7306960
Noice thread title :)

Though would it be alright if you expanded it by saying: Seasons 8 and 9 Without the School and Twilight Ruling Equestria

That is if it can fit it in. ^^'

7307366
This thread was just for the concept of these two seasons without the school. You're free to start a thread asking for people's opinions how Season 9 would've gone if Twilight wasn't replacing Celestia and Luna on the throne, though.

7307373
Couldn't you do it on behalf of me though? ^^'

7307341 She could've been interesting, if anyone had bothered to fill in her backstory.

7307341
Yeah but "Grogar" wasn't real. At least, not the one we were introduced to. Initially, when Grogar was real, I thought he was interesting. We have this antagonist that's been hiding in the shadows, inspecting his foes and waiting for the opportune moment to strike. It looked as though we were getting someone that was more of a strategist, a cunning manipulator that understood that the Main Six's teamwork was what has continuously won them the day and decided to exploit that. He didn't rely on trickery like Chrysalis* or was a loud, musclebound thug like Tirek*. His power lay inside his mind not his magic or physical strength. That and the idea of someone that was responsible for the creation of Equestria's monsters is a really neat idea. How interesting is all that?

*I hate how the creators treated her
*Other than tricking Discord, he didn't show any kind of tact

7307388
For some people, being free to make what you like of it is part of the appeal.

7307513
Not very, to me. Just like Cozy wasn't very interesting to you. (Also, I was kind of sick of him being used in fanfics.)

7307523
Really? What's wrong with the idea of an ancient tyrant considered to be mythical? An actual serious bad guy. I mean, the villains we got are kind of lackluster. Season 9 King Sombra is a far cry from his original incarnation, going from this monstrous force to your run-of-the-mill cartoon villain. Queen Chrysalis started out great, being a trickster with a cool voice and menacing presence but became an ineffectual loony. Lord Tirek was cool, being a foe that can steal magic but that's pretty much it. Cozy Glow is just an evil kid with no end goal or backstory. Her entire schtick boils down to "evil child". And you might say, "but what about Nightmare Moon, Discord and Sombra, who were all villains from the past that returned?" Well, Nightmare Moon was just Princess Luna possessed by an outside force that took advantage of her rage and jealousy, Discord was a morally-eschew agent of chaos that really wasn't evil and Sombra...well, the less said about him the better.

Now, I have nothing against evil child characters...if done well. I like Cozy Glow as a concept and her voice actress did a great job but what is there to her? Why is she the way she is? Why did she want to steal Equestria's magic? How did she contact Tirek while he was locked away in Tartarus? What made her decide to contact him? And what exactly makes her a good villain? You could argue that it's her skills at manipulation but all we've seen of that is her pretending to be a normal innocent little filly and pretty much everyone knows she's not so there goes that. As a child, she's physically weaker than everyone else and is presumably still learning about her pegasus physiology so she lacks speed and weather manipulation. She isn't a unicorn so magical prowess is off the table too. She's not a strategist or particularly cunning or book smart. In the end, just her age and level of spite is what Cozy Glow has going for her and that's not very scary. Her being so young and cute but also vicious and evil wears off pretty quickly.

If more time was devoted to Cozy Glow's development instead of her being a "twist" villain, then she could've been awesome. I don't know about you, but the reveal that she was season 8's main antagonist wasn't much of a surprise. I mean, Starlight Glimmer* started off as a better villain before her half-baked backstory and poorly-handled redemption. I think that's the main issue with the series: the handling of the villains.

*I like Starlight Glimmer both as a villain and as a former enemy trying to better herself but the transition from A to B wasn't done very well.

7307513
I hated how things went for Chrysalis too.

Makes me wonder how would things go for Luna and such if Grogar was there for real and all that stuff with him there.

7307582
Actually Cozy moves very fast when running away in School Raze and builds a impressive super storm in Summer Sun Set Back. She's also fairly good with prepared arguments, spotting details no one else does, and showing up to a situation equipped and willing to do the work, which is more than I can say for most villains.

Plus Discord is a evil child with no backstory or end goals. Seriously where the heck did he come from and why the heck could he not make friends with nearly unlimited power? At least Cozy has the excuse of being an anti-social dork who no one seems interested in interacting with unless their bored or need work done. What's Discord's excuse, besides the fact he's a utter heel?

7307582

Really? What's wrong with the idea of an ancient tyrant considered to be mythical? An actual serious bad guy. I mean, the villains we got are kind of lackluster.

Nothing wrong, per se. It's just that nothing about him really interested me either, plus I was biased against him for other reasons. And as the season wore on, it became more and more clear he was just a mechanism to bring the other villains together.

As for whether the other villains are lackluster, that's also a matter of opinion. (Though I will agree Sombra lost a bit of his previous menace.)

It's true there are a lot of unanswered questions around Cozy, but for some people that's part of what makes her interesting. And likewise, the very fact that she manages so much without amazing magical powers is part of what I like about her. (And I would say she is actually pretty cunning - although admittedly it helps that she's rarely under any suspicion.)

(And Starlight's poor backstory/transition is one reason I'm quite glad Cozy got neither.)

7307764
Well, he's a being of pure chaos, the (presumably) only one of his kind with a skewed view on morality and will literally fade into nothingness if he acts "normal."

7307784
If anything, the fact that his magic can be drained rendering him basically mortal, points to him as having been a flesh and blood entity at some point in time, which rather casts doubt on the whole pure chaos thing.

As for him disappearing that could easily be a consequence of him misusing his powers. Makes sense chaos magic would be resistant to making things more like reality, and eqg shows that magic is alive in a sense, and that fits well with the demonstrations of magical misfires we've had over the seasons.

The school had its time to shine in season 8 and it wasn't a terrible idea, but they just didn't have much to do with it. In the season 8 finale, they hinted that saving Equestria's magic would probably blow up the school, but it didn't happen. But in my opinion, that would have been perfect.

Imagine if season 8 were about the school, but then in the finale the school blows up and doesn't come back. It would be a necessary sacrifice to save Equestria, but everyone would understand that the value of the school was in the friendships and lessons it forged, rather than the classes and worksheets, and maybe they'd realize the school was always a flawed and needless idea in the first place. It would be a net gain, but wouldn't outstay its welcome like it did in season 9. There was really no reason for it to be there.

7307799
That's true. We have no clue as to his background, both in the show and in the comics so it's up for debate. I do know this: his Grogar scheme was a terrible idea, not only for the series but in-universe as well. Not only does it show that he's learned nothing after apparently learning about the importance of friendship but he also broke the trust of everyone around him, placed his best friend in mortal danger and almost caused the end of Equestria. There's no way anyone's going to want to be around him.

7307804
Probably because there's the idea that if Twilight was wrong about the School, then Neighsay was right - and that was unacceptable, as was making most of the Manes s work that season a waste. (Besides, a campus can always be rebuilt.)

7307845
I mean, Neighsay seemed to learn his lesson in the end. If everyone's on the same page before the explosion, it wraps everything up in a neat bow (while Cozy is sent to hell).

7307826
And the fact they didn't properly touch on the limits of his Chaos Magic.
Like what it CAN'T do and what else can beat it aside from rainbow lasers and outright magic-negating stuff like Chrysalis's throne.

Because really.. Discord really messes up the threats of other villains due to him being a reality-warper.
Like a snap of his fingers if he could, whoever he is fighting could automatically lose to him. Many fans point out he could just easily stop anyone with a literal snap of his fingers.
The show should touched on the weaknesses of his magic(no, arrogance doesn't fix that really) so he won't mess up the threat of a villain due to him existing. Heck, he made a total fool of Sombra in the season 9 premiere and apparently faked being hurt from Sombra's attack, meaning if he managed to beat the girls.. he still loses because Discord would just snap his fingers and Sombra is long gone. Sombra was doomed to fail from the start in that premiere and it really messed up his threat in there because of that.

7308007
I guess - but I'd rather fix the school concept than write it off.

7308071
Still, Discord's plan should not have gone unpunished on his end

7308080
Pretty much.
At least don't let him get his magic back until he repairs everyone's trust in him. I mean, most likely everyone's trust for him(or whats left of it) got incinerated by him pulling this behind their backs.

Any thoughts on the issues of how too "OP" Discord's Chaos Magic is?
Like.. there's a difference between a POWERFUL character(like Nightmare Moon/Daybreaker maybe) that will make anyone know this will not be easy but also it will be intense... and there's reality-warpers who just "cheat" to win(like no matter how hard one tries, they might auto-lose to said warper because he could just easily go "I win" or something and the other guy loses, no ifs ands or buts).
Reality-warpers like Discord are such a headach..

7308007 It feels like they wanted Neighsay to be the villain for Season 8's finale originally, and then changed their minds for the sake of having a twist villain, thinking that they'd be clever. But it ended up proving why the whole "Subvert Expectations" idea is doomed to failure, why it shouldn't be attempted.

7308195
It can actually work quite well sometimes though - it's just a gamble.

And do you think there might have been a transitional stage where Cozy was Neighsay's agent?

7308107
Believe it or not, I think ponies believe that losing one's magic is worse than imprisonment - in stone or otherwise. Magic is an integral part of how they conceive of themselves and others, and in their case, losing it leaves them listless and dull, less than themselves and cast out of the world. And by this point in the series, every single one of them has experienced it more than once: in Twilight's Kingdom and School Raze (Twilight and her friends specifically went through it a third time in The Cutie Map - Starlight and co. had it suppressed in To Where and Back Again, but that's not quite the same thing). I actually buy that they wouldn't wish that fate on anyone, even Discord, who had already lost his magic as part of the events of The Ending of the End (and note that it was the villains who had taken it from them - I rag on the ponies' hypocrisy, but they probably would place a greater weight on the hypocrisy of withholding stolen magic than any of the incidents I tend to focus on).

7308107
7308410
I actually think if Discord and the Princesses' magic had been destroyed along with the Bell, it would have made for a much cleaner, satisfying ending.

7308449
That would make the retirement stuff even worse.
And Luna getting screwed even more there..

7307826
I mean given past experiences involving how they handled Discord, and the fact that Fluttershy is still his friend in the future (implied spouse since they're living together), I honestly doubt that much will change regarding him.

7308073
Sure, but after that disaster of a season, how would you? (Outside of showing how its teaching is making a impact I mean?)

7308410

Magic is an integral part of how they conceive of themselves and others, and in their case, losing it leaves them listless and dull, less than themselves and cast out of the world.

I mean it really didn't have that effect post movie though. And that didn't encourage them to hunt down Starlight Glimmer the first time she escaped, even though her spell does in fact, leave it's victims lifeless and dull.

Discord is shown to be both capable of flight and just as "personable" without his magic. I am sure it would be torture for him not being able to do anything he wants, but it wouldn't leave him lifeless and dull, anymore than Discord taking Twilight's horn in The Return Of Harmony left her lifeless and dull.

It's certainly better than spending your life in stone, although given it's implied that they only pulled him out of stone so that they could use his magic, it makes sense why they allowed him to reclaim it, from the perspective that some of them would proberbly consider him pointless without it.

There's also the fact he knew how to return all the magic the bell stole in the first place. And it takes the apparent burden of chaos magic away from Pinkie Pie, though I personally have a hard time trusting anyone in the series with it, including Discord.

7308107
Yeah, Discord does feel a bit over-powered at times. There are so many instances in which the Main Six could've won if they'd just called him. The Storm King attacking Canterlot? Call Discord. Cozy Glow tries to steal all Equestrian magic? Call Discord. In season 9, it's shown that he's powerful enough to pull others out of Tartarus so what's stopping him from just teleporting in? Chaos magic, just like dark magic, isn't well defined when compared to "regular magic." Is being a draconequus all that takes to wield it? So far, Discord is the only one to use chaos magic* and his species' status has never been confirmed so we don't know if there are more out there or if they all had control over it.

*I'm not counting the very brief instances of both Cozy Glow and Pinkie Pie using Discord's magic as neither of them could properly control it nor utilize it in any way.

7308837
The fact the villains could have been screwed anytime if Discord decided to intervene goofs up their threats badly(and their victories if they happen to win since they only won due to Discord didn't interfere).
Chrysalis was lucky as heck to happen to have throne made of some sort of magic-screwing stone or else her hive would be dead for sure.

They should just say due to how "unstable" his chaos magic is, being in the presence of powerful darkness like Nightmare Moon too long messes up his magic. Or just say powerful enough beings can resist his reality-warping or something.

7308870
Taking his powers out of the equation, Discord's plan was idiotic, from conception to activation. First off, why did he think Twilight needed a boost in confidence? After years of growth and victory against dire odds, she should feeling at the top of the world. Also, she has a support group, from her friends to her family, all of whom are available to give her guidance. When Discord revealed the truth behind his ploy, he ironically ends up making Twilight question her self worth. Discord broke two vicious criminals out of Tartarus, one of whom he knows is treacherous and already betrayed him, raised a ruthless tyrant back from the dead and recruited someone that had suffered a complete mental breakdown. He really thought that leaving three of those villains alone wouldn't result in them planning to stab him in the back and was genuinely shocked that they lied about finding the Bewitching Bell and using it on him. He wasn't trying to redeem them; his goal was to unite them against the Main Six.

What's more is that Discord did all of this knowing full well that he was going behind his friends' backs. Sure, he's remorseful and gets a stern-talking to but that's it. No punishment, no period of time to redeem himself or earn back his friends' trust. He of all people even gets to select the Legion of Doom's punishment and in the last episode, which apparently takes place years later, he still maintains a fine relationship with Fluttershy and the others. He single-handedly almost brought Equestria to ruin and escapes judgement.

7308889
Its unsettling on what will happen to the trio if Discord's plan went off without a hitch.
Like he doesn't care if they reform or not, like they are just disposable pawns to him. Nobody should really be treating anyone like they are disposable pawns or so like that, that's something villains do.

What weaknesses you think the writers should have done so Discord's Chaos Magic isn't too OP there?

7308342

And do you think there might have been a transitional stage where Cozy was Neighsay's agent?

I think that was a theory at one point, that or she was his daughter somehow. If he HAD been her father, I think I could understand why she would go nuts.

7308791
Well, some episodes making good use of it. As it was, the only really good one we got was Student Counsel, but She's All Yak and arguably Horse Shoe-in were OK, and there's no reason we couldn't have had more.

7308897

Its unsettling on what will happen to the trio if Discord's plan went off without a hitch.
Like he doesn't care if they reform or not, like they are just disposable pawns to him. Nobody should really be treating anyone like they are disposable pawns or so like that, that's something villains do.

Exactly. The writers didn't fully understand the implications of the Grogar scheme, which completely disregards Discord's character growth. Mis Anthro Pony's video on the subject goes into much better detail than I could express.

What weaknesses you think the writers should have done so Discord's Chaos Magic isn't too OP there?

That's a good question. Technically "chaos magic" is a real thing, a contemporary magical practice that emphasizes the attainment of specific results through belief. If we take that into consideration for Discord, one theoretical weakness could be the user's own belief. Due to Discord's own perception of the world, he's very imaginative and unpredictable but what if his magic relies on what he believes to be possible or rather, impossible. He can create singing teabags or animate furniture, which aren't regular things, and this can be chalked up to his own beliefs. If he believes that a solid object can behave like a liquid, then it can. If he doesn't believe that something is possible/impossible, than he can't create it.

7308942
What would be able to truly beat/counter his Chaos Magic without outright magic-negating(Chrysalis's throne) or rainbow lasers of doom?

7308947
I guess "order magic" if that makes any sense. I'm not entirely certain.

7308958
Honestly they could have just say more powerful beings can just "resist" his reality-warping. Like at least so Discord can't auto-win against them with him snapping his fingers to make an enemy turn into something or just lose something.
Or powerful darkness being near him messes up his magic due to said magic is "unstable".

7308962
That could work. Maybe chaos magic is just imperfect, since it relies on probability and will sometimes fail

7308966
I always keep imagining too that if his magic gets disrupted by darkness, it at least makes him unable to "auto-win" and instead it just makes his magic do stuff he doesn't want it to do. Like now he's forced to properly fight someone instead of "cheating".
Discord wants to auto-win at an enemy? Lolnope, Discord accidently sets Fluttershy's tail on fire instead.
Take away a enemy's power like their horns or wings? It instead gives them a weapon or just causes a pineapple to chomp his sorry flank.
Something like that, like the equivalent of rolling a dice in that board game with horrible luck.

7308969
Yeah that sounds about right

7308932
To me none of those episodes really show any teaching though. They are all about the teachers learning things, even though it's usually supposed to be the other way around in school.

I did enjoy She's All Yak (all shipping aside) because they manged to make the Ponyville Five feel very in character, while still being part of the problem (which didn't often happen in the latter seasons). I barely remembered Student Council outside of those scenes in the Everfree forest.

I did enjoy the returning characters in Horse Shoe-in, but the plot didn't make any sense to me. Not to mention I dislike the idea of Trixie following in Starlight's hoof-steps as a OP unicorn. I preferred her as being specifically skilled in illusion, and that was a easier idea to buy before she started to teleport marshes around.

7309103
Well then perhaps there should have been more episodes focusing on the teachers and students as pairs.

And I don't feel Trixie is too OP - around Rarity's power level or threabouts.

7309108

Well then perhaps there should have been more episodes focusing on the teachers and students as pairs.

Works for me. That's what I wanted in the first place, meaningful interaction between the teachers and their students. I myself benefited greatly from having teachers in my life who cared enough about me to engage me with meaningful discussion.

The problem is that (for the most part) we never see that happening with the school, which is why I find it so hard to find it as a instrument of change for anyone.

Especially given just how bad some of the behavior modeled, decisions made, and advice given, we see actually are, from any moral or social standpoint. School Daze, Marks For Effort, and A Matter of Principals being those examples that come to mind off the top of my head.

And I don't feel Trixie is too OP - around Rarity's power level or thereabouts.

I guess. I just don't feel like moving a entire bog (marsh, land, the whole bit) is really compatible to mending a tree branch, or creating a light show, but maybe that's just me.

I also enjoy Trixie in her first episode because she feels like she's casting a fundamentally different type of magic than the other antagonists in the show (that of illusion). And I enjoyed the contrast. Rarity feels like her magic is focused around objects and various facets and I like seeing the differences there. Starlight is generating raw energy (in a sense raw magic) and telling it what to do. And Twilight is the space in between, that picks up a variety of different aspects, and ties them together.

I wasn't particularly upset when Trixie started moving small stuff around because that was the kind of thing a magician would do. I wasn't overly thrilled with how it was so easy to move the Friendship Map, but it still felt like a very illusionist trick to do, so it made sense why Trixie would want to know how to do it. Moving a entire bog, just felt like overkill.

7309145
Yes - the problem is that people confuse many School eps being badly written with the School being a bad idea. Fact is, a lot of Season 8 eps were badly written - it doesn't really have much to do with the school.

And the marsh is a bit much, but it could well be a form of conjuration, which fits with her magic show style.

7309148

Fact is, a lot of Season 8 eps were badly written - it doesn't really have much to do with the school.

But a lot of those plots where based on things that had to do with the school. Those who worked the most independent still (usually) do fine on their own (at least in my opinion). Episodes that were good rarely involved the main cast in a school environment.

"Father Knows Beast" has great characterization of the Main Six, and not one of them are actually in the school setting. I also really like the almost sibling relationship Smolder has with Spike.

It felt like the writers were trying too hard to bake some sort of bizarre manners system in to the School Scenes, and missed the point entirely as to what such a system's purpose actually is, which is to prevent issues and conflicts from arising.

"School Daze" is a mess because she is trying to live up to Neighsay's standards as to how to run her school. In "What Lies Beneath" it is the school and Twilight herself who kick off events, by stressing the Young Six out with "Friendship Testing".

"Non-Compete Clause" has Rainbow Dash and Applejack fighting over a reward for "best teacher of the month", a role Twilight instituted, despite knowing how insecure her friends were with their new jobs, and despite knowing how competitive Rainbow Dash and Applejack actually are.

"Marks For Effort" has her flipping out at the CMC to defend the school, presumably because of the stress she's been under running it. "School Raze" has Cozy becoming a legitimate threat, mostly because Twilight relays on her (when past experience should've warned her otherwise) to run a school that was to big for the Equestria Eight to handle when they first opened.

Given how much of Season 8's poor writing hinged on the school, and how prevalent both it and bad writing was throughout season 8, it makes some sense as to how the two became associated with each other, even if it could be argued that the main reason for the decline, was the writers not taking it very seriously.

And the marsh is a bit much, but it could well be a form of conjuration, which fits with her magic show style.

I suppose so. But like you said I can't help but feel it's a bit much especially when she winds up taking the wild-life with it.

7309178
But there are good school-related episodes, like Hearth's Warming Club and Rockhoof and a Hard Place, and bad unrealted episodes, like Yakity Sax.

7309179
I had forgotten about "Rockhoof and a Hard Place", still that's one episode out of a lot of bad ones, and it should be worth noting that he was a substitute teacher, who actually spent more time on the road, or hobnobbing with the Main Six, than actually teaching at the school, and when he did he spent most of his time telling stories, as opposed to teaching any actual friendship doctrine, (although I'll give you for the little bit we see him he seems to model it fairly well).

Technically Heath's Warming Club takes place during break when no teaching is going on, and while I enjoyed the Young Six in this episode, I am not crazy about Twilight and Rainbow here, although Twilight at least launches a investigation this time around, instead of jumping to conclusions.

Yakity Sax technically is a call back to Horse Play so...

But all my bizarre wit aside, the reality is that I don't expect or believe every episode surrounding the School is bad, just as I don't believe every episode that didn't was good. (I actually really dislike "Washouts" as a episode.) It's just a lot of the key writing, the stuff that really made a impression, was bad, and a lot of that was linked to the School Of Friendship, because that's what they were trying to sell.

Maybe the writers didn't like it, because they (like me) weren't big fans of school. Maybe it was they were tired of having to sell every little toy that Hasbro was trying to move. Maybe they just got lazy or lost the will the continue with the show. Maybe the developers made the mistake of hiring people who didn't know what they were doing. Regardless Season 8, and as a result the school it was so focused on, payed the price for it.

7309215
However, if one believes that the season can be salvaged by better writing, then why cannot better writing fix the School too?

7309241
It can, but first they would have to come up with something to teach. The way the latter seasons went, and the way fans reacted to the presentation of morals in some of the earlier episodes, they would be hard up to find something.

7306967
so.. Neighsay would have Neigh say in the matter?

7308410
Being turned to stone is actually worse
Being "dead" or frozen in place while conscious is horrifying than walking around unable to use magic

I did say not let Discord get his magic back until he earns everyone's trust back.
Not losing it permanently