A bone to pick with Andy Price

COMPLAINING!

And now that I have your attention, sex. (Er... Wait, that doesn't sound right...)

So on the whole things are going pretty well and I'm over my writer's block and Twilight Sparkle vs the ELA chapter 2 is underway. But as is often the case in life, there are still a few things to complain about.

Apparently, the IDW Pony comics are going to start featuring Twilight as an alicorn beginning with the next issue (I think... I'm a little out of the loop chronologically but it's the pirate arc apparently). Naturally there was a lot of hemming, hawing, and the occasional death threat directed at Andy Price and Katie Cook, the main artist/writer team for the comics (although I'm not actually sure how Price and Amy Mebberson divide the art load at the moment. They might be alternating arcs?)

Obviously the death threats and jazz are totally uncalled for and stupid and it was probably only a matter of time before Twilicorn appeared in the comics, because the comics and the TV show being obviously out of continuity with each other would have been a problem. I'm not crazy about finding out that the comics are going to follow the TV show off of a cliff when the TV show hasn't proven that it actually knows how to fly with all the wings it's been passing out, but that's not really what I wanted to complain about.

I direct your attention to Andy Price's response to the drama.

By and large it's totally fair and his "guys grow up" is pretty well justified. HOWEVER!

What, did Celestia really deposit this pony she had governed for years amongst a group of her equals to do nothing more than run an abandoned library???

YES!

No, but in all seriousness, I really like the universe suggested by Price's facetiousness? Obviously Celestia had a couple of motives going on when she sent Twilight to Ponyville, but she let Twilight stay because Twilight asked her to, because she was beginning to feel like she belonged there. And I, for one, always thought that the commingling of normal life with occasional monster attacks or the need to save the world was something that made the show fun. I know people think it's silly that the main six can be heroes one minute and be snubbed by disgruntled vegetable stand employees the next, but I find the setup kind of charming.

Now, the comics have always been the answer to the call for more epic fantasy adventures and less As-Told-By-Ginger daily life, so it's sort of a moot point as far as the context of the original conversation goes (and arguing things out of context is a bad habit of mine I admit, but I only do it out of a desire to make sure that everything everyone says is technically correct under any circumstances. That's not so bad. Right? *twitch*). It does remind me why I look forward to the Season 4 premiere with some trepidation though. If I'm being honest I don't expect the show to change much because television runs on status quo, so like water taking the path of least resistance I imagine Twilight's title will turn out to be mostly a title (and I still haven't watched Equestria Girls despite some of my crueler friends buying it for me almost 3 months ago). But it's hard to say.

Mostly I'm just still clinging to my image of Twilight growing old as a librarian, professor, author (of textbooks, treatises, and one novel that sold about 12 copies at release but has since became a cult hit among people who like really long sentences and digressions about atoms), and the world's leading scholar in 17 different fields.

But I have to admit, the underlying attitude of Price's statement bugs me a little. I don't think of Celestia as grooming Twilight for a particular destiny--then she would just have been marching through life on a set of rails like any other "princess" character (despite the idea of her having earned her promotion). The Celestia who lets Twilight stay in Ponyville with her friends seems to me more like a teacher who wants her pupil to pursue her own idea of her future, and live the life that best suits her own needs, rather than Equestria's.

Anyhoo, that's just what I think about it.

Edit: Actually, if we want to get technical the whole issue could be traced to Price's use of the word "deposit," to describe how Twilight came to be in Ponyville, when it's really more like Celestia sent Twilight for a day and then Twilight decided to stay for X years.

(To be honest, the one thing that disappoints me about the comics pretty regularly, and I'm a little behind atm so bear that in mind, is that the adventures as such don't seem to make very strong impacts on the characters or require much personal growth or a "lesson" in the vein of the show. It doesn't really diminish from the fun but I do wish they dug a little deeper character-wise than some of the "find your hidden willpower to help the people you care about"-esque bits that have been the keys to victory in the past)

I actually got to see Cook, Price, and Mebberson at New York Comic Con earlier this month, so expect a more interesting blogpost about that soon!

Comments

[Inquisitor M]

I, too, have been greatly disappointed in the comics with regard to story. The pony-by-pony ones are pretty good, but the arcs suck. I swear they haven't actually worked out who their audience actually is, yet.

Anyway. Yes, 'going princess' was inevitable, and I don't much care. I have no expectations whatsoever about season 4 except that it will continue the trend of completely missing what made me care about the show, or more specifically the characters, so that I simple don't care anymore.

It is doubtful that I will ever write anything that acknowledges even S3. Except for Keep Calm and Flutter On, nothing changed that I have any interest in, and even 'Flutter was a poorly done episode—I just wanna toy with Discord some day (I reckon I could do a good Discord).

All in all, I think it's best that both writing crews leave the reasoning for previous events alone, because I don't trust them not to fuck it up completely.

-M

[Psykosis]

I haven't read the comics yet, but I think I understand why they haven't done much in the way of character development. The comics are a completely secondary medium to the show, so any big changes wouldn't likely be reflected in the main series. It would essentially become its own alternate continuity, and that would just get confusing for the younger audience. At least, that's my take on it. I could be completely wrong for all I know.

If you don't mind me asking, why haven't you watched Equestria Girls yet?

[Fedora Mask]

1464719 Because I am bad about watching movies

Because I am an unemployed recent grad who lives with his parents and there are limits even if they know that I like a show about pastel cartoon ponies

Because I am clinging to Twilestia like a drowning priest to a giant inflatable bible and don't want to see Twilight being straight on camera

I haven't gotten around to it.

Also I don't have a lot of enthusiasm for it, so there's nothing pushing me towards watching it. The music--which people have said is pretty solid in practice--promises to be kid-friendly Disney pop star stuff, the character designs still weird me out, Spike isn't mute as a dog and spending the entire movie getting increasingly frustrated as he tries desperately to communicate, and really just the whole premise isn't something I'm excited about, so in my mind it's going to be kind of a chore. Most everyone has said it's actually decently enjoyable but I can put off watching things I really want to see for months at a time because I don't feel like starting something new, or whatever. It's like my special talent.

Oh, and so far as I know, Twilight never shouts "MAGIC TIARA MAGIC!" and hurls her crown at Sunset Shimmer, cutting her in half.

(God I apologize for how bad that dub is I totally remembered it being less awful)

Anyway it's not so much development per SE that I want to see but some sort of growth? Like on average a given episode of the show has the character learn or grow in a way that reflects what went on the episode and maybe pushes them a little in ways that will affect them in the future, like Fluttershy (arguably) becoming more confident and Twilight moving from being new to everything to being more experienced and able to help others with their problems.

I mean, yeah, stuff on that scale would be hard to make feel fitting in stories about world-altering magic and evil. But I think one of the most significant plotting tools you have in an adventure is that the characters, in theory, start from a position of not being able to defeat the bad guys and end up able to defeat them. That strength should come from somewhere specific--the most obvious choice being a new weapon or power, but the "best" choice being something the characters learn about the world/their enemy/themselves. The comic arcs have had a sort of "confronting your demons" motif in each of the two adventure-y arcs so far, but they stopped short of making the characters actually face things about themselves in a way that felt organic or earned.

By contrast, the Darkwing Duck comics, which are also an all-ages property, have arcs that deal with Darkwing coming out of retirement (in an homage to The Dark Knight Returns), the possibility and reality of Darkwing losing someone he cares about and how he would deal with that, etc., while remaining fun and not-too-heavy (for too long, anyway)

Now those comics are free from having to worry about breaking continuity with their series since Darkwing Duck has been off the air for well over a decade, and you definitely couldn't do some of that if the show was still going on. But the pony comics, for all their strengths, tend to rush through things without making the characters do much more than hit harder, so to speak. The feeling I was left with was mostly one of flicking a switch from "lose" to "win."

As a spoiler:
When Chrysalis makes the ponies fight by having her changelings impersonate various members of the group and be rude to each other, the resolution of the ensuing argument was mostly handled by the ponies realizing that the whole thing was a setup and forgiving each other. It was, to my mind, a real missed opportunity for the characters to deal with the things that actually bother them about each other, not in any sort of a permanent fashion necessarily, but by deciding that friendship isn't predicated on never being annoyed with each other or what-have-you.

Or, alternatively, since the first arc came down to Chrysalis trying to manipulate Twilight by threatening her friends, there could have been a thing where she tries to prey on Twilight's pride, putting her in situations where only she can save her friends so that she ends up feeling responsible for them (even though the others are capable of taking care of themselves).

I guess the point being a character arc in a running piece of media needn't necessarily push the character forward, but it should make them make hard choices or confront things that are hard for them to face about themselves or others, and it should require some level of revelation for them to advance. There's just a lot of rich ground with the kinds of stories the comics are telling to dig into character--which is the same thing as digging into the reader's emotions, really--and I feel like they mostly skim along the surface.

[Fedora Mask]

1464719 1464944 Actually, put another way (having looked at what I said again), the comics' "final battles" so far have a tendency to not come from a place that's unique to the characters undertaking them, but to fall back on some of the cliches of "a hero in these circumstances." What I'm missing is that deep/specific character connection that is served best by making the character do something that only they can do, or that requires them to overcome a shortcoming or what-have-you.

It's funny because characters' incidental/background antics are often quite specific and rather strong characterization-wise.

[MrNumbers]

Fascinating read, I look forward to more.