danjuno

Umm, no. There is a difference between creating something solely for profit from the very start with no concerns for quality, and creating something genuinely good which succeeds on it's own merits.

Wouldn't that still require a bit of training? Especially seeing as she was able to pull off a loop-d-loop, (that would take some training as well I'd imagine)! Also, she flies from the city walls (remember that Canterlot is on a mountainside) to the camera, which is some distance away, yet in EQG, before she enters the portal (the point which you've said the movie stopped being canon) she can't even hover a few feet off the ground. It would be kind of pointless to have a training episode after the skill she displayed at the end of MMC.

I see your point (though I was using O' Neill as example of the applicability of what some perceived as the episode's moral about working and rewards than as a literal comparison of equestrian government and IRL politics. I could've used somebody from a different profession, I simply went with someone from I field I am interested in), but I could counter that Celestia must have had something to do with it because she knew when TS was ready. Though, I suppose, we could speculate about this all night, but we don't know for certain who/what created the process of turning into an Alicorn, so I'll wrap this up, at least for tonight. See ya.

Indeed, a lot of things can, but life-long careers aren't one of them. We don't know for 100% how fast time progresses , so we can only judge IRL time because that's all we have to go on. "Your argument is dumb for reasons I'm not going to specify!" is not a legitimate answer. If you want elaboration, character development means that a character's perspective and personality are at least somewhat changed. If those two things don't change, which is to say her personality stays the same and she stays in Ponyville (like the staff said), it's not character development. As for my anecdote, the break-up part was simply me wrapping up my example of how I identified with TS before MMC. That's all it was. It had nothing to do with the rest of my post. As far as I know, all the people from the group are satisfied with their lives at this point in time, they are not among the people you or DigiBrony mention. Achieved what? Fixed a problem she created in the first place? The staff could have easily said that she'd change but it would be for the better, they wouldn't have been caught in a DIYDDIYD situation, because, as I explained, they backed themselves into a corner by stating she'd be same same, which is much easier to misconstrue than "she'll change for the better." There are some people who are being genuine stick-in-the-muds, but I'm not going to repeat myself as to why "you all just don't like change!" is an unfair generalization, since you failed to address my points. You've essentially brought this discussion back to square one, so the feeling of dissatisfaction with this exchange is mutual. I will happily give S4 a chance, and am much more willing to do so than a number of people are to give those with well thought-out critiques of S3 or EQG a chance.

You say that time doesn't flow in cartoons the way it does in real life, yet you go on to use a real life measurement of time. And if time doesn't pass in Equestria at the same pace as in our world, how fast does it go? Explain to me how 50 earth years is 2.5 Equestrian years. If Twilight's personality will not become different as we have been reassured time and time again, how can becoming an Alicorn Princess be called character development? 2.5 years is not a lot of time for career development in the human world. People take decades to work their way to the top of their field. When he said relateable, I'm pretty sure he meant relateable as to the viewer, not to other cartoon characters. I'm not sure how else he could have meant that. Did Twilight really need to become an Alicorn Princess to show how far she'd progressed? Finally, switching focus from the current mane six to somebody else doesn't mean "show's over!" it means switching focus to somebody else who hasn't reached their pinnacle. You can try and the milk the "oh being a royal is soooo hard" cliche for a few episodes, but it's going to get old eventually. Why not focus on some new blood? I disagree with you. From the way I saw it, DigiBrony said that the reason people say they don't relate to her is that they're too lazy to overcome their own flaws in real life and want her to stay stuck with them. That's a very rash generalization, not to mention a HUGE insult if you ask me. Overall, I find DigiBrony to be one of many MLP reviewers who confuse liking something with believing that it is of good quality. They think that if they like something, it must be of good quality, and any criticism of it is an attack on them, and vice versa. And further more, they seem inclined to judge somebody's entire personality based on one change they don't like. That's NOT okay. You say that not being able to relate with the turn Twilight's life has taken isn't a big deal. Using myself as an example, I used to identify with here because I was a book-shy loner who didn't have any real friends and was struggling which what the future might hold. I was actual recruited into the fandom by a group of guys who became my friends, and MLP was very much the thing that kept us together. When Twilicorn debuted, it pretty much ripped our group apart, and some of us haven't spoken to each other since. Personally I could no longer relate to her because I can't go to my boss, do a job for them, and get promoted to some high up for position, I have to slowly work my way up. We can't really know for sure until season 4 comes what it will be like, but positive speculation is just as useless as negative speculation, and can be equally unhealthy for the fandom. Still, I think the writers did a sloppy job in S3 that will leave them with a lot to make up for, but that's for another thread.

I feel DigiBrony, like a lot of prominent figures in the MLP community, is quick to fall back to the "You just don't like change!" argument, and it's quite frankly setting a poor example. Though some people do have trouble adapting, the wider problem with relating is that most people work for years, in some cases decades, to get to high positions in their field, so for a character to go from a commoner to a royal in three seasons is quite alienating.For example, I have an interest in politics and want to major Political Science in college. I know I have fears and anxieties to over come, but I also know that I've overcome fears and anxieties before. But that doesn't mean I expect to become Speaker of the House after 3 years out of college. I'm currently reading the autobiography of Tip O'Neill, a former Speaker of the House, who first started in politics when he worked on a campaign when he was 15 in 1928. It took him 50 years to become speaker of the house, not 5. Overall, the main problem with MMC was timing. She got rewarded for her efforts far quicker than can realistically be expected in real life. If it had been saved as the series finale, things would be different. I'm certainly happy for here, but being happy for someone and Identifying with them are two different things. It might also have softened the blow if they had said "Okay, Twilight has reached the end of her story arch, let's focus on somebody new!" This last idea has actually been tossed around quite a bit from what I can tell.

I can certainly see why you'd think that way, but personally some of the close calls involving Celestia's assignments have struck me as pushing TS to over-achieve, almost like an over-bearing parent. Then again, we don't know a whole deal of their lives before the return of NMM, so we don't know how much they've been through together or what their relationship was like before TS moved away to Ponyville. The rest of your post, I have no quarrel with.

1. Since when does Celestia have the ability to predict the future? And even if she can predict the future, why does she need to test Twilight if she knows what's going to happen anyway, especially as such tests would involve the suffering of her subjects. To bring suffering on to her subjects for the benefit of one person (even if it is not herself) is either tyrannical, short-sighted, or both. 2. Because Twilight hadn't really developed the skill with Magic we saw in Season 3. She didn't defeat Discord with any magic besides that of the elements and a memory restoration spell, where as in the Crystal Empire, she actual overrides Sombra's magic. Assuming the suspension of disbelief is still intact (which it ought to be in a good show like FiM), the viewer wouldn't see that Twilight was capable of it as they had not seen her use magic to such an extent before, (except for Boast Busters, but slamming Discord into the ground with her levitation abilities until he cried uncle would not fly in a kids show, would it now?). And as I said before, Celestia's training of TS came at the expense of huge suffering for her subjects. 3. The writers could of come up with a number reasons why Celestia wasn't able to help Twilight that didn't paint her is such a negative light as wanting to train her student at the expense of her subjects. Also, I don't see why S2 was rushed, other than perhaps Faust's departure, but I don't see how that would produce more of a schedule cramp than having to work with half the air time like in S3.

I'm not so sure about Celestia's judgement. She's made some rather poor decisions in the past, such as letting Discord get close to the main six in Keep Calm and Flutter On (he didn't need the elements themselves to stop them, he could simply corrupt one of the main six, rendering the elements useless), or leaving Twilight's friendship letters as her only life-line in Return of Harmony, when Discord could've easily incapacitated or driven her away before she could find them. For some more examples of poor judgment on Celestia's part, I'd like to link this article someone posted on DeviantArt: http://gorshmidtii.deviantart.com/art/Criticism-is-Magic-Princess-Celestia-358118339

Yes, very much so! Perhaps a run-in in the Big Apple? I also wondered weather or not they had some sort of over-bearing father who drove them to their commercial shennanigans.

1. If Twilight's Royalty status is permanent, demoted her to a supporting character and have some fresh blood take her place. 2. Flim and Flam return. 3. Less episodes centered on one character. For its many, many, many flaws, "Games Ponies Play" was the only episode not centered on a single character in S3. 4. More exploration of the world outside of Equestria.

I certainly know how. The only "evidence" that people say proves Twilight won't be immortal is the scene with Cadence (which doesn't make sense because Immortal doesn't mean born as an adult), and the tweet by Meghan McCarthy saying she won't. Uhm, didn't the staff say before MMC was announced that TS wasn't going to be made an Alicorn?

Could somebody please explain to me how wings and a title (if this is really all that's changing) qualifies as character developement? Is defeating a few baddies and jury-rigging a solutuion (namely one you said wasn't possible) to a mess you created really worthy of being awarded such an important title?