Loads and Loads of Characters (I don’t care about) · 2:15am Jul 5th, 2015
WARNING: The following blog posts contains some minor spoilers for Amending Fences. If you have not yet watched today’s episode, you might want to do so before you read this post.
Plenty of people will discuss all the various aspects of the episode. Spike being excluded, despite being more of a friend to them than Twilight:
Poor Spike.
Moondancer being an obvious Twilight Sparkle recolor:
Seriously, she looks like a bad OC. And her mane colors! Ugh. Though maybe her looking kind of bad was intentional, to drive home the whole “ugly duckling” thing, as well as “but for Spike and Celestia, here would be Twilight Sparkle.
And a certain villain spying on Twilight:
Queue 10,000 bronies poring frame by frame over every other episode so far this season.
But I wanted to talk about something else: characterization.
This season is apparently the season for adding in tons of background ponies. Slice of Life, obviously, had quite a few of them, but we’ve had a bunch of random ponies thrown into episodes, from the opening pair of episodes to Party Pooped to Princess Spike. We’ve had tons of random background ponies given a voice and a little bit of character, and a ton of new, made-up characters.
But this raises a particular problem: I don’t care about almost all of these characters, because most of them haven’t actually gotten enough character to actually be worthy of the name.
If you look back at the first few episodes of season 1, the show basically spent the first three episodes introducing the mane six plus Spike. Twilight in particular was very heavily focused on, and indeed, she was a major thread all throughout season 1. It takes a while to establish a character well and to give them any real depth, and in 22 minutes, with a plot going on at the same time, if you try and throw in too many characters, we’re really not going to grok any of them.
Indeed, if we look back at some of the fandom favorites – Luna, Trixie, Discord – they basically had entire episodes where they were a major focus, which gave us time to see more of them as people, and care about them more.
The rapid-fire introduction of characters this season, conversely, has made it hard to bond with any of them as people. A number simply don’t have terribly distinctive voices, and most of them have blurred together for me at this point. I vaguely remember them, but I have been given no reason to care.
And this episode really brought this to the fore. Here, we were given four new characters – all background ponies – who we were supposed to care about. But of them, only Minuette and Moondancer got any real character at all; Twilight’s other two ex-friends were basically there, and ate up screen time, but there was no real reason to care about them and they didn’t really add anything to the episode. Indeed, there was a scene partway through where Twilight, Minuette, and Spike were spying without the other two, and that felt a little weird, but at the same time I didn’t miss the other two at all because they were just such a non-presence.
This was an issue back in season 4 as well with the cast herd, where in episodes like Rarity Takes Manehattan, the rest of the cast didn’t get much voice but took up screen time, and Daring Don’t, where they just stood around awkwardly, but it seems to be a continuing issue.
The trouble is that coming up with a good character is a lot of work already, and then actually making sure that that character has a real voice, gets to show off their character, and gets to be an actual person takes a fair bit of work – and screen time. The less screen time you give them, the less apt we are to care about any one of them.
Introducing more than 1-2 new characters in an episode is likely to be a bit of a mess, and most of them are likely to be eminently forgettable, and indeed, the show is already full of characters who have a little bit of screen-time, but the show’s staff has never gone anywhere with it.
But this isn’t just a lesson for the show’s staff – it is a lesson for writers as well. The more characters you put into a story, the more space you need to actually make them characters, rather than just flat 2D cutouts. There’s nothing wrong with having a flat character who plays a passing role in a story, but if you are trying to get us to bond with someone, to care about them, you need to give us the space to do so. With tight space requirements, you need to work hard to integrate character development with plot advancement as much as possible, because you often won’t have space for both separately, and if you sacrifice one for the other, you’re likely to either end up with a mess of a story with a rushed or awkward ending or a plot containing characters which leave the audience wondering, “Why should I care about these people?”
That’s not to say that today’s episode was terrible; I thought there was some good stuff in there. But it felt like the episode could have made me actually like some new characters, and by the end, I didn’t feel like I ever needed to see a single one of them again. My overall impression was, “There were some cute jokes at the beginning with Spike, and Minuette was vaguely cute.” And that’s a bit sad.
Though at least Moondancer’s appearance gave me another checkmark. Now to see if the Supreme Court manages to buy me another one by the end of the season.
Luna proper (not Nightmare Moon) had very little screen time back in season one, when people started going crazy over her. Read any pre-Nightmare Night fic, and her characterization will be all over the place.
By the way, you're missing a checkmark there in the top left.
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You know, I forgot about that particular comic. Quite the catch, and honestly the one series where there's bound to be a lot of contradictions. I still think it's funny that people feel the Daring Do related award is a contradiction when there's plenty of plausible explanations for why Velvet would have an award that says Daring Do on it without writing any of the books of the main Do series.
This episode would have been better if Twinkleshine and Lemon Hearts were replaced with more Minuettes and some Spike. Spike was pretty good this episode.
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And does the wedding crashing changling count for Changlings Return?
Really. Finally. Just wow!
An episode that made sense, had an actual moral, real feelings, Spike respect - in fact it was his astute observation that set the whole thing in motion! It was an absolute pleasure from the first to the final frame, with a truly heartwarming series of appearances by Minuette (I love how she handled Twilight's re-appearance in her life, and then helped her on her quest to find their other friends. Moon Dancer was also exceptionally well written, and the evolution of her character in this episode is a pleasure to watch.
It's also heartwarming to see that Twilight has learned the lesson of going to her friends when she has a problem she can't solve other own. What a wonderful lesson for everyone watching!
All-in-all, this episode was gold and I have to rate amongst my very favorites of the entire series!
I hope the fandom's reaction will give Hasbro and DHX a clue and give M.A. Larson more respect and more episodes!
I don't see where you're getting this from. The only new character in this episode we were supposed to care about was Moondancer, and they did an admirable job making me care about her in a very short period of time.
But Minuette? Lemon Heats? Twinkleshine? We weren't supposed to care about them. Nearly no focus was given to any of them but Minuette. When Twilight tried to do her whole heartfelt apology thing, the three laughed her off and pretty much said You don't need to care about us. We're not the focus of this episode. Pretty much the only reason any of them were there was for continuity purposes—the real story was between Twilight and Moondancer.
I don't see why this is a bad thing. What's wrong with filling up the world with minor characters who aren't that important to the story, but give context to the world and characters around them who do matter?
Those are what colors Moondancer is.
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Also, do keep in mind, that this episode isn't about "characters you don't care about," TD. It's about Twilight.
She cares about those characters.
I'm a bit more forgiving of this, because I feel like there's a good reason for it, and I also feel like they've done a fair job of using tropes and familiar characters to make the episodes work.
I think the reason for this is simple: they're running out of new problems for the mane six to have that are also simple and relatable enough for a kids show. I actually made a blog post about this a while ago, but they only have a few options there: they can reteach the same lessons (which they've already done in some cases,) they can give up on the lessons aspect (which would kind of go against the core concept of the show,) or they can have the mane six teach lessons to new ponies and/or use new ponies as antagonists instead of pitting the mane six against each other.
Obviously, they went with the last one for the most part, with hit or miss results. Some of the new ponies have done very well, I think. I've liked Treehugger, Troubleshoes, and Moondancer. I thought Gilda's reappearance could have been better, and while I found the Yaks amusing, there wasn't much there. And I wasn't impressed with much of anything in Slice of Life. I think the more they use tropes to give us half built characters already, the better they tend to do.
I agree, Minuette and the other two seemed to be cutouts there to give Moondancer some friends without having to give Twilight another real friend, but that's kind of what I took them for in their place in the story. The story was about Twilight and Moondancer, and that hit home for me, at least. And they did use tropes to give us a pre-built character with Moondancer, filling it in with her behavior in the story. I know who Moondancer is as a character, and that's what was important to the emotional arc of the story.
Would I rather see more episode that have a tighter focus, especially on the mane six? Of course. But I'm not sure that doing that within the strictures they have to work with would be any better. And in this case, I thought they used what they had to work with really well.
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She didn't show up on screen. D<
Probably because they were worried we'd all find out it was like this:
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I certainly see the point you're trying to make, and I do agree with it - to a point. Moondancer was very well developed and in fact did some further developing. Minuette was fairly one-note, but endearing enough in personality that I wanted to know more about her.
But yeah, Twinkle Shine and Lemon Hearts were basically just there.
Still, all things considered, I loved this episode. We got to see more of Canterlot, we got a seriously emotional conflict, we got tons of continuity, and we got the show addressing itself and doing something very refreshing.
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It wasn't a bad episode - it was a 3/5 in my book - I just thought it could have been better.
Aim for the stars, even if you hit London sometimes.
3208428 Eh, that seems fair enough. Though if you don't mind me asking; I'm genuinely curious - How would you have done things differently?
Also, what?
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There was a biographical movie about Wehner Von Braun, the man who developed the V2 rocket, as well as the man behind the US space program, called I Aim at the Stars. You see, Von Braun really liked building rockets and wanted to have a space program, but did a ton of military development of rockets because, well, that's how you get funding. And that resulted in him developing the V2 rockets which were launched at the UK during World War II, before Germany lost the war and he defected to the US to work on our rocketry program.
So the joke goes that the real title of the movie should be "I aim at the stars, but sometimes, I hit London".
There's also a gloriously terrible song by Tom Lehrer along the same lines.
3208453 Heh, nice.
Today, on the "TD Hates Everything Show"... :V
Honestly, it didn't bother me. Some people are excited about Twinkle Hearts and Lemon Shine, but I couldn't tell you two things about them. Minuette would have been great on her own, then Moondancer overshadowed her.
Me, I don't look for characters to give a damn about. I look for potential. And these kids have a lot of potential to explore.
3209005 I can't remember which one of those too, but one of them plans dinners and other events for royalty.
Doesn't the map count as an ugly new toy or not because of spoilers leading up to the season premiere?
Changelings Return actually deserves a check. Arguably "gay character" as well. Arguably.
ARGUABLY.
I'm checking that box and you can't stop me.
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Oh! Also, CMC gets a cutie mark should be checked, because Babs is an official CMC.
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I thiiiink that was Lemon Hearts. Quite frankly, I had no idea what she was talking about. :B
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Is there an ugly toy map?
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To be fair, I gave the episode a 3/5 - it was okay. I just would have liked for it to be, you know, better?
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Lemon Hearts was a party planner for the royal house. State dinners, etc.
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Oh! There are four checks missing (but it's still not bingo)! References the expanded universe is there because Babs' upcoming cutie mark was strongly alluded to in the comics. Bam.
(the comics actually have the backstory about her cutie mark, that's why there was no episode about it)
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Also, I agree. I was pumped up by the chatter but the ep was kinda meh for me. Three things I really did not like:
0) what's-her-name is a Twilight Sparkle recolor; I'd hoped the "flashback" was only Twilight's memory
1) Twilight's guess that her missing the party caused everything to fall apart should have been wrong (would have been perfect for her to have projected her feelings onto somepony else, only to learn everypony doesn't have the same needs)
2) what's-her name is afreaking Twilight Sparkle recolor2) they didn't use the past revisit to hit on Twilight's privilege, something they need to do
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Oh, really? Interesting! What issue was that in?
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I was actually kind of worried by that at the start, then I was very amused by Minuette completely not caring at all and Spike's line there, and really, let's face it: Twilight's ex-friends (or, ex-"friends", seeing as I'm not sure they were really friends to Twilight so much as ponies who tried to be friendly with the weirdo loners) actually had a 100% realistic reaction, especially given Twilight's own general behavior.
So while it bothered me a little bit that Moondancer DID freak out over it, it bothered me very little because everyone ELSE had a normal reaction and Moondancer is obviously a pony with problems.
I think my biggest disappointment with Moondancer was that she was obviously uncomfortable with physical contact for most of the episode but wasn't at the end; I would have liked it better if she had been uncomfortable with the hugs at the end, but had been grateful anyway because of the feeling.
You mean having a manservant and being Celestia's personal protegee?
Eh, I dunno what they'd really do with it.
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Gosh, TD.
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I think they need to address the fact that Twilight's success comes in part from her privilege. She's had a gold-studded road to princessdom. I'd love to see her finally discover that other ponies don't have it so easily. It's a lesson she needs to have, and she still shows signs of naivete about it when she deals with others.
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dat icon
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Also I don't know the comic b/c I'm waaay behind but it's one where Rarity visits Babs and there's some haircut stuff in it or something. It doesn't show her getting the cutie mark but it's all the lead-up to it.
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I've seen that, but I'm afraid I don't the reference of the underlying screenshot.
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Because it's true. This is the only notable thing that particular character did in the episode. I thought it was funny.
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I agree! I just...
Oh, it is a screenshot from The Dark Knight Rises, isn't it?