friendship games What if Principal Cinch was the final villain in Friendship Games?

[Denim&Venöm 16,510]

Looking back, it feels like Cinch was almost a bait and switch antagonist, looking like she'll be the final baddie somehow but instead she manipulates Sci-Twi into abusing magic and then gets stuck watching everything spiral out of control. The movie highlighted how far the human Twilight needed to go learning about friendship and how far Sunset Shimmer had come. 

But what if the movie wasn't as ambiguous and played it straight? What if towards the movies climax, Cinch took the magic for herself and became the big bad threatening the city and it would be up to kids from both schools banding together and using the magic friendship to stop her? How would the movie have been received then? How does the dynamic change with a trusted adult and authority figure in need of humility and redemption rather than a teen or young adult? Do we see Cinch atoning for her actions with the help of others or does she not learn her lesson and she gets punished instead? And overall, would this make the movie better or worse then what we would've gotten? Where would it rank among he EQG films? 

[Megas 27,064]

The bait and switch was really lame. The Shadowbolts felt like they wanted to capitalize on the Dazzlings' popularity both with as a group of 5 evil waifus(instead of 3) and as a nega-mane 6 in a sense, so for them to be heavily advertised only for them not to have much of a role, with Cinch being the "real villain" all along is just really lame, especially since her villainy is just peer pressure.

Making her the main main villain by having an evil transformation and all might have been actually interesting, so obviously they weren't going to go that route. I don't think she would have worked getting reformed, for her I'd still have her get fired and have her plotting her revenge, maybe make her a recurring antagonist if they had actually gotten it to become an actual series

[Sparklefan1234 161,867]

1. I imagine Principal Cinch's corrupted form would look like Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty.

 

2. It would make sense because Principal Cinch wanted to win the Friendship Games at any cost. 

 

3. Sci-Twi should have been the one to defeat Principal Cinch somehow, realized Crystal Prep Academy didn't suit her and

still ended up at  Canterlot High with the Humane 6 by using the same reasoning as the original movie.

Edited July 23, 2021 by Sparklefan1234

[Will Guide 21,325]

I will admit this it's as if Lady Tremaine from Cinderella suddenly invoked the temptation of Poor Unfortunate Soul with her song.

In fact I actually found a kind of refreshing that instead of having a big breakdown she calmly just takes a deep breath and walks away as if it was Lady Tremaine said "remember above all self control"

Some people would find a lame or boring villain to be a reason to hate the movie but if you ask me even normal people with no magic can be villains too cuz Tremaine herself actually cause a lot of trouble for our hero without magic. Even before Equestria Magic came to this world that principal was a bad influence on the entire School. So to me while she's not as big or grand as other villains within the My Little Pony franchise she still end up losing what she's been trying to keep (School reputation of being the best and always the winner) and (though mention briefly) is no longer in charge of the school anymore by the time we got to Dance Magic special. 

So to me, I believe she's decent enough villain. They don't all have to be big and bombastic. there needs to be variety when it comes to villains no matter what franchise or company

[Ganondorf8 11,118]

I think a lot of people were expecting Principal Cinch to be the one who ended up transforming (An Equestria Girls trope if there ever was one) given how much build-up there was throughout the movie in addition to her being featured during the title sequence which is reserved for the Rainbooms and the main villain. Instead, we ended up with Midnight Sparkle who wasn't necessarily the worst thing we could've gotten. At least Cinch didn't end up getting reformed as she was clearly unapologetic with how she treated Twilight Sparkle not to mention the rest of Crystal Prep. Still, it would've been interesting to see her wield magic though would she even know what to do with it? After all, she didn't understand it until near the end.

[Radiant Melancholy 27]

If she was corrupted, evil and wanted to win like crazy, yes that would be cool.

[Splashee 28,537]

Cinch as the main villain would have made sense to me, but meh. That movie was not going to be any good no matter what the story would be

[ExplosionMare 18,007]

I like her better as a regular principal

[LonelyYugi 59]

Friendship Games is about "Coming full circle/ role reversal" with Sunset Shimmer, and Sci-Twi.

In the first movie Twilight is the hero, and Sunset is the evil villain. Rainbow Rocks is about passing the torch from Twilight to Sunset. Friendship Games proves that Sunset, and her friends don't need Princess Twilight to solve their problems for them. They are capable of doing things on their own. We come full circle with Sunset as the hero, and Sci-Twi as the villain. 

Having Cinch as the final villain wouldn't have giving us the same kind of drama as Sci-Twi.