Filling in time a bit here before the next Ponyfic Roundup, so I'm going to take a classic approach of asking my readers to do all the work. Simple question, really, but one which came up in the EQD comments recently.
In Friendship is Magic itself, is there an example where you feel somepony* was so poorly written as to be in direct contradiction to their core character?
* Doesn't have to be an actual pony
To clarify this a bit, if someone is just being flanderised in a "Twilight freaks out all the time" way, that's not what I mean. I'm talking about something so egregious that you simply refuse to accept it as canon despite its inclusion in the show. If there's more than one, then pick the one that grates on you the most.
My choice? It won't come as a surprise to anyone who knows me, but it's Fluttershy cajoling predators to be vegetarian in "She Talks to Angel". I quite like that episode on the whole, but that particular scene is awful. It seems to me to fly in the face of everything Fluttershy's vocation represents. We see her feeding fish to otters in S1, in any case. It's dreadful and I just plain ignore it when writing Fluttershy.
What about you?
I'd almost forgotten that bit in "She Talks to Angel" until you mentioned it. Completely agreed with your verdict, I too disregard it in my fics.
ReplyDeleteNow I come to think of it, Anonymous, I'm not sure I can think of a fic that does incorporate it, at least while still managing to convince. I imagine it's possible, but it can't be easy.
Delete(Oilyvalves here. Hi!)
ReplyDeleteAn easy answer for me. Rainbow Dash in pretty much the entirety of *2 4 6 Greeeeat*. The problems when compared to episodes like, say, *Sonic Rainboom* or *Hurricane Fluttershy* are obvious. I’m quite happy to write the thing off my record as just a writer who hadn’t done their homework.
(Hi!) A pretty unsurprising answer, though one I'm happy to agree with. Dash is just pretty awful in that episode, immature and off-putting, not to mention treating her students poorly.
DeleteTwilight being afraid of quesadillas. I refuse to qualify this with further explanation. How did anyone think that was a legitimate character trait?
ReplyDeleteAlso Twilight being in any way afraid of Celestia as shown in Lesson Zero. She lived with the Princess for, what, her entire childhood? She would know what Celestia's reactions are like! Still hate that episode.
I am sure there is someone, somewhere in our own world who is afraid of quesadillas... but yeah. I love "Lesson Zero" regardless, but you have a very good point about Twi's attitude to Celie.
DeleteI'll second both of those, and add in Twi's general characterization in the trivia contest episode. I hate it when dumb people try to write smart people and can only imagine that a genius must know a lot of stuff. It's the horsepower* that makes the difference, not how much cargo is loaded!
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* I do not apologize!
Oh, you're just opening a can of worms here, aren't you, buddy?
ReplyDeleteI could honestly pick almost any episode from Seasons 8-9, and chances are it'd qualify (everything about Rarity and Rainbow Dash's hostility and animosity towards each other in The End in Friend is an especially large example). But sure, those seasons are already incompatible in logic and timeline with what came before, what's adding character behaviour to that?
So, something a bit earlier? In Spice Up Your Life, Rarity directly encourages the Indian-analogue unicorns to squash their unique cuisine, decor and spirit in order to blend in and get a star rating. Forget that the realism of that being necessary for success gets yeeted out the window in the climax, where sincerity and honesty lets them succeed anyway. Nice moral, but this is the very same Rarity who, just one season prior, went through her own personal crisis of individuality and purpose with new new boutique, and ultimately stood by her decisions. It's not the most severe example of such, not even in its own season, and other episodes are brought down far worse by other numerous things. And the episode has quite a lot of other compensating factors. But Rarity just wouldn't do that, and even worse writing of her in episodes like Dragon Dropped doesn't make it sting less. Daniel Ingram's great take on a Bollywood number can't alleviate that.
There were many worse moments I could have picked, even ignoring the show's last few seasons, but many of them straddle the line between flanderisation and out-of-character, so I went with something more definitive.
Well... it wasn't just because I knew you'd be reading that I asked commenters to stick to one choice, but... ;)
DeleteSo I'll treat your "Spice Up Your Life" answer as the one, given you talk about it the most extensively. And it's an interesting choice, too. It's an episode I don't like as much as many people do, but it's been fairly hard to put that into words. Very interesting, and definitely something I want to keep in mind when I get around to rewatching that episode. Thanks!
Re: Fluttershy's attitude toward the realities of the natural world, it may just be a weird layout artist's way to get the scene to work, but there's an early episode where Flutters is leading some baby ducks across a dirt road... and into a hole in the ground.
DeleteDucks don't live in holes, but ferrets and snakes do.
Just sayin'.
Also, I loved the bit in the first comic arc where two predators fight over which one will get to eat the ponies and Fluttershy looks on saying, "Isn't nature wonderful?" while the rest of the Mane 6 wince in revulsion. Those Cook and Price issues were treasures.
You know, I remember that scene, and I don't think I ever noticed where the ducks go. And I have a feeling the animators figured you wouldn't, either. <.<
DeleteHm, I seemed to have blocked the episode titles from memory. But the one where Dash and AJ take students on a field trip but spend the entire time bickering as if they've learned nothing about friendship over the years. And in "Bats!" where everyone browbeats Fluttershy into doing something about the infestation. Despite it being one I liked overall, I had a hard time buying that the literal spirit of generosity would keep procrastinating on a present and then try to cover it up in "Sweet and Elite." Then Pinkie hounding Fluttershy about her stagefright in "Filli Vanilli."
ReplyDeleteMy pick is the scene in "Fake It Till You Make It" where it's revealed that Fluttershy is 'hilariously' bad at knitting. The reason I don't like that scene is because of the look of pure joy on Fluttershy's face in the comic panel where she reveals her chamber of extreme knitting. I don't have the heart to decannonise Fluttershy squeeing like that. The comic came several years before the episode did and was sitting quite happily, not conflicting with TV canon in any way, for several years until it was contradicted for the sake of a throwaway joke. Fluttershy has a chamber of extreme knitting. She loves knitting. As far as I'm concerned the idea that Fluttershy is bad at knitting can just quietly go away and never be mentioned again.
ReplyDeleteActually, it's worse than that. This is the girl who in Series One had a "freaky knowledge of sewing" and was able to complete one of Rarity's dresses to a standard that seriously impressed Rarity. Knitting and sewing are different things, but there's no way she wouldn't have realised how poor that elephant tea cosy was.
DeleteThanks! I must admit, I had the odd issue with the knitting comic, though that was largely because the art: it was still early Tony Fleecs, when there were still a few odd inconsistencies. That said, I'm sympathetic to your objection to the show's (later) approach. I still think 'Shy knows her stuff, too.
DeleteI couldn't think of a straightforward answer to this question, if only because my attitude towards canon isn't straightforward to begin with. For example, there's stuff in the early seasons I swallow as canon despite not actually liking it, whereas the later seasons are pretty much a case of pick-and-mix canon even if I do like a particular ep. Then there's large-scale decisions I dislike, bad writing that doesn't actually bother me in the moment, me interpreting some stuff as broad-strokes "something happened, just don't ask me about the details"...
ReplyDeleteLong story short, I'll go for a distinctly personal hangup:
Pinkie having a Party Cave in "Party Pooped". Forget the fact I think the episode is dysfunctional as a whole: this particular detail just doesn't jive with me regardless of whether or not one could make a logical case for it.
It's just... Pinkie always strikes me as spontaneous, natural, and basically the sort of person who automatically takes an interest in others and remembers their details. All simply because that's the kind of pony she is. She remembers birthdays and comes up with specific ideas out of the blue because... well, because she's Pinkie, and that's what she's like.
So the idea that she achieves the feat with Twilight-level hyper-organizational notes tucked away somewhere just feels... off, at least to me. Like, it goes completely against the grain of her character in my mind. It's too grounded, somehow, or too artificial, or too dissonant. I can't explain it. My brain just straight up "nopes" it.
To say nothing of the logistics of that cave - why the hell is there even a cave under the Cakes' bakery in the first place? - and yes, all the unfunny nonsense around Twilight's quesadilla fear. This detail starring in one of the weakest episodes of Season Five certainly doesn't help matters either.