On Flash Sentry · 6:28pm Oct 4th, 2016
So, recently I had a totally friendly discussion about Flash Sentry, and that got me thinking back on the first time we saw this cardboard character… and, based solely on that movie—his non-importance in the second movie, and his questionable level of 'development' (aka finding out he really has no girlfriend) are not relevant to this issue—I came to the conclusion that he was even less of an asset to the first movie than initially recognized by anyone with more than one neuron.
We all hate the argument of "if he wasn't there things wouldn't have changed". In this case however, we thankfully have the opposite.
If he wasn't there things would have changed… for the better.
Now, before you moan at me about how I'm just hating on the guy and link me to your personal blogs explaining why I'm some sort of hypocrite as if those held any inherent value besides your opinion, let me say that it has nothing to do with my dislike of the guy. It's about actual storytelling.
So stop bitching about how unfair I am to the two-dimensional cliche.
From a storytelling perspective, we know that the only purpose of Flash Sentry (the human) in the first movie was to be, as good ol' Zef puts it, the "Designated Love Interest". Other than that, his 'background' includes failing at being Sunset's arm candy and being the cliche cool guy from school assigned to dance with 2-day-2-queen Twilight Sparkle. His achievements include antagonizing most of the fandom finding cutouts and being eye-candy.
But you see, here's the deal… you all know how I feel about how the series writers treat Spike, right? I've been on record to say they should just stop and let the saving of the character to fan fiction authors, since we can actually focus on the character even if some people overcompensate by trying to make him ultra-cool and failing.
Well… here's the thing...
IF Flash Sentry hadn't been there at all, or—alternatively—if he had been merely background eye-candy that ends up dancing with Twilight (which requires just about as much interaction as a glance, a smile and suddenly we have a character that we can build an actual personality for, like we did for Derpy!), all the tasks that he does on screen in the movie outside of dancing, could have been performed by Spike.
In fact, I would argue that that was the original intent.
Are you telling me that Spike's ONLY purpose in the movie is to be the convenient victim of Sunset-threats? Of course not. He goes there as Twilight's companion, support and, were it not for Flash's ONLY actual act in the movie, my money (as a storyteller) would go to Spike finding the cutouts and taking them to Twilight or Luna.
He's the right size, inconspicuous, and already relevant to the world(s) in general.
While finding some waste paper and giving it to someone else seems enough for some people to be a heroic act that inspired a thousand+ tales of torrid love between a pony and a teenager, I have to question the actual effectiveness of the decision at the cost of a more relevant character's… well, relevancy.
It simply reinforces the uselessness of Spike, rather than giving him some purpose besides being there to lust after human!Rarity or—let's face it—devolve him into a dog of all things. (When I saw that, I could hear the cries of a thousand human!Spike fans suddenly echo through the Force. And there was much rejoicing.)
And worse, it doesn't really DO anything for Flash Sentry himself. (Or Luna for that matter.)
For all their interactions, FS could have been used just as effectively as a background character with no dialogue other than asking Twilight to dance. While that would still piss off Waifu-Twilight-Types, the lack of forcefulness thrown into trying to make him… engaging or relevant would have been an actual asset to the character when it comes to us, the fans, writing about him.
We already had some knowledge of the character as it is from his pony version all that needed to be said was already said by his appearance. We didn't need more.
Anyway, thoughts?
I've always been fairly neutral on Flash Sentry the human, never minded him nor cringed whenever he appears on screen. I am a fan of his pony version mostly because I think he gets ungodly amount of unfair hate for something he isn't guilty of (nowhere in the show or in EG does he show any interest in Twilight at all, it's Twilight that at most blushes at him, but Flash simply politely smiles then gets on with his job without a care in the world) and I've had some fun making my own head-canons for him, because he practically is a background character with an official name anyway, so I have free reign with him.
As for human Flash Sentry's role, I do agree that some of the very few things he did in the first EG movie could have been handed over to Spike and I can definitely see where you are coming from in that regard. I never understood the decision to make Spike a dog in the EG movies, but there we go. I suppose they felt justified to use Flash to foil Sunset due to him being her ex-boyfriend or something like that, plus I wouldn't be surprised that the higher ups demanded that there would be a love interest in the movie thus we got human Flash Sentry.
As someone not living in the USA, to me Flash just looks like the typical cool American collage guy with almost all the cliches included. He plays the guitar, he has cool clothes, he is good looking (I guess) and he was dating the cool girl of the school (Sunset) he was also driving a cool car if my memory is correct. That being said I dont hate the guy, I just find him to be uninteresting at most.
timber spruce is far worse IMO
Interesting. As long as he doesn't take Dashie from me he'll be safe. Well, from me at least.
I want to like Flash, but I can't say you are wrong. Just setting him up as a background character that dances with Twilight at the end would probably have prompted a significantly different reaction from the fandom. Though I do wonder if the Brad leak that turned out to be largely nonsense could have still adversely affected his reception.
I'm on record with a few people in believing that we'll probably never get more complex characterization for the him on account of the fandom reaction. People always say that he needs to be more than his current cardboard self, but I can't really imagine the show staff putting time into a minor character that starts off with such a disadvantage. Not that the movies or the show are made just for us specifically, but you only have to look at the named background characters that have gotten more play to see that what the fandom does leaks in.
On the other hand, his minor role in Everfree was interesting and might be a start to proving me wrong. Having that conversation with Sunset and acknowledging that human Twilight isn't who he had a kinda sorta relationship with and that pony Twilight won't really ever be in a position to seriously pursue it either definitely opens up him for the non-Twilight oriented development he so desperately needs.
Sometimes a lazy cliche standin to fill plot beats is *just* a lazy cliche standin to fill plot beats.
To be fair, Spike had a rather important role: His presence as a talking dog is what convinced the other Rainbooms to help Twilight in the first place, without him they would not have been convinced of the whole "Twilight is a pony princess from another dimension, they need to set aside their differences and help her" in the tight time frame required.
4240776 Okay, point. However, he could still have done the cutout-finding himself without the need for Sentry.
While the storytelling goes "Flash finds evidence of doctored photos", I think the plotting was the other way around: "We need a plot point that shows Twilight that not everyone in school (and someone outside the M6) is against her. Let's have this new character show up and support her for no ulterior motive and even though he hardly knows her. This will show that these kids are good, even if easily manipulated." The photos themselves are just a McGuffin --the physical execution of the plot point didn't matter, it was the meaning of Flash's action that did. And Spike can't replace that.
4241341 I'd argue that it's still blatant pushing of an unnecessary love interest rather than an effort to appease Twilight. She wasn't going to not help them just because she hadn't made a bunch of new friends. If the M6 counterparts hadn't been there that would have been one thing, but it's an extra effort to put this guy in the spotlight, for a "reward" that's questionable in its effectiveness.
4241604 Why some people would ship Twilight the Cardboard Cutout is beyond me.