Tilt

Now this is me over-thinking and analysing a character, the character I will be doing this to is Gilda. When I think of season 1 and it's antagonists I almost always think of Gilda first because she made a big impact on me, Trixie was good but Gilda gives me more pause for thought. Why is this you might ask? Well I love mythological creatures, I always have done they fascinate me because they are remnants of a bygone age and a lot of mythological creatures did exist but were miss-sightings or people blowing things out of proportion with tales of fancy. We still have them but not to the extent such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, granted both don't exist but it's miss-sighting and a fairy tale.

Now what drew me to Gilda was my favourite mythological creature is actually gryphons, I adore their lore and everything about them. One thing about gryphons was it is written that their feathers could cure many a illness including blindness, but I digress. I'm going to dissect her character right down to the core and also bring into account what the show taught us about what they know of Gryphons.

So first off we know that Gilda is from a far away land, not from Equestria and also quite a rare sight in Equestria itself. So that means Equestria would probably be very ignorant of how gryphons operate a core character trait of gryphons and something Gilda has in spades is a hot temper and the risk of blowing their tops easily, this will come up later in my analysis and brought up something that always bugged me about the episode in question. But onto the question, is she really that bad?

Lets look at why Gilda arrived in the first place, it was to visit an old friend and catch up with her. As we then see, Pinkie Pie prances in and introduces herself and is well within her rights too, but this is where it all goes wrong. Rainbow Dash asks Pinkie Pie if she can spend some time alone with Gilda in order to catch up. Pinkie Pie does accept but in the very next scene is already bugging Dash and Gilda again. Now it does not tell us how much time passed between the two scenes but judging how Pinkie bugs Cranky doodle donkey in a friend in-deed I'm going to hazard a guess and say not that long.

Now they continue to race away from Pinkie as is Gilda's way to say "I want more time alone" now the fact she doesn't say it out loud could very well be the fact she is trying to control her temper and not become hot-headed as I said is a common trait amongst gryphons. Un-able to take a hint Pinkie Pie pursues the pair and as such triggers Gilda to now say it to her face in a tempered fashion. Now a bit harsh you may think? I would agree but I believe this is the result of Gilda just saying she wants more time alone with Dash in the only way a gryphon knows how. Gilda does not want to hog Dash to herself all day and I'll prove that later.

The next time we see Gilda is in a scene that I think is very sloppy and just poor in terms of writing. The whole Lets Villainize her to the 8th degree and I shall break down each incident that Pinkie portrays as bad, first off we got the snake-tail prank in which Gilda scares Granny-smith into thinking their is a snake in an apple. This makes Pinkie think that just because Granny didn't know it was a prank that it was mean. A bit of a far stretch but Pinkie corrects herself saying that the prank was pretty funny.

The second act of "Villainy" would be the theft of the apple which is morally wrong I will give it that but here comes a bit of over-thinking on the universe the show is set in and the state of Gilda. We know that Gilda isn't from Equestria, this means she is most likely from another country and what do other countries tend to have? Different currencies, chances are that Gilda didn't even have any bits to give to the vendor at that current time and only took one apple and lets be real, Ponyville isn't exactly starving for apples when it's right next door to a successful apple orchard so chances are those apples are cheap and probably only worth not even one bit unless you buy them in a bulk. So to me Gilda didn't really harm anyone in doing that so I let it slide. I mean if she took a bulk and ran then yes, I would call her character into question but it was just one apple so to me that wouldn't of been a biggie.

The third one and probably the most infamous one is when she makes Fluttershy cry, now I can not really defend her entirely on this action but really, it is not that hard to make Fluttershy cry and also Fluttershy was actually being inconsiderate in that scene which not a lot of people bring up. Fluttershy was walking backwards, not looking where she was going...through a busy market place! I don't care who you are if you were walking through a market place and someone was not looking where they were going and walking backwards, chances are you would probably get a bit perturbed by them. Unfortunately Gilda is a gryphon and thus very hot tempered. This brought on the wraith of a gryphon in which Gilda yells at her and sends her away crying. Also, is it really that hard to make Fluttershy cry? lol

Now this eventually leads Pinkie Pie to throw Gilda a party to try and cheer Gilda up, Gilda is suspect of Pinkie because she has been on Gilda's case all throughout the day, following her, bugging her and just in general being a nuisance not to mention doing the first prank with the hoof buzzer. This leads to Gilda being lead into prank after prank after prank, 5 pranks to be exact. Now this eventually leads Gilda into losing control of her temper and attack Pinkie but one line intrigues me "Did you really think you could make me lose my cool?" This line alone proves that she was trying to control her true nature which is a gryphons hot temper. But there's something that doesn't make sense and that is the twist.

The twist is that Rainbow Dash is the one that set up the pranks for Gilda, well except the obvious buzzer prank which makes us all think Pinkie is behind all the pranks so Gilda assumption was astute but just in-correct. But that's not what bugs me, what bugs me is Rainbow Dash is supposed to be an old friend of Gilda and they used to hang out a lot. Now I think one of the main things Dash would learn from Gilda in the past is the fact that she is a gryphon and has a hot temper so is best not to aggravate it with pranks. Now Dash says they were all coincidental that Gilda set them all off.

Prank number - 1 - Pinkie and her buzzer

Prank number - 2 - coincidence and actually just fell for it herself.

Prank number - 3 - Dash eggs Gilda to drink the punch from the dribble glass.

Prank number - 4 - Dash eggs Gilda into opening her presents and activating the snake pranks

Prank number - 5 - Re-lighting candles that Dash placed and were obviously intended for Gilda cause who else blows out the cakes candles at a party than the guest of honour.

Now only 1 of those pranks was actually a coincidence and then Dash pranks her 3 times afterwards and screams coincidence. No Dash, you had a hoof in everyone of those pranks and it's your fault that they happened to Gilda, take some responsibility. Now as I said, if they were such good friends in the past the first thing that would or at least should be on the forefront of Dash's mind is the fact Gilda is a gryphon and as such, hot tempered. after being pranked 5 times in a row she naturally loses her cool.

But when Dash comes clean after Gilda's break-down, Gilda seems to calm down a bit after Dash's confession because it's obvious that Gilda suddenly knows she was in the wrong for blowing up at Pinkie like that, but does Dash she even apologize to Gilda? No she doesn't she (And I might add the so called element of loyalty) tells her to buzz off because she has new friends.

Okay, stop right there Dash, what you are doing is the complete opposite of loyalty and it disgusts me, if you were half the friend to her that you said you were a true friend would of known about a gryphons hot temper and asked Gilda to step outside for a moment to cool off, calm down and defuse the situation. Once Gilda was calm Dash should of apologized for goading her into all those pranks. But then ask Gilda to apologize to Pinkie.

Too me it always bothered me that Dash basically told an old friend to hit the road after that old friend lost her cool because she did just get pranked 5 times in the row and that would annoy anyone. So in my opinion the only thing Gilda did that could even be remotely considered bad is the theft of the apple. But that is just me.

I do not think Gilda is bad, just a character that is a little rough around the edges.

I'd like to hear you're thoughts on her character after my analysis. thanks for reading. 

Rarity, because then she can make me look good and stylish. That and she can teach me how to stitch and design.

Because it's my OC and the general mood I'm in when browsing the boards, friendly and ready to meet new peeps.

Normal man! - The power to do everything sub-par and never exceed the requirements of your goal.

Too be honest, I never really gave it much thought, it was just a thing that existed in all honesty. No not because I had Action Men or whatever, I didn't even like action figures they bored the stuffing out of me because of their limitations, the only toy I needed growing up was my PC and Sega Mega Drive (Genesis for you yanks.)

New Ball Score! : 553! I think this is as high as I'll ever get it.

Seems my Featherweight is glitched and is stuck at 2 stars. Great.

By not the brightest, i meant he's a slow learner. But eventually he learned to open them and use them for a bed. lol. But i have a closet he can't get into, so that'll be my best bet.

You have a cat that can open drawers? I demand a video of this!

Welcome Ness! Hope you have a jackpot of a time! ....pinball joke.

Yes, but i tolerate him, cause he's a good cat, just not the brightest.

Then put the cards in a place that the cat can't get to for example a desk drawer.

Well that's one, and it only shows exactly what we already know about Sunset. The scene only serves to call to attention what we already know about both characters and, as you said, the parallels between them. But nothing in the scene actually reveals anything.

 

Meanwhile, I could offer maybe 5 scenes from the first movie that actually flesh her out. And she's still cardboard in that one.

But the point stands that it fleshes her out, I'm not sure what more you want too be honest. It's a scene, it fleshed her out more meaning she is fleshed out more. I'm done here.

I'd love to hear you actually give some reason why you think she's more fleshed out. You know, point to places where we learn more about her, see how she responds to different situations, anything at all that makes it so that her character needs more than just one sentence to describe in its entirety. And then compare that to the first movie.

I did, kitchen scene, we learned about her parallels with Twilight or are you not paying attention?

I think we're confused here. Taking a barely fleshed out character and expanding upon them in the sequel by adding just the tiniest little smidgen of character, well... It fleshes them out more than they were before, but at the same time it doesn't mean the sequel fleshed them out more than the prequel did. She was still even flatter in RR than before, especially since most of the character we got in the first movie disappeared completely. When the character only has one mode, one goal, one way of responding to everything, and that's the total extent of their character, then they are a weak as shit character.

Please watch the language, but I agree unfortunately by your logic every character in RR was weak because really they all had one goal and one way of responding to everything, Fluttershy with her songs, Rainbow Dash claiming it was her band, Rarity and her Costumes each of those situations were also met with the same response arguing/dismissive. The movie made me question why they were even friends if they were that much at each-others throats constantly. 

I'll just leave with this, I believe that in RR, Sunset is more developed as a character than the original movie and that both films she is pretty bland but you just said that it did flesh out her character, that would mean she was more fleshed out than the original film. 

The Saboteur

 

That is such an under-rated gem <3 

Hmmm, wait are you trying to say that she's expanded upon in the second movie? Because yeah that's obvious, but it doesn't make her more fleshed out.

Expanding a character does make them more fleshed out. Because it adds more to the character and you learn a bit more about them. Fleshing out a character involves finding out what makes them tick and what their personality is like, we see that a TON in RR and just because a character rarely changes Emotion doesn't make them weak.

I could just as easily say we got to see her as a pony in the first film, so that makes her more fleshed out in the first one.

By which I mean that's wrong. It's still just one static unchanging "Oh I wish they would accept me" whiny uninteresting piece of crap writing. At least in the first film she had more than one emotion.

Seeing her as a pony would not make her fleshed out, because we don't really learn anything about her character. Okay sure we learn that she is a pony from Equestria but that's it. The kitchen scene makes her learn that she shares quite a bit with Twilight and as such draws a parallel between the characters that would make you think about Sunset as a character, who she is not what she is. The parallel alone can maybe reveal some things in the series future. This is speculation but what if Celestia picked Twilight Sparkle because she reminded her of Sunset Shimmer. Trying to fix another mistake in a round about way, yes this is speculation and not fact but due to that moment I can actually speculate with who Sunset is. In the first one there's nothing to speculate it's "Sunset goes emo, invades high school, wants to capture Equestria because of reasons unbeknownst to the viewer"..

 

The OP is asking and challenging us to answer the question because AKR's The Best Night Ever is very funny and very simple, but the most effective in its thematic execution. The Best Night Ever doesn't have several glaring flaws that bring down the quality of the other finales. Some include:

• In McCarthy's two-part finales, the ReManing Fives share background pony duties in order to make Twilight front and center (each handled very contrivedly). In TBNE, Twilight isn't the star. She and all of her friends share roles equally.
• Princess Celestia has use in TBNE. In A Canterlot Wedding and Twilight's Kingdom, Celestia (and Luna) are plain useless, the latter falling on really stupid logic by the Alicorn Trio to surrender their magic to Twilight.

   

  MMC? There are serious implications because the whole plot is set on cutie marks being predestination, a complete contradiction of the canon. Conversely, TBNE sticks to the canon very meticulously.

• Most importantly, the pacing is really inconsistent in every finale except Best Night Ever (the latter flowing from one scene to another at the right time for each).

 

If I could marry a post this would be the one I'd propose too.

I agree with most of this. That is why people like her (aside from "omg she so cute 10/10"). However, the claims of her being "more fleshed out" are simply incorrect. She's exactly as bland in RR, if not more so, than she was in the first movie. The "I want to fit in" aspect of her character is literally the only aspect of her character.

Well, she is more fleshed out than in the first film, even if not by much. We do see a gilmpse of her true nature and personality in several scenes in RR, including the kitchen scene between her and Twilight.

That scene on it's own makes her more fleshed out than the first film.

Yup, and none of them are actually from the movie.

Okay, in terms of the movie she pretty much did a 180 from evil bland villain to a character that wants to redeem herself and prove that she can be good. There were several scenes in RR where we got to see more of Sunset Shimmer beyond "I'm evil muhaha photoshop adobe premier!"

In the first one her character was just weak. We only know that she ran into the portal and started bullying a school, Whilst the principles did nothing and just accepted it. She was just an antagonist to cause drama and had no real character beyond that.

In the second one her character is still a little flimsy but now she has a goal that makes some sense which is trying to fit in and make friends, something a lot of people can relate to and attach themselves with. The reason I like her more is a simple one, we see her doing things. In the first one when you think about it you don't really see her all that much and her schemes always happen with her off-cam and Snips and Snails doing most of the work.

So the reason I think a lot of people like her now is the whole "I want to fit in" aspect of her character.

I like it more for the writing mainly because the Animation isn't actually that good, I watch tons of different shows but I say that MLP is sub-par animation, if you have a keen eye MLP has a ton of Animation errors, clipping hair, missing assets and even putting things on the wrong layer.

It is because it gets views and that's it. I heard stories of a news network that tried to do nothing but report good news and it lost viewers in doing so. I don't watch the news cause all it wants you to do is panic and be afraid of all the stuff that's happening right now. When I was a kid news was boring as an adult it's just depressing.

i imagine its the same for a lot of people like when i started watching anime it was just something that kinda happened 

Well I watch a lot of different kinds of animation and am in a lot of sub-fandoms, MLP is one of them and possibly the biggest one I'm in.

Mines is probably the musical sequence of the Dazzlings showing the montage of the Battle of the Bands (You didn't know that ya fell). I loved that song and sequence.

@@mindfracture

Oh I realize what this thread is now, I'll skidaddle and delete my posts. It appears I can't. so I will just leave you two too it.

Didn't really change me all that much to be brutally honest, I just found another dorky title to add to my repertoire lol.