Regarding powerful Oc villains?

[heavens-champion 1,907]

Have you noticed that in a lot of fandoms, fan-made villains being powerful enough to match canon characters is frowned upon? I don't get it. Why can't fan-made villains be powerful enough to fight a powerful canon character?

[Goat-kun 2,531]

Well, most fandoms already have canon villains that can match the protagonists, so there's probably the animosity coming from fans of those villains. FIM doesn't have that kind of a problem. FIM doesn't even have that many real villains. So go ahead, make a few.

 

 

Then there are problems that OC characters have in general. Nyx, yeah. It might be good to create your own heroes for your own villains, cause having them humiliate canon protagonists, if only for a brief time, is not often well-received. Plus you can't really create a powerful villain in FIM cause all the good guys are weak and stupid. It'd be like Ainz-sama against Re-Estize Kingdom.

[Black Sabbath 2,488]

14 hours ago, heavens-champion said:

Have you noticed that in a lot of fandoms, fan-made villains being powerful enough to match canon characters is frowned upon?

No, can't say that I have. In my experience, most fan-made characters are much more powerful than canon characters. 

[heavens-champion 1,907]

Just now, Sun Wukong said:

No, can't say that I have. In my experience, most fan-made characters are much more powerful than canon characters. 

Except when fan-made characters lose.

[Black Sabbath 2,488]

Just now, heavens-champion said:

Except when fan-made characters lose.

And your point is? I mean, there are tons of fanfics where fan-made characters fight canon characters and win.

[heavens-champion 1,907]

1 minute ago, Sun Wukong said:

And your point is? I mean, there are tons of fanfics where fan-made characters fight canon characters and win.

My point is that everytime that happens, fanboys throw a fit over it. It's like they just want the canon characters to never lose at all.

Edited October 7, 2018 by heavens-champion

[Black Sabbath 2,488]

Just now, heavens-champion said:

My point is that everytime that happens, fanboys throw a fit over it.

But that's not really true. Yes, occasionally one person might be a bit childish over it but most people don't care as long as it was a decently written story. 

[heavens-champion 1,907]

Just now, Sun Wukong said:

But that's not really true. Yes, occasionally one person might be a bit childish over it but most people don't care as long as it was a decently written story. 

See? If it's decently written, it's good.

[BornAgainBrony 2,398]

On 10/7/2018 at 7:36 AM, Goat-kun said:

Then there are problems that OC characters have in general. Nyx, yeah. It might be good to create your own heroes for your own villains, cause having them humiliate canon protagonists, if only for a brief time, is not often well-received. Plus you can't really create a powerful villain in FIM cause all the good guys are weak and stupid. It'd be like Ainz-sama against Re-Estize Kingdom.

Eh, I don't think that's necessarily true. The problem is Alicorns never get enough screen-time except for Twilight (who is kind of predisposed to solve problems through friendship means or risk losing control of the elements the way Celestia did). So we rarely see that kind of matchup. Twilight vs. Tirek, anyone? Quite evenly-matched. Tirek even admitted the fight could only end in a stale-mate.

Also as clumsy as he is, the final battle with the Storm King and Tempest had some good moments.

Celestia vs. Luna in the time travel scene. That was pretty intense, but also short-lived.

To save on the violence level or perhaps budget constraints, it's that battles are usually won through Deus Ex Machina solutions. There's no reason it needs to always be that way though. Especially if we could look back into the 1000 moons ago and see what was going on instead of just quick little summaries from books and tapestries. I always suspected Celestia and Luna did some pretty epic stuff before they had their split. Twilight and Cadence though, I think their nature somewhat limit them in the heavy firepower department. The two sisters wield the power of the cosmos. The other two use the power of friendship and love.

Edited October 9, 2018 by bornAgainEquestrian

[Goat-kun 2,531]

10 hours ago, bornAgainEquestrian said:

Eh, I don't think that's necessarily true. The problem is Alicorns never get enough screen-time except for Twilight (who is kind of predisposed to solve problems through friendship means or risk losing control of the elements the way Celestia did). So we rarely see that kind of matchup. Twilight vs. Tirek, anyone? Quite evenly-matched. Tirek even admitted the fight could only end in a stale-mate.

Also as clumsy as he is, the final battle with the Storm King and Tempest had some good moments.

Celestia vs. Luna in the time travel scene. That was pretty intense, but also short-lived.

To save on the violence level or perhaps budget constraints, it's that battles are usually won through Deus Ex Machina solutions. There's no reason it needs to always be that way though. Especially if we could look back into the 1000 moons ago and see what was going on instead of just quick little summaries from books and tapestries. I always suspected Celestia and Luna did some pretty epic stuff before they had their split. Twilight and Cadence though, I think their nature somewhat limit them in the heavy firepower department. The two sisters wield the power of the cosmos. The other two use the power of friendship and love.

...Tirek is a weak villain though, at least in relation to the one I've mentioned. You can't expect all of us to obey H-Bro restrictions.

 

And no, they don't wield the power of the entire cosmos, just two celestial bodies of indefinable properties, a forgotten feel-good toy prop, and some sparkly tree magic. There are better sources of power. You've seen the glimpses. It is on us to expand on those. Give them name. Give them purpose.

[BornAgainBrony 2,398]

2 hours ago, Goat-kun said:

...Tirek is a weak villain though, at least in relation to the one I've mentioned. You can't expect all of us to obey H-Bro restrictions.

And no, they don't wield the power of the entire cosmos, just two celestial bodies of indefinable properties, a forgotten feel-good toy prop, and some sparkly tree magic. There are better sources of power. You've seen the glimpses. It is on us to expand on those. Give them name. Give them purpose.

If you want to say the sun and the moon aren't really how we perceive them to be in the show... just big floodlights or something akin to old mythological theories about the nature of celestial bodies, that seems to be a pretty extreme assumption. No attempt is made to tell us otherwise, so you say that the sun isn't actually a star or the moon isn't actually a smaller rocky sphere, requires you to start making your own CANON anyhow. Kids know their space stuff a lot better than they know mythology, so the most obvious interpretation is simply going to be, "Whoa... she just moved THAT?" I would actually have a much harder time even trying to visualize what those bodies are or how they worked if they WEREN'T the same as what science describes. You can still easily have a lot of fun mixing the two together though.
 

As for saying Tirek is "weak" though, the question is how much destruction you're planning on dishing out with powers that are on the level of Kaiju? Not sure why you're suggesting I said that we all have to play the game like Hasbro. I never said this CAN'T be done, and I specifically said the reason we haven't seen more of it is because of Hasbro having to be conservative due to money or the risk of ticking off parents with a (even if it's just implied) slaughter fest.

If you're thinking in terms of an infinite crossover multiverse, yeah, what we've seen is weak. But the participants also have a great deal of concern for the safety of the land. Think of how Superman fights compared what the kind of destruction he could cause if he went into it with reckless abandon? You think we've seen Alicorns use the full might of their power? Not even close.

Random nitpick... Twilight's power doesn't come from the 'sparkly tree' and Cadence's doesn't come from the "forgotten feel-good prop." All Alicorns have their own magic. Celestia and Luna can't use the elements anymore. Are they suddenly not powerful? The Tree of Harmony was Deus Ex Machina against Tirek. The Crystal Heart was another Deus Ex Machina, and also a good example of why the 1000 moons ago era is probably more in line with what you want. Sombra kept the Crystal Heart safely hidden away so that his enemies couldn't use it against him. Celestia, Luna, and however much of the Equestrian armies had to bring him down using brute force, at which point Sombra exiled himself and the Empire into whatever-stasis-limbo-dimension as a last-ditch attempt at survival. There's a lot of epic in that tale and the closest we ever got to seeing anything like that was the brief foray into the alternate timeline created by Starlight.

One final bit of confusion though, and this isn't directed at you specifically since this is the whole point of the thread, but...

On 10/7/2018 at 7:36 AM, Goat-kun said:

It might be good to create your own heroes for your own villains, cause having them humiliate canon protagonists, if only for a brief time, is not often well-received.

I really don't understand the logic behind this. By that I mean people who react that way, not your observations. Why is would it be OK when CANON villains do this but not fan-made ones? If readers are protesting that, then they fail to understand even basic storytelling. The hero almost ALWAYS is going to make a comeback from a serious defeat. We've seen that play out over and over again in the show, just not violently. Nightmare Moon moves in and takes over, Celestia is "gone" for all we know, and six nobodies are left to do the "Fellowship of the Ring" thing. Discord succeeds in the beginning. Tirek succeeds in taking all the magic in Equestria until only one Pony remains to fight him. Changelings manage to capture and swap-out all of the leadership. Heck, the MLP movie spends nearly the entire running time with our heroes trying to prepare a counter-attack in response to the worst defeat they've ever experienced. But a fan-villain does this and suddenly it's wrong?

Edited October 9, 2018 by bornAgainEquestrian

[Goat-kun 2,531]

2 hours ago, bornAgainEquestrian said:

If you want to say the sun and the moon aren't really how we perceive them to be in the show... just big floodlights or something akin to old mythological theories about the nature of celestial bodies, that seems to be a pretty extreme assumption. No attempt is made to tell us otherwise, so you say that the sun isn't actually a star or the moon isn't actually a smaller rocky sphere, requires you to start making your own CANON anyhow. Kids know their space stuff a lot better than they know mythology, so the most obvious interpretation is simply going to be, "Whoa... she just moved THAT?" I would actually have a much harder time even trying to visualize what those bodies are or how they worked if they WEREN'T the same as what science describes. You can still easily have a lot of fun mixing the two together though.

We're talking OCs here, not canon stuff. We know nothing about the world, the celestial bodies, or about ToH that is indeed intricately connected to pony magic.  That's why we can make stuff up on our own. Personally, I think that having an ordinary solar system in such a fantasy setting is boring, but that's just me. Tolkien did just fine without real world physics. Alas, most are more comfortable with the default settings, I believe.

2 hours ago, bornAgainEquestrian said:

As for saying Tirek is "weak" though, the question is how much destruction you're planning on dishing out with powers that are on the level of Kaiju? Not sure why you're suggesting I said that we all have to play the game like Hasbro. I never said this CAN'T be done, and I specifically said the reason we haven't seen more of it is because of Hasbro having to be conservative due to money or the risk of ticking off parents with a (even if it's just implied) slaughter fest.

If you're thinking in terms of an infinite crossover multiverse, yeah, what we've seen is weak. But the participants also have a great deal of concern for the safety of the land. Think of how Superman fights compared what the kind of destruction he could cause if he went into it with reckless abandon? You think we've seen Alicorns use the full might of their power? Not even close.

This is like the "They're keeping their strats for the finale" Dota meme. Alicorns are pushovers. They get defeated by everything and would remain defeated if not for their precious Tree and the artifacts. It's not all bad. Not having that much power by default can be great for character development. Just don't expect that development coming from the official side. Hey, you can go and unofficially develop your very own official candy-colored pony princess. Ain't that something?

2 hours ago, bornAgainEquestrian said:

Random nitpick... Twilight's power doesn't come from the 'sparkly tree' and Cadence's doesn't come from the "forgotten feel-good prop." All Alicorns have their own magic. Celestia and Luna can't use the elements anymore. Are they suddenly not powerful? The Tree of Harmony was Deus Ex Machina against Tirek. The Crystal Heart was another Deus Ex Machina, and also a good example of why the 1000 moons ago era is probably more in line with what you want. Sombra kept the Crystal Heart safely hidden away so that his enemies couldn't use it against him. Celestia, Luna, and however much of the Equestrian armies had to bring him down using brute force, at which point Sombra exiled himself and the Empire into whatever-stasis-limbo-dimension as a last-ditch attempt at survival. There's a lot of epic in that tale and the closest we ever got to seeing anything like that was the brief foray into the alternate timeline created by Starlight.

Nah, I want something more. I want cults of shadows, armies of spring and winter, cyclopean citadels of ash and flame, phantom forts in dreamscape, forgotten songs from below light's reach, lies and secrets hiding beneath red dots in history books. The good stuff.

2 hours ago, bornAgainEquestrian said:

One final bit of confusion though, and this isn't directed at you specifically since this is the whole point of the thread, but...

 

I really don't understand the logic behind this. By that I mean people who react that way, not your observations. Why is would it be OK when CANON villains do this but not fan-made ones? If readers are protesting that, then they fail to understand even basic storytelling. The hero almost ALWAYS is going to make a comeback from a serious defeat. We've seen that play out over and over again in the show, just not violently. Nightmare Moon moves in and takes over, Celestia is "gone" for all we know, and six nobodies are left to do the "Fellowship of the Ring" thing. Discord succeeds in the beginning. Tirek succeeds in taking all the magic in Equestria until only one Pony remains to fight him. Changelings manage to capture and swap-out all of the leadership. Heck, the MLP movie spends nearly the entire running time with our heroes trying to prepare a counter-attack in response to the worst defeat they've ever experienced. But a fan-villain does this and suddenly it's wrong?

It's more of a cautionary tale. If you're going to use Mane 6, then use them well, not as props for your OCs. It's quite easy to forget yourself and make such an OC the center of everything. One the other side you have people who don't like OCs being used at all for whatever reason and so they will nag about it. I blame Sonic. It doesn't take a genius to realize someone's just making an OC as a self insert to romance a specific character, peddle some point, or as some weird-ass self-promotion. Then you have the bandwagoners who chase fandom fads like "Luna dindu nuffin". Guess we had a lot of everything, eh.

 

Then there's my problem. I like powers that are way beyond canon character pay grade, so I'd need to make my own heroes if I ever wanted to make stories , or I could use my G5 Apocrypha Mane 6, but those are already in my world so there's no point. One could argue that the Apocrypha 6 are my taboo OCs. What can I say. I am a villain after all

Edited October 9, 2018 by Goat-kun
Wrong hole

[EpicEnergy 23,246]

I haven't noticed that, but I don't think it is a bad thing that powerful OC villains are powerful enough to fight canon characters.

[Goat-kun 2,531]

I still agree with myself. Go forth. Make villain OCs. Build me an army worthy of Moedor!

[Evil Pink One 13,552]

It's frowned upon because they are using other people's lives OC... Thus no originality. Usually villains that are overpowered with no good backstory is boring.....  Over powered heroes is also boring. Unless you make a good story....so all in alll if the story os bad...it dosn't matter of the villain is stronger or not....no one's gonna read it.

[Splashee 28,599]

On 9/12/2020 at 10:59 PM, Scar said:

I have to say that my characters could easily stand up to the canon cast in terms of power set and ability.

Of course. Your intellect probably outsmart the simple ways of ponies in the show. I have no problem with this, as that only forces the ponies, the good guys to become better and smarterer. A win win situation for everyone

[Evil Pink One 13,552]

Except pinky....you dont wanna mess with the pink pony.. did you see how he messed up hilda with her mind tricks