Top Ten Worst Characters of FiM · 4:54pm Oct 21st, 2018
Not every character is a success the moment they appear on screen. Some characters just fail to achieve a lasting impact, or end up succeeding too well at being a character we're supposed to hate. And so today, we'll be looking at ten of these characters, characters that for one reason or another are just not worthy of praise. As always, this list is purely the result of my personal opinion so please respect it.
10. Prince Blueblood
You can't really call him an antagonist or a villain, the worst he ever does is ignore Rarity and use her as a shield, and compared to the actual antagonistic behavior we've seen in the show that's a very far cry from what others have done. But to be honest, Blueblood is an absolute waste of a character. He's a deconstruction of the prince charming type of character, and it's supposed to be obvious that Rarity is mistaken in pining for him. But why did they need to go out of their way to make him the most snobbish prince ever? If he always conducts himself like that, how does he still have his royal title? And we're supposed to believe Celestia wanted Rarity to tell him off, that she planned on that happening, but that was assuming all the things that happened in "The Best Night Ever" would unfold the way they did. Had any number of them not happened, Rarity never would've snapped at Blueblood. Interestingly, he was apparently seen in a cameo during "Sweet and Elite" so it seems that maybe he learned his lesson.
9. Flim and Flam
As antagonists their shtick has gotten old very fast, but they're in a class of antagonists who never really deserved the label. In their debut appearance the Apples were the ones who driving a hard bargain, they never tried to negotiate a better deal with the brothers and didn't tell them why they need more profits. So naturally Flim and Flam did what anyone in that situation would do, if denied the opportunity to be business partners they would instead go it alone and take their product to the customers that wanted it. Heck, all they would've had to do to win in their debut was to get rid of the bad barrels of cider after the contest or have the foresight not to give those barrels to the customers. And it just gets more and more annoying how with each appearance they seem to go right back to the same song and dance routine and yet expect the results to be different. At some point you have to wonder why they keep doing something that always backfires and gets them in trouble. "Viva Las Pegasus" was their last hurrah, they should've been retired as antagonists after that, reduced maybe to the level of tolerable evil like the Penguin for Batman (Batman has a tendency to sometimes tolerate the Penguin when he isn't outright breaking the law in order to obtain information on underground criminal activities).
8. Spoiled Rich
She's far less irritating as a character than an antagonist, the problem is just that her character stuck around after there was no longer a need for her. When Diamond Tiara became reformed, it was she who should've been in the spotlight with more appearances and not Spoiled Rich. Especially when it seems she hasn't learned her lesson at all, despite publicly denouncing her daughter's choice of friends and being told off in public by said daughter. The more we see and hear of her, the more we wonder why Filthy even bothers to stay married to her, because it's clear that whatever love there might have been between them once upon a time, it isn't there anymore. Heck, Spoiled has caused many people to speculate that Filthy is a terrible pony despite all evidence to the contrary. At worst he is unaware of what goes on in his family behind his back, because that's the only reason why I can assume he has no clue what Spoiled's been doing all these years.
7. Zesty Gourmand
Of all the petty one off antagonists, Zesty might by far be the worst because of what she represents. She's just a strawman critic that's supposed to be a jab at all critics, as if the show thinks attacking your critics is a great trend (when in fact the trend setters are some of the most despised cartoons currently on the air). In a show that excelled in part because it seemed willing to listen to its critics, strawmaning the critic was probably the first warning sign that the show (or maybe Hasbro considering what's been coming to light recently) was getting too big for its britches and needs to be knocked down a few pegs. To be honest, I'd much rather forget Zesty even existed, because how hard was it to make her not petty? To make it so she legitimately didn't know what was going on on Restaurant Row with all the restaurants that had a three hoof rating. Conforming to bad standards is wrong no matter how you slice it.
6. Principal Abacus Cinch
She was an effective antagonist up until the climax of "Friendship Games", I'll give her that. She was a strong motivator for Sci-Twi to do the things she did and for the Shadowbolts to act so hostile. But that doesn't mean her character is enjoyable because of that, because oh boy does she have a lot to answer for. Blackmailing and what might even be considered hazing occurred directly under her watch, and not only did she not prevent it but she outright encouraged it. She cared solely about winning, no matter what the cost might be, and didn't even care when her own students were put in danger by her thoughtless actions. At the least I'm glad that even if it was off-screen, for once an antagonist who did immoral and unlawful things got punished accordingly. Something that nowadays in the show and its spin-offs seems sorely lacking.
5. Jet Set and Upper Crust
What even is the point of these two? You could literally replace them with any random ponies in Canterlot and get the same results. They're just snobs for the sake of being snobs, and yet easily swayed when someone of more prestiege and position than them chimes in with a different opinion. Heck, how ignorant do they have to be to not know that Twilight is the student of Princess Celestia, the ruler of their land? Everything about them is cliche to a fault, nothing about them is unique or original. Their entire existence feels almost not needed except to motivate Rarity to do what she wouldn't need encouragement to do given her profession. As a pony of business it's natural for her to appeal to the clientel that have the most demand for her work. A successful business is one that knows its audience, knows what they want, and knows how to sell it to them in a cost efficient way.
4. Chancellor Neighsay
I've been ragging on this guy a lot already, but I'm sorry to say that he deserves it. The things he said and did should not just be swept aside because he says he's sorry. In real life his actions could've and likely would've resulted in controversy and fallout that would've tainted the very institutions he claimed to be operating on behalf of. Especially nowadays it seems like it all it takes to lose your job is make one offensive comment or remark about anything for any reason, even if you try to apologize and own up to it. I daresay Neighsay deserved far worse than being deposed by Cozy Glow and briefly chained up. He's probably the one who should be learning more about friendship, because it's clear he doesn't understand what those values mean to Equestria or how they might play a role in international relations.
3. Cozy Glow
I did consider putting her at number one, but honestly even that's too good for her. I don't want to give her the privilege of knowing she got under my skin with how awful of a character she was. But I still don't get what is up with her, what even is the deal with Cozy Glow? Why does she have to be what she is? Why does she need to be the big bad of the season finale? Nothing about her character makes any sense at all, and everything we previously might have known about her is a flat out lie. It's mind boggling how everyone except the student six believes anything she says with no brainwashing, or that the Tree of Harmony somehow never stepped in to stop her sooner. On top of all that, how does it make sense to imprison her in Tartarus right next to her pen pal Tirek, who apparently took her under his wing? Isn't that just begging for the same mistake to be repeated?
2. Grubber
Of all the characters in the movie, Grubber was by far the biggest waste of animation and the one who had no real purpose whatsoever. All he ever does is make unfunny jokes or undercut any tension that Tempest might have been meant to have. It's almost like the writers were afraid to be taken seriously, so they wrote Grubber and told his VA to just make it up as he went along because they assumed you can be funny without any effort (even though comedy is an art and a very subjective one at that, it takes effort to actually be funny). There's only one scene he's at all relevant for, and it's a scene that could've gone to any other character, like say one of the Storm Guards. It doesn't even make sense as to why he's a humorous character, because we already had a funny villain in the form of the Storm King. So if Tempest's seriousness is meant to contrast the Storm King's playfulness, why did they think a comedic sidekick was necessary? And yet if you can believe it, there's a character even worse than him.
1. Sludge
Allow me to sum up my feelings for this guy as follows:
. Yeah, that's right, I hate this guy that much! And he deserves it too! Even the worst of characters before, maybe I can understand what the intent was behind them: Blueblood was supposed to be a deconstruction of the prince charming trope, Flim and Flam were intended to be references to The Music Man but their gimmick got worn out fast, Spoiled Rich was to help put everything Diamond Tiara previously did into context so her redemption would be more believable (though whether it worked is a matter of debate), Zesty Gourmand was intended to show that you can't base your views around one critic, Abacus Cinch was meant to pressure Sci-Twi to move the plot along, Neighsay was originally a well intentioned extremist before subsequent appearances turned him into a bigoted idiot who gets proven wrong, Cozy Glow was supposed to be the threat you didn't see coming and be an unreformed and un-repentant villain, even Grubber was intended for comedic purposes and perhaps with some tweaking he could've been something (like say a morality chain for Tempest or even just her butt monkey that she always takes her anger out on). Sludge, there is nothing good going for him. He's just a fat, lazy slob who even among dragons is an outcast. His entire story is clearly fabricated, and yet everyone is dumb enough to swallow it whole when Spike believes him out of the blue. And he gets away with everything he does is simply because everyone is too stupid to notice what he's really up, and he even manages to make off with Spike's pillow after his ruse is exposed. Not even having him actually be Spike's father would've been enough to save him, because that would've just made him even more of a waste. The fact that this may be the closest we ever get to Spike's family (and I pray it isn't) is the cherry on top of this garbage sundae for this utter waste of a character.
Whew, and there you have it. Come back tonight when we'll rank the writers of Season 8 from worst to best, and then on Monday we'll start doing one list per day, beginning with an update to the Top Ten Stallions list.
I don't need to repeat my feelings on Cozy and Neighsy.
Grubber, though, I actually find pretty amusing. Sure, he's not my favorite character from the movie (he's not even in my top 5), but I like him.
As for my least favorite characters overall, there's only one difference between that list and my least favorite antagonists list, and that's that Gilda is my tenth least favorite character in the series over Nightmare Moon.
A lot of the reason you're putting characters here seem to be that they're mean, when that's not inherently a bad trait for a character. And a lot of the time, it's a good thing. For Cozy: the guards and Luna don't know that they're pen pals, or at least that can be assumed.
4956089 But the mane six know and I'm sure they would've mentioned that before any sentence was handed down.
4956092
You'd be surprised how incompetent the federal government can be sometimes. Especially in Equestria.
I agree with most of the order you put these characters in but one character I place ahead of Grubber in this list, is Zephyr Breeze. Not one thing about his character do I find redeemable. Even if Fluttershy and Dash started him on the right path. I still can't bare to watch his episode. The only reason I place him below Sludge in the worst character list, is that he actually had some finesse to his freeloading, but that doesn't excuse his actions any less.
You make some good points.
4956098 Eh, the only one Zephyr really hurt with his behavior was himself, though I don't buy his excuse of being afraid to fail. He never actually tried, he looked for any excuse to weasel out of doing any kind of a job. I found Sky Stinger to be worse, personally, a blending of a derailed Rainbow Dash and Zephyr Breeze. But I left him off the list since I feel that wasn't the intent with him, they just forgot how to sell him in a believeable and sympathetic way.
4956318
I suppose you make some fine points, but my opinion still stands on how I view the list. I would like to see a bit more characterization on Blueblood. That's just me though.