Merriwether Williams - Why The Hate? · 7:04pm Apr 15th, 2013
Merriwether Williams is a show writer--writer of the controversial "Mysterious Mare-Do-Well" episode. Since then, she hasn't been able to catch a break. Some of her episodes, like "Dragon Quest" and "Wonderbolt Academy", get nitpicked until a proper flaw can be found. Others, like "Hearth's Warming Eve", just get ignored, because they're honestly good episodes and people don't want to acknowledge that Williams is a decent writer. A lot of people hate this writer.
The hate is stupid and unfair. Why? Well, let's go over her episodes. Starting with everybody's favorite.
The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well
People really hate this episode. Why? It boils down to one thing: Rainbow Dash gets really upset. Why does that upset the fans? Well, some say it's just OOC for her. Most agree it's because she's extremely insecure, and the MDW is accentuating that weakness. Many say the rest of the Mane Six are being horrible and cruel. Plenty of comics have been made trying to show how horrendous they are. How they conspire to "break" poor, sweet Rainbow Dash. There's one beautifully illustrated series in particular that basically sets Rainbow Dash up as the most innocent and tragic of heroines, and her friends up as treacherous fools who cared naught for their "friend's" emotional well-being.
If you watch the episode closely, though, you can see that the real problems aren't the Mane Six being OOC. The problem is a discordant episode. It's Rainbow Dash's Crazy Episode, but Merriwether manages to make it serious and sad enough that people got upset. RD is kinda a sad character, and treating her insecurity as almost humorous was definitely a bad move. Heck, I had a similar reaction to Party of One.
The Mane Six didn't mean to make RD feel insecure, they meant to show her a better way to be a hero. The bit where she says "at least I have wings" highlights the problem with their plan, though: bad timing, and misunderstanding how RD defines herself. She defines herself by the reactions of others. The Mane Six didn't mean to send out Fluttershy to make RD feel worse, they sent her out to keep up the "who could it be" question even after RD had seen the magic.
Obviously, their ploy backfires, and the sadness gets handwaved. It's discordant. Definitely a flawed episode. But nopony's being cruel. RD gets attention, it goes to her head, her friends try to show her ponies prefer a humble heroine, and it works despite the drama. It's a flawed episode, but not a horrendous one.
Also, fun fact: It's a prank. RD takes a prank way too seriously and gets mad over it. Maybe the people who claim RD owes Gilda an apology have a point...
Hearth's Warming Eve
Yeah, she wrote this episode. It's an awesome episode. Merriwether, the "writer without talent", wrote it. Moving on.
Dragon Quest
Main complaint here is just that it didn't explore enough about dragons, which isn't much of a complaint. It shows a nice side of Rainbow Dash--showing both her typical abrasiveness and her wish to protect her friends behind that front. Nopony's out of character. People say Merriwether relies on character exaggeration? I'm not seeing it. Actually, she seems to have a great grasp of RD so far--nice beneath a front of jerkiness.
Wonderbolt Academy
The only complaint people have is that, again, it's a bit discordant--Lightning Dust is so sympathetic a character people wanted to see her redeemed with the alt ending. But let's be frank here. She endangered the lives of civilians and refuses to show remorse. Her wish to get to the top caused her to nearly kill several ponies, and she didn't even have the good grace to apologize. I'd say kicking her out was a just act.
Besides, Merriwether wrote the alt ending, too. The worst you can say is she made the wrong call, not that she's a bad writer. This episode portrayed RD perfectly, and made me like her again despite all the annoying MDW-hating fans I was having to deal with.
Spike At Your Service
Spike is incompetent. At first, this seems like a glaring inconsistency. I get that. But the impression I always got was just that Spike was overeager and out of his normal environment. If he hadn't been so determined to help with everything, he wouldn't have been knocking everything over and in general making a mess.
Besides, this isn't the first time they make fun of Spike, and it won't be the last.
In short, not all Merriwether's episodes are perfect. But she doesn't deserve any hate. She's a talented writer who sometimes makes people feel too much for the characters. That could be a strength if she manages to reign it in, and I believe she's getting the hang of it.
Next: Twilight flying poorly, despite the ending of the finale showing her flying well? DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
How do you figure? I feel like the fact they don't simply confront Dash and instead feel it'd be better to chip at her psyche and just screw with her seems incredibly cruel.
As well, just because it's a prank doesn't mean it can't hurt someone's feelings. The example I think of for this is in "Griffon the Brush-off" how Pinkie says they can't prank Fluttershy? If pranks couldn't hurt someone's feelings then why would she say otherwise?
Spike at your service bothered me because it suggested he was completely incompetent. Yes he was overeager but he couldn't even perform simple tasks he's been show capable of doing before. As well your attitude that "this isn't the first time they make fun of Spike, and it won't be the last." somehow handwaves that feels a bit flippant.
I feel like you go to the extreme of trying to say Merriwether is almost completely free of blame and Bronystories goes to the other extreme in saying she is practically the antichrist.
For what it's worth I disagree with both of you.
1010112
1. They do try to talk to RD initially. She doesn't listen.
2. "Chipping at her psyche" is putting it extremely. They show an alternative heroine and she goes nuts and starts plotting ways to outdo the heroine. They didn't know she'd take it that way. How could they?
3. I agree about the prank thing. I just think it's funny that the main issue with this episode is that Rainbow Dash is too sensitive for a prank to be acceptable. Just a bit o' irony.
4. I know Spike's been incompetent in the past. That's why I'm pointing out that, in the past, he hasn't been seeking to prove he can be a Noble Dragon.
5. Well, it's true. Spike has been made light of before. A lot. It's not a Merriwether thing.
Yup. I totally said Merriwether is free of blame.
Shut up, Past Me.
Shut up. No, don't say anything else. Zippit.
In seriousness, I do recognize Merriwether has made some mistakes. But that's all. No writer makes all-perfect works. Why "blame" them for it? Why bother with hate just because an episode didn't turn out the way the writer meant it to?
Meghan McCarthy meant for Sombra to be a looming presence, and he ended up just being kind of uninteresting--too "human" to be Sauron, not "human" enough to be an ordinary villain. She made a mistake, and produced the least popular two-parter since the much-beloved but admittedly flawed pilot. That's me talking as a fan of Sombra.
Do people hate Meghan? Certainly not! She made a mistake and an episode didn't turn out as she hoped. Merriwether's done the same. Why malign her? Not all their episodes have such problems. They're talented writers who wrote a few characters/stories the wrong way.
1011293 1) no they dont , rewatch the whole episode and you can see they never tried to talk to rainbow
1015605 Ah, fair enough. Doesn't really contradict the rest of my argument, though. The Mane Six probably saw the Mysterious Mare-Do-Well as the best way to get RD's dubious attention span to focus.
Also, whoever downvoted my comment--you know the downvote button is meant to be used on trolls and troublemakers, right? Not just on posts you disagree with?
1015605>>1010112 My opinion on this has recently changed, and I'd like to say that I pretty much agree with y'all now. MMDW is a discordant, somewhat confusing episode that comes across as meanspirited. I tried to ignore or reduce those flaws, but really, it was a dreadful premier for Merriwether.
Now, I still think she had a great comeback and has made some awesome episodes since. But I'll concede that MMDW...well, wasn't good. So, that's my new position. Cheers!