Phaeston-e12

The foundation of the show has been laid out by Mrs. Faust. Plenty of evidence suggests that the current season is where the story became largely independent of her influence in the MLP:FiM universe.

That's as much speculation as the whole Indoctrination Theory from the Mass Effect 3, that whole affair was just a sad desperate attempt by the fans to make sense of the farcical ending.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mex8ieFQnC1qfr8p4.png Apparently a reddit post from few month ago if I can tell. Not entirely sure whether the thing is legitimate or not. But it's something to think about. However, I do agree with the sentiment that Hasbro is making more influence over the entire series than ever. And from a person who watched good games getting ruined by the likes of Electronic Arts and Activision from the gaming industry, it's hardly a surprising thing.

The change has been long foreshadowed, for that matter the what's to happen next seems fairly natural to me in terms of storyline direction. I've made a fair amount of prediction on what would most likely happen in the current season and so far a fair amount of them has turned to be correct including my premonition that the story was finally going to be largely independent to the original concept created by Mrs. Faust. For better or worse, that's up to the individual watchers' to decide.

Plenty of indications have been given over that the story-writers have explored the all current casting including Spike over 3 seasons in a fairly thorough manner. If the move is going to be permanent, then either the next season is going to turn into G3-esque episodes or the third season is going to an end for the current main cast. One way or the other, Hasbro and the current story-writers have a lot to do with what's going on since I had a huge feeling that the season 3 was going to be the point where MLP:FiM's storyline direction was going to be entirely independent to the original concept laid out by Mrs. Faust, and judging from the current released episodes and the stuff that's on the horizon, I now have a strong reason to believe that; such is the case. They have an entire control over what they want to do and I have no quarrel with their move. However, I don't necessarily believe that this should be the way to go as well, there's an underlying message that the end of all this is going to generate which the story-writers are not intending to make (at least I think so), but that underlying message is something I find highly inappropriate to the children based on my perspective of what the society should teach the children.

I have to say, it's fairly amusing to see the show's storyline being significantly concentrated around the idea of 'royal family' in a country where the very idea of 'nobility by blood relation' is an unacceptable idea by the principles which this nation was built over. The season 3 has been quite satisfying, but I am not entirely sure if it has been better than the previous seasons or not mainly because previous seasons had a fair amount of ups and downs while most of the episodes in the current season has been sort of... monotonic, I suppose? Regardless, if I want to place my judgmental glasses on, then there are few elements in the storyline that I find it unacceptable by my philosophical principles (such as the idea of a single competent magician being strong enough to enslave an entire population where nobody has any hope of fighting against without an intervention by another of similar aptitude, the idea of 'fixed destiny and purpose in life', the title of royalty seemingly being exclusive to those who can wield magic (unicorns and alicorns) etc.)

Fair amount of people having trouble with Discord was to be expected. But the manner in which Discord was introduced at the beginning of the second season is vastly different to the vision shared by the current group of story-writers. Back then, it was quite apparent that Discord was going to have a very dark background story (as indicated by the window pane depicting him toying three ponies like a puppet while everything around it surrounded in a fire.) This original concept was most likely done by Mrs. Faust as the series of interviews done with her strongly indicates that she had an influence in the overall story up to the Canterlot Wedding at the end of the season two. Right now it was quite clear to see the noticeable difference in how the storyline is being directed, the way they are being presented and how each episodes are being ended. It is very likely that the third season is where the show is now largely independent from the original vision created by Mrs. Faust. So considering all those factors, it would be more appropriate to judge Discord in a way he is presented from this episode and from now on rather than basing our opinion on the initial appearance involved with him. (Regardless of our preference.)

I would rather flag 4chan and any similar communities regardless of their nationality as a cancerous site before anything else. Religious/Political forums with extreme viewpoints included.

Personally, I don't think it's an appropriate idea to read into 'I could use his magic' statement by Celestia, there's been a ton of statements like that popped up, causing mass speculation where 95% of those just goes into the dumpster as soon as the season ends. I think it's more likely that the statement was simply there to make a justification for her intention in rather a vague way.

From what I can gather, one of your argument seem to include that quite a lot of criticisms include argument that's no more than 'mere opinion', which I agree with, but those kind of arguments have little merits in terms of how constructive those kind of criticisms are. However, I would argue that the justification can be made for people such as me analyzing the quality of the show from a literature's perspective. As a person who's very interested in the children's fiction, it's quite interesting to see the amount of decision the story-writers make to fit the demand from the upper echelon (Hasbro mostly) and what is appropriate for a targeted audience at the same time. I try to understand and think about the quality of each episodes based on the limitations the story-writers must work with, what the intentions in the storyline were and whether those intentions were executed properly or not.