Changed Premises in MLP · 2:03pm Dec 26th, 2013
I think I'm officially gonna stop keeping up with new episodes, and as sort of a final farewell, I've been watching every episode over from the beginning.
As I did so, I noticed (or sometimes, remembered) just how different the show used to be back in season one. A lot of the differences were little things--the series wasn't as overly-reliant on breakneck-speed jokemaking as it is now, it was willing to pace events out and let things slowly build up, characters were more nuanced, etc.
But there were a lot of big things that were so obvious to me that they might as well have been holding up a sign.
Here are just a few:
-Angel Bunny. "The Ticket Master" has him being supportive of Fluttershy, and acting as something of a moral compass for her. "Dragonshy" has him trying to get her to notice the smoke. "A Bird in the Hoof" has him reminding her that she's late, and even locking the door on her so she'll stop apologizing and get to the party already. Yet in "Putting Your Hoof Down" he's an asshole who is abusive and uncaring towards Fluttershy, and that's how he's portrayed in most every episode these days--as a little bastard. Talk about doing a 180%
-Pinkie Pie is another case of a character doing a 180%. Here, I can even directly compare similar circumstances: In the pilot episode, Twilight says she needs a book about the Elements of Harmony... Pinkie immediately looks under "E." Later, in "Sonic Rainboom," Twilight needs a flight spell, and again, its Pinkie that immediately knows where to find it and fetches it. In other words, while Pinkie may be childish, she's still helpful and supportive. More recently, in "Princess Twilight Sparkle," they needed a book about the old castle... but this time, instead of knowing where to look and finding the book, Pinkie instead declares "nothing over here!" and then the camera pans to reveal that she's too focused on a <i>coloring book</i> to really help with the search. When compared to previous instances, it makes it look like Pinkie is now stupid and useless, good only for cheap laughs, a literal marefoal.
To be honest I could go on forever about Pinkie, who seems to be the most beloved but also the least understood by the showrunners these days, but it's time to move on.
-The Cutie Mark Crusaders are a subtle one. They of course originally met due to all being blank flanks, and for awhile their whole motif was the search for their cutie marks. However, even those early episodes showed that they were very rough-and-tumble little girls, and that the cutie mark pursuit was really just an excuse to have fun and go on adventures. They were also precocious: Tricking Fluttershy into thinking they were asleep and then sneaking out (which even Fluttershy realized was "too quiet"), having more resources than they knew what to do with in "The Show Stoppers" (and one scene implies they even basically stole fabrics from Rarity), and then there's "Hearts and Hooves Day" where they conspired to trick Cheerilee and Big Macintosh into drinking a love potion.
I used to love the Cutie Mark Crusaders, but the show changed them in a way that only I seem to have noticed, and is not easy to explain.
Essentially, the Cutie Mark Crusaders have become a bunch of (to borrow a term from Rainbow Dash) "goody four-shoes." It feels to me like lately, the girls are too perfect, too mature. I've heard some people say that makes them more likable, but to me it makes them boring and a little unbelievable. I mean, if I wanted stories about good little children who are always in the moral right, I would watch Mysteries of Alfred Hedgehog or Arthur or some other PBS series. The minute you have six-year-old (that's my headcanon anyway, I can't believe they're older than that) children who respond to bullies by "let's just ignore them for awhile" instead of wanting to fight back (which seems like what Apple Bloom or Scootaloo would want to do), or who are able to realize in a second how multicultural their town is, they stop feeling like real kids and start feeling like little messiahs.
A lot of people tell me this is just "character development." There are two problems with that argument:
Problem One, "Development" implies that their current behavior logically follows on from previous happenings. In a lot of cases, it simply doesn't.
Problem Two, even if that were true, the way they are now just makes them... boring. It's like my cat: she rubs up on my arm, sits in my lap, and sometimes goes nuts and starts chasing insects or mice or something she might've noticed, or sometimes she's just got an excess of energy and starts clawing and biting my arm. I could train her out of this, but why would I want to? It's these random bursts of wildness that make her a lovable, adorable cat! It's much the same with the CMC. I forget if I said this already, but the CMC aren't fun to watch unless they're breaking something. If they're not troublemakers, then they're the cast of Arthur, Clifford the Dog, Anne of Green Gables The Animated Series, or those other sanitized-to-hell-and-back PBS shows which are boring precisely because they're so peachy. And last I checked, MLP:FIM was beloved precisely because it wasn't like that.
In a way, the CMC reflect in a microcosm what happened with the Mane Six, who also increasingly got marginalized into goody-goods bereft of any real flaws or failings (again, not all of which can be blamed on character development) and who have, in many cases, had their personalities exaggerated. I mean, the last episode that aired had Fluttershy throwing a temper tantrum over a fly being swatted! The writers simply do not understand the characters anymore.
.... Wow, this started out as a post about changed premises and somehow became a rant about the CMC. Well, you know what? I'm happy with it. As I re-watch the series I'll likely find even more changed premises to post/make long rants about for your enjoyment.
And I do hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading.
It's funny you should make a blog like this, since I've pretty much stopped watching the show as well. I haven't seen the most recent episode (I'm guessing it's the superhero one) and to be honest, it's mostly the case that I just don't care enough. The only real reason I feel like watching is to keep up with canon, and quite frankly, that's a paltry reason. (Mainly because I care so little about keeping things canon in the realms of fan fiction)
I've not had enough consistent free time to watch older episodes, but it's definitely something I'm keeping in mind for a rainy day. And do keep these little rants of yours coming. They're a refreshing change from a large portion of the fandom who would rather slaughter their own kin than say a bad word against the show.
(mini-rant incoming) It irks me when people are so adamant that 'MLP is just a kids show' when faced with criticism. I'm sorry, but that practically insults the very fandom itself. In the beginning the main argument bronies had was "This is more than just some kids show. It has genuine quality regardless of age." That was the point. Those were the words that got people into the fandom and converted haters. To then explicitly state that it's just a kids show and thus cannot be expected to uphold a certain level of quality undermines the fandom as a whole, especially when the constraint of being geared towards children does not, and has never meant an immediate constraint on quality. Plenty of movies and shows are proof of that. (mini-rant over)
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Your own mini-rants are always welcome in my comment section!
Incidentally, if you happen to notice any changed premises, feel free to inform me. I'm thinking of doing another "Changed Premises" entry since I feel like I missed a lot of opportunities here.
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Have a response to a blog post from over a year ago!
I don't bother to watch the show anymore either. I also think the writing lost its "subtle charm" from season 1.
("Subtle charm" is pretty much my cop-out way of referring to the things you said, since I'm too stupid to be able to put them into words.)
And while the show wasn't conceived as a long-spanning epic, the fact they're trying to introduce some kind of continuity nowadays (and screwing it up) just doesn't sit well with me. Especially with how underpowered they had to make Discord in the S4 finale, which I still haven't actually seen.
Are we forgetting that he clearly had control of the sun and moon during his brief reign in S2?
And now all of a sudden the four princesses combined are as strong as Discord + Tirek + all of freaking Equestria? DBZ and Naruto are laughing their asses off at that - and DBZ's own filler was notorious for making similar mistakes.
It's also blatantly contradictory.
When things are going right: "We love the show because it's well-written and surprisingly mature!"
When things are going wrong: "It's just a kid's show; you're expecting too much from it."
Can't have it both ways, guys. It's fine to accept that the show isn't perfect, but sometimes people cross the line into apologist territory.
I also have a personal reason for hating the fandom nowadays, and that's its shallow taste in "feature box material" - i.e. one shots based on stupid premises like "Twilight's bathroom being covered in semen." Seriously, did that need sequels? Or a goddamn "Semenverse?"
That just exposes the fandom for what it is. It doesn't give a rat's ass about good writing or long-term development, because feature box bait (like the aforementioned) is devoid of those things. The fandom cares about 1k word one shots that give them a little giggle. (Or clop, but that's a given.)
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My pleasure!
I should point out that the comment you replied to marked the last time I ever watched an MLP episode. I haven't seen another one since, and it's highly unlikely that I watch any in the future. Not to mention, I've been rapidly killing off my fanfiction projects and cancelling fics left and right.
You could've also had:
When you say you don't understand an episode's events: "You're not thinking about it hard enough!"
When you show evidence from the show about it not making sense with a logically constructed argument: "You're thinking too hard about it!"
When you say you were disappointed: "You shouldn't have had such high expectations!"
When you say it was as bad as you thought it'd be: "You just convinced yourself it would suck beforehand!"
What gets me is the fact that, in the early days, the fandom was championing the show's merits of being a cut above what could be expected from "just a kids' show." I mean, that has literally been the main accusation from brony haters since day one. "You watch a stupid show for little girls."
Before I became a brony, my assumption was as follows: Bronies were just touting the show because they were wannabe hipsters who wanted to be different, and the show was massively overrated. Basically, it was just another stupid kids' show. I asked bronies, "why do you watch the show?" They told me that it was because the show was of genuine quality, that it was a great show, regardless of your age. I still wasn't convinced. When I decided to watch MLP, I did so with the intention of proving just how overrated it was. But the unexpected happened when I found myself actually enjoying it. A lot. It wasn't just a stupid little kids show. The fandom wasn't just a group of man-children fawning over pap just to give themselves an identity. It wasn't...
But of course, nowadays you're not allowed to criticise the show for not upholding the very standards that it used to have, the very standards that got people into the fandom in the first place. I'm still left wondering whether the fandom has been like this all along, and it just wasn't apparent during the early days.
To coin a phrase of a friend of mine, the fandom has become a giant contest to see who can become 'horse famous.' It's grown into a subculture where people try to outdo each other by appealing to the biggest demographic in this fandom full of freaks.
I'm not even sure if many of them even have any idea what actually constitutes as good writing. Or character development. Or plot progression. It sometimes feels like they're just copy/pasting something they've seen from a twelve year old's Tumblr blog.
An episode has major plot-holes and doesn't make sense? It does if you think up an elaborate head-canon, which is a sign of just how deep the writing is! That wasn't an out-of-character moment. It just shows how much that character has changed, displaying excellent character development! And don't forget that by changing the theme of the show, the writers are implementing a risk/reward system! By taking a risk, they get a reward! (These are based on real arguments I've seen by the way)
So yeah, I'm still not fond of the fandom, as you may have noticed.
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My own fic is long overdue for cancellation too.
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I'm actually contemplating turning Legacy into an original story, removing all things pony and replacing them with fantasy creatures of my choosing. I already know of two people who cancelled their fics to do this. I think if I follow suit, I can toy around with the world a bit more and construct my own cultures and customs specific to each species. And (praise be!) I won't have to worry about special talents and cutie marks for every damn OC. It's not for definite, but I'm still considering it.