Why high school?

[Princess Periwinkle 3,774]

(I couldn't find a topic about this, so here goes)

 

Besides being pretty funny, this video made me think about something I hadn't thought of before.

 

 

While I'm not quite as perturbed about it as Antony, it makes me wonder. What does Equestria Girls have to say about the ages of the mane 6? Does it only mean that the writers needed a high school setting to make the plot work? If the ponies really are only ~16-18, does that make any difference to you? If the movie isn't strictly canon, does the high school setting say anything at all about FiM? I'm interested to know what others think about this.

[Acoustic Cloud 2,202]

I have been thinking that since this whole thing started.  It just isn't canon to do that.  

Idea:
So maybe this is all a Celestia thing, and she wants Twilight to learn a lesson, with that, she sticks her right into the worst years of any human's life... High School.
The drama, the drugs, the babies... We get it, lesson learned.

[Princess Periwinkle 3,774]

Ahh, an age spell. Only the highest level unicorns can perform it, you know.

 

Yeah that's an interesting idea, but (forgive me if I'm wrong) I thought the purpose of Twilight going through the portal was to retrieve the tiara thingy? I haven't really been keeping up with EqG much so I might be wrong, but why would Celestia make it harder for Twilight if that's the only reason she's going through the portal?

 

Idea 1: The only way to get it is to win that pageant thing. But I still think Twilight could just go in to ninja mode like in "It's About Time" and steal it.

 

Idea 2: This is just another test from Celestia.

[Treble Bolt 1,122]

The "movie" characters are not the Mane 6, just 'like' them.  Twilight is the only one to go to the human world, and it is obvious that they are not in the high school age range in Equestria. 

 

Hasbro most likely pulled the strings to make this a high school based show because of the "targeted" demographic.  Apparently, every little girl thinks of high school, look at all the shows out there for young kids, it's all high school drama related to some degree.

They want to milk the cash cow the FIM has created due to the older demographic.  It's already been proven that MLP wouldn't be near as popular if it wasn't for the bronies (think of all the kids you know who watch the show, versus all the older fans you know).  They want to make this franchise huge. 

[Gears of Halo Duty V 394]

Aside from being a pivotal moment in any persons life, any other school setting wouldn't really work

• Middle School and below is too young for anything "serious" to happen. There are also limits to what can be done.
• College doesn't really force the same level of interaction that Highschool does with students. Emphasis on force.

 

While it might not be canon, it can say a bit about their character. No doubt those who dismiss their Highschool memories might wonder how they might do or have acted if they were the person they are now.

[Lord Bloodpool 3]

 

Does it only mean that the writers needed a high school setting to make the plot work?

 

It's because the setting is the fallback position for lazy writers. It's the same old template we've seen used hundreds of times before: Take Character X and put them in High School. Now Character X must deal with things such as homework, planning for school dances... I could go on and on here, but I fear that my sanity would be irreparably damaged as a result.

 

Personally, I'm inclined to stick my fingers in my ears, ignore the movie entirely, and pretend that the whole thing never happened in the first place. 

[Umbral Noir 1,556]

I don't see the problem with a high school movie! To be honest, I'm perfectly happy with the stereotypical high school story!

 

Addressing the question at hand, Equestria Girls (if it is canon) suggests that Twilight may be teenaged in pony years. To be honest I think this makes sense. Twilight is the Princess' student, and she also studies a lot and is constantly thinking about tests, so maybe this indicates that she's a typical high school egghead girl! Even if Equestria Girls is canon, it still doesn't tell us what age the other members of the mane six are, because the versions of the mane six that Twilight meets are not the same as the ones back in Equestria.

[Treble Bolt 1,122]

I don't see the problem with a high school movie! To be honest, I'm perfectly happy with the stereotypical high school story!

 

Addressing the question at hand, Equestria Girls (if it is canon) suggests that Twilight may be teenaged in pony years. To be honest I think this makes sense. Twilight is the Princess' student, and she also studies a lot and is constantly thinking about tests, so maybe this indicates that she's a typical high school egghead girl! Even if Equestria Girls is canon, it still doesn't tell us what age the other members of the mane six are, because the versions of the mane six that Twilight meets are not the same as the ones back in Equestria.is

 

However, she is completely capable of caring for a Baby Dragon, runs a library, is head organizer for Coming of Spring for an entire TOWN, and is smarter than normal high school student IRL....sorry, i don't believe Twilight is high school aged, she has to much respect from others and responsibility to make her that young.  Who listens to high school students IRL, certainly not a whole town.  She's college aged at the very least.

[Pinkazoid 3,493]

Okay, what else would work if Twilight was to be put in a human world?

 

Anywhere else where the story takes place after highschool leaves little interaction with any of the characters, and i'd doubt they'd go on a big quest in the human world while being surrounded by technology that could make it far more easy. While i'm not too wild about the high school setting, i see why it was used.

[Metemponychosis 1,236]

EqG has nothing to say about nothing on the show. It's not canon, unless Ms. McCarthy is lying to us.

 

Anyway... Maybe the only way to retrieve the crown is by going to the prom. And to do that she needs to be a student. Even though she has no manner of documents in that world. But I guess that the staff can work around this. If they even thought of this.

<sigh>

If it was at least an university...  It's just stupid in my opinion. Like taking a square and hammering it into a circle slot.

[~StatesTheOblivious~ 1,794]

Brohoof for the vid, sure was the laugh of the day for me.

And the Setting, well... because Hasbro can. No matter if it's cliche or not in the end, as they thought about it, I bet they wanted to ride the High-School-Musical-Wave. They don't care, if it sends wrong or right massages or if it fits the show if it sells. Hasbro are economists! I once read a few articles about the frightening similarity of behavior between top-economists and psychopaths... no offense, if here are any economists here.

 

 

Not all psychopaths are axe-wielding mass murderers.

 

 

*covers under desk*

Please don't hit me!

[Evilshy 5,089]

Seems obvious to me:

1. If the mane 6 were human, they'd be high school age, therefore, she's in high school.

 

and more importantly:

2. The target demographics likes stuff about high school.

[Fhaolan 4,468]

I've written this post out several times, but I keep changing my mind and arguing with myself about it. Part of the problem is that I've been out of school for so long, my experiences in Secondary School (the equivalent to High School where I grew up), are no longer relevant to the teen demographic Hasbro has stated this movie is for.

 

An interesting aside: The BBC did a market survey once for their drama department, and discovered that young people prefer to watch shows where the main characters are in the next demographic up. Little kids prefer watching tweens, tweens prefer watching teens, and teens prefer watching young adults. While they will watch characters of their own age, on average they prefer to watch older stuff. Once the young adult demographic is reached, viewing habits go wonky with them watching everything *except* teen stuff.

 

So if Hasbro is correct in wanting the Teen market, what they really needed to do was set EqG in University/College. But that would have been a more difficult setting for the writers, and probably would have been too much of a cognitive jump for the Hasbro executives to make.

 

Finally, High School is not an easy setting, primarily because 'high school' is not a universal meme. The 'high school' presented in American media is a very specific setting from a large American population center like LA, Chicago, or Manhattan, from about ten to thirty years ago (depending on the average age of the writers). Students from outside those places, like rural America or even farther like England or Japan, don't resonate with that setting unless so many fantasy elements are layered on top that it covers the cultural dissonance. 

[MadPointer 75]

Why do people dislike the High School setting? I don't watch any High School dramas so I have no idea. Can anyone explain that and give some examples of bad High School dramas?

 

When I was in High School, I was studying the whole time with any interactions with other students and I was spending my free time doing my hobbies by myself. While I liked these times, I doubt that it would make an interesting movie and most people appear to be more social than me anyway.

[Rappy0 338]

Why do people dislike the High School setting? I don't watch any High School dramas so I have no idea. Can anyone explain that and give some examples of bad High School dramas?

 

When I was in High School, I was studying the whole time with any interactions with other students and I was spending my free time doing my hobbies by myself. While I liked these times, I doubt that it would make an interesting movie and most people appear to be more social than me anyway.

It's not that many people hate the High School setting it just that's it overused and normally has fake drama. When I was in High School I was in Student Council and I was an Athletic Trainer and dealt with little to no drama.

 

However, that might be because I never dated in High School. Anyway, we always made jokes about how we can make a show out of the things we did in there and like I said we had no drama.

[Thrashy 2,799]

Not to jump on the "it's marketable" bandwagon, but...well, it is marketable. At least, that's the only logical reason I'm inclined to believe as to why the writers would willingly create a disparity between Twi's apparent age in the show and her new high-schooler age in the movie.

 

Unless of course it's like 90210, where all of the "teen" actors are clearly in their mid-to-late twenties. Maybe Twi just needs to "pretend" to be high school age? Yeah...or maybe Lowline is just an expert at grasping at straws. But then again, who of us college-aged dudes hasn't seen plenty of girls our age who look like they'd fit right in at high school? Maybe it's not as far as a stretch as it sounds. Maybe.

 

Because I don't keep abreast of such interviews, I have to ask: Does anypony here know whether Faust herself has made any kind of official statement during Q&As as to the Mane 6's age? I know she indicated Spike to be around 8, but that's about all I know. If she (or another prominent and credible writer) has explicitly commented on the ponies' ages being closer to college age, then I think it's fair to say that we can all rightfully call shenanigans on EqG as far as it having anything to do with FiM's continuity...provided the writers aren't able to provide us an acceptable, canon explanation of the entire issue.

[Scootalove 10,684]

I don't why it had to be in a high school setting but, there are many speculations that is in a high school setting to teach Twilight a lesson. So maybe Celestia thought that Twilight would learn another lesson from her.

[Sweet Dreams 1,893]

They're in high school because Hasbro wants to make money. They couldn't care less about the cannon of the show, they want human ponies in high school. 

 

.... Assuming that EqG was Hasbro's decision? I don't know much on this topic. 

[Chacobos 160]

I for one do not like this high school idea, it's overrused as already stated and is obviously to cater towards the original intended target which can be aggrivating to know since it is basically saying buck you to the fellow fanbase. There are other smaller rants to go on but I wont. 


I think they should have went with this

 

[Creamy Arty 6,251]

Friendship is Magic debuted in October of 2010. It's almost three years-old. The people who were on the upper boundary of the target demographic are outgrowing/have outgrown it, and their priorities and interests are probably shifting as they always do when kids start the transition into adolescence. Hasbro is attempting to keep their most profitable iteration of the My Little Pony franchise in history relevant to them for as long as possible, and this is a logical way of doing it. It may not be a very good way, but their reasoning for doing it is sound. Teens and tweens latch onto high school drama/humor shows.

[Fiddles 20]

It makes since to me why they're in High school. Now we all know who the main targeted audience is, little girls. Many little kids dream about the days when they're grown up and can do all these things like driving, cellphones, dates, dances. That's just how kids are. That might be one of the reasons, there have to be more than that one but I just wanted to add my two cents, now have nice day. :3 

[Shanks 10,811]

Why do people dislike the High School setting?

Because not only has it been done to death but in nearly every case it has been done so poorly that it just leaves a bad taste in a lot of peoples mouths. Look at nearly every teen show ever and it is full of 1 dimensional stock characters being rounded off with a varitible who's who of Mary Sue/Gary Stu's taking the main roles. I am not saying it can't be done well or that because this movie makes use of this cliche that it automatically will be bad but the track record is so unbelievably horrible that if this wasn't an MLP crossover I would just as soon slam my pinkie toe in a car door than see it.

[Luna's Husbando 60]

This movie is being aimed at the kind of people who watch Hannah Montanah, iCarly and the like. These kinds of people find a high-school setting appealing due to the drama and social aspect of it, so it's the perfect setting if your target demographic are teeny boppers and 10 year olds. Hasbro is just giving these people what they want; more of the same crap. They don't care if it doesn't make sense or if it's a downright bad idea, all that matters to them is that the target demographic buys into it.

[~Master~ Button Mash 2,307]

Because for the older target audience, it's the easiest setting to work with. Lots of low hanging fruit that can be used as plot devices - relationships, cliques, puberty, bastard teachers, etc. - all kinds of stuff that can be worked into a story.

 

Everyone can associate and it's easy to pan out.

[Starswirl the Trixie 974]

They're just going off the idealized high school marketing strategy for little girls.  I'm not sure why it works, but boy, it does.

 

As for the ages: Try not to think about it too much.  EqG isn't necessarily part of the canon.  And Rarity certainly isn't a 17 year old (I'd put her at 25-28).  Plus, Twilight's transition away from the castle to the real world seems more like a move from college to graduate school, not high school to college...

 

In fact, I've sometimes thought that all of My Little Pony could be seen as an allegory for graduate school: The old, tenured professor (Celestia) sends her smart, young protege out to do the dirty work of her research while she gets the credit  .

Edited May 24, 2013 by Starswirl the Trixie