Unlikeable Pony

The EQD article lists a minutia that " Update: looks like Hasbro filed more listings for MININAUTS at the same time, probably pointing this toward something to do with that, and not pony." So take that with a grain of salt.

Agreed. Tempest was a really, REALLY solid character, and one that I'd enjoy seeing again. Good design, great voice work, an incredible song and I found her child self to be adorable. Honestly, I was pretty damned happy with the movie. the Characterization felt good, I found the animation incredibly with lots of cute faces and mannerisms, I enjoyed the plot, and I REALLY enjoyed that they managed to make it feel like it was a mane six adventure where its not just a "twilight only" plot and the others are important and contribute. Are there some problems? Sure, and I WAS dissapointed that this wasn't aimed at fans and felt toned down in action than the show (the storm beasts and storm king seem like the weakest villains so far, power wise), but Overall I was VERY happy and impressed.

Flash sentry, the impossible thief: His power? The ability to steal anything, including Conceptual ideas such as waifus and love.

Kind of curious if they'll ever explain that, or if there's just going to be a bunch of other characters at canterlot high developing magic as the series goes on.

Her having an animal sanctuary is something I approve of, but they need to try and give it some weight and gravity in future episodes so it FEELS important, not just to her but animals in general. In the episode it kind of just came off as a "oh, that happened" kind of thing.

It happens in the book. the beach is a very, VERY small part of the story. Incidental really. And since the Yearbook's not finished till the very end of the book, that means the beach happens before it.

I'm kind of wondering if the "Rainbow dash brings the blitz", "twilight sparkle's science fair sparks" books will be actual episodes too ala this.

The only reason I want garble to appear in an episode is just so he can be abused/Punked like the Dash/garble scene in Shadowplay. That was so carthatic (much like him getting repeatedly crushed/pummeled in the gauntlet of fire). Honestly, that was pretty freaking pathetic on Garbles part; he was basically outMUSCLED by a pony, with his rock being effortlessly caught and returned to him. Like, outwitted is one thing, but when you're losing physically too that's pretty sad.

To be honest I kind of feel like ALL of the mane six got shafted this season, episode wise.

That's what I mean, this one seems too well designed to be a original plot so its pretty clearly an adaption of an upcoming episode/special/whatever.

I don't see it NOT being an episode; they usually make the books as adaptions of movie or special plots after all, like the legend of everfree or the dance magic stuff. There are a couple original plots (Like the sunset time to shine one), but this seems pretty on the money as a Special/episode adaption.

from what we've seen on screen, I 100% think Sombra could easily kick the pony of shadow's emo butt all over equestria.

Do you think there's a military in Equestria besides the Royal guard? And are the wonderbolts a military organization for defending the nation, or just for show? And if the wonderbolts are a military, what do you think their ranks are? Did the EUP dissapear completely or is it still in existence? And who do you think replaced Shining armor as the head of the royal guard?

The sad thing about the pony of shadows is that he honestly comes off as an edgy teenager; He complaining about other people not respecting or getting him, spews out random and nonsensical dialogue about "darkness" and things like that, and when he loses he basically just pisses off back to his room and locks himself inside of it until the Mane six start banging on his door and drag him out. All that was missing was him Listening to linkin park Additionally, its SERIOUSLY hard to take him seriously as a threat when he gets BTFO by NORMAL ponies just shooting lasers at him till he runs away, no artifacts or deep magic involved, just twilight and starlight beaming him in the face when he first shows up. That is WEAK. Like, even the changelings Seemed VASTLY stronger than that since Starlight and twilight alone wouldn't have stood a chance. Look at the other villains like Tirek or Discord who fighting via lasers (When not powered up into a literal god) would seem utterly useless, and then compare the pony of shadows-- His power is UTTERLY an informed attribute at its worst. SHOW, don't tell. You want use to respect his threat? Don't have him lose a couple rounds of laser tag and run away like a kid with hurt feelings. If you're going to be a two parter villain, YES, you need to be a threat-- This is a TWO PARTER, its supposed to be a big pull out the stops event, the cap to a season or the start to one, that raises the stakes and pushes the envelope farther than other episodes. If you're not going to be an intimidating or threatening villain with good character and motivation then you should be a middle of the season villain, like how we had antagonists like the Tantabus or the diamond dogs. (Heck, I think the tantabus was a BETTER villain than the pony of shadows was, it had a clearly explained threat and goal, and flowed better since its purpose was to be a VILLAIN/THREAT and not a redemption pinata). Not every antagonists needs to be ultra threatening or Ultra deep, but if you're a premier or Finale villain you better bring your A game, and the pony of shadows falls flat-- Even SOMBRA is a better villain than him, and I'd daresay the pony of shadows is the worst villain the show has had yet.

The question I'd have about giants is would they be giant ponies, or giant humanoids? Since the staff have a fairly hard "no humans" policy, all humanoid monsters have to be made more beastly, like tirek looking more like an ape in his face. I think it'd actually be neat if they had some ancient steam punk machines buried underground from an ancient civilization or war somewhere. Then again, they've gone from depicting the universe as being medieval to being full on Modern (look at the S7 finale's giant electric lights and billboards for crying out loud >.<) so it wouldn't be outlandish for someone to built modern machines/robots. (not a big fan of how the tech scale in the show has shifted though)

fenrir, fafnir, nidhogg, jormungandr, hel, some norse mythological creatures near the crystal empire.

I like stygian in the comics since it shows more of him and more of the group interacting with him as a friend, but in the show he comes off as a petulant brat who decided to end the world due to people not falling down and giving him praise, like a more emo version of Endeavor. The show fell into the problem of not showing stygian contributing, only showing us HIM ranting about how important he was, which didn't feel very reliable considering he was trying to kill the world over things. If they're going to do a plot like this they need to extend it to more than 2 episodes, because it works much better with the comics than it did in show to make us sympathize with stygian. Hell, they could have had the Mane six have had the mane six only get clues about what happened from the journal and have gone on a journey across equestria to stygian's village when trying to find out where the pillars dissapeared at, discovered some writings detailing how stygian helped the pillars out (but not information saying that stygian was the pony of shadows), and then later on been surprised by starswirl dropping that stygian WAS the pony of shadows as a bombshell on them.

So, what kind of new villain would you like to see next in the show? >pic related https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrlymHW0qU8

We haven't even had a season 8, slow down now

The problem with the pony of shadows is he wasn't designed as a villain, just a plot device; he's there to create a redemption target so the characters can have some sort of friendship issue to solve. He has little actions, little motivations, and very few lines besides saying how powerful he is or "Darkness!". This is a problem when you go in with the idea of making a character to be redeemed instead of making an antagonist; Just like Juniper montage from EQG who was designed from the ground up to be a redemption target for glimmer in Mirror magic, the pony of shadows falls flat because they can't have him actually do anything evil (SInce people wouldn't accept his reformation) and all culpability is shifted off onto something else instead (the mirror for juniper or the shadows for Stygian). the best villains are the ones who are DESIGNED as villains; its like comparing a car that was designed to have a good cupholder with one designed to be, well, a car. The dazzlings, Tirek, First appearance discord and A canterlot wedding chrysalis/changelings? Designed to be evil from the get go, to perform evil acts, and to be DESPISED by the audience because they are VILLAINS. as such, they're able to commit alot of evil actions, gloat hammily about what they're doing, and be ENTERTAINING in being villains.

Discord pre-reformation. After that comes Tirek. Next up the Sirens from RR. Then Tempest shadow. Following that Chrysalis and the changelings (pre-reformation. BOO.) Nightmare moon. Then comes sombra. Dead last Mr. "SHADOWS BLAH BLAH DARKNESS" Pony of shadows/stygian.

Humorously enough, that's the idea faust wanted to refute with Gilda the brush off; that when someone's bullying and being a jerk to you, there's just some people you CAN'T befriend because they don't want you to, and not to let it get to you.

Keep in mind though, starlight did the EXACT same thing in the cutie mark map; hell, that was one reason I found her so good as a villain in her initial appearance, it was SO refreshing to have a villain just straight up tell the hero to SHUT UP when they tried to pull a friendship speech to get them to reform, since that's what the vast majority of villains/sociopaths would do. So there's a precedent of villains blowing off redemption once and then doing a 180 later.

Going to be honest, I REALLY dislike this. A good show often thrives on having antagonists and opposing villains; Season 2 and S3 didn't just have Discord and sombra become good and reform just because they were asked nicely, they were all fought and defeated, and the group had to push hard to do so. This didn't go against the concept of friendship, it REQUIRED the group to reach to the depths of their bonds together to be able to push hard enough and overcome the problems in front of them. Additionally, faust herself had an episode in S1 (Griffon the brush off) seemingly AGAINST this as naive, with the lesson that there are some people you can't befriend even if you try your hardest-- you shouldn't let this get you down but its still something to accept. I'm not against your occasional redemption; I was against discord's, but he's grown in a realistic way to be a non-villain, Sunset's redemption was handled well, and I even liked Sombra's in the comics, since they did a good job of presenting his backstory and reasons for redemption. On the other hand, I feel that CONSTANT redemptions cheapens them, is often unrealistic, and makes it so you CANNOT have a good villain because they can never be "Too evil" since you're going to just redeem them later (not to mention making the redemptions lack any feeling of impact since you KNEW it was coming). I wasn't a fan of the changelings redemption (I feel a good comparison would be if you were to redeem the dark eldar of 40k and try and sweep them under the rug as innocent victims), and I'm not a fan of what this video seems to portend. The villains post S5, in BOTH the show and EQG have all been falling flat, and I feel that a big part of that is an obsession with redemption (Starlight was great in the S5 premier because she wasn't presented sympathetically, and was glorious in her role; the S5 finale? they slapped on a half baked sob attempt to make her redemption stick and borderline RUINED her as a villain, the changelings redemption got rid of one of the best races/villains in the show, and the last EQG villain, juniper, was basically a giant, stomping retard/autist, not entertaining like pure villains have been--Tirek, the sirens, or chrysalis) Yeah, not really feeling very good about that redemption speech while chryssy and Starlight are on the screen...

So what's everyone's thoughts on meghan's video about her views of MLP?