Thrond

Just now, Number62 said:

I've always been partial toward the alicorn sisters' designs especially because of their flowing manes/tails and their larger sizes giving them a more mysterious appearance. Cadance somewhat fits that opinion as well since she's also taller than the average pony, but her mane and tail don't flow like the sisters'.

I like the sisters a lot but I also like how Cadance is a little smaller and has a normal mane. It makes her feel slightly more relatable even though she's way less developed as a character than either Luna or Celestia. 

I’ve always thought that Princess Cadance is pretty. Would also like to throw my hat in the ring for Rarity’s punk getup. She can pull off any look. 

2 hours ago, BastementSparkle said:

He's overconfident, and not as much of a chessmaster as he sometimes like to pretend he is, but I don't think he's ever been quite as dumb as he was in this season before. In Season 2 he was actually shown to be fairly intelligent, with his fatal flaw being that once his plan was complete he's arrogant enough to assume his victory is permanent and thus he stops paying attention to the mane six. 

The weird thing about that season 2 two-parter is that he did defeat the mane six. From his perspective, he had already won. The six of them had succumbed to his magic and had stopped caring. He was defeated because he didn't understand friendship, which was (somehow) powerful enough to overcome his magic. 

2 hours ago, BastementSparkle said:

Here he screws up because he doesn't even bother to monitor the people he's trying to manipulate at all, which feels very unlike him.

I have to say that I was never paying attention to that aspect. To some extent it all worked out according to plan - Twilight defeated them, saved Equestria, and became confident enough to rule the country. Honestly it was a dumb idea to begin with, but I never respected his schemes to teach someone a lesson. 

14 minutes ago, BastementSparkle said:

The way it's handled makes Discord look extremely dumb to an extent he's never been before, and he doesn't get much of a chance to make up for his mistakes because the show is ending, at best he just breaks the ponies out of prison. That's a nice start but far from enough, it leaves his character on a really unsatisfying note.

I feel like Discord has always kinda been like that, so I was never particularly invested in him. I was always wondering why the mane six tolerate him at all. 

5 minutes ago, BastementSparkle said:

Perhaps. But Discord was an even bigger "If" and that turned out to work. Kind of. At the very least he's genuine about liking Fluttershy and he's restraining himself from turning the world into a madhouse. If they could try with him, don't see why not with Cozy.

Yeah, I guess. That wasn't a deal-breaker for me with that episode. 

7 minutes ago, BastementSparkle said:

Well, I don't entirely agree...but I'll admit, I probably would have liked it quite a bit more if it wasn't for the Discord twist and all the lost potential of Grogar. It's certainly got some cool action scenes at least.

The idea is that Discord inspired a personal crisis in Twilight due to a misguided attempt to test her, which I think is a good idea, but I wasn't particularly moved by the specific personal crisis that she had in that episode. The thing is, because that two-parter is slightly darker than the others, because its action scenes are so good, and because everyone gets a moment of heroism, I found it genuinely exciting and suspenseful in a way that the show almost never was before. 

14 minutes ago, Califorum said:

I would like to have seen them escape, leaving the audience leaving them wondering where they went. 

For the series finale? Seems less than satisfying. 

13 minutes ago, BastementSparkle said:

Which is especially odd since they sort of end up not doing any ruling later on anyway. Some of Season 9's writing is really strange.

I would say that everything about Twilight succeeding Celestia is rushed and sloppy but that's off-topic. 

14 minutes ago, BastementSparkle said:

Though I think you're being a little more charitable to Starlight than I would be here, I'm not sure her village was ever truly about doing what she felt was right as much as it was about enacting control and having "Friends" who wouldn't, or couldn't leave her.

The show's always been kinda ambiguous on that front. I'm just saying that I don't think Chrysalis would be as likely to turn leaf as Starlight, though it would have been interesting to see.

16 minutes ago, BastementSparkle said:

If she can be helped it'd take a lot more than just a few words.

That might be a big "if," even at such an early age. 

17 minutes ago, BastementSparkle said:

Honestly, I think if they had been reformed it could have been FIM's best reformation. We've never seen the show actually humanize and make the villains sympathetic before their reformation like this. Any sympathetic traits they may have usually only show up in the same episode they reform in, but here if they went that route they'd have built it up a lot better.

At the very least it could have been fun, though I thought what we got in the end was pretty fun as well. 

2 minutes ago, BastementSparkle said:

It bugs me mostly because through Season 5 to 7 and even the movie the show was really hammering the point home about trying to reach out. Starlight, the Changeling's, the Pony of Shadows, Tempest, etc. Constantly our heroes are encountering villains who can be stopped or helped if they just take the time to try, and then in the last two seasons they just...stop. Like, it's fine to not have the villains reform, but it's odd to have the heroes simply stop trying, feels like it's going a bit against previous lessons. Twilight and Starlight especially should both have it pretty drilled into their heads to try by this point. Especially weird with Chrysalis and Starlight, because Chrysalis in the Season 9 finale is basically doing the exact thing Starlight did in the Season 5 finale, trying to take revenge on the pony who they both felt "Took everything from them", yet Starlight doesn't try to help despite Twilight having done exactly that for her in the same situation.

If anything, I would have loved to see someone other than Starlight or Twilight take on such a role - these two-parters are the show at its least interesting, but all the same it kinda irritated me that Twilight's friends never got the spotlight. Especially in later seasons they're always considered as a group, and are always the B-story to someone else's A-story. Though the season 9 finale was pretty evenly split, honestly. In any case I would have only wanted a short attempt that quickly failed, so I don't think it's important to that story. 

The difference between Starlight and Chrysalis is that Starlight seems to have genuinely wanted to do what's best for Equestria, as long as it was what she thought was best, whereas Chrysalis only ever cared about herself. 
 

14 minutes ago, BastementSparkle said:

 I didn't mean Cozy would be easy to reform because she's a kid, just that it'd be easy to try. She has no special powers, she can't eat magic or shapeshift or warp reality, she's just a manipulative pegasus filly. The second somebody catches onto her manipulative schtick she's powerless. Even with Rusty Bucket, who actually wanted to help her and be her friend, she couldn't do anything to him once he kept saying no, because all she's really got going for her is smarts and a cute factor that fails once the façade drops. Our heroes would lose nothing by trying to help her except their time.

Oh, now I understand, that makes sense. I suppose they could have tried a little harder, but she didn't seem to listen when told that her dumb ideas about friendship are wrong, and she literally took classes in friendship and was no nicer for it. 

16 minutes ago, BastementSparkle said:

Cozy Glow only thinks of friendship as a source of power though, and to an extent she's not even wrong. In this show especially it literally is, but she never seemed to really understand friendship was more than that, she's just thinking of how she can use it for herself. Friendship is actually specifically the thing she's power-hungry for. Even then in Frenemies when she and the other villains work together she specifically admits it "Felt better somehow". Not even just good, but better. She snaps out of it because of Chrysalis, but if she came to that conclusion in another scenario without Chrysalis, who knows what could have happened? Same with Tirek too.

Oh yeah. I was actually warming up to that possibility because those three were so silly in that episode. 

37 minutes ago, Megas said:

Valencia Vingette was worse

I thought she was a bit funnier but I don't understand why either of them were given a second chance, they're both terrible people. 

35 minutes ago, BastementSparkle said:

I don't necessarily mind that the trio didn't get reformed, but I do wish we saw the heroes try at some point. I mean, Starlight did try with Chrysalis at one point so there was that

I think it would have made sense if they had tried, but it's not the end of the world to me. Kind of annoyed that they decided that was Starlight's "thing" at one point, honestly, given that it was Twilight who decided to give her a second chance. I do think that the mane six should be talking to the villains as plan A at this point, but eh, what we got was cool. 

35 minutes ago, BastementSparkle said:

but Cozy just got tossed in Tartarus with barely any attempt even though it would have been pretty easy to try with her considering she's just a filly, and Tirek got nothing at all. People say they were unrepentant and that's true...but so was Discord.

Discord was always a bit weird, especially since he never really stopped being a jerk; hypothetically, Tirek would be just as useful in fending off future threats, and Cozy Glow... is pretty clever. Still, I don't think being just a child would change anything with Cozy Glow - far as I'm concerned, she's not much different from Tirek. Admittedly, though, they could have just thrown her in a normal prison. Chrysalis probably had the most chance of the lot, if only because she was presumably starving, but she's such a narcissistic hothead that she would never admit to being wrong. 

35 minutes ago, BastementSparkle said:

Heck, I'd actually argue Frenemies shows they all have the potential to be good, because they all had a brief moment of clarity before Chrysalis snapped them out of it, what would have happened if they had a similar realization around others who actually wanted to help them instead of other villains who'd reinforce their negative side?

For a moment there I thought the show was going in that direction, but the "Summer Sun Celebration" episode went in pretty much the opposite direction. Worth noting that Cozy Glow always knew how cool friendship is, and it did nothing to make her less power-hungry. 

Just now, Califorum said:

That is a good lesson in itself. Not everyone will be your friend and some are just the way they are - lost in their ways. 

Sure, fine, and for these characters it makes narrative sense. All the same, I do think there was something appealing about My Little Pony at its most naïve, when it tried to see the best in everyone and gave everyone a second chance. Made for nice escapism. 

59 minutes ago, BastementSparkle said:

The villain trio were definitely more interesting as characters than Grogar, but the potential of what Grogar was going to do got me excited, and I thought they were going to do something really interesting with the trio too because they did build them up, but them being the finale villains themselves was actually less interesting than anything else I thought they might do. It actually ended up my least favorite two-parter. Though, what the writer's did to Discord throughout the thing also plays a big part in that.

Fair enough, I guess; they wound up doing pretty much exactly what I expected them to do. I kinda miss the villain reformations in this show - they mostly vanished in the last two seasons - but that trio seemed unrepentant and power-hungry and I would be a bit surprised if they were sold on the power of friendship. 

1 minute ago, BastementSparkle said:

I do think at least part of the twist's quality is dependent on how hyped one was for Grogar. To me, I remember years of seeing interpretations of him in fandom, making up headcanon's for him just cause he seemed cool, and then actually seeing him in the show? The premiere successfully hyped me up for the character, I really wanted to see what he was going to do. Doesn't help that with the trio getting so much development, I was sort of suspicious they might go down the route of a team up between the heroes and the unreformed villains, which is one of my favorite tropes in general, I love seeing it, so I was excited for that possibility too. Then the villain I'm so excited to see get's yanked away in the finale and all the posibilities I was excited for went with him!

 I do think the trio are fun characters, and they're good final villains. If the show hadn't brought Grogar in I'd have no issue with them. But as it is I feel like I got something really cool dangled in front of me and then yanked away.

I dunno, I really just haven't been that excited about the two-parters, even though I do enjoy the vast majority of them. I don't find them suspenseful or exciting - in every single case, I enjoyed them for other reasons. Grogar seemed like he would be another Tirek or Pony of Shadows, some looming threat with no personality that would inevitably be overcome by the power of friendship. I didn't see any reason to expect anything special, then that season 9 finale blew my mind. 

Honestly I mostly enjoyed the antagonists in Friendship is Magic. Of the ones listed from the show, Svengallop is the only one who I never had any interest in. Listing My Little Pony: The Movie characters makes the villain category easier, because that thing is significantly below the standard set by the show. But I think the really bad villains are all in Equestria Girls. Juniper Montage... worst character in either series? 

Grogar wasn't part of the series until that point. I pay no attention to earlier generations of My Little Pony, so to me Grogar was just some guy who they implied was really dangerous.  Then, taking this dangerous villain and making it so he turns out to be something else all along was pretty shocking, especially when the other three had already been taking up all the screen time and working to usurp him. Not sure the whole thing being a misguided test from Discord really amounted to much - I really just do not care about Twilight ruling Equestria - but it is an idea with some potential, and the Tirek/Chrysalis/Cozy Glow trio was really fun in that finale. 

Also I didn't notice this the first time but this confirms a theory I've recently developed about alicorns. Some people seem to think being an alicorn makes you better at magic, but I don't think that's true; it just means you have the magic of all three types of pony - nothing more, nothing less. Celestia and Luna are good at magic because they're old, Tirek wanted alicorn magic because it's a lot of magic, Twilight was already really good at magic as a unicorn and became even better at it due to studying and practice. It has nothing to do with being a powerful unicorn. 

Maybe it's just because I watched this back-to-back with the dreary season 7 finale, but I liked this considerably more the second time - consider my reaction upgraded to a thumbs up. I still think the setup in the first half is a little dry; the storytelling here is still fairly predictable. But the stuff with the mane six in Tartarus is still lovely, and on second viewing I actually found the student six stuff is not that far off, especially in the second episode. Those kids are so charming that I'm willing to forgive how much they bloat out the main cast. Plus it's nice to see the CMC contribute to saving Equestria for once. 

I'm also warmer on Cozy Glow here - somehow I didn't give enough credit to her true nature, though it might also be that I'm more open to this character after she was so delightful in season 9. Her motive makes no sense, but all of the other characters seem confused by it too, so it just makes her funnier. There's a lot of other things here that don't add up, but - like the season 6 finale - I find this to be so much fun that I don't mind, though this one doesn't have as much substance. In general I think the second half is really solid, and this time around I was mostly just bored by the setup, which is most of the first half but not all of it.

My other main problem remains Neighsay, who I don't like and wish didn't get to save the day. I like this show's naivete, but having the racist stop being racist because non-ponies saved him still feels like a bit much; at this point I just don't think he's qualified to be in charge of education in Equestria. Celestia should fire him... if that's even something she can do, because who knows how Equestria's government works anymore. Whatever, this one is a lot of fun. 

Oh and Tree Ex Machina still rules. It's kinda crazy that the writers apparently wrote themselves into a corner so badly that they needed to pull that out of nowhere, but it does fit; the Tree demonstrates the power of friendship, but also seems to understand what it's really about. 

Apple, though mostly just because I like mobile games and have had an iPhone for so long that I'm kinda stuck with it. The value of Apple devices really increases when you have more than one of them, though - I have an Apple TV, and having that connect to my phone at the system level is really convenient. Kinda hard to imagine going back now. 

I have almost no experience with Android but I've sometimes looked longingly at its customizability. I'm glad iOS is finally starting to implement more of that. 

Been a week and still no new thread so I'm gonna post here and then save it for later.

In terms of how many episodes I liked, I would put this season on par with season 8, which is to say that it's probably slightly above average as TV seasons go. Most of my favourite episodes this season were clumped into the first half, but that led to a really exciting period where it seemed like every other episode was one of the show's best. On the other hand, the second half seemed rather weak to me - even the episodes I liked were a little awkward. But I still found myself liking quite a few episodes in the latter half more than I expected to, especially the three-part finale, which would probably be among my all-time favourite episodes of the show if I cared even slightly about Twilight becoming the ruler of Equestria. And yet in my memory this is one somehow compares unfavourably to season 8, if only because I didn't like the overarching trends nearly as much. I just don't care about Twilight's career as a princess, and that whole arc seemed clumsy and forced to me. Meanwhile, this season continued season 8's unfortunate tendency to take the mane six in baffling, nonsensical directions. Since when does Pinkie not understand her purpose in life? Why does Rarity seem to have so little respect for Spike's independence? But it also carries over a lot of the best parts of season 8 - the more creative mythology, the blunt approach to serious issues, the surprising level of continuity - that I appreciated even when I questioned their execution. Plus we got weird stuff like an entire episode focused on the villains, which was really neat. This season wasn't great but it was better than it had any right to be. I just wish that wasn't the best I could say about a show that, once upon a time, I thought was genuinely great. 

Favourite episodes: "Sparkle's Seven," "The Point of No Return," "Common Ground," "Frenemies," "Going to Seed," "Between Dark and Dawn," "Growing Up is Hard to Do," "The End of the End," "The Last Problem"

On 10/29/2020 at 5:30 AM, Funtime Splashee said:

But they were high school brats. Only caring about themselves. It was a wonder they were friends to begin with

They really don't seem that different from their pony counterparts to me.   

On 10/29/2020 at 3:12 PM, Funtime Splashee said:

And yet, somehow they chose to go back, to make that "I'm on a yacht" song Instead of staying in Equestria!?

Staying in an alien world where there's even more scary magic and you're stuck in a strange new body honestly doesn't seem that appealing to me. 

On second viewing, I'm a little more open to what this is trying to do. I see the idea of Twilight's hero worship blinding her to reasonable doubts, and I see that Starlight slowly breaks her down; at least Twilight is the one who goes after Stygian at the end, if only at first. But it's just not good enough; all of the characters have been reduced to mouthpieces, so there's barely any character development. Even accounting for her hero worship, Twilight's decisions in the first half are baffling; isn't she supposed to be the smart one? Later on, she's the only character who expresses some kind of doubt, and even gets to save Stygian at the end, but she can't even do that without Starlight backing her up. She's still ready to banish the Pony of Shadows until she sees Stygian, and so her realization that "oh yeah, sometimes the villains are still people" just isn't satisfying. 

Starlight's presence here sticks out like a sore thumb, which isn't helped by the fact that she doesn't blend with the other characters at all. At this point there just wasn't much to her aside from her past, but not only does her reference to it seem self-absorbed (even when she's talking about Stygian, she's really talking about herself), it serves as a reminder of how redundant this story is. We've already been through this a few times in Friendship is Magic alone, and Equestria Girls had done it a few more times on top of that. That fact - that Twilight personally oversaw Starlight's reformation, and was also present for every step of Discord's and Luna's - makes it all the harder to accept that she wouldn't accept Starlight's point, and it's absurd that a Princess would submit so easily to a perceived authority figure. And sue me, I want the main characters of a show called Friendship is Magic to at least consider trying friendship. 

It seems kinda like the writers didn't have enough time to fully develop their ideas, but the first half is mostly pointless, so why couldn't that have just been cut? I don't have any investment in the Pillars, who at this point were characters I had barely met and whose importance to Equestria is completely unconvincing. An entire episode is spent saving them, just for us to learn that this was the wrong decision. It seems like it only exists to compensate for the fact that Twilight's friends get nothing to do in the meatier second half, but all that first half amounts to is a MacGuffin hunt where half of the MacGuffins are acquired through implausible means. The Rarity scene is especially embarrassing - what, is it so hard to figure out that an overgrown garden could use a trim? I like that the map is only responding to outside inquiries in this one, though. 

I still think this has its funny moments, and I respect its ambition. But it's just so expository and heavy-handed. More often than not, characters talk to explain the plot, often offering each other's positions. But Twilight's and Starswirl's positions are so weak, and Starlight spends so much time pushing hers, that it's hard to take the wrong arguments seriously. So all that's left is cliched spectacle, but the mythology and imagery here are generic even by My Little Pony standards. That stuff just isn't what I watch the show for, and if it has to come at the expense of character, then my standards are way higher than this. There's an interesting idea somewhere in here, but it's been carelessly buried in a contrived cookie-cutter season finale. I'm so glad the later seasons let this show breathe again. 

5 hours ago, Funtime Splashee said:

I wish I knew what you mean. You are talking too fancy for me to understand

You post in old threads that haven't been active for years, many of which are outdated. 

Seasons 5 and 7 are my least favourite seasons of the show. Both have a handful of episodes I love, but those are very much in the minority those seasons, and the prevailing trends those seasons never interested me at all. If anything, I felt seasons 8 and 9 felt to me like the show loosening up a bit after the stodginess of season 7. 

I miss Equestria Girls way more than Friendship is Magic. That series ended too soon. And I really liked seeing the mane six in a down-to-earth setting again.

7 hours ago, Landi72 said:

Now thinking about it, Starlight being the guidance counselor does seem strange XD.

The fact that she had a dark past makes it easier for her to relate to misbehaving students, therefore making it easier for her help them. And the fact that she went through so much to become a functioning member of society makes it easier for her to help everyone else. 

I don't think one of the main characters could possibly be the "most hated" character in the show. In fact, I personally remain a fan of her. Surely the most hated character is one of those one-time villains.