Concerned Bystander

She's had her share of conflict, there's no doubt about that, but her conflicts tend to be internal as opposed to focused on an external villain, just look at episodes like "Griffin the brush off" and "Party of one". It's the stereotype clown dichotomy of being happy and bubbly on the outside but at the cost of carrying around a lot of suppressed emotional issues.

It's already been covered but what the heck, I'm going to stick my tuppence worth in anayway. The program's key target demographic is young girls, and in this regard it is far from unique in having predominantly female characters, just look at things like Winx Club and Fifi and the Flowertots to name but two examples. Given all of the above it stands to reason that female characters are going to get most of the limelight. There have been exceptions though, the best example being "The Cuite Map" where the mane six would not have prevailed but for the help of Party Favor and Double Diamond amongst others. We have to remember that as Bronies we are essentially guests at someone else's party, and it would be improper to complain about the show being formatted as it is. If it was such a big issue there wouldn't be so many of us "other fans" watching the program.

Is this some sort of trick question? She's adorable! She carries her looks in a demure fashion that makes her so much more appealing than the likes of Rarity.

There is clear evidence of interbreeding between the various pony tribes/races. The Cake's children for example, both of the older cakes are Earth Ponies but they have one Unicorn child and one Pegasus. They explain this in an episode that somewhere in their ancestry there was a Unicorn on one side and a Pegasus on the other, I forget the exact details but I remember it being covered. So they are clearly all the same species, but but clearly each of the three is distinct from the other two. It would seem that the Unicorn horn and the Pegasus wings are a dominant genetic feature as there doesn't appear to be any hybrids as such, unless of course this is why Scootaloo has such tiny wings and is unable to fly?

I really liked this episode, a lot of people have given it stick for being, plotless, pandering and pure fan service. I don't see those as being bad things, this episode was pure character development, and it was a lot of fun to watch. Yes, it was blatant fan service but I think it's a good thing that they chose to make this landmark episode a tip of the hat to us, 'the other fans' of MLP. Derpy was of course brilliant, I love her even more now than I did before. The Doctor was hilarious, and it was good to see other fan favourites like Octavia, Lyra, Bonbon and Vinyl getting a bit of airtime. We even got to see Steven Magnet again, and not least Jelly Pony appearing again after his blink and you'll miss it role in 'one bad apple'. Aside from Derpy though, I think the character that really stole the show was Gummy with his thought-provoking monologue, so random, and so funny.

I tend to get the TP collections as opposed to the actual comics, and for the greater part I've found them to be at least on a par with, and frequently better than, the cartoon itself. I love the fact that they're clearly aimed towards a more mature audience without losing the innocence that makes them appeal to the original target audience. There is no way that the key target demographic of the franchise would pick up on references to things like Bladrerunner, Conan the Barbarian, the Shining or Invasion of the Bodysnatchers to name but a few of the multitude of cultural references that are shoehorned into the pages of these comics. Obviously some of them are better than others, with the stories created by Katie Cok and Andy Price standing proud at the very pinnacle. The main FiM series on the whoe has been great, the Pony Tales series was also very good, and the Friends Forever series, although to my mind the weakest of the three nevertheless contains some great stories and amazing artwork.