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Stormking not a big enough baddie IMO


Buck Testa

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I will preface this by saying the movie was much better than I was expecting. I was expecting it to be utter crap mind you, but it still far exceeded my expectations and landed in the 7/10 range for me. 

However The Storm King just wasn't a big enough villain for Equestria, especially if you take their assets and allies into account. I'm not talking about the princesses of course. They've habitually shown themselves to be utterly and completely useless during war time (honestly don't even know how they HAVEN'T been taken over before this.) Even if that scene played out exactly as it did in the original, there are so many things they could have done to rectify their situation far earlier than trying to find the Hippogriffs that they've never met before or made any alliance with. I get it, you have to have your celebrities and new toys to sell, but it's a pretty sizable plot hole here. 

First off, you have the Dragons under Dragon Lord Ember. Little SPIKE and his fire breath were more than enough to cause dozens of those Storm King Soldiers to get burned and flee for their lives. That is just one of them. At the merest mention of Equestria being under attack from Twilight or Spike, Ember would have amassed her troops and drove out the Storm king and Tempest before they even begun to make preparations for his little twig. Her father Torch alone would probably strike fear into that whole army just from his massive size alone. They are closer, they are larger in number, they are your unquestioning allies thanks to your friendship with their ruler,, and they are equipped with the literal fire power to break through their defences. You wouldn't even NEED to explore your other options, the dragons have you covered on their own. 
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Lets say you wanted to go overkill though. Why not split up and go grab the Changelings too? Sure they are reformed now, but the changelings have shown themselves to be able to take over equestria on their own several times. They never were quite as dominating about it as Tempest's regime, but having an entire army of shape shifting, super strong, flying, laser shooting soldiers accompanying the dragons would definitely not hurt. We know they'd work together too, cause Ember and Thorax are buds now, AND allied nations for Equestria. 

Without even taking into account the Mane Sixes unused assets, you have a military force that would utterly decimate anything Tempest or the storm king had to offer. 

Yes, I know, it would have made the movie short and you couldn't have those Celeb cameos, but that's not the point I'm making. The point I'm making is that the Storm King was too small of a threat to warrent a movie when you take this into account. 

However lets do some call back assets. You have the following things at your disposal that the ponies could use to rectify the situation. 

The Mirror pool: Hello entire army of mane six ponies who's single mindedly focused on a single task. Pinkie was focused on fun at the time, so perhaps being focused on marching into kicking some flank could be a thing. Hell, grab Maud while you are at it. Sure they aren't as focused as their originals, but need I remind you how strong Maud is? Have a few thousand of these Storm Canterlot and Tempest is screwed 

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Swamp Fever: Can we say chemical warfare? We can! You can say its dark but they literally shattered the storm king to pieces and felt diddly about it so I say moot point. Can't invade my country if you're all trees. 

Discord: He has a potential to fuck up cause plot convenience (a la the princesses), but honestly he could probably solo the whole army IF he is written competently. 

Super Twilight: No, they could not have done this during the movie since they were incapacitated (again), but honestly what is Celestia and Luna even doing with that power anymore? They fail in combat defending Equestria every single time. If they wised up and just handed over their magic to Twilight by now she would have been more than strong enough to handle the situation on her own. Quite frankly outside of peacetime the two sisters are hopelessly useless and are a detriment to the nation, holding that magic for themselves is just putting their country at risk at this point. 

Time FUCKING Travel; Yes, they swore off doing that, blah blah blah to dangerous. Your nation was invaded, suck it up, grab starlight and get your ass back in time to head off the invasion before it even starts. 

The Yaks/Buffalo: They'd be a great supporting force of melee fighters if nothing else. Spike already is in good terms with the Buffalo, and the Yaks are definitely friendly enough to help against an invading force. 

RAINBOW POWER: Yeah! Remember THAT? How they went super ponies and blasted Tirek, who had ALL the COMBINED MAGIC IN EQUESTRIA AND STILL LOST? What would Stormking do against that? Or any of them for that matter. I'm just saying. 

 


Honestly there are even more resources they could use beyond that. Flutters has a host of really dangerous animals she can use, They have the Equestria Girls world to draw from, and not to mention the friggin GOD Tree that dispenses I WIN tokens at its whim. Again, I know WHY they didn't do these, its because of the money and marketing, I know. However the ONLY reason IN UNIVERSE why it took that long to win against Tempest and the storm king is their own incompetence, not because they did not have a myriad of ways to win. What are your thoughts on that? 


 

Edited by Buck Testa
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Everything here can be summed up in one way: Plot. The movie had to happen somehow, and if they used any of these options, there would be no adventure whatsoever. I will say that Storm King wasn't quite the level of a threat I wanted him to be. Even Tempest outshined him in most regards and did far more for their cause.

  • Brohoof 3
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Because common sense makes for boring movies? 

 

However I do admit that seeing the mane 6 leading an allied invasion force of dragons, changelings, and gryphons from the air, as well as an army of buffalo, yaks, zebra's, Minotaur and Everfree wildlife would have been an epic sight.

Heck, throw the royal guard, the crystal ponies and the E.U.P lead by Shining Armor. None of them were ever captured. And how did Starlight, a pony just as magically powerful as Twilight ever get captured? And if they were really desperate to avoid getting captured, why not flee across the mirror to find help from Sunset? 

Edited by Denim&Venom
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I disagree.

First, the real "baddie" wasn't the Storm King, but Tempest, who was reasonably competent at that; she is good in combat (where clearly all four princesses are pretty poor), did well in planning an attack and then staging that attack despite her laughably poor "army", and never really "lost" to anyone.  The Storm king, fool that he is, was just a backdrop to Tempests eventual redemption, and of course that is classic Pony.  Had the SK been even remotely pragmatic, he would have fobbed Tempest off with "there is time enough for that once we have completed consolidating our hold over Equestria and for such a delicate operation I will need to practice wielding the power I now possess" or just blasted her out of existence as a potential future threat rather than casting her loose to act against him.

Second, while the party didn't really need to go on an epic quest to a foreign queen, it was totally in character for Twi to follow Celestia's last order in Lunas place rather than try to come up with her own plan; clearly at a meta level, it is because the movie IS a epic quest. Depending on where we are in the timeline, the Dragons and the Changelings may not yet be allies (not entirely convinced either really are, even in S7) but given the predetermined goal (that the Mane 6 triumph due to the power of their friendship) it is hard to try and fit an external force or even a clone army into that narrative.

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I thought the storm king had really comical undertones and wasn’t intimidating whatsoever 

tempest was a badass but the storm king was really just more of a bully than an evil bad guy, almost a joke honestly.... I was expecting him to be horrifying the way the movie played out but noooooooo ugh 

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About the Changelings, the Dragons, etc.... the Ponies would've still needed a way to actually contact them first -- and the lockdown of Canterlot probably served to prevent that.

 

As for Discord... provided he could've kept himself from showboating (he's got that in common with Rainbow Dash, after all), The Storm King's army seemed well-equipped to handle OP magic-users (e.g., the grenades that could ignore barriers and petrify Alicorns, and the cages and shields that seemed to absorb Twilight's attacks).

 

Regarding the deus-ex-machina items (e.g., the Rainbow Power)... you have a point about that one.

 

1 hour ago, CypherHoof said:

Had the SK been even remotely pragmatic, he would have fobbed Tempest off with "there is time enough for that once we have completed consolidating our hold over Equestria and for such a delicate operation I will need to practice wielding the power I now possess" or just blasted her out of existence as a potential future threat rather than casting her loose to act against him.

 

Sad thing is, the SK from the prequel comics likely would've done just that, albeit with some Hades (Disney)-like jokeyness instead of any serious words.

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11 minutes ago, The Artist Formerly Known As A.V. said:

About the Changelings, the Dragons, etc.... the Ponies would've still needed a way to actually contact them first -- and the lockdown of Canterlot probably served to prevent that.

 

As for Discord... provided he could've kept himself from showboating (he's got that in common with Rainbow Dash, after all), The Storm King's army seemed well-equipped to handle OP magic-users (e.g., the grenades that could ignore barriers and petrify Alicorns, and the cages and shields that seemed to absorb Twilight's attacks).

The ponies really aren't that good at fighting though. For instance, Twi can teleport pretty well - that's going to be an insane advantage in battle, she just needs to learn how to stick a pointy stick into bad guys, and be willing to literally backstab her enemies.

11 minutes ago, The Artist Formerly Known As A.V. said:

Regarding the deus-ex-machina items (e.g., the Rainbow Power)... you have a point about that one.

Assuming they can trigger it.  First couple of times around that loop required the elements, the final visit was the result of unlocking the chest. EqG seem to have more luck with the multicoloured bitchslap of harmony than the ponies though.

 

11 minutes ago, The Artist Formerly Known As A.V. said:

Sad thing is, the SK from the prequel comics likely would've done just that, albeit with some Hades (Disney)-like jokeyness instead of any serious words.

Yup. which makes it odd that the prequel got the tone of the character so wrong, really...

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2 minutes ago, CypherHoof said:

Yup. which makes it odd that the prequel got the tone of the character so wrong, really...

 

It got his humor right, at least.

 

And Liev Schreiber did give him a good performance, so there was that as well.

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I was expecting the Storm King to be tougher. But instead he was more of a clown who managed to be taken seriously by his followers only because 1. he wielded a magical staff and 2. he knew how to manipulate ponies/other beings. Would've been cooler to see him put up more of a fight at the end. Maybe not a Tirek sort of battle, but still.

Oh well. After all, Hasbro probably wanted to include as little violence as possible so they left the action to characters like Tempest and the Storm King's minions.

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1 hour ago, The Artist Formerly Known As A.V. said:

About the Changelings, the Dragons, etc.... the Ponies would've still needed a way to actually contact them first -- and the lockdown of Canterlot probably served to prevent that.

 

Yes, but we know from the movie that they definitely COULD have. Not only was the dragons and Changelings closer than the Hippogriffs, their help was a guarantee. There is no IN CANON reason not to go to them first. Out of canon they had toys and what not, but in canon its a plot hole. 

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3 hours ago, Denim&Venom said:

And how did Starlight, a pony just as magically powerful as Twilight ever get captured? 

When has it ever been established Starlight was powerful enough to take on big Yeti things (do I dare mention the maulwurf or has everyone written that off as OOC) let alone an army of them. Starlight's track record has been Twilight (who was unprepared for her situation) and the four main ponies from her village (who she was running away from to begin with). All it could have taken is have three corner her and while she's defending off two of them have the third cage her. She's panicked and stressed already, it'd be easy to take her down. It wouldn't surprise me if those yeties were given the primary objective to cage every unicorn first. Having a unicorn on his side I'm sure Storm King had his armies prepared to handle any pony type, so long as Tempest took out the alicorns.

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Two times the Changlings undermined the Equestrian Kingdom shows they haven't learned and still left themselves open to be invaded a third time.

Even if the Dragons and Changlings could be reached, it doesn't guarantee that they would be able to fully help them out. They are being lead by new leaders for less than a year time span. Asking their subjects to get involved with war is a tall order.

 

 

Edited by Singe
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  • 2 years later...
On 10/8/2017 at 9:21 PM, Buck Testa said:

However The Storm King just wasn't a big enough villain for Equestria

Spoiler

The rest of the stuff you wrote has valid points all over. I won't discuss those as they still hold up today.

The Storm King was one really cool comedy evil guy, just perfect for a light hearted movie like this. However, he had a lot of unexplained powers and resources behind him, and was somehow a serious threat told about in FIM Season 8 and 9 as well as Equestria Girls Special "Spring Breakdown".

I think they should have kept him away from the main show. The mentions was to try to get more people to watch the Movie, which most people had done already.

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