New toys tomorrow, plus or minus. Target. Canterlot collection.
I came across a funny drawing somewhere with a horrified Celestia being presented with her toy. And another where she Sends Hasbro To The Moon. And another where the toy is Luna’s and Celestia’s really embarrassing sister, the one they try to pretend doesn’t exist.
Hah, I like that last idea. Maybe that sister is Prince Blueblood’s mother.
What do you think draws people to the various characters?
As for me, I can see that Twilight Sparkle would be liked because of her nerdiness, Fluttershy because of her softness and shyness, Pinkie Pie because she’s so upbeat. Are there other reasons? What about the others?
I’ve only watched the first 3 episodes so far and it seemed to mainly be from Twilight Sparkle’s perspective. Does this continue through the series?
Michael, there’s at least one from each main pony’s perspective. And one from the POV of Applejack’s younger sister, Apple Bloom. And some of them just take more of a group perspective, like Bridle Gossip (the one with Zecora).
I’m drawn to them for much the same reasons. The librarian in me loved Twilight gushing over the table of contents in Everything You Ever Wanted to know About Slumber Parties But Were Afraid to Ask. Fluttershy’s freak out before going to the party is Celestia is something that’s happened to me way too often. And Pinkie Pie…how can you not love a gal with a toothless baby gator?
I’m not a huge Rainbow Dash fan. I find her a little too in your face. But I like Rarity a lot. It’s refreshing to have a female character who’s into fashion and accessories but isn’t considered a jerk–in fact, Rarity’s generosity is a huge part of the show. And she really sacrifices her feelings to what she thinks Fluttershy wants in Green Is Really Not Your Color.
That’s one of the small things that distinguishes this show from general girly kiddy pap. Most shows, when presented with a Rarity-like character, will opt to make her a consumerist, concerned with buying and wearing dresses, not making them. By switching her to a creative type, she’s a stronger character, better role model, and not pigeonholed into the selfish rich bitch stereotype.
That said, she’s still a fussy frilly type and is probably my least favorite character (though she acquits herself well in Dog and Pony Show). But that’s like saying I have a least favorite ice cream flavor. It’s still ice cream.
Yeah. I guess TV Tropes would call that fussy type a Libby, when it’s the rich bitch type? She’s definitely not a Libby. I can see why people would find her a little annoying, but I like her. And I agree–making her a creative type was a great decision.
Also, there aren’t that many female characters like Twilight. I feel like the smart/nerdy/slightly awkward characters like her are usually male.
Creating an appealing character is more difficult than most people realize. You start with an archetype to define the basic “shape” of the character, but if you leave the character defined by just one or two basic traits, you end up with a cardboard cutout as the best case scenario (and Michael Scott as your worst-case scenario).
So you need to add some additional dimensions to the character: conflicting impulses (fear vs bravado in Rainbow Dash), seemingly incongruous personality traits (Fluttershy’s Stare), surprising quirks (Spike’s crush on Rarity), intriguing personal history (Pinkie Pie’s life on the rock farm), etc. But you have to be careful about that too, because if you go too far, you can lose what originally defined your character in the first place. You also run the risk of turning your character into an unpredictable cipher. See virtually any character from the later seasons of “Alias” for an example of how this can utterly ruin a show.
For me, as someone who spends way more time thinking about story mechanics than I really should, one thing that I really enjoy about MLP:FiM is that (so far), they’ve managed to dodge all these pitfalls adroitly - and have done so with a pretty large cast of six. Each of the ponies is strongly defined as a character (hell, they spell that out explicitly in the pilot), but has enough layers that they can undergo further development as the series progresses. They also have enough range that each of them can perform very different roles in different episodes, depending on what the story happens to be, without feeling like they go out-of-character.
I’ve found that a good litmus for a well-written character is when the character does something that surprises you initially, but then feels like it makes perfect sense in retrospect. Rainbow Dash’s freakout in “Sonic Rainboom” and Twilight Sparkle’s 5th-place finish in “Fall Weather Friends” are good examples. Rarity’s defeat of the Diamond Dogs is another, as is Fluttershy’s response to fame in “Green Isn’t Your Color” (speaking of which, I’m so glad they didn’t do the cliche plot where the wallflower discovers she loves attention and turns into a total bitch, only to get her comeuppance).
Nope. Some of the best episodes are those that revolve around the other ponies. “Suited For Success” and “Party of One” seem to be the most often-cited of these.
It’s funny…Rarity may be my least favourite pony (which isn’t saying much…I adore them all)…but her focus episodes - Suited For Success and Dog and Pony Show - are my favourites of the narrow-focus episodes (Pinkie’s are fun, too, and Applebuck Season is great, if only for ‘no…baked BADS’, but Rarities both knock it out of the park).
The draw is that the characters all have a fair bit of depth to them. Rainbow Dash’s egotistical bluster hides tenderness and occasionally crippling insecurity, Pinkie Pie has flashes of astonishing capability, and so on. They just feel alive, and the interplay of their personalities is, at the core, what makes the show work. It’s a credit to the writers that by the end of the season, I had to admit to a grudging affection even for Rarity and Pinkie Pie, the characters whose archetypes, fashion snob and ditzy airhead, I wind up hating in everything…everything but ponies, apparently.
If she was on the poll, I’d have gone with Celestia. She doesn’t show up often, but with what’s there, you get the impression that the woman really is the master of her realm. She knows what makes people tick and can easily manipulate them into the outcome she wants, maybe just for her own amusement. She’s all smiles and gentleness, but she tolerates no dissent and she’s the only one who recognizes the show’s tiny dramas for the trivial fluff that they are. She’s not grooming Twilight Sparkle out of personal care, she’s just making sure the ticking time bomb of the girl’s magical power is firmly under control - her control. Celestia rules with an iron hoof.
But she’s not on the poll, so I went with Rainbow Dash. The poll results needed to be 20% cooler.
I am conflicted about Pinkie Pie. I strongly oppose her personality in several of the episodes:
[ul]
[li]The pranks in Griffon were only barely acceptable and not all that funny or lighthearted IMO.[/li][li]She should have apologized to everyone else in Swarm of the Century for not telling them WTF she was doing in the first place and ruining their plans that would have worked without her interference (instead it ends with them apologizing to her!).[/li][li]While she’s not directly offensive in Feeling Pinkie Keen, the Aesop is decidedly anti-intellectual and, again, results in other characters apologizing to her for acting rationally.[/li][li]While Party of One is funny as hell, it does still point to a very disturbed individual.[/li][/ul]
But then she makes faces like this.
So, yeah. Conflicted.
As a friend of mine put it:
She parties to keep the demons away :>
I’d argue that the acceptability of a prank is in the eye of the pranked, and Pinkie Pie is specifically shown to have great sensitivity for how the prankee (pranked? prankess? prankette?) will respond to a given prank. She’s very careful about ensuring that any practical jokes she plays are “all in good fun,” to be enjoyed by everyone involved. And she’s perfectly happy to be the target of pranks herself.
Of course, Pinkie might have explained why she needed the instruments if the other characters had let her get a word in edgewise. 
No argument here, “Feeling Pinkie Keen” is my least favorite episode for exactly that reason.
Only if you take Pinkie Pie’s derangement at face value but not the similar mental breakdowns of the other characters. I think we can chalk this one up to a combination of Exaggerated Behavior is Normal in Cartoons and Rule of Funny. I think the people who take “Party of One” as evidence that Pinkie will someday actually go all “Cupcakes” are taking it a wee bit too literally/ seriously.
Nooo no no, doesn’t fly. I’ll allow the other defenses, but not this one. Too many times during the episode Pinkie stomps off even when the others ask her what’s up. Someone was [del]crazy[/del] good enough to write out transcripts of the episodes, so I have actual evidence to cite:
She left right after the trombone comment before anyone else could say anything.
In not a single one of these conversations did she make any effort to say “The musical instruments are the key to getting rid of the Parasprites.” She implies it on occasion, but at no time actually makes an attempt in which she’s cut off. She just says “We need musical instruments!” and without any rational context, I think everyone is quite justified in writing her off.
Their non-musical plan worked. And she screwed it up! Why is her plan so much more important that it justifies ruining another workable plan?
That’s why she should have apologized. She never bothered to explain herself, and while the others were certainly preoccupied, there was no hint that they wouldn’t listen (and if she’d said “I’m trying to help get rid of the Parasprites!” you bet they would have). And when they actually came up with a plan on their own, she mucked it up. Lucky for her she did have another workable plan, but that doesn’t merit an apology from her friends, it just means she was able to pull out a save.
I’m all for silliness and absurdity and laughing. There’s times I think Pinkie is absolutely adorable, and I don’t actually dislike her on the whole. But you don’t get to be random and then be upset people don’t understand what you’re doing. I wouldn’t even be that offended if it was treated like a character flaw, but in both Swarm and Pinkie Keen the episode is very obviously constructed to make the other ponies feel bad for acting rationally.
Brony Test Time! - How much of a Brony are you?
I got 380 out of a possible 500.
Which plan? The one where they herded them into the forest but still had parasprites? The one where they made a tornado that shot the parasprites into Ponyville?* Or the one where Twilight Sparkle magicked them to not eat food which set them off eating everything but the food? Those plans? I’d love to know which one you thought worked.
Yeah, She could have said, “Music is the only way to get rid of Parasprites.” But you know what? When Fluttershy offered her one and she said, “Yeargh, why would I want a parasprite?” that would have been a great opportunity to pick her brain about them. Fluttershy didn’t even know what they were called and at that point you’d think they’d all be wanting some more information about their new pets. When someone else knows more about something than I do, I usually consider it a failing on my part if I don’t take advantage of that fact. Twilight Sparkle, at the very least, should have realized that it’s better to enact an intelligent plan a little later rather than rush in with guns blazing knowing nothing.
Sorry, but I disagree. The other five were not acting rationally and they should have apologized to Pinkie, who probably also should have apologized for her extreme tunnelvision. But she was right.
*The cymbals may have messed Dash up so that she lost control of the tornado. But it’s not like Pinkie purposefully threw them at her. She was trotting along fixing to get rid of the parasprites and had no clue that Dash was making a tornado in the middle of the path. You can’t honestly blame her for Dash’s thoughtlessness. It’s not her fault everyone else was employing the Throw Everything at Them to See What Sticks method.
That would be the one. Going to the transcript again:
I’ll grant that they didn’t listen to her when she grumbled about the Parasprites, but she also wasn’t paying any attention to them. There’s absolutely no reason to say that Dash’s tornado wouldn’t have worked without interference. It was an accident, but she was paying as little attention to them as they were to her. At the very least it’s completely unfair to act as though the tornado was an inherently flawed tactic that was bound to fail all on its own.
I started to go off on a more general rant about how Pinkie is generally portrayed as doing no wrong and everything works out in her favor, but that’s not true enough for me to press it. But in Swarm at the very least, she was ignoring her friends as much as they were ignoring her, and it’s not right that the apologies only went one way at the end.
And yes, I realize it’s somewhat against the spirit of the show to insist that blame be apportioned properly, but the Aesops are based around acknowledging one’s flaws and learning from them, as well as respecting your friends. The other five understood how they screwed up, but Pinkie didn’t and that doesn’t sit well with me.
As much as I hate the word Brony…
All the points I missed were on ‘lifestyle’ things…My life is only ponied to a sane extent, but by Celestia’s mane, I KNOW the show.
340, but what the hay
You should all know that reading this thread inspired my boyfriend to watch the first two episodes. His reaction was pretty meh, but he can’t stand Pinkie Pie. Every time she says something dumb, he facepalms.