Princess Lona

Edit: I quoted this post at the bottom of a page thinking it was the end if the thread without realizing that the issue had already been addressed on the following pages. So no disrespect intended towards the poster. But I'm leaving my post up because I think I made some good points. There is nothing masculine about Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash is a female therefore all of her behaviours and traits are feminine. Or better yet, her behaviours and traits are neither masculine nor feminine because behaviours and traits vary from person to person, so a specific behaviour or trait can not be objectively attributed to one gender or another. The very existence of Rainbow Dash and real people like her (those who do not fit into their supposed gender norms) disproves the concept of masculinity and femininity as identifiers. Masculinity and femininity now only exist in French class.Also, even if masculinity did exist, and RD was masculine, it wouldn't necessarily mean she's gay. There are enty of straight women who don't fit the outdated definition of feminine.

I think Spike's role was probably meant to be a lot smaller in the beginning, which is why they didn't give him an element. Once they realized his potential for character development it was too late to make him an element. The lore was already set in stone. We have seen the five elements create the sixth element, and we have seen the power of the elements become complete. There isn't room for a seventh that wouldn't feel shoehorned. I think that giving Spike a place at the council table in the season four finale hints that he will take on a more serious role in the coming seasons. Now that they've laid the Elements to rest (hopefully), they can develop a new power McGuffin that includes Spike.

The strength and nature of my reaction to being asked to act on the show would depend on how much the producers planned to pay me.

"Why do you like a show made for little girls?" Because it's by far THE BEST show for little girls I have ever seen. It showcases positive and complex female characters which give little girls a variety of role models to look up to. I grew up watching G1 and although it's not quite as bad as everyone says, and it does have some arguably positive messages for girls, there were certainly no Awesome and Powerful Princesses to be seen. Although the world has changed a lot for the better since those days, there is still a lot of garbage in children's media that pressures both girls and boys to conform to narrow ideas about gender and the roles they should strive for when they grow up. Friendship is Magic is working against the norm. It is respectful to it's intended audience. That fact that adults like the show is testament to this. FIM presents its young female (and young make) viewers with sophisticated content and lessons about life that encourage an open mind. I appreciate the fan service, but the thing that always makes me tingle when I watch an episode is thinking of how wonderfully these messages are affecting the next generation's worldview.

The Houyhnhnms treated Gulliver fairly nicely once they realized he was slightly more intelligent than the Yahoos. I think once they realized that Equestrians are essentially human minds in horselike bodies, they would tolerate them. Of course it would depend on where they were. If the Houies came to Equestria I expect the Equestrians would find a way to share the land and live in peace as long as the Houies didn't show malicious intent. If the Equestrians landed in the land of the Houyhnhnms there might be an initial reaction of fear, but they would welcome the Equestfians once they saw how useful their magic is.

It depends on the circumstances. I think Rarity probably swears a lot in private. She's a perfectionist. We've seen the way she mumbles to herself when working on a really difficult project in Winter Wrap Up, but there were other ponies present then. Imagine what she must say to herself when she's alone in her workroom and accidentally mangles a dress in her sewing machine while trying to execute a particularity difficult stitch, subsequently flushing the last five hours of work down the drain. And since she is such a perfectionist, she probably swears over much smaller screw ups than that. I think Rainbow Dash is too laid back to swear all that often.

Depends on your definition of prejudice. It wasn't until just now reading this topic that I realized the nature if the word. "Pre" meaning "before" or "prior" and "judice" derived from "judge". The word "prejudice" literally means the judgement of a person or entity before having any actual close encounter with them to provide material to make an informed judgement. So yes, the townsponies and most of the main characters were exercising prejudice in that episode, but it's okay now because they learned their lesson.

I don't want to say it because if you haven't seen this one it's priceless and way cooler to notice on your own (Answer in the spoilers below). Watch the intro to "The Cutie Pox" and don't blink. Watch the background ponies. By far the best Easter egg in the show. I showed this to some friends and it alone convinced them to give the show a chance.

I think one could argue that there is a lot of crossover between bugs and fairies in general. Stories of fairies likely arose in folklore from sightings of actual rare and/or beautiful bugs such as butterflies and especially fireflies. In a universe like FIM, where nature and magic are so closely tied, I can easily see certain bugs doubling as fairies.

Tactile telekinesis. I like this concept. And now I'm filling space because I'm posting from the mobile site which apparently has not done away with character minimums.

I think a colt is any male horse under four years.

I think it has to do with the rhythm of the words. They want the pony terms to sound similar to the human terms. "Gentlecolts" and "gentlemen" have the same amount of syllables but "gentlestallions" has one syllable too many. "Fillies" sounds more like "Ladies" than "meres" does, so the expression is "fillies and gentlecolts" so that it sounds more like "ladies and gentlemen". "I now pronounce you mere and colt" sounds more like "I now pronounce you man and wife" again because of the syllables and because "mere" and "man" both start with an m.

I don't know if they're perfect for each other, but there may be some feelings there. We have seen a non-drugged Cheerilee swoon and faint at the very sight and sound of Big Mac at the Ponytones show. This was just a silly comic moment in a single episode (and possible fan service as a lot of fans started shipping Macilee after Hearts and Hooves Day), but it's canon now.

I don't want to see him in the show, but I've been catching up on the comics lately and I think that would be a great place to see his backstory. They've done all kinds of neat backstory and world building in the comics including how Cadence and Shining Armour got together and a story about Starswirl's and Celestia's past. One thing I DO NOT want to see is Flash in any way involved in a romance with Twilight in the pony world. I hate the fact that it was even hinted at in EQG and I think if Flash was given a proper backstory and shown to be more than just that plot device it would sooth my qualms. Kind of like ret-con but for character development.

They will probably end up getting marks for their obvious talents, but I kind of want them to become the first ponies in history to get a joint cutie mark. Getting a cutie mark is very important to most ponies, and most of them actively try to get their marks like human teenagers trying to grow facial hair. But as far as we have seen, the CMC are the first ponies to get together to actively seek out their marks. That is really special. I think it would be neat if they each got one third of a larger picture. Each individual mark could still symbolize their individual achievement, but the larger picture would symbolize their friendship and the fact that each had help from the others to discover her destiny.

Have her try running the family business. While we don't know much about DT's father Filthy Rich, his interaction with Granny Smith and the way he didn't mind her silliness makes me think that he is a more kind pony than his daughter. You have to be nice to people and personable if you want to stay in business in a small town, even if you are just faking it (not that I believe he is faking it. He seems nice). I can see Filthy explaining professional courtesy and the importance of building good relationships to DT, but she would take it to mean you just have to sweet talk and manipulate everyone to get what you want. So while trying to run the business, DT would become a butt-kissing phoney. It would work at first, but because she's better at being mean than she is at sweet talking I think her customers would see through it and realize how she was trying to take advantage of them. Soon everyone in town would hate her. She would be confused, wondering where she went wrong, then she would see one of the ponies who just reamed her out for ruining them crying in a corner or something and she would realize that when you hurt others, you are hurting yourself too. That would start her on the path to change. She would start genuinely thinking about other ponies' feelings and for the first time in her life feel pretty terrible about what she's done. It might take a bit longer for her to figure out how to interact positively with others.

I certainly hope not. And I think that after all the backlash to Flash (backFlash?) the writers wouldn't do it. But let's not pigeonhole him more than he already has been. There are lots of ways for a character to develop outside of their romantic endeavours. And I stick to my original theory that a pony and their human counterpart are different enough from each other to have different destinies.

I think they're all unicorns because they were all students of the school and it obviously can't be the School for Gifted Unicorns if other pony races attend.

Most of us (myself included) hated him in Equestria Girls and with very good reason. He was boring, had no real character development, and was basically a plot device. Most of us also hate seeing his pony self appear in the show because it reminds us of how terrible his human self is. But Pony Flash and Human Flash are not the same person. They probably share personality traits (whatever those traits may be, we haven't seen them yet), but they have different histories. And there is something about Pony Flash which makes him slightly more interesting to me. He is a non-crystal pony residing in the Crystal Empire, and as far as we have seen, the only non-crystal pony there other than the local royals. What's the story there? Where did Flash come from? Did he join the Canterlot Royal Guard and transfer? That's boring. Maybe he was a part of some adventure with Cadence before the return of the Crystal Empire. Perhaps the two of them had to save Canterlot from some dastardly evil and through that, Cadence grew to trust him completely so she took him on as her personal bodyguard or even Royal Advisor and that is why he is in the Crystal Empire now. What is if like for him being the only non-royal, non-crystal pony in town? I'm not saying I necessarily want him to play a larger role in the show, but I would like answers. Anyone else have some interesting head canon on the subject?

Comic canon shows that Luna had been overtaken by nightmare magic which amplified her greatest fears in order to control her. So at least in Luna's case the elements didn't brainwash her. If anything, they freed her from mind control.

The synopsis doesn't say that Pony Twilight comes back, it says they *call* her back to help them perform a musical spell. It doesn't say their efforts to call her work. Maybe they fail to get Pony Twi back, but Human Twi stumbles onto the scene and the movie is about her trying to live up to the high standards set by her magical pony doppelgänger, and the rest of them learning to accept her as a friend even though she's not the same Twilight they grew to love before.

There were merponies in the comic. They didn't look exactly like the older sea ponies. They have seahorse-like upper bodies and a fish tail. I'd like to see them in the show. And Ogopogo.

I think that they're both rather full of themselves, but Squidward has given up on the idea that anyone will ever "appreciate" his "genius", while Trixie shows off because she still believes that people will see her greatness.

Celestia was grooming Twilight to become a Princess. She saw potential in her as a foal but she had to be sure. If you only just watched Magical Mystery Cure then I'm guessing you haven't seen Equestria Girls yet. Sunset Shimmer, the villain from EQG was Celestia's protoge before Twilight, but Sunset couldn't understand friendship and ended up being expelled from Celestia's school. This proves that Celestia was trying to groom someone to be this new princess, but she couldn't see the future completely. The movie doesn't go too in depth with Sunset Shimmer's backstory, but the EQG comic does. It even hints at there being a group of ponies who could have become Sunset Shimmer's Elements of Harmony if she had just made friends with them: Notice the way these ponies mirror the personalities of some of the mane five.

People in this thread have done a pretty thorough job of refuting this author's arguments so I am only going to address the first one: "Males are being underrepresented, there are no male lead characters in this show." As has been mentioned, Spike is a main character, and he was at the time this article was written. It just may not seem like he was very main because of the small amount of episodes devoted to him. But this is not specific to Spike. All of the "main" ponies aside from Twilight get a relatively small piece of total screen time in each season because there are five of them. Eight if you include the CMC. But what I really want to talk about is the underrepresentation of males in the show. To say that males are underrepresented in FIM is accurate. There are more female leads, more females in positions of power and leadership, and even more female background ponies. However, these facts do not make a strong argument to hold up the author's claim that FIM is misandric. It is impossible for a piece of media to be misandric or misogynist on its own simply by not having enough of one gender of character. Each group of characters in a given piece of fiction are isolated within their own universe from other works. It is only when you take into account all fiction that you realize how gender ratios affect society's views on a particular group as a whole. If all the other fiction in our culture had a perfect balance of positive, well-rounded male and female characters, then MLP would tip the scales in favour of females and technically be the cause of cultural misandry. But that isn't the world we live in. Due to the misogyny of humanity's past of which we are only now starting to break free, the majority of current fiction still has more interesting and nuanced male characters than female ones. There are plenty of places for young boys to go to see positive male role models in power and leadership positions, but still very few places for little girls to see the same thing for themselves. By having more female characters, MLP looks to balance things out a bit without taking a big dump all over men. The male characters on MLP aren't a bunch of boring stereotypes so it's not like they are being represented in a bad light, just no light. (Now if the author were writing about Equestria Girls, she might be onto something here ) As a last thought, just so it doesn't look like I'm trying to turn this into "Battle of the Sexes: Cultural Victimhood Edition" I want to give an example of a film that has virtually no female characters and is also not misogynist. Dead Poets Society. It takes place at an all boys school and has a cast of male characters who show courage, spirit, positivity, and a bunch of other great examples for boys. As I recall, the only female character is someone's mother and she doesn't play into the story much. In much the same way that Dead Poets Society is about males without putting down females, MLP is about females without putting down males.