Scene Analysis #6: Villains Bonding—MLP: FIM season 9 episode 8 “Frenemies” · 11:01pm Feb 11th, 2023
Scene Rating Scale:
9/9: Flawless! Outstanding scene!
8/9: Great scene! Totally Rewatchable!
7/9: Pretty good. Not as perfect as I expected though.
6/9: Decent. Doesn’t ruin the movie/episode.
5/9: Mid.
4/9: Pretty bad. One of the weakest scenes of the movie/episode.
3/9: You hear that? It’s the wind of lameness.
2/9: One of the worst scenes of the film/episode.
1/9: Horrible, unwatchable, and unacceptable.
Hello, hello, hello, my wonderful friends! Mr. J is in the house with another scene analysis for you today! This afternoon, I will be reviewing this particular scene from the MLP season 9 episode entitled “Frenemies”! Wow, every time I cover any sort of MLP-related content, I always feel a little excited, nostalgic, annoyed, or all of the above. For those of you who’ve followed me since 2019, you know how much this series changed me and inspired me to be who I am now…a fanfic writer and reviewer. I really, really hate to give it that much credit…but it’s ultimately true. And now I am about to analyze some of the series most interesting and poorly-handled characters of the show: the Treacherous Trio (as I personally call them).
In this scene, we have Cozy Glow and Tirek bickering with each other in a way that siblings would do. From my perspective, their relationship comes across as brother and sister who hate each other’s guts but have no problem tolerating each other’s presence. Seriously, if Tirek really wanted to crush the life out of that annoying brat, he would have done so already. But no, he lets her get close to him as if he has a soft spot for her in some way. You know, as much as I hate how they watered down his character in this season, I still can’t help but appreciate the extra layer of his personality. If he sees another creature who shares his desires of conquest and power, he may or may not share the spoils of war with that creature. After all, it’s what he wanted to do with Scorpan, right?
As for Cozy Glow, I still hate her with every fiber of my being. However, I have to confess…she’s a cute pony. Ugh, I can’t believe I admitted that! Anyway, she’s…*groan*…a decently-written character in this scene alone. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a poorly-written character overall, but this one scene properly showcases how she is the polar opposite of Tirek. The centaur is a muscular brutal force of nature who consumes magic to gain more physical and magical strength; Cozy is a weak little filly who heavily relies on her cuteness to deceive others to get what she wants. She’s a very cheerful, charismatic psychopath who enjoys causing others suffering and pain because it’s fun.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but for a twist villain, she is very compelling and competent as one which is something most twist villains unfortunately fail to prove themselves as. Even though I would have much preferred her being a fully grown mare with a logical backstory, she isn’t entirely that bad as a filly. I just wish she wasn’t that insufferably annoying.
But what’s more important is that what they’re bickering about shows their weaknesses. Tirek gets angry whenever a family member of his gets even remotely mentioned (Vorak, Scorpan, his grandmother). It proves that he comes from a broken household/dysfunctional family or he had a terrible relationship with his family which would explain why he was close to his brother. Notice how smug and clam he is when he taunts Cozy during their argument. The moment Cozy mocks him for always talking to his “gram-gram” in his sleep, he loses his temper and berates her.
Cozy, on the other hand, shows her vulnerability in appealing to her childish nature whereas she expresses nothing but anger and contempt. As it was shown with the guardian pony, her manipulation tactics have no impact on those who either know the real her or who are firm on their moral ground. That’s her biggest weakness.
And now for the worthless bug queen herself: Chrysalis. She doesn’t show up until the only means of getting up to Mount Everhoof were in danger. As she stated, she only saved them because she needed their assistance to get them all up there to retrieve Grogar’s bell. Plus, she’s the most resentful and bitter out of the three given that she tried to take over Equestria not once, not twice, but three times in a row. Not to mention her humiliating defeat at the hooves of Starlight Glimmer and Thorax.
Throughout the rest of the scene, we see them eventually bond and happily share their recollection of the times they brought havoc on Equestria on separate occasions. They may dislike each other, but when it comes to the destruction of the ponies, they unite together as one powerful force. That is the whole point of this episode—proving how villains can be a lot more dangerous if they work together even without becoming friends.
Overall, this was a pretty good scene in a good episode—one of the only good episodes of a trash season. I’ll give it a 7/9. It did a great job showcasing the strongest and weakest traits of the villains, the voice acting was immaculate, the animation was well-done (although the lip-syncing wasn’t perfect), and the character growth was executed well.
Man, I really miss these guys, don’t I?
I think Tirek was more defensive about his grandmother than angry
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It’s both actually. People can easily use that weakness as an advantage.
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Touche. Was disgusting what Chrysalis did
Speaking of Tirek…
The mention of his father’s name being Vorak helped me discover right away that the second villain-origin comic by IDW was officially canon, which was quite nice since that’s one of the only MLP comics I actually enjoyed.
Oh, I love this episode. I think of them as a cute villain family. It´s a very interesting point you made about Tirek and Cozy being oppsoites. Talking about Tirek´s relatives, I really wish there had been more episodes to explore Equestria´s ancient lore, like flashbacks maybe.