King Sombra Is the only Villain who was not an Idiot

[100 beasts kaidou 321]

You know who else wouldn't be well read? An idiot. Also, she wasn't intimidating at all, I mean honestly, Luna's royal voice was scarier than Nightmare Moon when she talks. If she is scarier in her good form than Evil form that's not exactly positive for her image.

See? All villains have flaws. Sombras is the BackStory part wich is only due to the Time Hasbro was given. NMN had alot of flaws. Discord is that he cant Take things seriously when needed. Chrysalis is Over Confident.

Stop acting like the other villains were perfect

[None42069 520]

You know who else wouldn't be well read? An idiot. Also, she wasn't intimidating at all, I mean honestly, Luna's royal voice was scarier than Nightmare Moon when she talks. If she is scarier in her good form than Evil form that's not exactly positive for her image.

 

Not intimidating, huh? Well, maybe her demeanor needed to be worked on a bit but, pilot episodes. 

Though her goal of eternal night? Let's see here...

No light meaning plants die.

No heat from the sun meaning everything else freezes and dies.

 

Oh and I think Lauren Faust confirms this.

[Harmonic Revelations 8,833]

See? All villains have flaws. Sombras is the BackStory part wich is only due to the Time Hasbro was given. NMN had alot of flaws. Discord is that he cant Take things seriously when needed. Chrysalis is Over Confident.

Stop acting like the other villains were perfect

You're being over defensive. I didn't say the other villains were perfect. In fact, I HATE Nightmare moon, she is the least intimidating villain ever, I'm not a big fan of Chrysalis either. Discord is the only villain i really liked at all.

Edited February 7, 2013 by Harmonic Revelations

[THE WILD HUNT 213]

Also, though I would have and still would like Sombra to be more developed as a character, couldn't it just be possible that he's just a type of embodiment of fear and hate?

 

Also Harmonic Revelations....

HAIL SITHIS!

[Wingnut 6,737]

 

3) Discord: He Could have Sended the EOH to space. He could have Killed the Mane Six in Like 10000 Times but he just Trolled them. Even Joker is more Seriouse That the guy.

 

He's still regarded as the greatest antagonist because of the way he deconstructed the Mane 6.  He laid everypony's worst inner natures bare for the world to see. 

 

Discord doesn't have the heart of a villain.  He represents chaos, not evil.  Even if they sometimes look similar, they're not the same thing. 

 

Did Discord think about snapping his fingers and blinking the Mane 6 out of existence?  Probably.  But he's not stupid.  He knows the Mane 6 are the embodiment of harmony.  Just like light can't exist without darkness, discord can't exist without harmony.  There's some kind of symbiosis between him and the ponies and destroying them outright could have unpredictable consequences. 

 

All that said, I agree Sombra was a seriously powerful foe.  He employed a number of mystic booby traps that counteracted light magic and only dark magic could bypass their effects.  And enslaving the Crystal Empire for an extended period is more than other enemies have done. 

[None42069 520]

Booksmarts are all I care about. Also, Nightmare Moon had no common sense either, she didn't even TRY to stop Twilight from finding the other elements.

 

Let's forget the slight bias coming from the fact that you only care about one aspect from a villain and remember what happened in the pilot:

 

Not even Twilight knew much about the elements before her new friends showed up. Before that, she didn't care about making friends and didn't realize that friendship powers the elements instead of just a bit of unicorn magic.

 

Nightmare Moon however knows how they work seeing as she used them before. Seeing Twilight try to use the wrong kind of spark most likely lowered her guard seeing she was just a clueless little unicorn and wouldn't pose a threat. She even separated her from the others for good measure.

 

She's not entirely clueless. Overconfident perhaps and yeah, at the bottom of the list of FiM villains. Also, many of her faults can be attributed to the fact that those were the pilot episodes. Had she shown up later, then she could've posed a bigger threat.

[The Mane-iac 1,632]

I wouldn't consider Discord a villain in the normal sense of the word, he is just a trickster. Nothing he did was truly evil, just outside the set laws of things which most ponies didn't agree with.

 

IMO, Sombra is one of the weakest enemies since he was nothing more than a pony enslaving dictator corrupt with dark power. So he came up with a few traps to keep the crystal heart out of hoofs reach until someone clever enough came along to see through his dark magic tricks. The only trap that was a real threat was the door of fears, but even then not much of a trap since all you had to do was lose focus and you were free. All we really got to see of him though was a black cloud of smoke, some dark crystals, and five lines of dialogue.  He himself didn't pose much of a threat in the episodes I felt because even if Cadence's spell failed all he seemed to care about was getting his slaves back. There wasn't any real plan there at all, at least NMM tried to go after the EOH to destroy them. Sombra didn't even realize Twilight was going after the heart until the end when Twilight is already at the heart. Going to the heart should have been his priority, then regain control of his slaves.

 

NMM, while capable of being a decent villain, is still completely powerless against the EOH so in the end she was doomed anyways. They are what defeated her the first time and 1000yrs locked within the moon does not change that. Y'all are also forgetting that she was NMM, not Luna. Luna was nothing more than a defenseless bystander locked within NMM having to suffer as she watched what what "she" was doing. I'm also pretty sure no one, not even Celestia, knows exactly how the EOH work fully. Her grand plan was eternal night? Then she should have stayed hidden away wherever she had Celestia locked up and not given anypony the chance to use the EOH on her a second time. She also should have noticed that since she was able to take care of Celestia, she must no longer have the power of the elements on her side so she better be on the watch.

 

Chrysalis is so far the best villain because if she didn't do the classic Disney thing and screw her own plans up by not actually taking care of the main threat she would have succeeded. She already did succeed in infiltrating the kingdom, castle, and replacing the real Cadence right under Celestia's and Luna's noses. She was then only defeated because of over confidence from defeating Celestia when she turned her back on Twilight who released Cadence to go save SA (all this happening literally right behind her). If she had Twilight and friends taken to say the castle's dungeon rather than the throne room she would have been home free. I mean she already had Celestia out of the way and Luna was apparently too busy with a hardcore gaming session to even be bothered to show at the wedding, things could have been straightened back up before she came in for night shift. The song was just added for show/us, it wasn't actually something done unless her and Cadence rehearsed it before all this went down since it was a duet that took place in two different locations.

[None42069 520]

I wouldn't consider Discord a villain in the normal sense of the word, he is just a trickster. Nothing he did was truly evil, just outside the set laws of things which most ponies didn't agree with.

 

IMO, Sombra is one of the weakest enemies since he was nothing more than a pony enslaving dictator corrupt with dark power. So he came up with a few traps to keep the crystal heart out of hoofs reach until someone clever enough came along to see through his dark magic tricks. The only trap that was a real threat was the door of fears, but even then not much of a trap since all you had to do was lose focus and you were free. All we really got to see of him though was a black cloud of smoke, some dark crystals, and five lines of dialogue.  He himself didn't pose much of a threat in the episodes I felt because even if Cadence's spell failed all he seemed to care about was getting his slaves back. There wasn't any real plan there at all, at least NMM tried to go after the EOH to destroy them. Sombra didn't even realize Twilight was going after the heart until the end when Twilight is already at the heart. Going to the heart should have been his priority, then regain control of his slaves.

 

Need I remind you of the spell he placed on the area where the heart is? If a pony would step in, the trap is triggered, Sombra is allerted and would easily reach the pony who would go after the heart since they would have to take their time to fly down (they didn't know the wife throw technique at the time) or use the stairs to reach the area where the Crystal Heart needs to be.

 

The only reason one would dismiss the door as a trap is because it was done by 2 beings who were too determined to defeat him to be controlled by fear and actually two beings who care for each other. Say Spike wasn't there: by the time Sombra would take over, he would find Twilight there, under the spell and could enslave her easily. Remember: the only ponies who were brave enough to stand up to him at the time were Celestia and Luna and all they did was seal him, presumably to find the heart afterwards. What did he do then?

 

HE CURSED THE KINGDOM TO DISAPPEAR!

 

Say what you will about his lack of backstory and lines. That was STILL enough to show that he was a powerful and competent villain you don't want to mess with!

[hawkflame 3,310]

See? All villains have flaws. Sombras is the BackStory part wich is only due to the Time Hasbro was given. NMN had alot of flaws. Discord is that he cant Take things seriously when needed. Chrysalis is Over Confident.

Stop acting like the other villains were perfect

Those are character flaws. Sombra is just poorly written. There's a huge difference. Sombra was given the same amount of time as Discord, Chrysalis, and Nightmare Moon to establish himself- two episodes. Just that the writers chose not to do much with him in those two episodes- and what they did wasn't very interesting.

[None42069 520]

Those are character flaws. Sombra is just poorly written. There's a huge difference. Sombra was given the same amount of time as Discord, Chrysalis, and Nightmare Moon to establish himself- two episodes. Just that the writers chose not to do much with him in those two episodes- and what they did wasn't very interesting.

 

Ok. I get it. While he didn't do anything WHILE HE WAS RELEASED, he did MUCH MUCH worse things in the past that's reflected in the present. The fear he caused the crystal ponies caused them to shudder in fear when they tried to remember, the many traps in the tower showed that he had dangerous foresight and the fact that this simple UNICORN (not alicorn or spirit) managed to make AN ENTIRE EMPIRE DISAPPEAR!

 

Yeah, a lack of direct encounter with him is disappointing but you should admit from what we've seen that if Cadance hadn't been thrown, he would've won, be sealed again and would cause the empire to disappear again.

 

WITH THE ELEMENTS, THE CAPTAIN OF THE ROYAL GUARD AND HER NIECE WITH HIM!

[100 beasts kaidou 321]

How the buck is he the weakest? He was beaten by the hearts of MILLIONS OF CRYSTAL PONIES. While the others were beaten by the love-friendship of 6-2 ponies

[Veylon 255]

Also, though I would have and still would like Sombra to be more developed as a character, couldn't it just be possible that he's just a type of embodiment of fear and hate?

 

Also Harmonic Revelations....

HAIL SITHIS!

That would've worked better. I kind of felt that Sombra had exactly the wrong amount of backstory. He had too much to be truly vague and mysterious and too little to be interesting in it's own right. If he'd screen time and dialogue like Discord, he might've built up a personality, but he didn't get that either.

 

I think a good chunk of what was wrong with him shows in how he is introduced. Celestia just gives a powerpoint presentation on the guy, complete with a video clip. The Princesses are shown to defeat him handily without difficulty or emotion. The whole thing makes Sombra seem very small and manageable. Nightmare Moon got her story told in storybook form and we get a lot of build up as Twilight anticipates her return with dread. When she does return, it's a fait accompli in which she effortlessly accomplishes all of her goals in one fell swoop. Discord is seen first in statue form, then we see the unfolding disaster of his power, then Celestia builds him up as a terrible menace, and then he taunts them from a position of dominance. Sombra done right would've had Celestia describing him to Twilight in front of a stained glass window - lit by the sun's last glow - of him in a menacing pose, before gravely charging her and her friends to face him whilst openly regretting that she couldn't help because of [insert reason here]. That would've at least made him seem threatening.

 

I get the feeling the Crystal Empire thing was meant to go down in a very different way. Sombra is outright evil without excuse in a way none of the other villains were. His "worst fear" door was nightmare fuel, his motif is black spikes (preferably involved in impaling), the Crystal Ponies cringe in horror just thinking about him, and he tries to outright kill the main characters at every opportunity. This is not a kids' show villain. There's some kind of epic story line that got buried along the way somewhere and just surfaces for a moment here and there.

[poniesforfun 716]

There is more about King Sombra than meets the eye. For one thing I don't think he's even in a physical form as in he is more of a presence than in the flesh. I would say his horn is the only part of him that is physical and is what he used to cast magic (like the black crystals).

 

I would say that King Sombra gained some kind of eternal life as a shadow after he was banished by Celestia and Luna below the ice and the horn was like Achilles' heel that was not dipped into the styx river but instead of being his weakpoint it was the only connection he had with the physical world because it appeared he didn't physically lunge over and try and stop the six mane. I also like he wasn't a super powerful being and was a mere unicorn that attained a higher level of powers when he was banished. Suffering had made him stronger.

 

I really like how he was made to be unique from the other villains in that he was more of an apparition/ghost than really alive. And he isn't any laughing matter because he can nullify magic. Meaning he could even nullify Discord and Nightmare Moon's powers. And he probably couldn't be hurt at all against conventional magic as he is a shadow.

Edited February 8, 2013 by poniesforfun

[DusK 1,264]

He's a real bad guy. He doesn't need some some story history or anything like that. He showed up, and decided to take over. He skipped the fluff and dove straight in.

 

You don't mess with King Sombra. He'll mess you up and enslave everyone you love while you sit there pondering what tragic event in his life would possibly compel him to be the way he is.

[Soundgarden 2,757]

That might be true, but what I truly loved about all the villians is their interactions wuth the mane 6. Discords trolling with the mane 6 was hilarious, Nightmare moons try to put the mane 6 in "trials" that showed the good side of them all was interest and Chrysalis scheme fooled them all and it was interesting too see. But Sombra? He was a bad attempt to create a "Sauronfeeling". No interactions, no dialogue and just overall a dissapointment, idiot or not

[Magpie 621]

I find Sombra to be the worst villain,(In my opinion.) because he has no story, no characterization. He just shows up, makes evil noises, then dies. He didn't have any sort of reason for doing this, he just was as evil as the plot demanded. While the other villains had flaws as well, these were character flaws that are necessary in a villain. If the villain was perfect, they would be unstoppable. All Sombra did was exist.

Edited February 8, 2013 by Brosparkles

[DusK 1,264]

No interactions or dialogue is exactly why he was awesome, though. He didn't need a reason, he didn't need to waste time, and he was more of a real threat than any villain before him. A real bad guy doesn't get chummy with the heroes. A real bad guy gets stuff done.

 

He reminded me of this awesome movie called The Mist.

Edited February 8, 2013 by DusK

[Spinelspike 78]

Exactly. Unlike the likes of Discord, Sombra was actually a threat, and as it seems now, the most threatening threat in the shows history. All of the other villains could be distracted by small details, or would take time to bath in their fabulous-ness or sing a song, or gloat at how evil they were. Sombra had a goal, and he stuck to it, he wanted to take the crystal empire over again, and with every opportunity he had, he made the most of it to accomplish that goal, only being defeated because there wasn't much else he could have done against the M6, Cadence, SA and Spike. Are the other villains bad villains? Of course not, they are all great in their own rights and great characters that have potential to become more than of what they were first portrayed as (with the likes of Discord). Everyone has their preferences to who was the best villain, but I do think people need to cut Sombra some slack, as he did do all he could to be a pretty credible and powerful threat with really no flaws he could have helped.

[Vinyl Scratch (Filly)™ 936]

Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft ALL those antagonists suck!!!!!! Trixie is surely the best antagonist o3o I mean seriously, how is she not!? She's all like 'Yeah I'm like totally best pony!' She gets all badass with the alicorn amulate and pwns them all like the boss she is. But then Twilight has to go trick her D: 

 

Nah, I kid. Though I do love Trixie.

[poniesforfun 716]

Exactly. Unlike the likes of Discord, Sombra was actually a threat, and as it seems now, the most threatening threat in the shows history. All of the other villains could be distracted by small details, or would take time to bath in their fabulous-ness or sing a song, or gloat at how evil they were. Sombra had a goal, and he stuck to it, he wanted to take the crystal empire over again, and with every opportunity he had, he made the most of it to accomplish that goal, only being defeated because there wasn't much else he could have done against the M6, Cadence, SA and Spike. Are the other villains bad villains? Of course not, they are all great in their own rights and great characters that have potential to become more than of what they were first portrayed as (with the likes of Discord). Everyone has their preferences to who was the best villain, but I do think people need to cut Sombra some slack, as he did do all he could to be a pretty credible and powerful threat with really no flaws he could have helped.

 

True to all that... every villain had their own themes that made them interesting. It wouldn't have hurt to add more to Sombra in later episodes (which would be a good idea because having only tidbits of information every few episodes would make him appear more of a mystery and horror-like).

 

Sombra's theme was... making everyone somber... sad and depressed. That's what he did to the Crystal ponies. Discord was a whirlwind of chaos. Chrysalis was a WTF where did she come from villain. And Nightmare Moon was the angry one.

Edited February 8, 2013 by poniesforfun

[Spinelspike 78]

True to all that... every villain had their own themes that made them interesting. It wouldn't have hurt to add more to Sombra in later episodes (which would be a good idea because having only tidbits of information every few episodes would make him appear more of a mystery and horror-like).

 

Sombra's theme was... making everyone somber... sad and depressed. That's what he did to the Crystal ponies. Discord was a whirlwind of chaos. Chrysalis was a WTF where did she come from villain. And Nightmare Moon was the angry one.

I agree that it would be nice to see more of Sombra or a return of him to have an episode focused more on his personality and interaction with the characters, but in the Crystal Empire episode, I didn't mind it too much that we didn't get too see him interacting a lot with other character as I don't think Sombra was really the focus of the episode, unlike previous two-parters where either the villain is the mina focus, or the villains theme or goal tied in directly with a theme happening with the main cast, whether that be discovering friendship or using love against a creature that feeds off it. Sombra really was just placed to be a threat to create obstacles for the protagonists, and he did that just fine (and we did get a backstory to him), because the episode wasn't so much focused on him as it was Twilights acceptance of taking risks and having the responsibility to take on great tasks.

 

But yeah, I also think perhaps an episode where sombra returns would be a good appropriate place for Sombra to develop more

[Hodni 7]

As much as we would want to see NMM, Discord, Chrysalis, and Sombra to be smart enough with their plans to actually be a real threat... maybe what we should remind ourselves is that these shows were intended for kids. We as bronies were an unforeseen fanbase. Though Hasbro does try to give shoutouts to bronies from time to time, this is not their priority. Their focus is still the children that the show was intended to target. Kids don't need a deep backstory for a villian to know its the baddie of the of the week. They don't need to see the villain kill/destroy thousands. They don't need a villain who can realistically carry out complex plots to take over the world.
So why the simplicity of it all? Because stuff like those are reserved for the more mature shows. So If we viewed  the villians on a pragamatic perspective.. then yes, they are all dumb.
-Nightmare Moon with lame obstacles? why not just crash the moon itself on the planet! Yeah there's some eternal darkness for ya.
-Discord underestimating the ponies despite obviously getting their groove back? Yeah snap your fingers and rearrange their organs. Now thats some goood artistic chaos right there!
-Chrysalis defeated by love? Hell, just consume the love beams. Shoot back with an even bigger lazor!
-Sombra defeated by a thrown Cadence? pfft just turn to smoke again, let her enter the fog then suffocate her.

See those would work. If this show was Rated T for teens.
Perhaps one day Hasbro will create an MLP show that is targeted towards the mature fans. Maybe then they will address it with villains. But for now, we should accept that its still a kid's show. We all just happen to enjoy it too.

Peace

Edited March 26, 2013 by Hodni

[Azura 1,107]

Every single villain in FiM are complete idiots. Nightmare Moon thought she could just simply break the elements, Discord doubted the power of true friendship, Chrysalis didn't understand the power of love and King Sombra thought he could simply hide it on top of the tower without somepony like Twilight to find out.

 

The moral of this story is that you shouldn't be a villain, at least not in MLP FiM.

Edited March 26, 2013 by Azura

[Zygen 6,065]

I personally find Sombra to be pretty cool, and pretty powerful and all. He also did a pretty good job with his plan of enslaving the empire. And he was the only one of the Villians I think who so far hasn't really had a moment where they're just kinda being cocky. Not to say hes the strongest, because I think Discord is actually the strongest, he just wasn't bent on destroying the mane 6 or anything, just causing chaos. Sombra was actually wanting to enslave or destroy the others though.

 

The only real problem is he had the least backstory of the villians and didn't even say much of anything disappointing enough. He was still a pretty cool villian and dark magic was a cool concept I kinda wanted touched on more after that episode.

[Pilot 40]

King Sombra has the potential to be one of the most powerful and interesting villains in the show, but he has little backstory. Therefore, I think he's one of the most boring of all of the villains. (I really could care less about a character, no matter how cool they are, if their story isn't interesting.)

 

It's like saying there's an evil man who did dark things a long time ago but he did them for no apparent reason. Seems kinda anticlimactic  doesn't it?

Edited March 26, 2013 by ThePilotGuy