Tirek's powers

[Rushing cash 836]

I don't know if you noticed(most fans probably did), but when tirek stole magic from ponies in season 9, they did not lose their cutie marks as oppose to season 4 when they lost their marks. While its likely an continuity error, I thought we can excuse it in universe as when the main 6 used the rainbow power on tirek in season 4 they took his capability of draining ponies of all their magic completely away.

Regarding his control over discords magic in season 4 and incapability in season 9, the stated above can also apply to it, or maybe he could only use discords forceful magic and not his chaotic. Although I think it's most likely due to the belle working slightly differently than tirek's magic stealing spell, That's why I also think he was more powerful at his second to last form than he was supposed to be(he destroyed the pillars in this form, while in supposed similar form he lost to starswirl and scorpan long ago).

What do you guys think of it?   

[EpicEnergy 23,218]

I think those explanations are sufficient enough to make this continuity error explainable in the canon. It's not confirmed in the canon that Tirek's ability to temporarily deprive ponies of their cutie mark was lost a result of being hit by the rainbow power of friendship in season 4 and because he regained his power through the bell, but it's also not denied either.

[Will Guide 21,360]

1 hour ago, Rushing cash said:

I don't know if you noticed(most fans probably did), but when tirek stole magic from ponies in season 9, they did not lose their cutie marks as oppose to season 4 when they lost their marks. While its likely an continuity error, I thought we can excuse it in universe as when the main 6 used the rainbow power on tirek in season 4 they took his capability of draining ponies of all their magic completely away.

Regarding his control over discords magic in season 4 and incapability in season 9, the stated above can also apply to it, or maybe he could only use discords forceful magic and not his chaotic. Although I think it's most likely due to the belle working slightly differently than tirek's magic stealing spell, That's why I also think he was more powerful at his second to last form than he was supposed to be(he destroyed the pillars in this form, while in supposed similar form he lost to starswirl and scorpan long ago).

What do you guys think of it?   

Don't forget that in the Season 9 episode when the Terrible Trio were causing trouble behind the scenes during the Summer Sun Celebration, remember they were only doing just to distract suspicious from their real goal of sneaking into the castle. Taking away their cutie marks would have caused more suspicion. Terik returned the stolen earth pony strength once they got what they wanted to avoid further suspicion beyond bad food sickness

[Castle Bleck 19,353]

He did use Discord's chaotic magic -- once -- in the S4 finale:

Maybe the writers just forgot.

Edited July 18, 2020 by Anti-Villain

[Will Guide 21,360]

6 minutes ago, Anti-Villain said:

He did use Discord's chaotic magic -- once -- in the S4 finale:

The writers just forgot, apparently.

The Writers didn't forget.

They clearly showed Cozy Glow going crazy with the Chaotic Magic the Terrible Trio stole from Discord using the Bell and how the Chaotic magic could turn against the villains if they tried to use it. But the Trio decided it was a bit too chaotic to control so they decided just keep the chaotic magic in the Bell so it can't be used against them.

 

[Splashee 28,564]

This feels more and more like a Josh Haber error to me. He wasn't around brfore the ending of Season 5.  Sometimes Season 4 seems just a little bit far away, even while rewatching it

[Goat-kun 2,527]

If the Bell is so powerful that it can turn someone into an alicorn, make Tirek more powerful even though he shouldn't be as powerful (or whatever), and withstand a supercharged rainbow blast, it should be able to override any residual rainbow magic.

 

If a world is ridden with inconsistencies, and you just have to explain it all in-universe, then you should start praying to the old gods. They alone can turn inconsistencies into a trait. I'd imagine that it also turns hipsters and fanboys into pink wojaks, so there's that added value to consider.

 

P.S. And it's not just cutie marks. Any loss of magic should turn them grey-ish. That is notan exclusive trait of Tirek's ability. It's a general rule. If Tirek drained Rockhoof to the point he reverted into his simp form, that should be more than enough to turn him grey.

[Rushing cash 836]

14 hours ago, Will Guide said:

Don't forget that in the Season 9 episode when the Terrible Trio were causing trouble behind the scenes during the Summer Sun Celebration, remember they were only doing just to distract suspicious from their real goal of sneaking into the castle. Taking away their cutie marks would have caused more suspicion. Terik returned the stolen earth pony strength once they got what they wanted to avoid further suspicion beyond bad food sickness

I am not forgetting it, in fact I was supporting this idea before the finale(it's still possible he did it on purpose in that episode) but he did drain the pillars and had no reason to not take all their magic, and yet as far as I can tell their CM remained and starswirl did ignite a spark of magic when he was captured, plus their eyes were not turned duller.  

 

12 hours ago, Goat-kun said:

P.S. And it's not just cutie marks. Any loss of magic should turn them grey-ish. That is notan exclusive trait of Tirek's ability. It's a general rule. If Tirek drained Rockhoof to the point he reverted into his simp form, that should be more than enough to turn him grey.

In the season 4 finale, the ponies did not turn grey, their eyes got duller but not their coat.

 

13 hours ago, Anti-Villain said:

He did use Discord's chaotic magic -- once -- in the S4 finale:

Maybe he can produce these bubbles on his own in his final form? We know that he is also a "earth bender" if you will  and he did not shown that power before draining discords magic and yet he does that in season 8 as well.

Edited July 19, 2020 by Rushing cash

[Goat-kun 2,527]

2 hours ago, Rushing cash said:

In the season 4 finale, the ponies did not turn grey, their eyes got duller but not their coat.

Except for the princesses who gave magic to Twilight willingly, yet Tirek was not able to drain them to the point where their eyes would fade. The grey effect or the fading effect happens a lot throughout the series in one form or another, and it's connected to destiny and magic of Friendship & Harmony (loss of friendship or social cohesion). However, it is indeed very inconsistent for being one of major negative visual effects.

 

We as fans should not play plot hole whack-a-mole for our glorious writers. It is a waste of energy ... Unless you can explain all past and future inconsistencies in one fell swoop.

[Rushing cash 836]

2 hours ago, Goat-kun said:

Except for the princesses who gave magic to Twilight willingly, yet Tirek was not able to drain them to the point where their eyes would fade. The grey effect or the fading effect happens a lot throughout the series in one form or another, and it's connected to destiny and magic of Friendship & Harmony (loss of friendship or social cohesion). However, it is indeed very inconsistent for being one of major negative visual effects.

 

 

 

We as fans should not play plot hole whack-a-mole for our glorious writers. It is a waste of energy ... Unless you can explain all past and future inconsistencies in one fell swoop.

 

You can always say its magic, so it works... somehow.

The whole flight thing with pegasi is also inconsistent, in season 4 they can't fly without magic but in season 8 finale they did.

[Goat-kun 2,527]

2 hours ago, Rushing cash said:

You can always say its magic, so it works... somehow.

The whole flight thing with pegasi is also inconsistent, in season 4 they can't fly without magic but in season 8 finale they did.

That's what it makes it all so frustrating, or at least it did while I cared about FIM's lore. In earlier seasons I too had tried to explain the inconsistencies. Fading while low on magic. K. I can explain a couple of variants and why it happens, but the inconsistencies just kept piling on until I flipped the proverbial table and forged The One Fanon to explain them all.

 

It's true that MLP is not for us, but that does not mean that we should accept bullshit. If staffers would not acknowledge us in any other way than when it's time to make fun of us in special episodes, then why should we try to fix what they think is not broken? If that is what you want, then make the final step and forge a fanon that canon can no longer reach.

 

So let's start from the beginning: what would explain all inconsistencies in FIM?

[Rushing cash 836]

18 minutes ago, Goat-kun said:

That's what it makes it all so frustrating, or at least it did while I cared about FIM's lore. In earlier seasons I too had tried to explain the inconsistencies. Fading while low on magic. K. I can explain a couple of variants and why it happens, but the inconsistencies just kept piling on until I flipped the proverbial table and forged The One Fanon to explain them all.

 

 

 

It's true that MLP is not for us, but that does not mean that we should accept bullshit. If staffers would not acknowledge us in any other way than when it's time to make fun of us in special episodes, then why should we try to fix what they think is not broken? If that is what you want, then make the final step and forge a fanon that canon can no longer reach.

 

 

 

So let's start from the beginning: what would explain all inconsistencies in FIM?

 

MLP was made for slice of life episodes and that explains some of the inconsistency errors, and small things like this actually does not frustrate me at all(you can even make some excuses in universe if you try(of course many don't try, and I can't really blame them either)), if anything what bugs me the most is that unicorns eventually became so OP, to avoid that they needed to establish ground rules first but they didn't and that's why magic became a plot device and many spells were one offs and there are inconsistencies regarding how powerful unicorns are. But we are off topic

[Goat-kun 2,527]

25 minutes ago, Rushing cash said:

MLP was made for slice of life episodes and that explains some of the inconsistency errors, and small things like this actually does not frustrate me at all(you can even make some excuses in universe if you try(of course many don't try, and I can't really blame them either)), if anything what bugs me the most is that unicorns eventually became so OP, to avoid that they needed to establish ground rules first but they didn't and that's why magic became a plot device and many spells were one offs and there are inconsistencies regarding how powerful unicorns are. But we are off topic

Unicorns being OP is largely due to magic being a plot device and a tool for the rule of cool. It's not "Can a unicorn do that?" but "What should a unicorn do to make a story/scene work?" That is why FIM magic users can literally do anything or be confusingly underwhelming from episode to episode. Things shown in episodes have no actual lore value.

[Sepul-Coloratura 762]

Why would someone assume that everything from MLP has a completely consistent reliable system? Sometimes they just do things without thinking it through. I don’t even think the new writers would always re-visit old episodes for references. They might have just went “Tirek. Bad guy. Drains magic. Strong. Write a story with him.” And that’s it. Let’s accept that MLP isn’t about the lore and the writers cares way less than the fans.

Or we could think everything is/has to be consistent and back up evidences backwards. Ad Hoc. There is a dragon in my garage. Where is it? It is invisible. Let’s spray powder on the ground to see it’s footprints. It floats. Let’s spray paint on it. This dragon has no physical form so it can’t have paint on it.

If we try to think there are always in-canon ways of explaining continuity errors, we end up having an over-complicated deformed rules that can be applied to one case at a time.

Not that I think that pointing out the details and thinking about it isn’t interesting.

Edited July 20, 2020 by Sepul-Coloratura

[Rushing cash 836]

On 7/20/2020 at 8:29 AM, Sepul-Coloratura said:

Why would someone assume that everything from MLP has a completely consistent reliable system? Sometimes they just do things without thinking it through. I don’t even think the new writers would always re-visit old episodes for references. They might have just went “Tirek. Bad guy. Drains magic. Strong. Write a story with him.” And that’s it. Let’s accept that MLP isn’t about the lore and the writers cares way less than the fans.

Or we could think everything is/has to be consistent and back up evidences backwards. Ad Hoc. There is a dragon in my garage. Where is it? It is invisible. Let’s spray powder on the ground to see it’s footprints. It floats. Let’s spray paint on it. This dragon has no physical form so it can’t have paint on it.

If we try to think there are always in-canon ways of explaining continuity errors, we end up having an over-complicated deformed rules that can be applied to one case at a time.

Not that I think that pointing out the details and thinking about it isn’t interesting.

Obviously, still I don't think making something up from a continuity error or something of the sort is bad or harmful, some things are clearly just that like spike at spike at your service or some moments with pinkie(I guess you can say that its pinkie but its really just a boring excuse nothing more and nothing less, same goes to some other inconsistencies), if you can manage to put the error and build on it in-universe than why not? If you don't want to it's fine, but there is no harm, its still a show, something that meant to be enjoyable, if someone enjoys this than good for them. I am not trying to explain everything, like the many clones in the first few seasons in the show, when some times a character appears a few times in the same shot, some animation errors are not really important to the story and from animating point of view, especially when the animators were not that experienced with the designs its totally understandable.

After all, this show is not exactly episodic, although it does have many arcs and overall story, the majority of the episodes are not really related to one another, add to that that there are many writers and the show during all its run had changed a few times the head stuff its reasonable to expect some errors.

[TheAnimationFanatic 3,594]

I think that Tirek's powers can be boiled down to energy absorption and energy manipulation. He absorbs the magic/life force out of other living beings, then uses said magic to increase his own strength.

[JH24 385]

On 7/18/2020 at 10:08 PM, Rushing cash said:

 

Regarding his control over discords magic in season 4 and incapability in season 9, the stated above can also apply to it, or maybe he could only use discords forceful magic and not his chaotic. Although I think it's most likely due to the belle working slightly differently than tirek's magic stealing spell, That's why I also think he was more powerful at his second to last form than he was supposed to be(he destroyed the pillars in this form, while in supposed similar form he lost to starswirl and scorpan long ago).

What do you guys think of it?   

I think you're right with this point. I got the impression Tirek absorbs magic and converts it into a (fuel) source to strengthen his entire being. The only requirement would be that he needs to be the one who absorbs it. If he absorbs a type of magic which possesses certain traits/quirks, he could use its raw power while bypassing any drawbacks associated with it.

The bell directly gives the magic it has stored to its recipient and Tirek won't have the means to "filter" it first.

Theoretically, if Cozy Glow got Discord's powers from the bell and Tirek then absorbed Cozy's chaos magic; he should be able to use it in the same way as he did in season 4, but I'm just speculating.

Edited July 22, 2020 by JH24

[Rushing cash 836]

8 hours ago, TheAnimationFanatic said:

I think that Tirek's powers can be boiled down to energy absorption and energy manipulation. He absorbs the magic/life force out of other living beings, then uses said magic to increase his own strength.

Pretty much, however I would like to focus more on the slight differences in his powers in season 9 compared to season 4, like why the cutie marks did not disappear in season 9, and why he don't want to absorb discords magic.

[JH24 385]

1 hour ago, Rushing cash said:

Pretty much, however I would like to focus more on the slight differences in his powers in season 9 compared to season 4, like why the cutie marks did not disappear in season 9, and why he don't want to absorb discords magic.

Those are good questions. I don't know the first one, but for the second one I would argue it's because Tirek was the most sincere in being a team player. After the Mean 3 had received their share of powers from the bell it would have been easy for Tirek to betray them and take their magic, but he never did. (Both Cozy and Chyrsalis showed hints they considered betrayal)

He could have tried absorbing Cozy's Discord's magic after she got it from the bell if he wanted to. (If it works that way) 

Chrysalis and Cozy know Tirek once tried to take over Equestria by absorbing all the magic and they know he betrayed Discord. But are they aware he also absorbed Discord's power back then? 

Edited July 22, 2020 by JH24

[Rushing cash 836]

9 hours ago, JH24 said:

Those are good questions. I don't know the first one

That is why I proposed this possibility: 

 

On 7/18/2020 at 11:08 PM, Rushing cash said:

when the main 6 used the rainbow power on tirek in season 4 they took his capability of draining ponies of all their magic completely away.

I theorize that in the ending of season 4, they took his ability to drain the ponies of all their magic, he can't drain them so much that they lose their CMs.