Why do some fans think the Mane 6 can't have anymore character Development?

[CypherHoof 26,479]

Tempted to suggest that, distinct from further character development of the Mane 6, adding the school and Young Six allowed Hasbro to produce a whole new set of playsets and figures, pretty important given some of their other lines have declining sales...

[Mirage 24,135]

1 hour ago, Happy Yoshi said:

Sigh. I try to say something profound and still people have to respond to me like I'm wrong. What's the point of even posting if people keep missing the point I was trying to make?

EDIT: I seriously want to be a good contributor without feeling like my words are insignificant. 

About the learning proverb - yes, and learning most importantly involves being challenged. I don't believe Jeric was trying to contradict you, I think his detailed and organized thought process found the comment too vague to calculate properly. I was asked to expound on a couple of my statements as well. No worries okay? And if he was trying to bust your bubble, then it's his own karma at risk.

[Twilight Luna 30,940]

43 minutes ago, Cypherhoof said:

Tempted to suggest that, distinct from further character development of the Mane 6, adding the school and Young Six allowed Hasbro to produce a whole new set of playsets and figures, pretty important given some of their other lines have declining sales...

But hasbro hasn’t released any new toys since the movie. 

[Will Guide 21,325]

33 minutes ago, Mirage said:

About the learning proverb - yes, and learning most importantly involves being challenged. I don't believe Jeric was trying to contradict you, I think his detailed and organized thought process found the comment too vague to calculate properly. I was asked to expound on a couple of my statements as well. No worries okay? And if he was trying to bust your bubble, then it's his own karma at risk.

No, I know @Jeric means well. I just wish I could write well thought posts like yours.

[Mirage 24,135]

1 hour ago, Happy Yoshi said:

No, I know @Jeric means well. I just wish I could write well thought posts like yours.

Well I appreciate that my friend. But your contribution along with others is what inspired me to write mine.

Heh? Heh? See where I'm going? Good discussions become more and more insightful and everyone is to blame.

 

[RulesofRarity 489]

I think we've gotten to the point where the writers don't really know what to do with the Mane Six anymore. We see this the most with Twilight, she's forgetting lessons she's already learnt and she's become the writer's mouthpiece to force their beliefs onto the audience. Pinkie Pie has been a stagnant character for years and I don't see her improving in Season 9, if anything she's gotten worse(Yaxity Sax was just awful).

[Sepul-Coloratura 756]

AI think it gives the writers a hard job to handle if they keep the characters grow and change.

Later episodes obviously feels less organic and feels like individual writers worked on their own episodes with only the basic knowledge of the character’s gimmick and not knowing everything what they have all been through and not having a deep understanding of them (It takes a long time to watch all episodes). So the fans can actually point out more errors on the character’s continuity than the writers. (they couldn’t make something like Yakity-Sax if they have just watched Too Many Pinkie Pies or A Friend In Deed.)

They only work on few datum points for certain seasonal continuity (mostly on premiere and finale - like Chancellor Neighsay) or they give the illusion of continuity by just mentioning previous incidents only by dialogue without actually doing something about it.

 

I also think the character’s development isn’t over when they become ‘perfect’. Character development isn’t about a character from being less perfect and whole to being perfect and whole. Because A : there is no such thing as being perfect, B : a person’s mind isn’t a closed system with an ending point, C : a character’s development is also about relationship with others and with the world around them. So if they face stuff in life and meet friends (even old ones), there are always infinite chances for character development. 

A character arc isn’t always about becoming a ‘better’ self, it’s about changing. And also they can go back and forth. They can go back to their old self because they are not machines. (I’m not saying they should become worse) MLP is about learning a moral lesson, but personalities are not on a one dimensional scale. (It’s not all about shy <-> less shy.)

There are examples like Star Trek  where the captain is almost perfect and moral, smart, reasonable, but still gets through lots of stuff.

If the show just focuses on The Mane 6 doing stuff and being with their friends and family, we wouldn’t complain. If the show just showed the Apple family getting through lots of trouble running the farm, just showing new perspectives like how they introduced Zap Apples and Timberwolves or the cidar season of Ponyville to the audiences, it would be a good Applejack’s character development. Because character development isn’t just about overcoming their weaknesses, it’s also about the world around her. Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash doing pranks together for the first time and getting to know each other better is also a character development because their relationship changed. If they showed Twilight doing royal duties, it would be her character development and people would less complain about her being a princess. (don’t just mention it by dialogue or stack a pile of papers in front of her.)

And character’s past and familily members are’nt necessary for character development. (for example, The Parent Map was a terrible episode and it actually didn’t  did much about the character’s development)

If the show gave the impression like that there isn’t much more left for character development, it actually isn’t true. It’s just the story bad.

Edited October 23, 2018 by Sepul-Coloratura

[CypherHoof 26,479]

4 hours ago, Twilight Luna said:

But hasbro hasn’t released any new toys since the movie. 

Maybe they are releasing them closer to xmas?

[Twilight Luna 30,940]

9 minutes ago, Cypherhoof said:

Maybe they are releasing them closer to xmas?

It looks like a lot coming out but nothing is in stores yet. You would think Hasbro would had toys ready for season 8 but they didn’t. Hasbro kept milking to sales from the movie.  No friendship school play set or toys of the student six. Nothing.

 

https://www.mlpmerch.com/2018/02/my-little-pony-ny-toy-fair-wrap-up.html

 

Edited October 23, 2018 by Twilight Luna

[gingerninja666 487]

My personal belief isn't that the Mane 6 are incapable of being developed more, but the type of storytelling and the type of morals this show goes for increasingly strains belief with the mane cast as the main characters.

If the show was retooled to focus more on long arcs or allowed more stories without a need for a moral, then yeah. The cast still work completely fine. But despite babysteps here and there, the show's bread and butter is still slice of life morality plays where the main character does something wrong, screws up, and learns a lesson. I don't know how sustainable that is for years and years with the same characters. I remember as early as season 3, people thought that Applejack was already at a point where she's too good to be learning lessons in this way. In a longform character arc you can have a character regress or have stumbling blocks, and can spend many episodes getting them past a single specific character flaw. In this type of show, there's an expectation that when a character learns a moral in such an overt way, that it'll stick.

So the crew will sometimes introduce new characters to learn lessons.

[Singe 2,109]

What has hit the limit is the Mane 6 growth on friendship between their circle. They've done almost everything the show allows them and repeated some things.

There is always room to have a Mane 6 try to get along with someone outside their circle.  

[CypherHoof 26,479]

14 hours ago, Twilight Luna said:

It looks like a lot coming out but nothing is in stores yet. You would think Hasbro would had toys ready for season 8 but they didn’t. Hasbro kept milking to sales from the movie.  No friendship school play set or toys of the student six. Nothing.

 

https://www.mlpmerch.com/2018/02/my-little-pony-ny-toy-fair-wrap-up.html

The small molded figures look a lot like the "pencil eraser" fluttershy I have - that array was limited though (there was no rarity or aj) although Twi WAS an alicorn instead of the unicorn she is in most of the plushes I see.

Am I to understand that the Young six are being released paired with a mane 6 figure, rather than a set (so, sandbar and twi, silverstream and flutters...)

Seems odd pairings too. It would make more sense for silverstream and pinkie, with ocellus matched to fluttershy....

Edited October 23, 2018 by Cypherhoof

[Twilight Luna 30,940]

26 minutes ago, Cypherhoof said:

The small molded figures look a lot like the "pencil eraser" fluttershy I have - that array was limited though (there was no rarity or aj) although Twi WAS an alicorn instead of the unicorn she is in most of the plushes I see.

Am I to understand that the Young six are being released paired with a mane 6 figure, rather than a set (so, sandbar and twi, silverstream and flutters...)

I’m guessing so but nothings has been released yet. You would think that Hasbro would have released the figures when season 8 started.

There are some Friendship School sets out but no student 6.

https://toywiz.com/my-little-pony/playsets/

[Thrond 3,257]

The show isn't putting much effort into finding new directions for them, and some people just don't seem willing to accept that the show might be mishandled or misguided in some way. I also think people confuse story arcs with character development. Just because one story arc is done doesn't mean that nothing new can be done with a character. 

Though maybe the target audience and specific format of the show doesn't really suit these characters' lives anymore. Maybe they can be developed, but not in ways which can teach morals to children. I don't know if I believe that, but it's the most convincing argument I can come up with. 

Anyway, that's a reason why I favour Equestria Girls right now: it rids these characters of all their baggage and does something different with them. 

On 10/22/2018 at 11:53 AM, Jeric said:

brusable yak

I want this

On 10/22/2018 at 12:12 PM, Mirage said:

(think, VA contracts and possible annual threats of moving on...).

This reminds me that I should read more of the comics. Actor contracts aren't a problem if you don't have voices. 

 

[heavens-champion 1,893]

On ‎10‎/‎22‎/‎2018 at 2:32 PM, Mirage said:

If the show turns back to the mane 6, they will not only disappoint a huge fan base, but they will sever the logical flow of many seasons of development to introduce these new characters. This was a significant problem with the movie...the movie had little integration with the show's storyline.

And I don't think the show has the liberty of George R.R. Martin to continuously compost and remake its cast.

So they wouldn't be able to develop the new characters?

[Mirage 24,135]

42 minutes ago, heavens-champion said:

So they wouldn't be able to develop the new characters?

Rather the opposite - the show has moved on to deveping new characters and places. The mane 6 are still around obviously, since they can't kill them off like Martin would.

[Will Guide 21,325]

On 10/22/2018 at 5:07 PM, Sepul-Coloratura said:

I also think the character’s development isn’t over when they become ‘perfect’. Character development isn’t about a character from being less perfect and whole to being perfect and whole. Because A : there is no such thing as being perfect, B : a person’s mind isn’t a closed system with an ending point, C : a character’s development is also about relationship with others and with the world around them. So if they face stuff in life and meet friends (even old ones), there are always infinite chances for character development. 

While what you said up there I agree with greatly, I'll have to equally disagree with you on this point

On 10/22/2018 at 5:07 PM, Sepul-Coloratura said:

And character’s past and familily members are’nt necessary for character development. (for example, The Parent Map was a terrible episode and it actually didn’t  did much about the character’s development)

That's your opinion about it being a bad episode. Any episode that expands on a character's life, backstory, or family can never be a waste of time in my eyes. 

Besides, objective fact is NOT the same subjective opinion on any given episode or whatever.

[Sepul-Coloratura 756]

21 hours ago, Happy Yoshi said:

That's your opinion about it being a bad episode. Any episode that expands on a character's life, backstory, or family can never be a waste of time in my eyes. 

Besides, objective fact is NOT the same subjective opinion on any given episode or whatever.

I said it is a bad episode not just because it was not fun, but also because it failed on what it was supposed to do; character development.

Because even now we know Sunburst's mom and Starlight's dad, and their old town, it doesn't add much except wiping out one or two of fan's wishlist. For example, let's say if an episode just explains about what Pinkie's favorite candy flavor is, it wouldn't add that much. But if it also shows it was because of her memories with her sister Maud or something and explains why she acts a certain way, it would mean that much. If a certain factor has to contribute to a character's development, we should be able to infer something more from that character by using that information. So, my point is : yes, in that episode, we get to know about the character's background and surroundings, but it has not much depth to it.

Nonetheless, this is more important than what I just said, and it can obscure my point by saying it, but I think an episode being fun should be the No.1 priority anyway. If the episode is not good, it is not just a waste of 20 minutes, it is also a wasted opportunity to introduce that factor (ex. their parents) in a way the character deserves. Just showing any character's family members and their everyday life is easy. What hard is about how to show them. Stories and characters in are two counterparts bound up to each other. Stories are told by using characters and characters reveal themselves throughout the story. So I said the episode was bad, it also means the way of revealing characters are bad. = Bad character development.

Edited October 26, 2018 by Sepul-Coloratura

[Dashy 4 Ever 4,832]

A lot of those people think this because they think the Mane 6 had enough seasons and episodes to themselves. I on the other hand, just want Hasbro to continue with the Mane 6 and maybe add a few more interesting things to their personalities.

[Brainstorm 4,092]

I think, the Main Six and Spike are achieving their dreams and goals, they're still the same characters, just, with a little development.

As long as they don't change too much, just enough to show that they've improved.

[Singe 2,109]

Twilight could have had growth in the whole position of being a princess. Have her struggle with the concepts of royal duties and royal staff getting in the way her life. Introduce a royal body guard as an addition to the group.