I Really Don't Understand

Okay, so first of all, from what I've heard, Season 4 is pretty good so far, and the fanbase at large has hardly surprised me at all with its inane attachment to memes and meta. I still have yet to watch it, because I'm afraid that all of the rampant...for lack of a better word, idiocy regarding Season 3's ending as well as the recent episodes has made me gun-shy about watching any of them. Not for fear I'd hate them; for fear I'd be pushed into something I really don't want to do just to illustrate a point.

Let's start where the controversy began, shall we? Alicorn Twilight. Yes, I get it. She accidentally did quite a few things. In Swarm of the Century, her spell backfired, and the parasprites ate the town instead. In Lesson Zero, she honest-to-God went off her rocker and once again wound up causing damage to the town. In the Crystal Empire, she had, for the most part, treated it as her affair and her affair alone.

I'm going to state this, right now: as someone with Asperger's (inb4 someone dismisses all this as some autistic idiot ranting like I know SOMEONE will), I have had some trouble when it has come to change and some other things. If I'm not told how to do something in some way, chances are I'm going to mess it up. As such, I sympathize with what happened in Lesson Zero and the Crystal Empire. Was she, or was she not told, to send in a letter every week. Was she, or was she not told, to try to solve the Sombra affair alone? The answer to both of those questions is: yes. Now, maybe she could have sent a letter to Celestia explaining why she didn't have it, but then we wouldn't have an episode. Maybe she could have remembered Friendship is Magic--oh wait, she did. She entrusted Spike to deliver the Crystal Heart to the others, because she couldn't, despite her best attempts. She had not been instructed to do differently. This was a trait we saw in the first episodes.

I have had my own freakouts too, over not getting assignments in on time. I even had an extra week, but I was still really stressing out over it; hence why I can sympathize with what I heard of Lesson Zero.

But enough about all that. Those are the MAIN points I see levied against Twilight's transformation (Lesson Zero in particular seems to be the one above all, but now people are grasping at straws, like including Rarity's fragile wings despite the fact it was stated outright that was the best she could do at the time). That and it makes her a Mary Sue despite the fact her magic not always working out the way it should is what makes her NOT a Mary Sue. And of course, people complain about the pacing for the Season 3 ender which started the hotbed of controversy.

Now...this is where things get heavy. At the end of the Season 3 opener, the princesses were looking at a book, which then came into Twilight's possession; that book was the book where Starswirl's spell was. Now, yes, I know, I just know people are going to cite the whole "she made her friends' lives miserable" thing about it, but she tried to set. It. Right. Yes, it could have been less rushed in the sense that it should have been a two-parter; but even then I feel people would still complain.

What other episode of Season 3 should have been a two-parter but didn't? Hmm...how about Keep Calm and Flutter On? You know, that episode where Discord reformed in the span of two minutes? I don't want to hear about how he's just this misunderstood freak of nature who never had a friend before...he never had a friend before because he didn't want friends! His chocolate milk clouds and psychological breakage of the Mane 6 are not proof of otherwise; from what I saw in the Season 2 opener, he couldn't have cared less about anything other than himself. So why is it, then, that his 2.5 minute reformation is not hotly discussed while a season at least of buildup to Alicorn Twilight is considered to be the worst thing the show has ever done with itself.

People want to say Princess Twilight was a shoehorned-in attempt at making money. Shows can make money off ratings too. You can tell me you watch the cartoon online all you want, but I honestly feel that Discord's little 2 minute turn to neutral was just as shoehorned-in if not more so than all the merchandise Princess Twilight could sell. If you want my opinion on what should have happened to Discord, I'll tell you: he should have at the very least been left to rot in his stone prison for the rest of the show's run. He didn't deserve a shot at redemption. The fact that some people's headcanons have him as an immortal monster to the point that the EoH can not effect him at all is just more proof to me that people were more interested in "Classic Discord" than anything else.

And you might be saying "Well you hate Discord so your argument's invalid", well guess what? You hate the new princess on the block so much you're willing to cherry pick stuff against her, even stuff that makes no sense to be weaponized (no, being a fan of Discord is not an excuse to make no sense), so your arguments could definitely stand to use some work. Her growing butterfly wings on Rarity was explained as her not being able to use the spell as well as she could at that time. Her spells backfiring when they did is proof she isn't a Mary Sue; she can't always do things on her own. Yeah, sure, she did have a weak showing in the Season 4 opener, but clearly she still has her flaws. If she didn't you'd complain, and if she did, as last week's episode proves, you'd complain.

Do I even need to bring up that this isn't a cartoon aimed at teens and adults directly? Do I even need to say that of course the show's going to do stuff to sell toys, it's aimed for demographics that would want them while trying to at least not bore people like us to tears? I shouldn't. Yeah, sure, we get a nod here and there, but at the end of the day, it's a cartoon made for kids. I have not heard of any kid that wasn't first indoctrinated by their brony parents to hate Alicorn Twilight that does. Of course there are going to be some logical miscues or missteps, but in a kid's show, they are, for the most part, excusable. And before anyone says that Twilight being made a princess teaches kids stupid things, the show had run out of lessons to deliver by the time Season 3 rolled around. It's also why Discord can't be the psychopath I see inside him. He's a G-rated sociopath, plain and simple, and no amount of cotton candy clouds or chocolate rain is going to make my opinion change. Discord is about as funny to me as watching all of my loved ones having simultaneous heart attacks while my arms are restrained behind my back, by chains, while a phone is right there on my left side pre-dialed to 911 that could help save them, but due to the restraints I can't reach it. My eyes are being held open as well, so all I can do is watch them die. In short, he isn't funny at all, just depressing that people can find mind breakage legitimately funny and that chocolate milk rain and apparently never having a friend (because he pushed them all away up until season 3) is supposed to make me feel sorry for him. I have had more sympathy for lifeless pixels on my computer than I will ever have for Discord; writers canon and fanon alike will have to make me work to care that he's being "abused" by Fluttershy because she won't let him regress back to darkness. After all that abuse he dished out in Season 2, I fail to see how her keeping him in line is somehow abusive.

To sum up: people have hated Alicorn Twilight for intensely biased reasons, and while I hate Discord for similar reasons, at least I'm honest about it. Discord's reformation was shoe-horned in infinitely worse than Alicorn Twilight could ever have been. Twilight had ultimately helped her friends and Equestria when it counted, even when her friends were against her. Discord? He claims that he helped Twilight in Season 4, but his intention for those vines could not, in any way, have been the case. He even said it himself. Having Discord as a favorite character is not an excuse to ignore logic when making points. Also, Discord deserves whatever "abuse" Fluttershy dishes out.

P.S. Don't even start on apologies. Discord's apology in words means nothing to me until he does something more than be cryptic in his help.

Comments

[Biker_Dash]

Glad to see I am not the only one who disliked how he was "reformed"

[SSJRandomMaster]

1663031

It blows my mind to see people accepting that change while treating something that at worst was equally forced as the devil. Guess they just really wanted Discord to undo the change. Too bad. It doesn't work that way. Kids won't laugh at that.

[Biker_Dash]

1663036 Thats why I look to fanfictions.

When the shows fail to deliver, the fan writers usually do. (well, some do, and some just write horrible spaghetti lol)

[Brownie A La Carte]

Usually I just avoid those parts of the Discord fandom if I can. Inevitably I do have the misfortune of coming across one where Discord is the main protagonist against "tyrannical ponies" or one where he is the supreme reigning power in all existence, but I digress. All in all, I do think Discord is a good villain, but as a "neutral" alignment goes? I only wish they had developed his relationships with the townfolk better (over the course of a few episodes to say the least) so that it wouldn't have seemed like such a shoo-in. As for Alicorn Twilight. In my opinion, that's a great concept to introduce to the show, as it also demonstrates the kind of growth that everyone must invariably go through and the amount of responsibility that will laid upon them. However, I felt that it was a bit rushed and perhaps a little too soon for such a change to take place, but I suppose they wanted to get the story moving along without, as you said, boring us all to tears.
What the a large part (if not most) of the fandom doesn't understand is that this show was written with a 4-7 year old girl audience in mind, so that naturally the show won't be so eloquently written like other shows such as Doctor Who or the Twilight Zone (no pun intended ) Somehow that aspect of marketability eludes them, and by Celestia if ANY of THOSE kinds (You know what I'm talkin' about) of writers actually made it to the staff, well, we'd have Hasbro getting the pants sued off of them due to the....incredibly questionable content, let's leave it at that, being broadcasted at the youth demographic.
In any case, I am thankful that you have shared this with the FIMfic community, and that I am in agreement with your view on the matter (though in some aspects of it, on a slightly less extreme level ).