Wasted potential for the show

[CastletonSnob 3,045]

As good of a show as MLP is, it has quite a few ideas or characters that had the potential to be great, but never got fully explored.

What wasted potential did the show have, in your opinion?

[Tom Gallagher 33,546]

It had the potential to go on forever in my opinion. 

[Castle Bleck 19,241]

Redeeming Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara… to do nothing else with them.

Never revealing Spike's parent(s).

And ignoring every idea from Sombra's comics… to use him as a strawman.

Edited Saturday at 07:45 PM by Castle Bleck

[Landi 598]

The big thing that comes to mind about wasted potential is the worldbuilding of Equestrian locations. From Fillydelphia, to Stratusburgh, to Hollow Shades, and more, there was so much potential for exploring new Equestrian locations. It's not just the undiscovered ones that had potential, but also many featured locations, especially Cloudsdale. Yet Cloudsdale was hardly ever shown more than a couple times, despite having so much potential for being a really fun and interesting location. The same thing goes for the Equestrian places that weren't shown. Instead, the writers tried to worldbuild outside of Equestria instead of inside it. And frankly, a lot of the "outside of Equestria" locations were lackluster at best. 

Another thing I found as slightly wasted potential are the pegasi. From the start, pegasi were very interesting and had so much potential, but unfortunately they were pretty underutilized by the writers. Flight, weather control, cloudtop cities; there are so many interesting things regarding these awesome winged ponies, yet the show rarely explored and dwelved into these things. Unicorns and their abilities got so much focus, yet pegasi (and even Earth Ponies) were often shafted off to the side it seemed.

Also I'd like to mention the pillars, for they were introduced to practically just disappear right afterwards. Instead of developing them a bit more and showing their struggles of finding their place in modern Equestria, the writers randomly threw in a school and some students. The pillars were definitely wasted potential.

There are more, but these are the three big examples of wasted potential that came to mind.

[JMTV99 1,348]

For me personally, I felt this show had SO much potential if they gave almost each and every character have their own backstory episodes or flashback moments. Honestly, I really LOVE backstories and flashback moments in this show because they were so fascinating and so interesting. Plus, seeing the characters as young foals are so cute. I would've love to see a Celestia and Luna backstory episode in the show because I want to know their relationship as sisters before Luna became Nightmare Moon. Heck, how about Twilight's old friends from Canterlot? Spike? Pinkie? Dashie? Applejack and the Apple family? C'mon.

Another thing that I felt that is another missed opportunity from this show is that they never brought back characters after they were reformed like Gilda and Diamond Tiara. I really want to see them come back because they're reformations was great and I want to see them expand upon as characters, but man, it sucks that we were not going to see them again, besides a few cameos.

Also, this might be an unpopular opinion, but I would like to see other characters had their own episodes because it would have a lot more variety. Or, if you want to include the Main 6, you can do it in a way in which it make sense.

Finally, I want to see the real Grogar than just Discord disguising as him because that was such a cop-out, in my opinion. Grogar had such potential to be the final big baddie, but the way the series handled him is really baffling to me.

There's more that I could go on, but that's just the gist of it.

Edited May 8, 2021 by JMTV99

[PerlsteinProps 26,511]

Grogar being real, Starlight's backstory, Celestia and Luna's parents. I'll post more here when I get ideas.

[Silly Druid 6,409]

Other than things already mentioned:

Breezies. The way they were introduced made them look pretty annoying. A different approach could lead to making them more likable, also they should be an integral part of the world, instead of living in something like a separate dimension.

The story of Gusty the Great should be explored more.

The return of Scorpan, which could lead to Tirek's redemption.

[Megas 27,338]

Oh lord where do I begin? The wasted potential really starts to show at the latter half of the show, because by that point it's either poor-to-outright boneheaded decisions, to the writers simply not caring

- The constant teasing of Spike's origins, problems can be traced back to Dragon Quest, with their instance on having the dragons being personified by being a bunch of teenage douchebags, but even when they tried to improve things with things like Ember and Smolder, they still insisted on having those same teens as reoccurring characters for some asinine reason. And then there's the debacle with Sludge, where they introduced him on being Spike's dad only to chicken out and saying he wasn't in the end of the episode. Yeah he was an unlikable character but it would have actually been ballsy if such a loser really was Spike's dad, but no that would have actually been interesting, so of course they didn't do it

- The Wonderbolts good lord. Let's ignore the fact that after they brought RD into the team with such a fuck you of a milestone episode, even after she joined them they proceeded to do fuck all with it, No rescue missions? No expanding the team or how they are as regular ponies? Not even just an episode of them hanging out? Not even an episode featuring Spitfire and Daring Do, Dash's supposed heroes, teaming up? Some of these sound like common sense ideas. This just tells me they never cared and just wanted to get it over with(which is even more telling since Haber dumped it on a new writer instead making sure it was as good as it could be just like he did for every other character or the Lady Writers in other major episodes)

Spoiler

actually that new writer initially did a good job with it and the episode was only ruined once it entered the editing process, really makes you think

There's also the fact that in S9 they teased the idea of Silverstream wanting to be a Wonderbolt, which might have actually lead to interesting development for both RD and Silverstream, and it.....amounted to absolutely nothing. What the hell was the point of even teasing that development if you were gonna do nothing with it. But nope people would have liked it and it would eat up into all those fucking buckball and cheerleading episodes no one asked for. IDW fucks up a lot of things but at least they fucking try with the Wonderbolts

- Rainbow Dash in general after the leaks I'm 100% convinced they hated her and were punishing you if you were a RD fan by actively sabotaging the character and her episodes. Almost every single one of her episodes from S6 onward would have been perfectly fine if they had just left them the fuck alone

- Scootaloo's parents. I was always against the idea of her being an orphan but they managed to make it the better alternative when they introduced her parents. Like they actually explained that they're never around for Scootaloo and they actually try to convince us that it's perfectly okay because they're the greatest ponies ever by basing them off real life heroes. But I'm sorry, that's a load of bullshit especially since one of those heroes always tried to be with his kids whenever he had the chance. There's also the fact that they also had to explain Scootaloo's living condition by having her rotate sitters which just sounds like a miserable experience, they really should have just 'Shining Armor'd her aunts by having them take care of them the whole time, because what they actually went with doesn't exactly make them look good either.

- Scorpan, Grogar and Gusty the Great had a lot of lore built up for them only for the show to once again, do nothing with it, with the latter two especially being loved characters among G1 fans, and for the show to do nothing with this is extremely disappointing. The latter two especially for how they eventually went about them. Scorpan was Spike's friend with in the G1 cartoon and it would have really been interesting to see this potentially recreated in FiM. And don't even get me started on Grogar, after several seasons of people asking to see him again they finally bring him back only to pull the rug with one of the most genuinely insulting twists I've ever seen in a cartoon. And the excuses for this shit, "we wanted to use the Terrible Trio as the lead villains because it's personal", screw you for baiting fans with a fan favorite character with cool powers only for a twist that actively destroys the entire purpose of the final damn season, because "LOL DiScOrD jUsT wAnTeD tO tEaCh TwIlIgHt A lEsSoN!!1!" fuck off

- The Pillars OH BOY. These guys had some pretty insane build up both with 3 episodes leading to them going into the modern world as well as finally getting to see Starswirl in the flesh, on top of getting an entire comic subline dedicated to building them up. But as soon as the next season rolled along they were thrown into the trash as soon as the writers got new toys to play with. Then there was the fact that the leaks showed the only ones they would ever considered ever reusing were Starswirl and Rockhoof, FUCKING WHY? What's the damn point of even coming up with them if you were just gonna fucking pretend over half of them never even fucking existed?

- Celestia is a no brainer. Much like Dragon Quest this problem even dates back to S2. It was bad to the point where they specifically go out of their way to leave her out from the other princess helping Twilight at one point, like that shit just had to be intentional. It shouldn't have taken 7-8 seasons to give her a damn episode, especially when only one of those were along the lines of what one should expect for her(Celestial Advice). Even goddamn Equestria Girls treated her so much better

- A whole plethora of side characters that never got much out of one or two appearances despite adding a lot to the show and other characters. Gilda brought a lot more to the show in terms of lore, characters, and backstory, but she was evidently ignore for new characters like Gabby or Gallus, likewise with the likes of Lightning Dust, Suri Polomare, Moondancer, Coloratura, Autumn Blaze, but dammit, we apparently needed more Flim Flam, Garble, Snips and Snails

- The Student Six can could have worked if they weren't tied to such a terrible idea like the school of friendship. They evidently wanted Yona to become a sort of apprentice for Rarity(with her "She's All Yak" spiel and her supposedly helping run the Carousel Boutique in the finale) then there was also the previously mentioned Wonderbolt Silverstream tease that amounted to nothing. The Student Six being personal apprentices for the M6 sounds much more interesting and could have done wonders for them, especially since they were mostly crap in the development department save for Smolder and maybe Gallus

End rant

Edited May 20, 2021 by Megas

[JMTV99 1,348]

26 minutes ago, Megas said:

Oh lord where do I begin? The wasted potential really starts to show at the latter half of the show, because by that point it's either poor-to-outright boneheaded decisions, to the writers simply not caring

- The constant teasing of Spike's origins, problems can be traced back to Dragon Quest, with their instance on having the dragons being personified by being a bunch of teenage douchebags, but even when they tried to improve things with things like Ember and Smolder, they still insisted on having those same teens as reoccurring characters for some asinine reason. And then there's the debacle with Sludge, where they introduced him on being Spike's dad only to chicken out and saying he wasn't in the end of the episode. Yeah he was an unlikable character but it would have actually been ballsy if such a loser really was Spike's dad, but no that would have actually been interesting, so of course they didn't do it

- The Wonderbolts good lord. Let's ignore the fact that after they brought RD into the team with such a fuck you of a milestone episode, even after she joined them they proceeded to do fuck all with it, No rescue missions? No expanding the team or how they are as regular ponies? Not even just an episode of them hanging out? Not even an episode featuring Spitfire and Daring Do, Dash's supposed heroes, teaming up? Some of these sound like common sense ideas. This just tells me they never cared and just wanted to get it over with(which is even more telling since Haber dumped it on a new writer instead making sure it was as good as it could be just like he did for every other character or the Lady Writers in other major episodes)

  Reveal hidden contents

actually that new writer initially did a good job with it and the episode was only ruined once it entered the editing process, really makes you think

There's also the fact that in S9 they teased the idea of Silverstream wanting to be a Wonderbolt, which might have actually lead to interesting development for both RD and Silverstream, and it.....amounted to absolutely nothing. What the hell was the point of even teasing that development if you were gonna do nothing with it. But nope people would have liked it and it would eat up into that fucking cheerleading episode. IDW fucks up a lot of things but at least they fucking try with the Wonderbolts

- Rainbow Dash in general after the leaks I'm 100% convinced they hated her and were punishing you if you were a RD fan by actively sabotaging the character and her episodes. Almost every single episode from S6 onward would have been perfectly fine if they had just left them the fuck alone

- Scootaloo's parents. I was always against the idea of her being an orphan but they managed to make it the better alternative when they introduced her parents. Like they actually explained that they're never around for Scootaloo and they actually try to convince us that it's perfectly okay because they're the greatest ponies ever by basing them off real life heroes. But I'm sorry, that's a load of bullshit especially since one of those heroes always tried to be with his kids whenever he had the chance. There's also the fact that they also had to explain Scootaloo's living condition by having her rotate sitters which just sounds like a miserable experience, they really should have just 'Shining Armor'd her aunts by having them take care of them the whole time, because it doesn't exactly make them look good either.

- Scorpan, Grogar and Gusty the Great had a lot of lore built up for them only for the show to once again, do nothing with it, with the latter two especially being loved characters among G1 fans, and for the show to do nothing with this is extremely disappointing. The latter two especially for how they eventually went about them. Scorpan was Spike's friend with in the G1 cartoon and it would have really been interesting to see this potentially recreated in FiM. And don't even get me started on Grogar, after several seasons of people asking to see him again they finally bring him back only to pull the rug with one of the most genuinely insulting twists I've ever seen in a cartoon. And the excuses for this shit, "we wanted to use the Terrible Trio as the lead villains because it's personal", screw you for baiting fans with a fan favorite character with cool powers only for a twist that actively destroys the entire purpose of the final damn season, because "LOL DiScOrD jUsT wAnTeD tO tEaCh TwIlIgHt A lEsSoN!!1!" fuck off

- The Pillars OH BOY. These guys had some pretty insane build up both with 3 episodes leading to them going into the modern world as well as finally getting to see Starswirl in the flesh, on top of getting an entire comic subline dedicated to building them up. But as soon as the next season rolled along they were thrown into the trash as soon as they got new toys to play with. Then there was the fact that the leaks showed the only ones they would ever considered ever reusing were Starswirl and Rockhoof, FUCKING WHY? What's the damn point of even coming up with them if you were just gonna fucking pretend over half of them never even fucking existed?

- Celestia is a no brainer. Much like Dragon Quest this problem even dates back to S2. It was bad to the point where they specifically go out of their way to leave her out from the other princess helping Twilight at one point, like that shit just had to be intentional. It shouldn't have taken 7-8 seasons to give her a damn episode, especially when only one of those were along the lines of what one should expect for her(Celestial Advice). Even goddamn Equestria Girls treated her so much better

- A whole plethora of side characters that never got much out of one or two appearances despite adding a lot to the show and other characters. Gilda brought a lot more to the show in terms of lore, characters, and backstory, but she was evidently ignore for new characters like Gabby or Gallus, likewise with the likes of Lightning Dust, Suri Polomare, Moondancer, Coloratura, Autumn Blaze, but dammit, we apparently needed more Flim Flam, Garble, Snips and Snails

- The Student Six can could have worked if they weren't tied to such a terrible idea like the school of friendship. They evidently wanted Yona to become a sort of apprentice for Rarity(with her "She's All Yak" spiel and her supposedly helping run the Carousel Boutique in the finale) then there was also the previously mentioned Wonderbolt Silverstream tease that amounted to nothing. The Student Six being personal apprentices for the M6 sounds much more interesting and could have done wonders for them, especially since they were mostly crap in the development department save for Smolder and maybe Gallus

End rant

Yeah, I definitely do agree with all of your points, dude. I honestly think the later seasons, while it has good episodes, felt like the writers were trying way too hard to subvert their audience's expectations for all the crap they pulled, but they completely missed the point on what made Friendship is Magic so great. 

[PerlsteinProps 26,511]

- Locations. Plenty of missed chances, I wish we could have seen all the locations of the past. They never built upon the castle of the two sisters, nor did they explore the locations in the show very much at all. 

- Batponies. I wish batponies were shown in the show as loyal to Nightmare Moon and Luna, with various episodes focusing on the batponies themselves.

- Scorpan returning, if Scorpan returned it would be an interesting path to reforming Tirek. Maybe Tirek saves his brother from something and realizes the true meaning of friendship.

- Grogar needed to have been a real thing, so we would have an interesting finale. Gusty the great should have appeared too.

- King Sombra in his original return lacked a personality, his return really needed a better backstory and characterization, I wish the comics were in the show with how they dealt with his backstory and Radiant hope. 

- Nightmare Moon in season 1 felt a bit underdeveloped, I wish she actually took over Equestria and became a better ruler than Celestia.

- Background ponies, Octavia, Lyra, Bon Bon, Derpy, etc should have been featured so much more.

- Parents of all the characters, most importantly of Celestia and Luna.

- Discord being reformed in a more sensible and satisfying manner.
 

- Celestia becoming Daybreaker / Nightmare Star at the end of the final and became the final villain.

- School of friendship should have never happened. Period.

- I'd like to have more episodes focusing on the day to day lives of each pony and character.

- Maud meets the villains. 'Nuff said.
 

- Literally every character had missing potential and really could have been fleshed out and built upon much more than they were.

- The planetary system of Equestria, an episode about going to the moon or into space.

- Lack of origin and background stories for most of the characters.

 

[nataalya 42]

gosh these opinions are so accurate... this show had so much to show us more and we must to get a new generation - oh cmon... personally, I really liked the final and opening episodes. I really enjoyed the episodes going beyond these basic places where we get more adventure than lessons like you know... that's one about Spike when he tried to find out his own path or "Sleepless in Ponyville". Yeah they were really cool. Wonderbolts' Academy was epic and this one about Daring Doo when RD was trying to help her. The Movie the same - but when I watched it, I had an impression as if they had cut or forgotten half the stuff. (I don't need to develop my mind very much, just read others on the forum here , but that's understandable to me. The Movie was very dynamic and too short to implement the other characters too, and let us know that world more.)

Anyway, I don't think writers have that much work. It will be enough for them to integrate with fandom and take some inspiration... because the ideas here are really great, very often better than the original as I see (fit the show very well... okay, I'm not talking about EVERYTHING like a Rainbow Factory or smth  but this topic shows it so much) but they didn't. What a pity.

[Cagey 4,216]

Scorpan, Zecora’s backstory, Scootaloo’s parents, Diamond Tiara, Starlight’s backstory, the Pillars, underused species, and the locations come to mind the most. 

[CastletonSnob 3,045]

How about Thorax and Ember? They got pushed to the side in favor of that stupid Friendship School.

We could have had more episodes with Spike, Thorax and Ember hanging out.

[Twilight Luna 31,207]

One that comes to mind was with the Mean Six. They could have gotten the elements and twisted them like Discord did in season 2. Instead of exploring that, they were killed off by the tree of harmony. Let's not forget that Chrysalis never did anything with the fact that she learned the location of the tree of harmony.   The episode could have been the introduction of some great villains but it ended up being wasted.

[HedonismBot 229]

9 hours ago, Megas said:

There's also the fact that in S9 they teased the idea of Silverstream wanting to be a Wonderbolt, which might have actually lead to interesting development for both RD and Silverstream, and it.....amounted to absolutely nothing. What the hell was the point of even teasing that development if you were gonna do nothing with it. But nope people would have liked it and it would eat up into that fucking cheerleading episode. IDW fucks up a lot of things but at least they fucking try with the Wonderbolts

Plus the future scenes of "The Last Problem" put a fair amount of emphasis on non-ponies integrating into Equestrian society. A shot of Silverstream as a Wonderbolt would have fit beautifully with that.

 

17 hours ago, Megas said:

- Scootaloo's parents. I was always against the idea of her being an orphan but they managed to make it the better alternative when they introduced her parents. Like they actually explained that they're never around for Scootaloo and they actually try to convince us that it's perfectly okay because they're the greatest ponies ever by basing them off real life heroes. But I'm sorry, that's a load of bullshit especially since one of those heroes always tried to be with his kids whenever he had the chance. There's also the fact that they also had to explain Scootaloo's living condition by having her rotate sitters which just sounds like a miserable experience, they really should have just 'Shining Armor'd her aunts by having them take care of them the whole time, because it doesn't exactly make them look good either.

Plus they claimed that they were only looking out for Scootaloo's safety when they wanted to yank her away from the ponies that had actually served as her family, then accidentally released a dangerous creature into the schoolhouse. And at the end, they outright admitted to valuing their careers over being there for their child. Some fans have suggested that the episode should have gone the "mature" route and had Scootaloo actually move away with them, but under the circumstances that would have just come off as an unforgivable dick move.

For what it's worth, their appearance in the Season 10 comic didn't paint them in a much better light. The first thing they did with Scootaloo was try to get her involved in what they do for a living (including sticking her hoof in a cragadile's mouth), rather than exploring what she likes to do.

[Toastypk 922]

I wanted to see the Pillars have more prominence  after their return, being such major ponies in Equestria. They did have that one episode about them, primarily Rockhoof, then they got their plots handed to them by Tirek. (And Stygian nowhere in sight either time :s )

They do have comic focus though.

[JMTV99 1,348]

1 hour ago, HedonismBot said:

Plus they claimed that they were only looking out for Scootaloo's safety when they wanted to yank her away from the ponies that had actually served as her family, then accidentally released a dangerous creature into the schoolhouse. And at the end, they outright admitted to valuing their careers over being there for their child. Some fans have suggested that the episode should have gone the "mature" route and had Scootaloo actually move away with them, but under the circumstances that would have just come off as an unforgivable dick move.

To be honest, I'll much rather had Rainbow Dash's parents adopted Scootaloo because that would've a much more of a happier ending for Scoots than "moving away with her parents" despite they never taking care of her in the first place.

[Solar Power 262]

I find this a difficult question to answer since there will always be underused characters, locations and concepts. I'm just grateful for what we got. So much was explored over the 200+ episodes. We got to know each of the mane six really well, got to meet all their parents and siblings, explored numerous locations and met so many other characters.

On 2021-05-08 at 11:10 PM, Orcus on His Throne said:

Never revealing Spike's biological parent(s).

I was thinking this too, but I find the message at the end of Father Knows Beast very touching. That ultimately it doesn't matter - Twilight is his family.

[Venomous 18,843]

@CastletonSnob

Altered title for grammar..

[HedonismBot 229]

It would have been nice to see more of the Kirin, specifically what their culture is like when they're not living under the idea that turning themselves into fleshy robots is more convenient than practicing healthy anger management.

9 hours ago, JMTV99 said:

To be honest, I'll much rather had Rainbow Dash's parents adopted Scootaloo because that would've a much more of a happier ending for Scoots than "moving away with her parents" despite they never taking care of her in the first place.

That might have been a bit problematic, seeing as Rainbow Dash's parents live in Cloudsdale.

[JMTV99 1,348]

1 minute ago, HedonismBot said:

That might have been a bit problematic, seeing as Rainbow Dash's parents live in Cloudsdale.

Okay, fair enough.

[Solar Power 262]

On 2021-05-10 at 2:19 PM, HedonismBot said:

It would have been nice to see more of the Kirin, specifically what their culture is like when they're not living under the idea that turning themselves into fleshy robots is more convenient than practicing healthy anger management.

That might have been a bit problematic, seeing as Rainbow Dash's parents live in Cloudsdale.

Why? There are plenty of ways for Scootaloo to get to and from Cloudsdale. She doesn't need to be able to fly.

[HedonismBot 229]

1 hour ago, Solar Power said:

Why? There are plenty of ways for Scootaloo to get to and from Cloudsdale. She doesn't need to be able to fly.

Depending on the availability of public transportation, it may still have meant splitting up the Cutie Mark Crusaders, (though not as badly as if she had moved to the ass-end of nowhere with her biological parents).

Though if she could get herself a hang glider (or a set of those artificial wings that got an earth pony into the Wonderbolts in that one comic), I suppose it wouldn't be so bad. And Cloudsdale would probably be the best place to find a doctor who specializes in pegasi who are having trouble flying.

Also, a number of fanfics play with the idea of Scootaloo being adopted by Rainbow Dash herself.

[ZiggWheelsManning 8,276]

34 minutes ago, HedonismBot said:

Depending on the availability of public transportation, it may still have meant splitting up the Cutie Mark Crusaders, (though not as badly as if she had moved to the ass-end of nowhere with her biological parents).

Though if she could get herself a hang glider (or a set of those artificial wings that got an earth pony into the Wonderbolts in that one comic), I suppose it wouldn't be so bad. And Cloudsdale would probably be the best place to find a doctor who specializes in pegasi who are having trouble flying.

Also, a number of fanfics play with the idea of Scootaloo being adopted by Rainbow Dash herself.

She would need to use Dash Rendar's jet pack or call up Tails to fly  

[Denim&Venöm 17,353]

Other than the Bat ponies? 

• Princess Cadence. She feels like what Hasbro wanted Celestia to be. The pretty pink traditional princess with a fairy tail wedding. Then they did buck all with her afterwords. The comics hinted at this with her being in the shadow of the other big three. Which is a shame as she shows signs of being the most competent leader of the bunch, like in Princess Spike, Games Ponies Play, the Crystaling, as well as a few moments of badassary in The Crystal Empire, The Hearthswarming special and The Beginning of the End. Even her backstory hinted at in the first cannon novel about her being an orphan redeeming a witch would've made a great episode. We don't even get any looks into her role as Twilight's foal sitter and big sister figure. 
• Changelings. I'm not a fan of the redesign. Getting beautified sorta takes away from the message of accepting someone as they are. The struggle for acceptance by ponies would've felt more real if they weren't rainbow bugs. And we don't know much about changelings to begin with. Blank slate does not count as lore. 
• Being a boy in a girls world. We don't really see Spike struggle with his identity as a male in a female dominated world. From his big sister and mother figure Twilight to the ruling goddesses of Equestria. We don't really see him confront those problems. Ask for the fatherly advice. Finding or being a big brother figure. Finding guy friends for his hobbies. Nope. We just find out he and big Mac have been hanging out the whole time. Yeah, he rejects toxic masculinity in Dragon Quest, but we don't really see displays of healthy masculinity afterwords. He's more a token child character than the token lone boy or little brother character. Also would've liked to have seen his Secret of my Excess final form again, like was advertised in the toys. 
• Semi-redemption of LoD. While getting petrified wasn't the worst call that could've been made regarding Tirek, Cozy Glow and Chrysalis, that would've been full on redemption, I think the three of them begrudgingly falling on that path and taking the first steps towards redemption would've been a better compromise. Let them realize that through their teamwork in Frenemies, that there really is something to the magic of friendship, joining in the fight against actual big bad Grogar. And then have an end credits scene of them stuck at school of friendship detention or something.
• A school of friendship/ EQG crossover. It practically writes itself.