Debunking the "It's easy to hate, so stop critiquing modern MLP" argument once and for all. · 7:53pm Jun 25th, 2017
No. No, it is not easy to hate MLP. It might be easy for some mindless hater to say "MLP sucks and it's always sucked, it's just a kid's show for babies and manchildren and if you expect it to be good or call it good you're a loser. It hasn't declined in quality because it was always for babies and the fandom hasn't lost its spark of creativity and optimism because it never had one and was always just another fandom of losers like all fandoms I'm too cool for". But for me, an actual brony, it's hard for me to admit that MLP has suffered serious seasonal rot.
It's not easy to hear about some dumb thing that happened in a new episode and remember what this show used to be like. It's not easy to hear about a new episode and realize how much I don't want to see it. It's not easy to think "Maybe this new episode is good. Maybe we got lucky, maybe a good writer was hired, maybe a good story was ripped off this time, maybe this episode had some effort put into it", and remember "No, it won't be good. Those freelancers are still getting paid and walking off with the money, and the director only has a reason to sorta-try during finales. And even then, we've already seen his idea of a good finale". It's not easy to look at the show that once inspired me to do better and be better, and admit that it's fallen from grace so hard, I could make a list of "The stupidest thing yet"s over the past two seasons and explain why every new dumb thing tops the last.
It's not about "The CMC got their Cutie Marks even though they have no plot opportunities beyond helping new characters of the week" any more. It's not about "Rainbow Dash achieved her goal, despite not really finishing her character arc, and has no reason to finish it now" any more. It's not about "Twilight became a princess and this changed less than getting a magic glowy map powered by plot changed things" any more.
I could point to the Pinkie and Maud episode that ripped off that House of Mouse skit where Mickey trades his harmonica for a watch chain for Minnie and Minnie trades her watch for a harmonica cover for Mickey and they both end up miserable, a skit that already ripped off some Dickens-era story. Except everyone gets their stuff back at the end and nothing is learned. And the episode is full of Modular Scenes, also known as "Filler" that can easily be removed if animation turns out to make some scenes too long to fit the runtime.
I could point to the Sweetie Belle and Rarity episode that set up the episode's conflict and then spent eight minutes ooh-ing and ahh-ing over whether the episode should start now or not, and had a pointless sub-plot about a dog that went nowhere and turned out to be too hipster for ball-fetching.
I could point to the episode that claims anyone who prefers the old MLP due to it being better is "Literally Quibble Pants".
I could point to the episode that said creativity is for lazy millennial losers like Zephyr Breeze and you should work hard, a term which here means go back to school and follow what the books and courses say and things will just magically work out. (Real mature, Miller)
I could point to the episode where Fluttershy suddenly decided she always wanted to make an animal shelter, but she ran into creative differences with her team, so she fired them all and replaced them with new people. Even though Fluttershy's home has been an animal shelter first and a home second since episode one. (Real mature, Miller)
You can say modern MLP isn't bad, and I can point to bad episodes. You can say MLP has always been bad, and I can point to good episodes. I can even point to good episodes and good scenes in season 1. Remember how layered that "Woo, woo!" scene from the Applejack Can't Harvest An Entire Orchard episode? Season 1, episode 3, and it has more information in one scene than many modern episodes do in the whole thing.
Look at the production pipeline. New freelancers are coming in to get a paycheck and fart out some cliche stock plot episode with no nuance or creativity using characters they barely know anything about. These writers don't have an incentive to make their episodes good, so they don't.
I was recently talking to a friend of mine, and I went into a bigass rant about that Flutter Brutter episode and why it and its "Creativity is for losers, don't work hard, don't be a millennial, don't drop out of college, go back to college and learn to do things the way CalArts tells you" would be worse for a young child's development than seeing The Splinter from Spongebob Squarepants. And that's when I realized MLP really has changed, and not for the better. I mean, I always knew it had changed, but this was a definite point where I can point to it with a foam finger and say "Would season 1 have had an episode like this? Season 2? Season 3? Is this what Faust would have wanted?". You can compare a bad episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic to a bad episode of Spongebob Squarepants and make valid arguments for the My Little Pony episode being worse, not just in terms of quality or subjective comedy, but for morality and mentality themselves.
Brian's A Bad Father, Seahorse Seashell Party, Fresh Heir, Screams of Silence: Story of Brenda Q, say what you will about these terrible episodes of a television series that's long since forgotten how to be funny. But keep in mind that Family Guy's intended audience is either adults or children that want to feel grown-up for laughing at someone saying an adult word, depending on its mood. Modern Spongebob Squarepants has some terrible episodes, but they're comedies, they aren't meant to teach lessons. My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic? Remind me again, what's its target audience? Do you really want children to watch an episode that tells them being creative and deviating from what college tells you makes you a lazy talentless loser like Zephyr Breeze?
I don't want MLPFIM to stop. I want it to get good again. I want a solid team of writers to be hired and I want them to put effort into making this show. The higher-ups responsible for this mess getting fired would be a nice bonus, but I just want good MLP.
As a brony, it is not easy for me to admit how far MLP has fallen. And even if it was easy, would it change the fact that it has? Go watch The Cutie Mark Chronicles or Lesson Zero again. When I want to remember what MLP was like, I probably will.
Disclaimer: If you're going to respond to this post with some kind of petty /b/-tier damage control card like "Imagine caring about X" or a strawman card like "Imagine relying on a kid's show for morality", stop. Check if those arguments could also be used to defend the episodes of Family Guy that claim abuse victims should stay in abusive relationships for the benefit of the abuser, or the episode of Spongebob Squarepants that is literally just Spongebob getting a spinter and infected wound that gets worse as the episode goes on. If so, they're bad arguments. Why? They don't address the points of my argument at all, and are too broad and generalized to be worth a response. I've had a discussion like this before, and putting a disclaimer like this at the start would have saved a lot of time. Your post must be within the top four slots of the True Heirarchy of Arguments for me to respond to it.
I actually agree with you that the Show's quality has declined from Season 5 to Season 7, but ... I don't agree with all your specific points.
"Gift of the Maud Pie," which rips off O. Henry's "Gift of the Magi" (which has in turn been ripped off by many, many episodes of many, many shows) is rather silly because it's forced. Pinkie has no trouble acquiring as absurdly large a number of party cannons when she wants them, so suddenly deciding she has only one makes no sense. The existing character concepts are being warped to suit the plot, which is always a bad idea.
The point of the Quibble Pants episode is that it is legitimate for two fans to prefer different aspects of the thing of which they are fans, and argue about it, and still remain good friends (or, possibly, more, depending on how romantically you interpret Dashie's encounter with Quibble). It's not that all fan criticism of a thing is bad. Quibble is not presented as a bad Pony, merely an argumentative one.
Zephyr Breeze's problem isn't that he's creative or non-conformist. And he is most definitely a skilled hairdresser. His problem is that he is feckless -- he can't stick to one thing long enough to succeed at it. When Fluttershy and Dashie make him do so, he in fact succeeds at it. We don't know how well their lesson took in the long run, because we haven't yet seen any follow-up episodes with the character.
Along similar lines with Zephyr Breeze, Rainbow Dash doesn't reject him because he's a non-conformist. She rejects him because he is pretentious, gives her no particular reason to like him, and slobbers all over her in a rather creepy fashion (in one scene, he's practically trying to mount her, and right in front of Fluttershy and their family). Just because he's good at styling hair doesn't give him a right to have sex with Dashie.
I think the real problem with the Show is that it is going from more complex and fantastic plots to traditional Aesops, and rather simply-constructed ones. It's starting to aim at a lower age group audience, and this is noticable. I fear that there may not be a Season Eight, or perhaps nothing after Season Eight, for that reason.
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The point of the Quibble Pants episode is to point to all the people that say "The show sucks now and here's why" and say "Shut up, idiot! People can like different things for different reasons! You liked high-effort detail-packed character episodes and fun adventures, and these nubronies like the unfunny low-effort cringe comedy we rely on because we couldn't write real comedy to save our asses! Both viewpoints are equally valid because I say so! Shut up and like our show or you're literally Quibble Pants!".
If it had better intentions, it wouldn't have made a Straw Fan character for the sole purpose of strawmanning ex-bronies.
And remember that part in the Zephyr Breeze episode where he said he quit college because he has "New ideas" but they were terrible and he was told to go back to college, do exactly as the book said, and "Create art by putting effort in"? Yes, Zephyr is a lazy twat with a thousand character flaws and no redeeming qualities. He's also a strawman of the modern lazy college dropout millennial, complete with manbun and 5 o clock shadow.
> I think the real problem with the Show is that it is going from more complex and fantastic plots to traditional Aesops, and rather simply-constructed ones.
Correct. It's gone from weaving in deep morals about friendship and the world and morality into words kids can understand to mindlessly going down the Stock Plot List and Stock Aesops list like they're checklists. The effort and originality are gone, plots have gone from "A dragon's going to blot out the sky with smoke unless we do something! Fluttershy, you have to overcome your fears!" to "Let's bake a cake for the Yaks! ...Yay, we baked a cake for the Yaks! Cake am good". If the modern episodes even bother having morals, they usually spell them out in the most obnoxious way possible, even if they don't fit. Like the "Pinkie wants Maud to move to Ponyville" episode with the "Don't be a twatmonkey like every character in Glimmer episodes inevitably becomes when the writers need the plot to happen" moral decided it also wanted the "different people like different things" moral. Even though Pinkie specifically targeted things she knows Maud liked, rather than covering everything with cake and balloons.
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But Quibble Pants is a sympathetic character who succeeds in winning Rainbow Dash's friendship and ultimately helping her and Daring Do in their quest. He displays a high intelligence and actual skills. Dashie fundamentally likes him, and they end the episode on very good terms.
As for Zephyr Breeze, he does have some redeeming merit. He is a genuinely competent hairstylist. His problem isn't that he has "creative ideas," but rather that he's unwilling to do the basic work to get his hoof in the door. He lacks committment fo any one field -- as soon as he makes a seriious attempt to succeed at one thing, he does. He also likes Rainbow Dash, though she finds him more annoying than she does Quibble Pants.
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Quibble Pants is NAMED QUIBBLE PANTS. That sounds like something Pinkie Pie would call someone bitching about her party not having the right shade of yellow flowers in a vase or whatever. They might throw him a bone or two by letting him take the spotlight and accomplish things, but plenty of shows have done the whole "The Straw Fan might be annoying, but he's smart, can remember trivia, and is good with puzzles" thing. I'll admit he's not quite as insulting as Ronaldo from SJWniverse, but it's still pretty insulting to take the "Different people can like new episodes for different reasons" thing that was valid back in season 3 when some complained about the lack of adventure episodes, and try to apply it now that your show's just a bunch of filler and stock plots.
So regarding Zephyr, we're going to do the "I interpreted this differently" thing? For how long?
You did see the part where Zephyr showed off his original designs, they were considered ugly, and got told to go back to college and do exactly as the book says because creativity is laziness, right? You've seen that CalArts gif, right? Don't get distracted by his many other personality flaws, like longing over Rainbow Dash who puts up with his BS even though non-OOC Dash would set him straight on day one even if it hurt his feelings. Focus on what the episode outright states using this strawman. And say what you will about the Family Guy episode that told teenagers how to cut themselves or the Spongebob episode that had SB turn to the camera and say "Looks like crying solves all your problems!", but they're jokes. Bad jokes? Sure, but still jokes. This shit is played straight, as if the writers thought they were saying something the world needs to take on board.
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Ponies have weird names, and sometimes stranger talents. His Talent, perhaps, is to spot minor inconsistencies. This is actually a useful Talent in some fields: he might for instance have made a good police detective or accountant.
Though Ronaldo is mostly a sympathetic character, and futhermore seems to be right about a lot of things, including many things that it's difficult to see how he knows.
One of the things I like about SU is how it mixes, matches and often deepens stereotypes in characters. Ronaldo's no exception to that. He's seemingly just a crazy weirdo, but his personality runs deeper.
I don't agree that the show has gone quite so far bad yet. The first half of Season Seven seems to me as if there is a lot of maneuvering characters into position for some future large-scale story. I think we're going to see a lot more of Starlight, Trixie, and Maud in particular.
However, I do think that the show quality is declining, because they are deliberately taking a more juvenile approach to their characters. This is bad, because the characters are actually getting older, and a more logical way to take the plot would be to have them face more mature problems. This is going to paint the writers into a corner.
Rainbow Dash was tolerating Zephyr for one and only one reason. He's Fluttershy's brother. She's clearly offended and disgusted by his constant sexual insinuations and approaches toward her. But her desire to please Fluttershy leads her to refrain from actually humiliating or physically attacking him, which is how she would otherwise handle the situation.
Dashie isn't subtle: she doesn't know how to handle herself in this situation short of insulting or hitting the stallion.
She is capable of letting somepony down nicely, even in ways which don't preclude further social (or even romantic) connections, but she has to like the Pony to do that. She doesn't like Zephyr Breeze, and she fears that if she is really rude to him Fluttershy will be mad at her, and she loves Fluttershy. So she simply fends him off.
Far from being OOC, what's happening here is that Dashie is demonstrating one of her major canon character weaknesses. She's bad at subtlety.
In this context, it's instructive to compare Zephyr Breeze and Quibble Pants. Even though Zephyr Breeze is conventionally more attractive than Quibble Pants, Dashie likes Quibble, while she finds Zephyr repulsive. Why?
Well, part of it is the pleasure she gets from her shared fandom with Quibble Pants. But part of it is that Quibble Pants is just plain a nicer and more friendly Pony. He is cheerful and fun-loving, and he behaves like a gentleman toward Dashie. You do not see him trying to take physical liberties with her without her permission. Nor does he make insulting assumptions about her.
Quibble Pants is argumentative, but he is honestly argumentative, and Rainbow Dash is perfectly fine with that. One of her best friends, after all, is the stubborn and honest Applejack. Zephyr Breeze, on the other hand, acts arrogant and presumptuous.
What this shows -- and I don't know if the writers meant this as a deliberate apposition -- is that Rainbow Dash cares a lot about who one is, more than about what one looks like. Which is a surprisingly deep principle for the member of the Mane Six who isn't much of a deep thinker ... but makes sense, for Loyalty.
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> One of the things I like about SU is how it mixes, matches and often deepens stereotypes in characters
Yes, please tell me more about how the Coconut Guns being the Typical DBZ Villain Trio("Pretty" one, stupid one, one with weird powers) except worse is a new and brilliant thing. Being more than a stereotype is the norm in some shows, but for this, it's an accomplishment. And really, they're all just stereotypes, just not the one they seem like at a first glance. Neurotic thin big-nosed prat, check. Fat slob that hates herself and the neurotic prat, check. Big guy that is actually not strong, check. Kid that's actually the most mature family member, check. Loser dad that is surprisingly wise, check. Scary new character that turns out to be a complete joke, check. "Meme gremlin", since that's apparently what we're calling Teh Penguin Of Doom walking shitposts desperately trying to be Invader Zim now, check. Enemy soldier that gets destroyed by his own evil plan or the consequences of it because this is where evil gets you, check and Admiral Zhao did it better.
But let's not talk about Steven Suckniverse and how much it sucks. Or the fact that the writers of that show are openly dragging things out as long as possible to squeeze as much runtime out of the show as possible, doing the Moffat Sin without irony or self awareness, and they just What-A-Tweest-ed away one of the central things that "Make the show deep".
> The first half of Season Seven seems to me as if there is a lot of maneuvering characters into position for some future large-scale story. I think we're going to see a lot more of Starlight, Trixie, and Maud in particular.
They're maneuvering these characters into the spotlight because the execs say Starlight, Trixie, and Maud are the most popular characters in the show. So the writers have to write episodes for them, even when the writers can't think of anything. I'd blame the waifu idiots, but it's not their fault the new writers decided to pander to them.
> However, I do think that the show quality is declining, because they are deliberately taking a more juvenile approach to their characters. This is bad, because the characters are actually getting older, and a more logical way to take the plot would be to have them face more mature problems. This is going to paint the writers into a corner.
True.
>Fluttershy's brother
Remember the "Rainbow Dash is the real element of honesty" gags from season 1/2? He could be Celestia's godson and Luna's cousin and Fluttershy's granddad, in-character Rainbow Dash would STILL set him straight on the whole "I love you AND believe you love me" thing. What season we're in decides where she'd be on the brutally honest to tactful scale, but that's it. Zephyr loving RD and being a prat about it was one of the many negative character traits this strawman displayed to make this walking caricature even more detestable. But since I hate this hate sink, wouldn't this make it a good character? Wait, no, because it's cheap and lazy, it's a strawman, and I dislike the character and the episode and hate the writers for making it.
Rainbow Dash would put up with "I love you" crap from a loser, sure, if she had to. But "I love you and I know you're into me"? That's crossing the line in her head. The line where she decides she has to set him straight for his own good, even if it makes him run off in tears and the episode gets to be ABOUT A MEMBER OF THE MANE SIX and not the new Uncle (Forgot what they're called) of the week.
>The Straw Fan cliche isn't THAT bad
I'll admit, I've seen more insulting Straw Fans. This episode wasn't that bad. Let's give it a star sticker with "You weren't THAT bad" written on it.
But the episode still said "All fans of the old series and haters of the new series should shut up and learn that their opinion is objectively wrong because muh different opinions, or they're literally this guy and their waifu will never love them".