Was Gilda honestly all that bad?

[Starlight Sky 375]

I think Pinkie might have plenty of issues too.

 

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. You aren't ignoring the very clear context of my words. You actually don't understand it.

 

Let's see...Gilda = condescending outburst. Pinkie = spontaneous shenanigans.

 

While you can view anything as a "problem", this thread is concerned with how bad a character, namely Gilda, is. Pinkie's outbursts have no relation to Gilda's.

[Tilt 286]

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. You aren't ignoring the very clear context of my words. You actually don't understand it.

 

Let's see...Gilda = condescending outburst. Pinkie = spontaneous shenanigans.

 

While you can view anything as a "problem", this thread is concerned with how bad a character, namely Gilda, is. Pinkie's outbursts have no relation to Gilda's.

But how Gilda is portray is actually partially the ponies fault as well. For instance if Pinkie kept her distance Gilda and Dash hadn't pranked Gilda 4 times in a row then chances are Gilda wouldn't have done the outburst. Unfortunately that and a few other scenes is all we have for reference is the few scenes she shares with Pinkie, We actually never see Dash and Gilda hanging out un-disturbed. 

 

It's difficult to judge Gilda's character at her core when we only know that Dash and her used to be friends and that's it. I hope she will appear in season 5, I doubt she will but she is a character that needs fleshing out.

[Sunny Fox 5,952]

But how Gilda is portray is actually partially the ponies fault as well. For instance if Pinkie kept her distance Gilda and Dash hadn't pranked Gilda 4 times in a row then chances are Gilda wouldn't have done the outburst. Unfortunately that and a few other scenes is all we have for reference is the few scenes she shares with Pinkie, We actually never see Dash and Gilda hanging out un-disturbed. 

 

It's difficult to judge Gilda's character at her core when we only know that Dash and her used to be friends and that's it. I hope she will appear in season 5, I doubt she will but she is a character that needs fleshing out.

I would totally like to see Gilda return. Trixie got her "redemption" chance, why not Gilda too? 

[Silver Letter 1,832]

 

 

Let's see...Gilda = condescending outburst. Pinkie = spontaneous shenanigans. While you can view anything as a "problem", this thread is concerned with how bad a character, namely Gilda, is. Pinkie's outbursts have no relation to Gilda's.

I am not talking about spontaneous shenanigans. She sometimes acts like a jealous loser that must get all the attention or she gets into a meltdown. Not just in "Party of One" but I count "Pinkie Pride" and her depression scene too. I am not saying that because I hate Pinkie Pie but she does have faults and those faults played a part.

 

She was responsible for what happened between Dash and Gilda. She really got the ball rolling on all of that by prying into their friendship where she had no place. She should have just accepted that she had other friends. That should have been the main moral to some degree.

[Starlight Sky 375]

I am not talking about spontaneous shenanigans. She sometimes acts like a jealous loser that must get all the attention or she gets into a meltdown. Not just in "Party of One" but I count "Pinkie Pride" and her depression scene too. I am not saying that because I hate Pinkie Pie but she does have faults and those faults played a part.

 

She was responsible for what happened between Dash and Gilda. She really got the ball rolling on all of that by prying into their friendship where she had no place. She should have just accepted that she had other friends. That should have been the main moral to some degree.

 

Well, I'm really glad you meant it that way, but it's a bad argument.

 

Clearly, any sentient creature can have a bad day, and be pushed to their worst. I understand why Gilda flipped, but we haven't seen any resolution yet, so AS OF NOW, her status is: "not that nice".

 

Plus, we have way more episodes to judge Pinkie's overall character than we do Gilda. Not a fault of the latter- just a fact. If we only have bad things to judge her by, what do you want us to say?

 

You can rationalize anyone's behavior as a product of environment, others, etc, but if you can't hold people responsible for their own behavior, it creates a lot of issues. Sometimes, the environmental factors are overwhelmingly to blame...but not here. There was a BIT, but the majority of aggression and hostility is on Gilda.

 

 

Also, calling Pinkie a loser is harsh, but, moving on...

Edited January 22, 2015 by Starlight Sky

[baba_booey 4,303]

Honestly, I actually like Gilda. A lot in fact. She's probably my favorite minor antagonist next to Trixie 

I don't know why, but I've always felt there was just something about her that seemed.. interesting. Like, another side to her character that wasn't explained. Not to mention the points you listed above. I would actually like to see her return and be redeemed, in fact!

Gilda was mean to Fluttershy. Therefore, she must die.

Fluttershy was mean to Pinkie Pie and Rarity. Therefore, she must die

 

 

not really though fluttershy's still adorable

 

 

[Dulset Tarn 441]

I hope this isn't too off topic, I'd rather just ask here than make a whole new thread.

Can anyone tell me why Gilda is a griffon in the first place? Like, it has nothing to do with the episode. She could have been another pegasus and it wouldn't have made a single difference. And like sure, introducing a new species does add to the world, but it also only makes it that much more conspicuous when no other griffon, or mention of griffons, appears again for nearly two full seasons. It just sorta makes me wonder what the writers were thinking.

[Gearbox10mm 794]

IMO

 

Gilda = A long wall or embankment built to prevent flooding from the sea or a river.

[sweetolebob18 728]

As to Gilda making Fluttershy cry.  F WAS walking backward through a busy market & this is a BIG safety no-no.  Yes, G over reacted but I think people are forgetting G was new in town & possibly a little stressed out.  I'd have yelled too.

 

Taking the Apple.  Yes, it was wrong but I know a lot of kids & teen agers who have engaged in similar petty theft.  You want to dis her for it, OK, but just be sure you've NEVER swiped anything.

 

Yes, she lost it at the party but she just got hit w 5 pranks, (3 of them from Dash).  +That final hoof buzzer from P when P could see Gilda was losing it was  one of the few just plain mean things P has ever done. I can understand Gilda losing it.

 

Over all, I think Pinkie was about as bad (P is really bad at giving people space) & Dash's behavior in this episode was worse.  (Element of Loyalty? Not in my book)

Edited January 22, 2015 by sweetolebob18

[Cwanky 17,622]

In retrospect since The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone debuted, a lot of the remarks against and on Gilda seemed very premature and needlessly mean. Sure Gilda was a complete jerk and unwilling to change her ways, but that doesn't make her completely evil, irredeemable or a lost cause. In fact little was known about Gilda until The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone.

 

From that episode a lot of my suspicions were confirmed or clarified.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZG0eHhpQuk

 

A lot of Gilda's traits, even her bad ones, were heavily influenced by Rainbow at an early age. Like many bullies and outcasts seeking to fit in, she's very insecure, and tries to fit in by hiding behind a facade of being "cool," tough and bullying those she saw as weaker than her. Moreover Gilda's home is a complete dump and the family we see that she still has - Grandpa Gruff, only cares about peddling locals and tourists for cash.

 

These again are common traits of bullies - family turmoil and neglect, poverty and lack of good influences and ultimately frustration, anger and depression. Its not a wonder that Gilda let out her negative emotions against others, especially Ponyvillians since she envies their happiness. Had Rainbow grown up like Gilda, she may have very well become like Gilda herself.

 

If there's a lesson from this its that everyone is human even those we deem as evil and we should not be too quick to judge. Its just fortunate that in a show like FiM, characters have chances to redeem and reconcile with each other, even when they make stupid mistakes.

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 41,907]

I think Gilda suffered from the poor fate of 'generic bully 101' in her first appearance. In my opinion they tried way too hard to make her seem oh so horrible when she really wasn't that bad at all in Lost Treasure of Griffonstone. She could have had much more deep reasoning in her first appearance to why she was so harsh. I like to think of it as she was hanging out with the only friend she had and wanted no interruptions, which Pinke was doing a stellar job at interrupting them. Sadly they had to make Pinkie be the victim instead, which seems really off when you think about it.

 

Very good analysis, I usually don't read many of these but this one was quite nice. I am really got some good redemption in Lost Treasure.

[Ziggy + Angel + Rain 11,303]

No, Gilda isn't evil - or even all that bad.  And certainly not all bad.  Nor are Pinkie or Dash bad (wtf?).  I personally think Gilda grabbing Pinkie's propeller and causing the pony to go crashing to the ground was the worst thing anyone did that entire episode, but Pinkie was apparently unharmed because Pinkie.  So it's hard to hold even that against Gilda forever (and Pinkie got over it).  We're seriously sitting here continuing to micro-analyze and pass judgment over a first season episode?  We're doing that?

 

Not debatable: Gilda was possessive of Dash.  Not debatable: Gilda lost her cool at the party, jumped to conclusions, and ended up with egg on her face.  Dashie obviously wanted Gilda and her friends to get along.  I don't believe for a moment that the party pranks were meant to be mean-spirited or to humiliate Gilda.  Gilda blew her top at the party, gave one of Rainbow's friends shit, gave Dashie shit, and then left in a huff.  "But if I had those pranks pulled on me..."  Watch the episode again.  Everypony knew how to take a prank.  Dashie and Pinks were pranking up a storm throughout the first half of "Griffon the Brush Off."  Chuckles were had; even by the "victims."  Rainbow and Pinkie buzzed each other at the last moment; no one threw a hissy fit about it.  The party seemed to genuinely be intended as a bonding experience.  Gilda insisted on blowing out the trick candles and ignored Pinkie's tail-pinning instructions.  Rainbow explained about the pranks, "They weren't all meant for you, specifically.  It was just bad luck that you set them all off."  Her tone could even be interpreted as regretful or apologetic.  Then Pinkie explained that, "I threw this party to improve your attitude.  I thought a good party might turn that frown upside down."  Dashie stood up for her pony friends immediately thereafter, Gilda did some more (strangely political-sounding) dissing, and then Gilda left.  Considering how quick to forgive Dash has been in other cases, it could have panned out differently if Gilda had rethought things a moment.

 

But, everything worked out in the end.  Friendship was victorious.  So now everyone can forgive everyone and move on.  Probably.

Edited June 22, 2015 by Ziggy and Angelbaby

[MLPFanatic34 3,235]

I don't think Gilda was bad I think she was mainly jealous of Rainbow Dash having more than her for a friend and thus acted rude towards others in order to show that, I definitely think she was a good minor antagonist and will hopefully become a good secondary character.

[Sunny Fox 5,952]

I appreciate Gilda's redemption, but she doesn't just get a "Get out of Jail Free" card. No matter one's background, one must make choices, and those choices reveal one's character. Early on, she chose to behave in a way that earned her the ire of the fans. Her later choices to do the right thing redeem her, not her past. (possible crappy, we don't get much info, really)  Otherwise we might as well all give up our agency and blame every bad choice we make as being an unavoidable consequence of our own (unchosen) past experiences.

[cider float 2,539]

Ummm no that was her true self, she attacked Fluttershy who had nothing to do with hanging out with Rainbow Dash. You can tell that is what she is. You would think Gilda would have been a better person from the influence from Rainbow Dash but it didn't do her much good and she was a bit sour.

 

Gilda is either not well adjusted in society or she chooses not to care about others. She is the description of a sociopath.

Edited June 23, 2015 by cider float

[Castle Bleck 19,387]

Not bad, just "rough around the edges."

[Steve Piranha 29,449]

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. 

You got many point there, and many of them are a clear example of protagonist centered morality, but Gilda wasn't a saint either, and looks like you're kinda defending her where she was clearly wrong:

1-Apple theft, yes, there doesn't seem to ve a scarcity of those, and it doesn't worth much, but that's not excuse to steal

2-Disrespect "This ain't fresh dude" just for the sake of it, and calling all ponies lame o's after bulliong Flutters

3-She wasn't exactly nice to Spike either 

4-Couldn't she just step aside from Fluttershy instead of looking an excuse to bully her?