My Little Pony: Springier Equine-Ox Bloc

[Nevix]

This whole thread is hilarious to me, because I've been puttering in my spare time with a fiction project about a writer who struggles with the creative angst he has over a toy tie-in project when he has higher aspirations. Basically, everything I've written has shown up here by SOMEONE! XD

I am now interested in this fiction project.

I also laughed out loud when I heard The Touch play during Twilight Vs Tirek, and I was also grinning, because that was a part of my childhood too. ;p

[Dragon Ball Fan]

I still am not on board with Discord being reformed, even after all this time. contrary to what it seems, Discord does not represent the neutral force of chaos but the inherently harmful force of disharmony. the Mane Six don't represent the Elements of Order. even then, Hasbro has associated chaos with evil before since in the Transformers lore, Unicron is a force of chaos but is also the ultimate force of evil who is sustained by other beings feelings of hatred and anger and only eats planets because he wants to destroy everything around him. and I read Hasbro considers all it's stuff in the same multiverse. for all we know, Discord is a spawn of Unicron like Tarantulas from Beast Wars.

and even if Discord could be reformed, he still committed treason. kids need to lean how to forgive people like bullies at school, when will they have to choose to forgive a friend who betrays their whole country to a ruthless enemy? and that is also symptomatic of another problem of the show, characters almost never face consequences for their actions. what's that teaching kids? that you can avoid consequences for absolutely everything as long as you say "sorry".

and it is dangerous to say absolutely everyone can be redeemed, that's unfortunately not true, some individuals even revel in their evil deeds, the cackling pure evil cartoon villain archetype is not unrealistic. again, the first recorded serial killer in America literally said "I was born with the devil in me."

and thinks like King Sombra and Tirek don't count because they don't focus on how those villains are irredeemable. you can do it both ways but the only family friendly story I know of that focused on both the redeemable and irredeemable villains was How to Train Your Dragon 2.

[CMWaters]

Sorry to do a necro post bump here, but...

I still am not on board with Discord being reformed, even after all this time. contrary to what it seems, Discord does not represent the neutral force of chaos but the inherently harmful force of disharmony. the Mane Six don't represent the Elements of Order. even then, Hasbro has associated chaos with evil before since in the Transformers lore, Unicron is a force of chaos but is also the ultimate force of evil who is sustained by other beings feelings of hatred and anger and only eats planets because he wants to destroy everything around him. and I read Hasbro considers all it's stuff in the same multiverse. for all we know, Discord is a spawn of Unicron like Tarantulas from Beast Wars.

and even if Discord could be reformed, he still committed treason. kids need to lean how to forgive people like bullies at school, when will they have to choose to forgive a friend who betrays their whole country to a ruthless enemy? and that is also symptomatic of another problem of the show, characters almost never face consequences for their actions. what's that teaching kids? that you can avoid consequences for absolutely everything as long as you say "sorry".

and it is dangerous to say absolutely everyone can be redeemed, that's unfortunately not true, some individuals even revel in their evil deeds, the cackling pure evil cartoon villain archetype is not unrealistic. again, the first recorded serial killer in America literally said "I was born with the devil in me."

and thinks like King Sombra and Tirek don't count because they don't focus on how those villains are irredeemable. you can do it both ways but the only family friendly story I know of that focused on both the redeemable and irredeemable villains was How to Train Your Dragon 2.

Well, while Discord seems to be better than you give him credit for, we now have Cozy Glow to represent the "cackling pure evil cartoon villain archetype" you described.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

Sorry to do a necro post bump here, but...

I still am not on board with Discord being reformed, even after all this time. contrary to what it seems, Discord does not represent the neutral force of chaos but the inherently harmful force of disharmony. the Mane Six don't represent the Elements of Order. even then, Hasbro has associated chaos with evil before since in the Transformers lore, Unicron is a force of chaos but is also the ultimate force of evil who is sustained by other beings feelings of hatred and anger and only eats planets because he wants to destroy everything around him. and I read Hasbro considers all it's stuff in the same multiverse. for all we know, Discord is a spawn of Unicron like Tarantulas from Beast Wars.

and even if Discord could be reformed, he still committed treason. kids need to lean how to forgive people like bullies at school, when will they have to choose to forgive a friend who betrays their whole country to a ruthless enemy? and that is also symptomatic of another problem of the show, characters almost never face consequences for their actions. what's that teaching kids? that you can avoid consequences for absolutely everything as long as you say "sorry".

and it is dangerous to say absolutely everyone can be redeemed, that's unfortunately not true, some individuals even revel in their evil deeds, the cackling pure evil cartoon villain archetype is not unrealistic. again, the first recorded serial killer in America literally said "I was born with the devil in me."

and thinks like King Sombra and Tirek don't count because they don't focus on how those villains are irredeemable. you can do it both ways but the only family friendly story I know of that focused on both the redeemable and irredeemable villains was How to Train Your Dragon 2.

Well, while Discord seems to be better than you give him credit for, we now have Cozy Glow to represent the "cackling pure evil cartoon villain archetype" you described.

and I am trying to get away from this too as it has gotten me in trouble on other sites but I feel I need to say the fallowing.

again, it wasn't focused on that Cozy Glow is irredeemable, it was an afterthought. and consequences in general happen so rarely, viewers may not notice that much, if at all.

and this beef of mine with the show also applies to Starlight Glimmer, Trixie post-"Magic Duel", pretty much every "reformed" villains and even some of the protagonists like Rainbow Dash in "Tanks for the Memories". again, what are kids supposed to get from this show other then apologizing is a get out of jail free card? and this is a problem I noticed in the majority of kid entertainment nowadays, it seems stuff like Sagwa the Chinese Siamese Cat or 101 Dalmatians The Series where consequences happened or where talked about all the time are gone. this hasn't completely ruined my enjoyment of most cartoons I currently like but it has ruined my enjoyment of MLP. yeah, besides me worrying about what these shows are teaching kids, it completely breaks my suspension of disbelief.

not to me, but I've seen some other posters online saying to just imagine the consequences happening off screen but is there any room for that? the show even goes out of it's way to make that impossible. two examples I can think of is at the beginning of season six where the writers use Twilight as a mouthpiece to tell all the fans that wanted Starlight to face consequences to shut up. and in season eight, they mention Tempest from the movie could go free despite her committing high treason. and pardons from the princesses are never shown or mentioned.

and from other online reviewers, wile not talking about MLP, said stuff that still applies here. Linkara made a point in his last storyline that forgiveness has to be earned. and Hugo and Jake of The Bible Reloaded made a point that no one is obligated to forgive another for something terrible.

and I thought a good alternative for me would be the fanfic, Equestrian Civil War but I was turned off by the idea that some characters will be against making the antagonists face consequences because punishment and rehabilitation can and does happen at the same time. a lot of real life prisons have the phrase "correctional facility" in their name, after all.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

I am still wanting to discuss this, especially since what I've heard about the series finale. Cozy Glow, Tirek and Chrysalis are turned to stone forever but Discord isn't even given a slap on the wrist for orchestrating the near destruction of Equestria and the death of everyone who lives there. he's a war criminal but he's still invited to Twilight's coronation.

but to talk about something more relevant to this thread, even after all this time, I still have problems with "Twilight's Kingdom"s ending. I can maybe believe the main six forgive Discord for betraying them to Tirek but literally everyone in Equestria too? no consequeces for him from the princesses, no public outcry if he was pardoned? and considering Tirek's magic sucking included taking Pegasus Ponies ability to fly and walk on clouds, I can't believe no one died, meaning Discord was complicit in mass murder but still instantly forgiven and pardoned.

[RobbyB1982]

Friendship is a LITERAL superpower in their world that a whole bunch of ancient magic courses through. I'm okay with "people can change if given a second chance, but it is a process." And also that same magic buffering out a lot of accidental deaths. The worst injury we ever see is something sprained. And that's before you even get around to Pinkie Pie running on Looney Tunes powers.

Death from anything other than old age isn't really an issue for their world, the closest they get is a pet hibernating for a while. Their world has rounded corners that keep things safe.

And for villain redemptions, every villain they gave a chance to ultimately turned around and stayed turned around, even if they kept some of their selfishness or pettiness. Even the likes of Flim and Flam who never really got a redemption episode showed up to help in the final battle. Turning current threats to stone at this point is very clearly just a time out, and a chance to wait for a new student to come along to befriend the problem and if they show ran for another few years it'd get around to them too. I don't know what Sombra did that was SO bad that he among all others needed to actually be destroyed, but hey, maybe he'll reassemble again down the line and get fixed up then. And that growth applies to more than just reformed baddies.

Even on non villains, even main character like Fluttershy, they explicitly made the point that she got braver and more assertive as the series went on, and made progress at it for years, but wasn't instantly transformed into a forever brave an assertive person after just one incident. Or how Twilight slowly grew to stop freaking out about everything. ANd so on. The people can grow and change was one of the big messages that wove through the show as a whole... and the show actually ran long enough for it to be done organically.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

Friendship is a LITERAL superpower in their world that a whole bunch of ancient magic courses through. I'm okay with "people can change if given a second chance, but it is a process." And also that same magic buffering out a lot of accidental deaths. The worst injury we ever see is something sprained. And that's before you even get around to Pinkie Pie running on Looney Tunes powers.

Death from anything other than old age isn't really an issue for their world, the closest they get is a pet hibernating for a while. Their world has rounded corners that keep things safe.

And for villain redemptions, every villain they gave a chance to ultimately turned around and stayed turned around, even if they kept some of their selfishness or pettiness. Even the likes of Flim and Flam who never really got a redemption episode showed up to help in the final battle. Turning current threats to stone at this point is very clearly just a time out, and a chance to wait for a new student to come along to befriend the problem and if they show ran for another few years it'd get around to them too. I don't know what Sombra did that was SO bad that he among all others needed to actually be destroyed, but hey, maybe he'll reassemble again down the line and get fixed up then. And that growth applies to more than just reformed baddies.

Even on non villains, even main character like Fluttershy, they explicitly made the point that she got braver and more assertive as the series went on, and made progress at it for years, but wasn't instantly transformed into a forever brave an assertive person after just one incident. Or how Twilight slowly grew to stop freaking out about everything. ANd so on. The people can grow and change was one of the big messages that wove through the show as a whole... and the show actually ran long enough for it to be done organically.

the fact that you think characters like Sombra and Cozy Glow could still be reformed proves my point. if them not being reformed was supposed to show not everyone can change, it obviously wasn't good enough and needed to be hammered in more.

and you didn't answer my point about some of the serious crimes committed by the former villains that were swept under the rug, almost all of them are guilty of acts of terror or war crimes.

[Darth Wedgius]

I think Discord and Starlight Glimmer were offered friendship and forgiveness at least in part because they were useful (there's dialog to support that in both cases). That could be thought of as a double standard, but Celestia and Twilight are probably charged with looking after Equestria's interests, so there is a moral justification. Whether that's sufficient moral justification is another matter, and I think that's a judgement call.

Look at Operation Paperclip for U.S. history in that regard. German scientists and engineers sitting in prisons would not have done anybody any good, and having them in American pockets did help us get to the moon. Or, perhaps further past the moral event horizon, World War 2 Japan's Unit 731 getting off scot free because the U.S. government wanted the data they'd gathered -- data that turned out to be of little value, but of course they didn't know that before they actually got the data.

And Chrysalis was offered friendship and forgiveness at least once, but I believe she declined. Not explicitly, but I think slapping away the outstretched hoof and declaring, "There is no revenge you could ever conceive of that will come close to what I will exact upon you one day, Starlight Glimmer!" probably counts as implicit refusal.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

I think Discord and Starlight Glimmer were offered friendship and forgiveness at least in part because they were useful (there's dialog to support that in both cases). That could be thought of as a double standard, but Celestia and Twilight are probably charged with looking after Equestria's interests, so there is a moral justification. Whether that's sufficient moral justification is another matter, and I think that's a judgement call.

Look at Operation Paperclip for U.S. history in that regard. German scientists and engineers sitting in prisons would not have done anybody any good, and having them in American pockets did help us get to the moon. Or, perhaps further past the moral event horizon, World War 2 Japan's Unit 731 getting off scot free because the U.S. government wanted the data they'd gathered -- data that turned out to be of little value, but of course they didn't know that before they actually got the data.

And Chrysalis was offered friendship and forgiveness at least once, but I believe she declined. Not explicitly, but I think slapping away the outstretched hoof and declaring, "There is no revenge you could ever conceive of that will come close to what I will exact upon you one day, Starlight Glimmer!" probably counts as implicit refusal.

but if the show is supposed to show kids the power of friendship and forgiveness, then, those offers of friendship would have to be genuine and not a Project Paperclip kind of thing. so, that's not a satisfying answer to me.

and I still find it hard to believe that absolutely everyone, everywhere, forgives characters like Discord and Tempest Shadow, there isn't at least one person who still resents them or is advocating they face punishment for their crimes?

and this is a problem with even the protagonists. kids need to know that actions have consequences.

speaking of double standards, kid characters tend to be punished a lot in this show but adults always get off scott free as long as they feel bad about what they did. even kid characters became Karma Houdinis in later seasons.

is it just as simple as imagining punishments happening off screen between episodes? because I honestly can't imagine that happining with the tone of the ending of each episode and no on screen evidence anyone is still upset with the perpetrator. if there is such an example, please, tell me.

[Darth Wedgius]

I think Discord and Starlight Glimmer were offered friendship and forgiveness at least in part because they were useful (there's dialog to support that in both cases). That could be thought of as a double standard, but Celestia and Twilight are probably charged with looking after Equestria's interests, so there is a moral justification. Whether that's sufficient moral justification is another matter, and I think that's a judgement call.

Look at Operation Paperclip for U.S. history in that regard. German scientists and engineers sitting in prisons would not have done anybody any good, and having them in American pockets did help us get to the moon. Or, perhaps further past the moral event horizon, World War 2 Japan's Unit 731 getting off scot free because the U.S. government wanted the data they'd gathered -- data that turned out to be of little value, but of course they didn't know that before they actually got the data.

And Chrysalis was offered friendship and forgiveness at least once, but I believe she declined. Not explicitly, but I think slapping away the outstretched hoof and declaring, "There is no revenge you could ever conceive of that will come close to what I will exact upon you one day, Starlight Glimmer!" probably counts as implicit refusal.

but if the show is supposed to show kids the power of friendship and forgiveness, then, those offers of friendship would have to be genuine and not a Project Paperclip kind of thing. so, that's not a satisfying answer to me.

and I still find it hard to believe that absolutely everyone, everywhere, forgives characters like Discord and Tempest Shadow, there isn't at least one person who still resents them or is advocating they face punishment for their crimes?

...

I think the offers of friendship were genuine, they just weren't motivated by liking the person. That can seem like a contradiction, and YMMV, but Twilight and the rest of the Mane 6 seemed to genuinely want to like and help Starlight, and Fluttershy, at least, seemed to want the same for Discord.

To your second point... I can't argue with that. We did see that Starlight at least felt that plenty of ponies were not willing to let go of the past, but we never seem to see anybody with a real axe to grind.