Magic in this show is stupid

[Ziggy + Angel + Rain 11,298]

I'm not responding to your answering of my rhetorical question, I'm pointing out the absurdity of it. My point was made very clear, why are you not responding to that?

Oh, you're one of those. x )

 

Would you, perhaps, be referring to the inherent absurdity of your assertion that you do not care and, simultaneously and as garnered from your actions, DO care.  You care only sufficiently enough to openly complain about something - and actively seek companionship in your perspective - about which you are not adequately motivated to care in earnest.  Relying, largely if not solely, upon the supplier of the creative product originally in question to spark sufficient or better intrigue and appreciation; a reflection of said supplier's commitment to an animated television series concerning colorful friendship-loving equines, purposefully intended for young persons who aren't likely to mentally constipate themselves with magic-related conundrums.

 

You care because you don't care - and you want to care.  In which case...  I don't care.

[user1342342 143]

Would you, perhaps, be referring to the inherent absurdity of your assertion that you do not care and, simultaneously and as garnered from your actions, DO care. 

 

I never asserted that I don't care, you just don't understand that my question was never meant to invite response. I made my point beforehand, the writers are not putting effort into the world and its lore, they are actively ruining the show with this bullshit. 

[Ashen Pathfinder 16,152]

While I do appreciate this topic hasn't devolved into insults or aggressive attacks, that can change real quick. As such I implore everyone here to check your emotion and to think before you hit that "Post" button. We will not tolerate attacks or insults of any sort here and will act accordingly if it happens.

 

That said please enjoy this debate; just don't let it get out of hand.

[ColdGoldLazarus 8]

Twilight I don't mind, but Starlight seriously bugs me.

[user1342342 143]

She seriously bugs me as well. Usually I'm not bothered by characters that are similar. I like Tommy Vercetti for example, a convicted psychotic killer and drug-dealer, but Starlight can go to hell. I guess it depends on the story and morals being told, GTA was never meant to teach friendship lessons anyway. What's happening in mlp right now is like if Tommy got off scot free in the eyes of the law without having his conniving, backstabbing, two-bit thief lawyer Rosenberg. Scratch that, Twilight IS Rosenberg. "Starlight Glimmer is an innocent mare! All your evidence is circumstantial bullshit and you know it." 

[Cwanky 17,459]

I find it stupider that some of the most powerful spells and artifacts are just left almost unguarded for any psycho idiot to steal and use. Granted, the time spell was alluded to in It's About Time and its vulnerability, but its still pathetic how bad the security is. A spell that can literally rewrite history should be much better guarded, as should security against renegade high level unicorns.

[Justin_Case001 4,857]

I can't wait until this show crashes and burns into the fucking ground.

Alright.  Well, that's how I feel about The Big Bang Theory, a show I used to adore.  So, I can respect your opinion, but it makes me wonder--why are you still watching the show if you hate it so much?  Why not just quit the show and find something that you actually like?  And I don't mean that sarcastically.  It seems to me that you'd be much happier if you just washed your hands of it, as I have with TBBT, and spent your time elsewhere.

 

 

On a side note, I have realize Twilight should have become a magic teacher instead of a princess. Becuase if you removed any mention of Twilight being a princess, nothing would have been lost. She could have been teaching both young and old unicorns how to use different spells and still hang out with her friends.

Oh yes, absolutely.  I completely agree.  I think that professor of magic would have been a much better role for Twilight.  That was the natural path that she was headed towards, and I really wish the writers had taken that route.  What I would have preferred is to scrap the Castle of Friendship entirely, and instead, have Twilight and her friends finish fixing up the Castle of the Sisters, which she would then use as a magic academy.  It could still be a part of Celestia's school, as well, kind of like how they sometimes have smaller, additional campuses that are part of a bigger university.

[Cleverclover 1,525]

I figure I might as well offer my take on this. 

 

Though Twilight's level of power was always quite impressive throughout the first three seasons of the show, she never really struck me as "overpowered" until It Ain't Easy Being Breezies, when she cast the spell that wound up turning she and her friends into breezies. 

 

This spell raised a few startling implications for me. The first one is the notion that Twilight has gone from a gifted prodigy to a bonafide goddess, since this spell evidently would have worked on any living creature. To date, I think it's easily the most powerful thing she's ever pulled off.

 

The second is that this spell would clearly be extremely dangerous if an evil unicorn ever learned it. Imagine if Starlight, instead of manipulating an entire town of ponies and stealing their cutie marks, decided to turn them into insects and crush them under her hoof. Or alternatively, imagine if she managed to perform the spell to turn herself into a dragon or a hydra and subsequently laid waste to entire towns or cities. It seems to me that both of these scenarios would be possible with this spell. 

 

And thirdly, perhaps the most important thing to me, is that this spell was given no limit or restriction whatsoever. So ultimately, we have no reason whatsoever to believe that the mane six would not have been breezies for the rest of their lives until Twilight decided to reverse it. 

 

When it comes to magic, especially in scenarios when one third of the population can use it while the remaining two-thirds cannot, balance matters. There needs to be restrictions, there needs to be rules. Powerful spells that could potentially cause legitimate harm to others need to be regulated. This prevents the magic-users from getting too powerful, and if worst comes to worst, it prevents them from being able to overpower the other two races.  However, it's utterly mind-boggling to me that throughout the course of the show, only one writer seems to have understood this very simple concept:

 

M.A. Larson.

 

Since the very first season, Larson has been the one most responsible with setting limits for Twilight, and for magic in Equestria itself. This began in the episode Sonic Rainboom, where Larson made it that the wing spell was too difficult for Twilight to perform more than once. Additionally, he also made it so that the wing spell was not permanent. It was only going to last for three days. In just a matter of including a simple restriction, he gave an incredibly powerful spell a sense of balance. 

 

However, I would say that the best example of Larson balancing both Twilight and magic itself comes from the episode It's About Time. We could have come away from that episode with the notion that Twilight could now travel backward or forward through time at will, but we didn't. Because Larson realized that if he gave Twilight the ability to travel back in time at will, fans would question why she would not simply do it whenever she wanted to change the past. For instance, why wouldn't she go back in time to prevent Tirek from destroying her library home? So, to solve this dilemma, Larson gave the spell two restrictions. The first was that the spell could only work for a few moments, and the second was that it could only be used once. And just like that, time travel was permanently excluded from Twilight's repertoire of abilities. 

 

Larson continued to balance Twilight all the way up to Amending Fences, when he established that she could only do her book spell for a few minutes. 

 

It seems ridiculous, but it really is that easy to set restrictions. All you need is a casual mention of a time limit, and a mention of something you can't do with it, and that's all. So why Larson was the only writer to have had the foresight to set limits with Twilight is completely beyond me. Perhaps it's because the rest of the writers on the staff simply do not care about how powerful Twilight is perceived to be. I really don't know. 

 

And now we have Starlight, whose abilities the writers have never even attempted to balance. Who seems to be able to pull off things that even Twilight cannot do with any level of ease that she displays. Who clearly poses a threat to slice-of-life episodes because there evidently isn't much of anything she couldn't solve with a simple wave of her horn. Whose level of power is clearly greater than it would ever need to be, and who will most certainly need to be nerfed, or at least need to forget just how powerful she is whenever it's convenient for the plot (in fact, I would expect to see this in the finale). 

 

Would the spell she cast on the mane five have ever worn off? Could the mane five potentially have been Starlight's mind-controlled slaves forever? Who knows? I honestly doubt Mike Vogel really cared when he wrote the episode. 

 

Ultimately, I think this is just a testament to how unfocused the show has become with season 6. It just feels to me that everything is just unraveling. The mane six are acting as immaturely as though they hadn't developed past season 1 or 2, there's so much emphasis on pointless gimmicks and an abundance of weird facial expressions that are often out-of-place, there hasn't been any arc for the post-marked CMC, and just barely an arc for Starlight, who doesn't feel like she's earned a massive payoff for her efforts towards learning about friendship yet. 

 

At this point, I think that if the writers don't care about balancing Twilight or Starlight, then there's little reason for us to care either. The longer the show goes on, the more we're likely to see them pulling off incredible magic that no one else in the show could possibly hope to match, especially the mane five, whose gap in ability was already massive enough as it was. I really wish that weren't the case, but the one writer who ever cared about magical balance is gone and most likely won't be coming back...

 

 

 

 

 

[Justin_Case001 4,857]

The show left me very bitter and angry in a time when I really didn't need that. Now I just want to see it burn.

Well, I can understand that, and I'm sorry.  But if the show crashes and burns, I'm sure you'll hear about it.  I just think you'd save yourself a lot of stress and be happier if you let it go.  Think of it this way--we're all living in the present moment (just try to follow me for a few minutes), and we all have this constant voice in our heads.  Even now, as you're reading this, that voice is talking, thinking about how to respond, thinking about what you need to do tomorrow, etc.  So often in our lives, we find ourselves prisoners of the voice in our heads.  It's always now, yet we fixate on the past and the future.  When something upsets us, something that doesn't matter at all in the grand scheme of things, mind you, our natural tendency is dwell on it.  It's as if you've been kidnapped by this bitter, resentful person who wants to keep you as such.  The show has upset you.  It's betrayed you.  It made you angry.  You've spoken your peace, but you continue to dwell on it, and actually watch it, because....what?  You apparently want revenge?  You want to see the show's staff pay the price for disappointing you?  If you get your wish, and the show dies in flames and is mocked on social media and trashed on Last Week Tonight, then how will you feel?  I'm sure you'll feel some vindication, but will you be glad that you wasted your time, energy, and emotions watching it and hating it, when you could have spent that time in pursuit of something that makes you happy?  You'd get your vindication whether you continue watching it or not.

 

Consider this: every single one of us knows that a moment is coming, probably a lot sooner than we think (and we're never ready for it), when we will look at our lives and say, "I can't believe I wasted my time on that.  I can't believe I spent time worrying about that, or being angry about that."  Each of us is just a phone call or a doctor's visit away from the crashing reminder of our mortality, or that of our loved ones.  We all know this is coming, and yet we all tend to live our day to day lives as if we're going to live forever.  No one reaches the end of their life and wishes they had spent more time dwelling on things that frustrated them.  No one on their death bed ever said, "You know, I really wish I had spent more time angrily brewing about that stupid tv show."  Please don't take offense--I'm trying to help.  The show has let you down, but it sounds like you won't be happy until the rest of the fandom agrees with you.  That's not going to happen, and it probably wouldn't bring you happiness anyway.  It would be impossible for you to stay angry for long if you just let this go and turn your attention to something else.  You don't have enough time in your life to sit here waiting for FIM to burn.  None of us have that kind of time to waste.  You'll be a lot happier if you let this one go, and this is coming from someone with a lot of experience being depressed, bitter, angry, and resentful.

 

 

@@Cleverclover, I really didn't want to have to hoof your post, but you left me no choice, sir.     There's so much I still love about the show, and I usually like to try to take the route in defense of it if possibly, but I can't deny a word you said.  It's all true.  I had never thought about M.A. Larson implementing limitations to magic like that.  In truth, I rarely look at who writes what.  I tend not to care who wrote the episode--I just want to know if the episode was good or not.  But that's very interesting about Larson.  It's a shame too, because the poor guy gets all this fandom flak for Twilicorn, when it seems that his contributions to the show were invaluable.  Above all Season 6 has felt to me like a perfect example of a spectacular universe with some of the best characters and lore around, subsequently handed over to five year olds who scrabble it up like shuffling a deck of cards by throwing it on the table and razzling the crap out if with your palms.  Everything was set up nicely, and then someone came along and flipped the board.  Oh sure, there's great stuff to be found, but you have to sift through, pick it up off the floor, and clean it off.  (Yeah, I'm getting a bit goofy with my metaphors, now.  )

[RealityPublishing 323]

Magic in the show is used to demonstrate Unicorn abilities. The reasons both Starlight and Twilight are "overpowered" when comparing to the rest of Equestria is because of their specialties. If you've seen Harry Potter, take note how some wizards are special to cooking magic or cleaning magic. It's the same in Equestria. 

 

Rarity's most powerful spell is to find jewels. As pathetic as that is, keep in mind how it relates to her specialty of sewing. She needs that spell to find resources so of course she's going to be the only one to use it. (Even though Twilight has been seen to cast it in the Diamond Dogs episode, it makes sense since her special talent is learning magic)

 

Notice Sunburst's abilities. He's extremely limited although very skilled in learning and retaining the spells. This shows that half of what makes a unicorn powerful is through their Cutie Mark and not by how much they wish to learn.

 

Believe it or not, the Properties of Magic have been very much existent in this last season. With the Season 6 Premiere introducing the idea that certain objects require stronger spells, it opens a world of possibilities. With the episode, "Every Little Thing She Does" showing the mixing of spells, it's clear that there is a much bigger world to a Unicorn's textbook. 

[cider float 2,535]

Does anybody else find it stupid that Twilight and her copy can do pretty much everything with magic, while 99% of all unicorns can't do shit? 

I don't find it stupid. Twilight and Starlight have studied how to do other magic spells and master them. Sounds justifiable to me. Of course other unicorns do develop spells some that not even Twilight or Starlight know, but they develop theirs to serve a purpose sometimes for their special talent (i.e. Rarity using gem detecting magic to find more gems for her dresses). Twilight and Starlight's talent is to be good at magic and to have the curiosity to find and develop new magic spells. 

[Crusaders Forever 88]

Does anybody else find it stupid that Twilight and her copy can do pretty much everything with magic, while 99% of all unicorns can't do shit? 

 

Not really. Each Unicorn has their own powers. Twilight and Starlight just seem to have the skills to use more magic than most Unicorn's.

 

Plus also you forget that Twilight is now an Alicorn. Meaning the laws of magic that a Unicorn can do doesn't apply to her anymore.

[Goat-kun 2,499]

In the olden days the power of magic obeyed its own laws. In the current year, its power seems to correlate with a writer’s incompetence in untangling plots by conventional means and companies’ desire to propagate “LolSoRandom” shit that brings all the kids to the screen. This too shall pass.