureates aren't perfect and that democratic transitions do not happen overnight. The international community took its eye off Myanmar, assuming Suu Kyi could handle the country's numerous problems while remaining a paragon of democracy.
The brutal campaign against the Rohingya deserves all the condemnation it has received, but there is blame to go around well beyond Myanmar's borders.
CNN's Helen Regan contributed reporting.