Why Flash Sentry Is a Badly Handled Character, and Flashlight Needs Resolution · 10:55pm Dec 12th, 2015
Introduction
I had some conversations recently, one with my wife and one with an online friend, in which I was led to consider the issue of Flash Sentry -- why he's a disliked character, and why he's so very poorly-handled by the writers. And I've come to some conclusions, which I here share.
I. Equestria Girls
Flash Sentry is in Equestria Girls for one big reason. The movie is a variant of the "high school romantic comedy" subgenre (in which the focus is on a sympathetic but socially-awkward heroine trying to gain status and find love in high school) and, what every such movie needs is a Love Interest. Flash Sentry was written into the story to be Twilight Sparkle's Love Interest, and nothing more -- which makes him a classically Shallow Love Interest.
The problem with this is that Twilight Sparkle's established personality isn't well-suited to having a Shallow Love Interest. She's a socially-awkward super-powerful mage of the Canterlot scholar-gentry who is very, very focused on intellectual endeavors, and far too idealistically-moral to just seek out males for the purpose of casual sex. She's the sort of character who may well fall in love someday, but when it happens is very likely to fall very seriously in love, and wind up marrying her Love Interest; alternatively, she might never fall in love and thus never marry (and possibly never have sex at all), or make a match for political considerations.
But the Producers Have Spoken, and thus Twilight needed be provided with a Love Interest. So provided she was. How well did Flash Sentry fit the bill of being someone with whom Twilight Sparkle might credibly fall in love? Or to whom she might credibly be attracted?
Fairly well, in my opinion. Flash is intelligent, polite, honorable and has plausible creative ambitions (he wants to be a musician). He aids Twilight Sparkle in a moment in which she is vulnerable and needs a friend (she is trying to figure out how to fit into Humanoid form and culture); he is kind to her and never does anything to take advantage of her obvious vulnerability; quite the contrary, when she's framed by Sunset Shimmer, he acts to exonerate her. In short, he's an admirable guy who does things which logically would cause her to like him, unless she were some sort of social masochist who wants to be abused and despises being treated well -- which we know from other contexts Twilight is not.
The only reason, in fact, that I'd call him a Shallow Love Interest is that he seems to exist only to be Twilight Sparkle's dream guy. Movie gets points for implying that Flash has friends and had a life before meeting Twilight -- we see him talking to other students on plainly affectionate terms, and he used to be Sunset Shimmer's boyfriend (a red herring of rivalry there, since apparently Sunset never more than mildly liked him and doesn't actually care that he seems to like Twilight, regardless of whether Sunset is in Bitch or Nice mode).
However, Movie never has any explicit reference by him to anyone who isn't Twilight or Sunset; giving the impression that he exists only in reference to them (compare with Shining Armor and Cadance in Neigh Anything, both of whom have social circles with named characters and plenty of dialogue that have nothing to do with Shining x Cadance). Thus, Movie manages to make Flash look like a less well-rounded character to external observation than he actually must be in the internal reality, which is why fans think of Flash as nobody special.
This by itself explains the fan hatred for Flash Sentry. Twilight Sparkle is a very well-developed and admirable heroine, of the sort that attracts lots and lots of fan love. The fact that she's apparently very romantically-inexperienced, to the point that she's not only probably a virgin, but never had a boyfriend or any sort of romantic interaction at all, makes fans even angrier that she should be attracted to someone who is presented as a vapid Pretty Boy, even though careful analysis of his actions in Equestria Girls makes it obvious that there's a lot more to him than that. The notion of Twilight falling for an apparent pretty nothing like Flash angers fans both male and female.
For the writers, there was the problem that Equestria Girls -- and the Love Interest romantic subplot demanded by the producers -- was sprung on them from out of nowhere to support a totally-different but related toy line, with its own set of characters, some of whom were Humanoid analogues of existing Pony characters, and others of which were entirely new characters. Which meant that they had to take Twilight Sparkle -- the carefully-developed main character of the main series -- and have her fall in love with some guy whom she had never met before and which (they had to assume) she might never meet again.
Wait, why did they have to assume she might never meet them again?
Well, in terms of the external realities, the Producers had no idea whether or not Equestria Girls (both movie and toy line) would be popular or not. If it was popular, then they might want to do cartoons about the characters. If it was not popular, then they would try to forget that it ever happened, and not do any more cartoons about the characters.
The internal problem was this: Twilight Sparkle, as her character had been established, was not somepony who would casually engage in sexual activities (even if merely implied, given the format restrictions) with someone else and then forget about the whole thing as "just some harmless fun." Quite the opposite: aside from her (implied) strong morals, she's also EXPLICITLY OBSESSED with ensuring that she lives her life in an utterly-ideal fashion (to the point that she writes up checklists of her schedules). No way, no how would she make out with Flash Sentry and then treat the whole matter as trivial.
The requirements of the high school romantic comedy genre is that the romantic leads "get together" by the end, so she couldn't reject Flash Sentry. But if she accepted him, then Twilight now had a boyfriend, and (being Twilight) she'd take this very seriously, for both moral and psychological reasons. And that would distort any future plots they meant to write: most obviously, any future plot they wanted to do in which Twilight fell for somebody else. She'd have previous romantic committments.
"Okay," the writers doubtless thought. "No problem. We'll have them 'get together' at the end of the movie, but this is a high school romantic comedy, and Twilight fits squarely into the 'nice girl' stereotype for such movies."
No way, no how does the 'nice girl' in a high school romantic comedy have sex with her lover at the end of such a movie. There may be hugs and kisses, perhaps implied promises of sex at some point in the future, but she is a 'nice girl,' so she's going to wait till some future point to consummate it -- depending on the specific mores of the character, either after they've been dating some months, or until they graduate, or until they get married. So Equestria Girls could have its cake and eat it -- or, rather, Flash could win Twilight's love, but not have her in the full sexual sense of the term.
So they did the scene where they have the big romantic dance at the denouement, but of course the clock on the Mirror Portal is ticking and so Twilight has to run off, having at most had a Significant Embrace with her Love Interest. And "thirty moons" is two and a half years -- a long time in a teenage lifetime. Plenty of time in the future for either or both of them to meet other Love Interests and hence abort any further development of this romantic subplot.
Now, note one way they hedged their bets. Equestria Girls also introduced Pony Flash Sentry -- whom Twilight evidently finds attractive (they do the Romantic Particle Collider Meet Cute and Twilight gets all flushed over it) but with whom Twilight actually has no significant interaction. If the Producers told them "Yeah! Things need to get hot and heavy between Twilight and Flash!" they coul do that, and they could do it with either species.
Why is that important? Because even though Moral Guardians tend to either be (or pretend to be) demonstrable idiots, the fact is that Flash Sentry is Human or Humanoid, while Twilight Sparkle isn't Human or even Humanoid: she's a sapient Pony. And, as we who are into science fiction and fantasy tend to forget, the mundanes would term a sexual relationship between them, in their true forms, bestiality (in terms of the law, there is no acknowledgement of the possibility or even moral significance of both of the parties being sapient in terms of generating an exception to that rule). If this happened in real life it would illegal, and punishable by imprisonment as a sex offender.
Makes you proud of our moral advancement as of the year AD 2015, don't it?
So, suppose the Producers decide that Twilight needs to be (implicitly) giving Flash some of her hot Pony lovin', and then a Moral Guardian has a stray moment of intelligence and goes "Wait! Even though she's in the form of a disturbingly-cute and adorkable purple-skinned Humanoid hottie, she's actually a Pony! That hot Pony lovin' is illegal!" and so forth.
Well, then there's a Pony Flash standing around in the background having no life of his own in order to be a Shallow Love Interest for Pony Twilight Sparkle, now isn't there? And ... but more of that later.
Just to highlight how Shallow this all is, Pony Flash Sentry is actually standing around in the background, literally, in at least one Season Four episode, "Three's a Crowd," where he is one of the guardponies who escorts Princess Cadance in to Ponyville. (Oh, did you forget he's one of Cadance's guards? That's how memorable a character he is!)
But Season Four tools along with no mention of him, until the sequel to Equestria Girls ...
II. Rainbow Rocks
Apparently the Equestria Girls toys were popular, because the Producers demanded an Equestria Girls sequel even before the internal logic of the last movie would have dictated one (less than a year by the short chronology, about a year by mine, as opposed to two and a half years). Writers did fairly well on this -- they decided, rather logically, that if there was a Portal to the Humanoid World, other entities from Equestria might have been thrown through it at some point in the past as Sealed Evil in a Can, and that if Equestrian magic were new to the Humanoid World, it might empower those entities to become much more dangerous.
Thus, the Dazzlings. Who are in my opinion three of the nastiest villains in the series, and the more so because they are so good at seeming like three cute teenaged to twenty-something girls. Does no one get how horribly creepy it is that they seem so funny and innocent and are in fact evil immortal predators? Or that they can move among teenage to twenty-something Humanoids and be accepted as being what they seem, while subtly destroying the lives of their victims? Sunset Shimmer got it, and so did the rest of the Humane Six when they saw them in the lunch room and weren't under their spell.
This movie created a problem for the Writers, however, in regards to Flash Sentry. He attended that school, and there was no way after the buildup they'd had in Equestria Girls that he and Twilight could be indifferent to one another. Now, note, they could have resolved the plot by having had Flash find someone else in the interim, and that would have been dramatically interesting, regardless of whether it was a True Love or a Shallow Love, if only because we could have seen Twilight Sparkle's reaction to this -- but that was not the way they wanted to go (importantly, not the way the Producers probably wanted them to go).
But if they spent the whole movie giving each other goo-goo eyes, then there would have been no way that the Writers could have prevented developing the romantic subplot, not without making the whole thing look silly. ("Oh, Twilight," "Oh, Flash," "Oh, Twilight," "Oh, Flash," "Oh, Twilight?", "Yes, Flash?", "May I ask you something, Twilight?" "Anything, Flash." "What are we talking about?"). And developing it was the last thing they wanted to do, both for reasons of genre restrictions and because the Writers aren't exactly enthused about Flashlight either.
So, instead, Flash spends most of the movie under the Dazzlings' spell, both so that he can be nasty and hurtful rather than lovey-dovey toward Twilight, and so that it can up Twilight's personal stakes in defeating the Dazzlings. And then, when the Rainbooms finally defeat the Dazzlings, so that Flash and Twilight can finally have that important conversation they've been waiting the whole movie to have?
He grasps her, looks soulfully into her eyes, and ...
... The Obnoxious and Inconvenient Trixie pops up out of nowhere, literally BETWEEN THEM and -- for absolutely no understandable In-Story reason -- delivers a strange boast and then uses a smoke bomb to run off over a fence and then comically fall down the other side. ...
... which ruins the moment.
Well, no, logically speaking, it doesn't. Boys and girls, if you were in Flash's position here, or Twilight's, what would you do next?
Would you:
(A) Look at the clock, go "Gee, the movie's running out of time, hon, see ya round!" and run off, or
(B) Go "Well, that was weird. So, as I was saying, <Words-O-Love>"
I predict that in Darwinian terms, those of you who pick "A" will be far less successful than those of you who pick "B."
Here is where the logic, including emotional logic, of Rainbow Rocks falls apart. Movie has established that both of them still feel the attraction from Equestria Girls. They have defeated the foe. Both are now able to speak freely. There's no particular time limit -- Twilight has no pressing reason to hurry back to the Realm of Equestria. And Movie wants us to believe that they avoid having a significant emotional conversation they've wanted to have for months (a full year for Twilight Sparkle, in my chronology) because Trixie rants a line at them? REALLY?
It works to the extent that it does in Movie solely because the movie's running time really does expire. I've read at least one fanfic in which it's assumed that they ran off and had sex under the stage after that (unlikely, given Twilight's personality, but certainly possible). More plausibly, they might have had a conversation in which they declared their love for one another, kissed and perhaps necked or even petted a bit, and promised to see each other again in the future. In terms of what the situation looked like for the characters, the resolution Movie gives is absurd.
Movie does it, of course, so that Show can present Season Five untainted by any Flashlight. But that's an external reason. Driving one's arc plots by external reasons is bad writing.
III. Friendship Games
Here, Movie tries to destroy Flashlight by creating a deeply absurd situation in which Flash sees who he thinks is the Twilight Sparkle he met before, and it's actually Sci-Twi, Humanoid Twilight who has never met Flash before and has absolutely no learned "script" for dealing with even the most politely-expressed romantic attraction. So when Flash Sentry comes over and addresses her as a friend (and potential lover), Sci-Twi treats him as a mere animate distraction, makes non-committal noises at him and essentially ignores him.
Writers were obviously trying to set up a situation in which Humanoid Flash Sentry loses interest in Twilight Sparkle because she's done one of the most offensive things that a woman can do to a man who assumed that she was interested in him -- ignore him. That's even worse, emotionally, than outraged rejection, because it's a lack of reaction. It's quite plausible that Derpy Hooves wants to comfort Flash after she sees Sci-Twi do that to him.
That even sets up a possible alternate alternate romance for Flash Sentry, now doesn't it? Maybe Derpy comforts him in more ways than just patting him on the back. It would be in her normal fan character to be sexually kind and trusting toward him. My Derpy might very well do that, and this Derpy does not seem to have any children to worry about. (This is why my Derpy has a mostly rotten love life, at least in her backstory -- she's far too trusting for her own good).
Exit the Flashlight romantic story arc, right?
Where things get weird is this.
The Humane Six know Flash Sentry. Sunset Shimmer dated him for a long while (we don't know if this means they were lovers, but Sunset has explicitly stated that she feels bad about having taken advantage of him -- it's one of the aspects of her past behaivor about which she expresses the most guilt). So, given this ...
... why don't any of the Humane Six bother to tell Flash "Oh, by the way, that wasn't the 'Twilight Sparkle' you met before. She's another girl"?
Admittedly, this would be weird. But then, a heck of a lot of weird stuff happens at Canterlot High School.
For that matter, what happens when Pony in Humanoid Form Twilight Sparkle shows up to visit at the end of the movie? Wouldn't she want to see how Flash Sentry was doing? Wouldn't she want some sort of resolution to her long crush on him, one way or another? Wouldn't the fans be interested in seeing what happened when she did this?
Yes, it's possible that Flash is so hurt by being ignored by Sci-Twi that he doesn't like Twilight Sparkle any more, even when he's told that Sci-Twi was another girl? (How could they prove it to him? Well, by both showing themselves to him at the SAME TIME, which would make it obvious what had happened). It's even possible that the immediate sequel to the scene with Derpy was that they went off somewhere private and he took her to such heights of passion that both her eyes focused on him, and now he feels that he has a committment to Derpy, or Twilight's hurt that he did that, or whatever ...
... but Movie, or Show, should tell us what happened. Maybe not in too much detail, given the target audience, but enough to let the fans figure out some sort of resolution, It is very bad writing to set up a protracted romantic arc and then just let it fizzle out without explanation. And no, a set of French-farce, Sixties Sitcom comedic misunderstandings is not a resolution. Eventually, sane people sit down and try to figure out what actually happened. Even Sixties Sitcoms usually had this happen in the end -- comedic misunderstandings are meant to be resolved by truth, and if they aren't they're tragic misunderstandings (which usually require something irrevocable, such as death, to be plausible).
Conclusion
So this is where we are now, at the end of Season Five. What do you think will happen? Will Show, or Movies, or maybe Other Show (an Equestria Girls series) finally man up (or pony up, as the case may be) and resolve the romantic arc, one way or another? And if they did implicitly resolve it, present enough information so that we, the fans, will have some idea what actually happened?
Comments are even more welcome than always, in this regard.
Most of the socially awkward intellectuals I know have had shallow love interests, in the sense of 'people they briefly dated due to a crush and then stopped'. That personality type is not immune to random bursts to attraction, which is what they showed Twilight having for Flash.
To be honest, I barely noticed the romantic things in the second and third movies, but inconvenient Trixie is amusing when you point it out. 'Ruining the moment' does really happen, though -- if you're getting up the courage to do something having an interruption is often an excuse not to do it after all.
My theory is the main reason Flash Sentry exists is so they can sell a Twilight and Flash doll set. Then all the fans who want Twilight to have a boyfriend have the dolls to play with to their hearts consent. But romance is not what the script writers are really interested in. Boyfriends just get in the way of going on magical adventures.
Flashlight to me is morally horrible for more than just the bestiality point. There's also the pedophilic point.
A: Human Flash is a teenager, 17 at the oldest.
B: HumanOID Twilight might be physically a teenager, but is mentally an adult. Q.E.D. FlashLight makes a pedophile out of Sparklebutt.
The odd thing about the huge, Hasbro-mandated pander-fest called "Slice of Life" is that they were running long and had to cut out a scene with Flash wondering why he was so hated.
I NEED to know. What did you think of Flash Sentry's portrayal in the Finale Arc's Canterlot mini-arc?
I for one am not particularly offended by Flash Sentry, in the same way I'm not particularly offended by shop mannequins. Which, incidentally, is what Flash most closely resembles: he is a thoroughly generic 'ideal high school boyfriend'. I can practically picture the meeting in which he was conceived now:
"We've just got back the marketing data from they guys over at audience analysis," said Suit A. "We're going high school movie for this one, so obviously the lead girl needs a boyfriend. The guys in analysis did the math: musicians are in over sports stars with the six to ten demographic at the minute."
"So we give him a guitar," Suit B said, resting his elbows on the meeting room table. "We're going with a pop sound track for this movie anyway, so he might as well be in on that."
"Sounds good so far, but he needs to have some sort of character," said Suit C.
"We just go with 'nice guy'," said Suit A. "He's arm candy anyway, and the more of the audience that can imagine him as their ideal, the better. Let's run a few more tests on the preferences of the target demographic and then give the writers a heads up. They can take it from there."
Forgive me my cynicism, but one must always keep in mind the EG movie was, first and foremost, intended to launch a new toy line; it was toy driven in a way that even the main show is not. The marketing men and women will have had a lot of input, and their collective fingerprints are all over Flash Sentry.
He was custom designed to be a blank slate over which the target audience could overwrite their preferred 'dream boy' characteristics. He is, as you have correctly pointed out, a good guy: he is polite, helpful and inoffensive. There is no reason for Twilight (or anyone else, really) to not like him.
The problem most people have is something of a consequence of this: in the eyes of many, 'generic nice guy' just isn't good enough for Twilight. She is a highly charismatic, with a very well rounded and well development personality, who had shown no interest in romance previously. Further, she is implied to be an adult by the standards of her civilisation. Having her crush on the first pleasant schoolboy to be nice to her in the way that she does is something of a hard sell.
For the sake of comparison, consider Cheese Sandwich. Cheese is anything but generic; he is his voice actor ponified: highly charismatic, goofy, eccentric and well developed, given the available screen time. He is much more of a fit match for Pinkie than Flash will ever be for Twilight, as many a Cheesiepie shipper will tell you.
As for the future of Flash, I don't think he has much of one. The writers used him for his intended purpose and got a few jokes out of him; now I suspect that they would merely wish to be rid of him. If he ends up actually dating Twilight in any meaningful way I will eat my own hat.
I think time, and the next movie, will tell.
Edit: Now that I think about it, I'm amazed that they got away with give Twilight a human love interest at all. As you said, some would call it beastiality. And they have gotten away with it, Scot free. She only looks human when they interact: you would think at least one Moral Guardian would have cottoned on.
I say this having never seen the three anthro movies firsthand:
Wow. Maybe I handled Flash better than he deserved in my prologue, then? I did kill him, but I killed him quite honorably.
Is that even remotely implied in EQG? If so, I should yank that from my daughter's watch list right now. Only last week did I finally cave in and download the three EQG movies for her, and yet I have not watched them myself.
I dunno... I see Book Horse as having interest in love; I just don't think she'd be good at finding it. And I really don't see her as looking for a match for political reasons. Above all, Twilight is a thinking intuitive. The quintessential INTP personality. These people care not for political correctness or upholding status images and traditions. They live for the love of learning and theoretical analysis. You won't see one accepting an arranged marriage or anything that even has a hint of that flavor.
That... does seem plausible then, for someone like Twi to become attracted to. An INTP loves intelligent people and stimulating conversation. And someone with creative ambitions might be just enough difference to spark that "opposites attract" phenomenon. Being polite and honorable is a big plus too, since she would see straight through any sort of subterfuge or underhanded and even shallow attempts to gain her attention.
Yeah well, then that's the fault of the writers, I suppose. Anyone written in for that purpose is probably not going to be well liked for anyone who appreciates a good story.
I'd agree with this. Twilight is so well developed and we all know that there's no way she'd do this. Unless he objectively had the right qualities, it does seem rather forced by the writers, thus making it their fault. What upsets me more is that they've placed our Twilight (of Equestria) into the role of a high-schooler. I think that all by itself sums up my anger with the depiction. I completely agree with AntonyC in this regard. That and the completely unnecessary anthro universe itself. High school romances are, by definition, shallow as a rule. HS kids have no concept of adult romance. The kind that produces stable, life-long families. And Equestria's Twilight would not succumb to HS romance starry-eyes, sorry.
All I have to say is thank goodness the events from EQG are not canon within the MLP show itself!! I think that might make me lose interest more than anything because it tramples upon the veeeeery carefully constructed personalities and characteristics of our beloved cast. It's bad enough we have the every-so-often brainfart episode (Yaks, anyone? Princess Spike?) These can be forgiven if they are never referenced again. But MLP has a certain continuity that those who take the characters seriously, appreciate. We can see how each experience builds upon the characters. And EQG is just not one of those things I can imagine the characters carrying with them in their minds as they proceed in the MLP adventures.
Which is probably the most perplexing thing from my point of view. Now, there are THREE movies!! But again, they are insulated from the MLP canon show somehow. This astounds me. Was it a success or wasn't it? If not, why produce two more movies? If so, why did it not leak into canon MLP? When my daughter watched all three movies last week (she's eight), she said that her favorite was the first one, and next the 2nd one, implying that Friendship Games was perhaps meh.
I don't even think this is about sex - unless I'm wrong and it objectively is... Really, the issue is how serious is the relationship? Is this something implied as "we are bf/gf and then break up later" or is this the kind of thing that leads to a life-long commitment? Sex is implied in any life-long commitment, and is a byproduct of such things. Sex happens outside that, of course, but not likely for characters such as Twilight I'd think. But for Twilight to get into "serious commitment" mode, it would require a whole lot of serious courting over probably a couple years. Not, not, not over the course of one adventure into an alternate dimension. ESPECIALLY our (Equestria's) Twilight, who has an incredibly important role in Equestria, and would most certainly have her mind on her world in terms of long-term relationship potential. What I'm saying here (quite plainly) is this:
Twilight would NOT even entertain a "romance" with ANYONE whom she could not be sure to bring back WITH her to Equestria. Permanently.
And let's not forget that Twilight is not a teenager.
She's a fricken princess who has been in a critical adult role in Equestria for several years.
Now with this, I'll say that if they wanted to continue the Twi/Flash ship in canon MLP, I would probably not be opposed. Why? First, because Flash (being a member of the Royal Guard, I presume) would not be in high school. And, the possibility of a stable, permanent relationship between these two (in Equestria) is quite plausible. In fact, if Twi got together with this Flash, it would insulate her from further potential issues with the anthro Flash.
Eh... I really don't see this as the issue here. When Twilight goes through the mirror, she becomes an anthro character herself. She's clearly the same person. If she came through as a pony, then perhaps someone might be able to call upon the 'b' word. Also, I don't really think anyone views the MLP ponies as "animals" anyway.
And I'm not using sapience as a criteria. This isn't Bambi. In movies like Bambi, those are clearly "sapient animals". MLP ponies are very clearly people. They build cities and societies, engage in politics and diplomatic relations, educate themselves, protect their citizens, have an economy, etc. etc... I can't imagine if any actual person who defines bestiality in real life were somehow to find themselves in an unexpected HiE scenario, that they would consider a relationship with these people to be bestiality. Not after they became acclimated to their society especially.
It's hypothetical. If someone from Equestria were to show up (as is) in Earth today, in real life, we cannot assume that any authorities who caught the pony and a human in an intimate relationship would classify it as bestiality. At most, I think the pony would be classified as an alien rather than an animal. Since it's obviously a person, but in a nonhuman form.
I'm a little confused as to why you'd view morality and intelligence as mutually exclusive.
Nobody actually sees the anthro characters this way, do they?
Yeah, actually. I thought he was in there somewhere, but couldn't remember where.
Props to the writers for buying a clue, then.
Well, it's not entirely a bad reason in this case. Polluting Season 5 with Flashlight would be very bad... For Equestria. Not necessarily for any meta reason. But Season Five is very thematically tight. It is the season where canon MLP is really really starting to mature. Twilight and friends are quite busy with actual important things here. To insert Flashlight into the mix would dilute the punch of Season 5. Hell though, if they wanted (at this point) to begin giving the Mane Six love interests in Equestria in Season Six, I'd have absolutely no objection to that. Dragging Alicorn Princess Twilight Sparkle along on a transdimensional romance with some kid in high school?? No.
Well, what will happen, and what should happen do not often know one another. What will happen is going to depend on the writers and how they want to resolve this. Perhaps they view Flashlight as a mistake they'd rather sweep under the carpet. But as you said, they've had plenty of chances to resolve it cleanly, and yet didn't. So it's a bit confusing. With writers the skill of those on the MLP staff, you'd expect that they would manage it better than they have. But then again, the Cake twins are still babies after four seasons. I think maybe we as fans give the writers too much credit for caring about continuity.
I agree it's bad writing for such a 'sweep under the rug' resolution.
3614313
'Moral Guardian', in the manner the manner that Jordan is using the term, refers to a very specific breed: the sort that writes hysterically worded articles calling for huge amounts of media to be banned (most video games, many, many movies).
They can be identified by their braying of things like 'protect the children' (usually from things intended for adults; the concept of an 18 rated video game, in particular, is rather lost on them) and 'ban this sick filth'; ' sick filth' being any one of a great many things that offends their sensibilities.
Indeed, the tendency to consider themselves the self appointed judges of what is and isn't suitable for public consumption, and a desire to have everything that doesn't make the grade banned, is the key diagnostic trait of a Moral Guardian.
They are not nice people.
They are not very bright either. See this tv tropes page for more Info.
3614345 Hmm... Well I myself will readily say "protect the children", but through none of the methods you've described. I think good parenting is the solution to protecting children. Not censorship. That said, when I mentioned I'd yank this off my daughter's watch list (if it implied that Flash/Twi were getting it on) I meant it. I think media can be consumed after you've had a good long talk with your children. But I haven't
had the chancefelt inclined to watch EQG yet, so I'm not sure what to think.But really... my daughter is eight. And we play Fallout 4. She's a sweet kid, but I know her limits. She doesn't seem to have any problem with "action and violence", but she (as typical with the age) is sort of grossed out by romantic depictions. It's the window of time I have to instill morals, if ever. So when it comes to parenting, I very much agree with those who would promote morality. But when it comes to censoring what is allowed in society itself, well... that's none of my business.
3614373 In case it's a serious question... no, they never are even implied to be 'getting it on'. They never even get to the point where they date. Or talk to each other for more than a few seconds.
Sunset mentions that she used to date Flash Sentry but there are no details given and they don't react to each other in any way as far as I can remember.
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Um, even in my long chronology, Twilight is only 20-21 years old at that point. In the show, Twilight is probably meant to be closer to 18-19.
And the Age of Consent in most American states is 16-17; and in most of the Anglosphere and Europe 16.
Plus,
This is in our world, mind you. Of course, the Equestria Girls movies are set in a whole different world, with a different sapient species than Homo sapiens sapiens, so their Age of Consent is anybody's guess.
Except that Twilight still had this attraction toward Flash in the second movie, which took place at least a few months after the first one. Also, Movies, having raised the romantic subplot in the first place, should have resolved it in some way -- "Oh, I had a crush on him but I'm over it" is a valid resolution. Instead, they just left it hanging.
They'd both wanted to have that conversation for several months at least -- and Twilight wasn't under any time constraint to leave for the Realm of Equestria. Also, Flash was the one making the approach in that scene -- and we see that in the third movie, he's still attracted to Twilight (though, alas, he expresses his attraction toward the wrong Twilight Sparkle).
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If written correctly, their existence can be a spur to magical adventures.
I had a conversation with a few guys on dp about Trixie's cockblock at the end of Rainbow Rocks. It was theorized that Trixie and Flash were once an item before Sunset's arrival in the human world. Following her arrival and subsequent climb up the school's social ladder, Sunset seduces Flash in some way, be it her intelligence or simply being the new hot chick at school. Either way, G&PT didn't take it very well and remained rather haughty and antagonistic to the guy even after he broke up with queen bee.
Notice how Flash and Trixie are frequently at each other's throats in the second film. Being under the Dazzling's spell, it's partially competitive nature, but may also be underlying negative emotions resulting from their earlier separation. Certainly could be Foe Yay and provided an explanation to her interrupting that romantic moment in the aftermath of the BotB.
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I'm not offended by Flash Sentry either. You're absolutely right about the probable genesis of the character in PR polls regarding his likely appeal to target demographics (including, of course, the parents of the little girls, who would find nothing offensive in their daughters liking that sort of a guy).
... and rather strange, given that in the social circles she moved back in Canterlot, and the ones she moves in now, guys like that would be a dime a dozen. Twilight Sparkle is also attractive and high-status, there are a lot of polite, well-groomed generic nice stallions who would want her attention. Many would be encouraged by their families -- marrying a Princess of Equestria would certainly be a social coup. Many would like her for her own sake -- Twilight is likeable (though more high-maintenance than a lot of fans consider, what with the checklists and the utter perfectionism).
Yes, exactly. Cheese has personality traits that make him an obvious match for Pinkie Pie in PARTICULAR, rather than just being generically nice. Women (or mares) want to marry a guy who has particular personality traits that appeal to them personally, rather than merely ones that are appealing in general. That's why Cheese x Pinkie is much more plausible than Flash x Twilight.
You're probably right about this. The way he got (ab)used in Friendship Games, and it being done for laughs, implies that they're trying to close out that arc.
Thing is, Writers are probably afraid to decisively close it out because the Suits may turn around tomorrow and tell them they want them to make the love more serious. So instead of having Twilight have a scene where she says something, dismissively, about "that odd crush she had on Flash," they're just ignoring the issue, which looks incongruous.
Mind you, there'd be nothing wrong with just having Twilight get over it. She never seemed particularly passionate about it in the first place -- just flustered, which is hardly the same thing.
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Nah, Flash is okay. He just was obviously written into the show on a directive from the Producers for marketing purposes and thus is unloved by the Writers. This is why nothing's being done to advance his romantic story arc, save to mock it.
EQG (all three movies) are extremely clean. The only characters in any of the films who act seductively are the three Sirens, and they are (1) villains, (2) based on archetypes of evil seductresses, and furthermore (3) at no point actually demonstrate any genuine romantic or sexual interest toward any characters. In fact, Canterlot High School and Crystal Prep are so darn clean, sexually speaking, that I would wager that sexual morals in that worldline are closer to those of 1955 than 2015.
It's not that I think Twilight is against sex, it's rather that I think she's in favor of love, and wouldn't accept loveless sex as the equivalent. If she didn't fall in love, she might well never have sex, or if she did have sex in the context of a loveless marriage -- the latter being something that she might be willing to contract if she believed it was necessary for The Good of the Realm. No lesser reason.
Incidentally, fictional characters like Twilight Sparkle, if they wind up in loveless marriages, frequently get seduced by sympathetic male leads who are able to truly appreciate them. This is a classic sort of love story -- and, often, tragedy, since adultery is the sort of thing that can clearly end very badly for all concerned. Possibly with murders, duels and executions, in the right sort of social setting (but Equestria's not that violent a culture).
This is why I don't totally hate Flashlight! Flash is the sort of guy with whom Twilight could plausibly fall in love, it's just that the Writers, having introduced him, developed neither him nor the romance arc properly. It's obvious that the Writers don't like him, though.
Indeed, she is. And Sunset Shimmer -- in a good mood -- has a personality and background rather like a more impulsive and passionate version of Twilight's own: she's a brilliant intellectual, raised in Canterlot as scholar-gentry, Celestia's former student, etc. If Flash Sentry were being taken seriously, the strong implication would be that both of them are his "type" -- that he has a natural attraction toward badass, highly-intelligent, erudite women.
(in a bad mood, Sunset is close to Nightmare, as we see in the first movie where she actually goes Nightmare, though they don't use the word).
No, it's not a thing in EQG, at least not for the Humane Six. Even Sunset Shimmer, who has been evil, seems to have had decent sexual morals -- she feels guilty that she "took advantage" of Flash Sentry by pretending to be attracted to him when she actually just wanted him as protective status-raising cover. Why? Because Sunset comes from the exact same cultural background as does Twilight Sparkle, and she knows trifling with someone else's affections is wrong
If you asked me to guess, I would imagine that there are some characters at Canterlot High School who would be okay with casual sex -- simply because there are probably hundreds of students there, and in any group of that many people one will find many different moral and emotional attitudes. This never comes up in any of the movies, though.
I think you're right. Though note the important thing here: Flash and Twilight have never had the key conversation(s) necessary to fall in love. Which, in their case, would involve her letting him know that she's actually a Princess from another dimension, and her true form is that of a human-sized purple winged unicorn, rather than the humanoid woman he's met.
Stated like that, it sounds utterly ridiculous, but that's the truth. And it wouldn't be that hard a claim for her to prove, given her evidence, which could include taking him back to Equestria at least briefly.
And, yeah -- she has responsibilities in Equestria, and if he wasn't willing to spend at least a good percentage of his time in the Realm of Equestria, there would be no way for things to work out between them, because she couldn't move to his world, permanently.
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At the start, right? I mean, I know MLP's chronology is all messed up and all, but I at least like to pretend that one season equals one year, which means she'd be something closer to 24 by now, even if she were 19 in season one. I see no reason why she had to be that young, though. It's fairly subjective, and she has always at least acted more like a college student's age even in season one.
Eh well, that... thing, sigh, I just can't get my mind around this realm with the anthros. They're clearly not human beings. And they're not ponies. So yes, it's anybody's guess. To be perfectly honest, one of the things I find so ridiculous about it is that everyone in that realm looks like the bastardized spawn of every HiE clopfic, ever. As if all their children were whisked away into this 3rd realm where they built their own society. The whole thing makes no sense whatsoever, and I like things to make sense. That plus they are fugly as hell. It's the kind of thing I'd expect someone mocking MLP to come up with.
Yeah, and that's exactly the kind of relationship I think she'd be immune to.
If someone liked Twilight for her own actual qualities. Genuinely liked her. I believe she wouldn't be as high maintenance as that. After all, she's self-organized. She does not rely on anyone else to maintain her schedule or whatnot. Where it gets dicey is in the type of male leadership which would come with any hypothetical relationship. Many men have a "I'm driving" mentality when it comes to their leadership. This would not go well with Book Horse. However, a male leader who understands Twilight's natural gifts would definitely encourage her to maintain her own life. Such a relief of burden upon said male leader would actually be less maintenance than most women. I myself would totally go for a woman like that, as long as she didn't get the "I'm driving" mentality in turn and try to step into the leadership position. Most people do not understand leadership. It's not telling others what to do. It's being aware of everyone's natural gifts and constructing the scenario that encourages everyone to express those gifts in the most effective way.
Yeah, we know how 1955's sexual morals... *cough*
emerdelac.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/wrongcarmcfly.jpg
But point taken if you're saying it's squeaky clean - as it should be in the context of a movie which really is for little girls.
I agree that she'd be in it for the relationship. I myself have been single for 4 1/2 years, and I've not had one sexual encounter, which is frustrating as hell... But if I could choose between having someone come along for easy carefree sex and someone come along with a decent potential for a permanent relationship, despite having to wait for a while to have sex... I'd take the latter anyday.
I still don't think Twilight would be put in a position of an arranged [read: loveless] marriage. As for "good of the realm", I also think Celestia knows Twilight well enough that she wouldn't put her in that position anyway. Mostly because she knows how miserable Twilight would be in it.
I was more confused as to how SS was Flash's girlfriend prior to Twilight showing up if they both came from Equestria around the same time.
Heh. well, you never know... I know quite a few people who'd not have an issue with that at all.
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In my chronology, she's 17 at the start, and now around 22. In the show, I think she's around 18 and now around 20. Point is, she's late teens to early twenties during the run of the show. Equestria Girls takes place about 3 1/2 years after the show's start by my chronology and probably about a year after its start by the show's chronology, so she'd be respectively 20-21 and 19 when she meets Flash. Older than him, but not absurdly so. Certainly not as much of an age gap as probably exists between Pony Rarity and Spike.
They have mostly the same color schemes and are stylized in exactly the same way as the Ponies. It's just more odd-looking applied to Humanoids because of the Uncanny Valley effect. My theory is that they're an alternate human race -- possibly, a different subspecies -- one more similar to the Ponies in some ways than is our worldline's Humanity.
(*nods*) Indeed. She'd want to feel something more special than "you're [merely] nice."
And, contrary to some fanfics about her, I can't see Princess Twilight Sparkle as being starved for male attention. Sci-Twi, more plausibly because she's afraid of other people, but Pony Twilight Sparkle was self-confident in her very first appearance in the Season One Opener -- she was nagging the ruler of Equestria to follow her advice. Her attitude was plainly "I don't have time for love," rather than "I don't think I could attract a lover." Also, she's a perfectionist. She would want someone wonderful, not merely adequate.
I think in most possible love affairs, she'd be very much the dominant partner. She would probably want to marry somepony who was strong and good enough for her to respect, similar enough to her for her to have all sorts of things in common with, smart enough to keep her interest, and willing to let her take the lead (or, so obviously amazing that she would be willing to be led by him). These aren't exactly common qualities, which is why we don't see her with anypony else.
All the Mane Six have a variant of this problem, but Twilight's the most perfectionist. Even more so than Rarity, who has a strongly-practical side.
Well yes, I do know about 1950's morals. They were starting to move toward less strict sexual morality (a drift which actually started in the 1920's and accelerated under the stress of World War II in the 1940's) but still overtly believed in pre-marital virginity. They, notably, didn't think yet that it was good to lose one's virginity before marriage, which is why the future mother of Marty McFly pretends to be a lot more virtuous than she actually is. Mind you, I think she's still a virgin at that point -- in part because Marty saves her from Biff in that scene.
Back to the Future actually got a lot of things about the era correctly.
In terms of Canterlot High School, I think that all the girls are pretending to complete moral purity, whether it's true or not. It probably is true for the Humane Six, though. Or mostly true.
The important point is that, unlike in many present-day Western cultural settings, unmarried 17-18 year old girls don't seem to be expected to be sexually-active. Which implies that the Humanoids of the EQG universe have a more sexually-conservative culture than our own.
Oh, Sunset Shimmer is older than Twilight Sparkle. She was Celestia's student before Twilight Sparkle, and some number of years in the past ago (3-4 on the EQG side of the portal) had a falling-out with Celestia because Celestia couldn't immediately turn her into an Alicorn (something probably impossible for Celestia to do anyway). At some point between her arrival at CHS and the first EQG movie, she was going steady with Flash Sentry. He broke it off because he noticed that her behavior was morally-questionable -- and I'm talking about cruel emotional manipulation of others here, the sort of thing she was doing in the first movie before her reform.
I think a big part of the problem that both the fanbase and, to some extent, the writers have with FlashLight is not simply that Flash is bland, but that he's normal. And we, as in Western culture, are still not really comfortable with romances where the female is indisputably the stronger partner being presented to us in our fiction. Consider Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the heroine of which dates a pair of vampires because there are no mortal men 'worthy' of her, in the sense of being able to hold their own against her; while Willow becomes a lesbian at around the same time that she becomes a powerful witch.
In Equestria Girls/MLP, we have Twilight, the socially and magically powerful princess and hero of Equestria, and then we have Flash Sentry...who is just a guy. Is it any wonder that so much of the fandom rushes to pair her with Sunset Shimmer, who is magically powerful in her own right and the champion of the human realm (not that is actually matters too much, as one partner in a same sex relationship is allowed to be much weaker than the other, typically a Strong Female Character paired with a weaker girl whom the heroine can rescue every now and then; this also explains the growing popularity of Sunset/Sci Twi).
Now, in terms of straight pairings, there are a few tacks that writers can take to get around the Strong Female Character trap, but most of them are beyond the reach of the EQG writers now:
1) Not bother with romance (the Alien approach): it's a bit late for that now, and the executives wouldn't have let them get away with it anyway, but Friendship Games does appear to be trying to sweep the whole thing under the rug.
2) create a male character who is as strong nor near enough as the female (the Buffy approach): again, it's too late for this, if Flash suddenly busted out superpowers the fans would rightly revolt.
3) acknowledge the disparity in strength, but in such a way that you can't look down on the guy for it (the Dark Angel approach, where the romantic lead was disabled): once again, three films in is a little late to introduce an element like that.
4) gradually make the female character weaker, while at the same building up the male as a worthy suitor (the Kim Possible approach): this is pretty much thier only option to move things along at this point, and I don't blame them for not doing it because it would suck.
considering the length of those skirts I'm not sure I'd buy EQG morality being 50s like.
you mentioned Twilight likely having plenty of stallions after her but with both Flash and Twilight come from sexist societies but in the opposite direction it's possible she's never interected with a guy quite ike him before
Pony Flash is apparently so forgettable, you forgot that he spoke on the show. "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 1," announcing the Duke and Duchess of Maretonia. He appears to be the court herald of the Crystal Empire (or whatever the appropriate term is; not exactly my bailiwick.)
Given that there's a clear time skip from night to day in the denouement of Rainbow Rocks, Twilight and Flash doing something together once the Trixie-induced awkwardness wore off is entirely possible. Still, we don't know for certain.
You shut your lying face.That is an interesting hypothesis, but I find myself disinclined to agree to it. I'm actually working on a story that explores Flash learning about the higher dimensional shenanigans that permeate his love life. (I agree with your general idea: Flash deserves better than what he's gotten. Sadly, the writers' hands are tied by corporate mandate and the needs of continuity, so it seems to be his destiny to get strung along. Poor guy.
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The girls being willing to wear clothes that show legs and occasionally flash panties does not mean that the girls are willing to have sex. It's not the same thing. Are their Pony analogues necessarily promiscuous because the fashions in Equestria usually expose their vaginas? Also, a lot of the clothing is elaborately layered. The clothing styles don't look exactly like those of any particular time and place on our Earth, which supports my theory that the Humanoid Earth is not our world.
3615563 no, but fashion frequently follows morality. I'm not saying they're promiscuous, but I am saying their society might not expect them to be virginal
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Oh yes ... that's right.
The strange thing is that in Equestria Girls they teased Twilight being attracted to Pony Flash and then did nothing with it. It's of course easily-explainable, as their only interactions were those particle-collider Meet Cutes (in general one problem with both Equestria Girls and Rainbow Rocks is that they both seem to assume that crashing into someone is the same thing as having a significant romantic meeting). Reasonably speaking, while physically colliding with a handsome stallion would embarass Twilight on several levels, the event imposes no committment nor even much expectation of anything further happening, unless Equestrian culture is very strange ("Oh no! I'm engaged to him now! I must find an ostrich, only with an ostrich can I perform the Chant of Jilting and get out of this!")
And we should know. Equestria Girls sets up a romance arc between Twilight and Flash. Rainbow Rocks first confirmed that Flash was still interested, then created an obstacle to that arc (Flash mind-controlled to be hostile). The denouement should have explained, in some way, what happened after that obstacle was removed.
This could have been done within genre and rating constraints; this is easier because, given Twilight's personality, it's very improbable that they actually had sex. The important scene to show would have been the conversation in which they decided how to regard one another in the future (and I don't mean "marriage," not yet, I mean simply stepping out together romantically versus not doing so).
One reason they perhaps didn't show this was because of the obvious thing Twilight hasn't yet told him, which would be essential for him to know for them to make any plans for the future. Namely, that she's an alien from another dimension, and one who is important enough back home that she can only sometimes visit his world. It's obvious that she hasn't by his actions in the third movie.
The Writers of course avoided including these scenes because they don't really like Flash, nor do they like the romantic arc. So they're avoiding (and in the third movie, mocking it).
I don't really believe it myself ... though it seems quite likely that he feels friendlier toward Derpy now.
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What we see in the movies of their fashions are that the girls tend to wear shorter skirts than is currently fashionable in our own culture. This means they are revealing their legs more than do most of their women. What we do not know is what, if any, moral implications this has in their own culture.
We also see that some of the girls tend to wear longer skirts than is currently fashionable in our own culture. This means that they are covering their legs more than do most of our women. Again, we do not know what, if any moral implications, this has in their own culture.
We do know that Humanoid Applejack originally wants to wear a longer skirt to the Fall Formal, but Rarity convinces her to wear a shorter one. We don't actually know why, except that it is probably because Rarity thinks that AJ has nice legs and should show them off. I don't think Rarity thinks that AJ is really a slut.
Revealing could be taken as meaning exposing to access and touch, and hence indicative of promiscuity. Or, it could be taken as meaning honesty and a lack of concern with artificially-defending body areas which are more firmly protected by the girl's own morals. Concealing could be taken as meaning denying access and touch, and hence indicative of virtue. Or, it could be taken as deliberate obscuration to tantalize the male gaze, and hence indicative of a desire to seduce, possibly promiscuity.
The girls of Canterlot High School also tend to wear tops which are more concealing than those common in our culture (and which are frequently layered, rendering access to their breasts difficult). Does this mean that their culture, oddly by our world's standards, considers touching breasts to be more intimate than touching genitals? Possibly. Or, more probably, it simply means a different trajectory of fashion development.
The young upper- and middle-class misses of Georgian and Regency England tended to wear clothing with considerable décolletage (revelation of the upper torso) by our standards. Georgian clothing, especially formal and party wear, displayed everything almost down to the nipples. The equivalent Regency clothes were a bit more modest in terms of the necklines, but made up for it by being of thinner fabrics, often close to sheer, and must have often presented clear outlines of the nipples (remember, their corsets didn't cover their nipples so only whatever shifts the girls were wearing under their dresses would have been between their nipples and their gowns). Oh, and both eras were before it was normal for women to wear underpants (hence the bawdy scene in Tom Jones (1749) where the notably virtuous and sympathatic young lady Sophia Western falls off a horse and thus accidentally exposes her nether regions to full public view). Shall we assume that Sophia Western, or Lizzie Bennett (Pride and Prejudice (1813) were not virtuous?
Getting back to My Little Pony, the Equestrian Ponies normally wear no clothing, and when they do, usually cover only the front parts of their body. Their genitals are exposed to public view, if anypony cares to look; their modesty preserved to the extent that it is only by their tails. In my fanon, I postulate an elaborate body language of tail- and posture-flirting built around this fact, and a general sentiment that staring at another Pony's genitals is extremely rude. The fact is, though, that they show off their private parts in a manner which few or no Human cultures would consider decent. And yet, the Equestrian Ponies seem fairly virtuous.
Which is why Pony Twilight Sparkle wouldn't even instinctively grasp the whole issue here -- to her, classy versus trashy would involve the manner in which she stood and the position in which she held her tail, rather than whether she was wearing clothing and if that clothing covered her genitals (most of her clothing wouldn't, though Equestrian full formal ball or state gowns usually do).
You will note that the two highest-status mares in all Equestria wear tiaras, peytrals, and sabatons. And that's it. And absolutely nopony thinks this means they're promiscuous.
Again: your assumptions regarding fashion and culture are parochial to the West in the period from (roughly) 1900-2015. They are not human universals, still less are they mammalian ones.
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They cut a lot out of Slice of Life, including a scene where Celestia and Luna's personal guards were making fun of their respective Princesses. I'm not that surprised.
Forgetting Riley?
Notably, none of Buffy's show romances worked out long term, mortal or otherwise.
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Riley kind of proves my point, because he was near-universally reviled by the fandom and he was soon shuffled off the show (also notable is that Riley seems aware of the problem I talk about, since he is constantly plagued by feelings of insecurity regarding his relationship with Buffy).
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Jordan said in his blog:
That's the point: in-story it didn't matter what the fandom thought, only what Buffy thought, and she seemed to like him. And I'm certain Riley's feelings of inadequacy would be mirrored (to varying degrees) in any non-immortal's relationship with an alicorn princess: Flash with Princess Twilight, or pre-alicorn Twilight with Luna or Celestia. ZOMG's Twilight, Good Night does a good job showing a self-deprecating, over-humble unicorn Twilight who insists she's nothing special, vice an increasingly interested Luna.
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I agree, and when I talked about 'worth' I wasn't referring to Buffy's in-character reaction to Riley but the attitude of the western audience and my contention that we, culturally, are not comfortable with romances where the woman is the indisputably stronger partner.
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Part of the problem was that one of the show's main sources of drama was torturing Buffy. Seriously, if you watch the show as a whole, an awful lot of bad life-changing things happen to her during its run.
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That's a good point -- and, while it especially applies to Twilight, it also applies to any of the Mane Six. It's interesting in that regard that the pairings Show seems most comfortable depicting involving the Mane Six are Rarity and Spike (where Spike is much younger yet also physically-tougher than Rarity) and Fluttershy and Discord (where Discord is much older and more powerful than Fluttershy). Show doesn't know what to do with Flash Sentry and Twilight, and refuses to let it come to some sort of a decision; Cheese Sandwich is somewhat weaker than Pinkie Pie, and he hasn't been given any lines since his initial appearance (this may be because his voice actor is Weird Al Yankovic). Rainbow Dash and Soarin' has never gotten beyond very mild Ship Teasing, and seems to have gotten weaker over time (this is the closest ship on the show to Buffy x Riley in terms of personalities and capabilities). AJ's never been shipped with anybody on the Show itself (the reason why I gave her a Lost Lenore).
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Flash also suffers because, as a character who has been pretty much ported in from the High School genre, as you have pointed out, he suffers whenever the structure of Equestria Girls diverges from that template.
So, in the typical High School romcom, the conflict is between the nice girl and the bad girl over the guy. The bad girl is dating the guy, and because said guy is good looking and nice he functions as the ultimate marker of her status as Queen Bee. By the end of the movie the nice girl has won the guy, and this not only resolves the romance but also signifies her success in dethroning the bad girl. However, because Equestria Girls is also a fantasy movie, the ultimate marker of status is not the cute boy but the magical artefact over which Twilight and Sunset are fighting, and Twilight's victory is signified not with a date but by a literal coronation.
The second big change is that, while most high-school romcoms put the romance, quite naturally, at the heart of the story, Equestria Girls is sufficiently true to its source to root the story not in the romance but in the friendship of the Mane Five: Twilight's victory becomes assured once she repairs the bonds of the five, and she triumphs with their help and none from Flash. All of which leaves him rather a loose end, which is a long-winded way of saying that the writers can't resolve FlashLight because they've never taken the time to build it anywhere.
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That's a very good point. Though, if the Writers really wanted him there, they could write him into the story they're telling. I get the very strong impression that much of the plot was written and the Suits suddenly went, "Whoa, this needs a romantic lead!" meaning that Flash was written in at the last moment and under protest. And has been abused ever since by the Writers in revenge, the more so because they probably aren't allowed to write him out the reasonable way (Twilight decides it's just a crush and there's no possible future in it, thus gives up on it).
The Writers could, after all, have written Flash in taking an active part in the confrontations. There's nothing about his being a Love Interest that prevents him from also being a Friend. The Writers simply chose not to have him be one.
For that matter, logically there was nothing preventing him from being a Friend to Sunset Shimmer, either. Yes, they broke up, but that was because Sunset Shimmer was being evil back then. She's not evil any more.
The Writers chose not to have him be one there, either.
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I think that you're right about that for two reasons:
1. The first Equestria Girls is largely a retelling of the show's two-part pilot, with occassional call-backs to other parts of the show, especially the first season. Flash is the only major element without an analog.
2. Meghan McCarthy has talked about her inspiration for the movie being the Wizard of Oz. Now while Oz in the books was a real secondary world, in the Judy Garland movie Oz was only a dream of an unconscious Dorothy, a place where she could work out her frustrations and relationships (lets ignore the ruby slippers under the bed for now). And you can see that in Equestria Girls, which - the Equestria-set prologue and epiloge aside - can be read as a psychological journey on Twilight's part, where she works out her anxieties over her royal status and defeats a representation of her flaws. It isn't until Rainbow Rocks that it becomes clear that the human world is a distinct one, and the characters there are real people with their own lives. But again, Flash has no place in a psychological reading of the film because Twilight barely knows pony Flash.
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I didn't know about the Oz connection to Equestria Girls! But that makes a lot of sense, as an anti-Wizard of Oz -- Twilight is literally a magical princess who is under stress regarding the responsibilties or lack thereof which she has to her Realm, and in the Humanoid Verse she's nobody in particular in an apparently-mundane situation -- but in reality has similar responsibilities. And there are analogues of almost everypony she knows well. What's more, even Flash is explicable because she met Pony Flash briefly before going through the Mirror Portal -- but she didn't really know him well, and so he was more or less shoehorned into the story.
Within story, the best way to resolve it would be to have human-Flash Sentry and human Sci-Twi fall for each other. While the power differential is still great, since Sci-Twi basically turned into the human equivalent of an evil alicorn briefly, and her pony-up form will probably continue to be alicornoid, none of the Human 6 have the power that the ponies do. Sci-Twi really is Flash's age, or close enough, and is really his species. And Flash, being a nice guy, might react to discovering that no, a girl he liked wasn't dissing him, but in fact was her totally confused clone from his own world, by feeling bad for doubting Twilight and trying to make it up to her human version, since the pony version won't stick around and the human version needs a lot more help with socialization.
Practically everyone in Canterlot High sings or plays an instrument, but Flash did it before the others did, so it is reasonable to assume he has some credit as a trendsetter in the school. He may also be more serious about music than most of the others -- even the Rainbooms seem a lot more casual about being a band. So human Flash has a thing he's talented in and passionate about, and so does Sci-Twi, and they don't have the social distance of princess and soldier; they're just two kids in high school.
This would neatly solve the problem. Twilight's interactions with pony Flash Sentry are very rare, and while he may have had a line, it wasn't a line spoken to Twilight, nor has she spoken to him. So it can just be shoved under the rug easily. Meanwhile, if Flash Sentry and Sci-Twi become serious about each other, Twilight would recognize that it's better for her human friend to have a girlfriend who's there all the time, and isn't really an adult princess from another realm, and would probably not even admit to herself that she's slightly jealous (unless Discord gets it out of her, because he has a greater ability to needle her into admitting to darker emotions than anyone else). But even if she did feel a twinge of jealousy, she'd do the right thing and concede that Sci-Twi needs a boyfriend a lot more than Twilight does at this stage of her life (not that anyone ever seriously needs a boyfriend, but Sci-Twi has also probably spent her high school years being told she's an ugly wallflower that no one would want, and having a boyfriend would be great for her self-esteem. Twilight comes from a world where "nerd" is not a thing, not in the sense of anyone being looked down on for high intelligence.)
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That might indeed be the best solution. I'm not all that obsessed with "power differentials" as obstacles to love -- the main problem they pose assuming that both parties are basically ethical (won't murder, beat or blackmail one another) are to mutual sincerity, because the lower status party will be tempted to pretend to greater love than is felt, in order to snag the higher-status party as his or her mate, and the higher status party will be tempted to trade-up to a higher status mate. The real problem between Princess Twiilght and Humanoid Flash is that Equestria isn't his world -- even with the shapeshifting and translation provided by the Mirror Portal, Equestria has all sorts of different social assumptions that does Flash's country (what I call the North American Federation) we don't know if Humanoid Flash would want to live there.
This might not be such an obstacle if the love between Princess Twilight and Flash were some grand passion defying death and time -- such as the Reincarnation Romance I have between my Princess Twilight and Princess Luna, or my Applejack's feelings regarding her Lost Lenore, Landscape Carrot. But it doesn't seem to be -- based on the evidence, it's just a crush born of the fact that Twilight is a virgin in a strange body meeting a rather likeable and attractive male of the same species as that body; and Flash is attracted to a girl who seems far more intelligent, confident and fundamentally good than any he's ever met before (in the Shadow Wars Story Verse fanon, Flash is subconstiously primed to love Equestrian Ponies in Humanoid form, for reasons relating to his earlier life experiences).
I could see Flash and Sci-Twi ultimately falling for one another, though. Flash is smart, handsome, forthright -- and also quite gentle, honorable and kind based on the fanon evidence. Someone like that could help stablize Sci-Twi and keep her away from Memetic Science Disorder tendencies. Whether or not Sci-Twi "needs" a boyfriend, I think that she really needs friends -- and Flash would be the kind of boyfriend who would also be her friend. So, yes.
I agree that I see no serious interest between Princess Twilight and Pony Flash Sentry. The most affect they've shown for each other on the show is mild mutual embarrassment -- after they literally collided. Unless Equestrian morals are far stricter than even I imagine, that's hardly either a basis for or requires falling in love.
And you're dead right about the different attitudes Princess Twilight and Sci-Twi have toward dealing with admiration from others. Princess Twilight is used to it and discounts a lot of it as based on her status rather than her self; Sci-Twi has apparently never received much.
3619920 oh yes. So much of the bad crap that happened to Buffy was personally torturous that it almost made the Watchers seem right a Slayer shouldn't have a personal life.
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That's not really the biggest problem. The problem of power differentials is leverage.
Like, Twilight doesn't want to do the dishes and Spike isn't around. She says "Flash, could you do the dishes for me?" On any one occasion, he can say, "No, Twilight, I'm busy," because Twilight's not abusive and won't demand it from him. But because she's more powerful and higher status, it's going to wear away at him that she could do better and if he wants to keep her he'd better keep her happy. He's always going to be aware that she has more options than he does. In the case of Human Flash and Sci-Twi, while she has superpowers and he doesn't, her powers are rarely invoked, something to be kept secret, and have not given her any social power. She probably has less social power than Flash, but not enough that he could inadvertently control her. But in the case of Pony Flash and Princess Twilight... she's a princess. He works for the crown. Technically she could be considered his boss, or his boss' boss.
In the case of, say, Fluttershy and Discord, Discord's vast magical power is balanced out by Fluttershy's higher social power, and the fact that Fluttershy is more valuable to Discord than Discord is to Fluttershy -- of course Fluttershy cares about him, a lot, but she wouldn't break off with her friends and leave her animals behind to cause chaos with him, because she has friends and obligations besides him. Discord could do anything he wanted to do to Fluttershy, but the fact that doing anything she doesn't like will make his only friend unhappy (or later, his best friend unhappy), and run the risk of losing her, means that Fluttershy has enough emotional power over Discord that his greater magical power doesn't matter (though it would matter, if Fluttershy tried to abuse the power she has over him. Discord could only be pushed so far; fortunately for both of them, Fluttershy isn't pushy at all.) This wouldn't be the case with pony Flash and Princess Twilight; he's not her best friend, he's unlikely to be her only suitor, and he really doesn't have much over her at all.
Personally, I get very, very uncomfortable around relationships where one party has way more power than the other, regardless of the gender balance. Relationships where both parties have power, but in different axes, so that their areas of dominance interlock, are fine, and actually I love them -- for instance, I'm thinking here of the classic D&D style pairing of a female wizard and a male fighter, where she's much more powerful than he is, but also much more vulnerable in many respects, and depends on him for protection as much as he depends on her. (I've written this the other way around, too, in a fanfic about Q never getting his powers back, where for various reasons he ends up teaming up with a female Vulcan, and her greater strength pairs with his higher intelligence to allow them to defeat Ferengi pirates that hijacked their ship and were going to sell them into slavery.) But I can't stand "rich famous guy with girl who has nothing", because I know that even if he doesn't intend to, he can control her -- his status is too high. Now if she was his bodyguard, or she was a celebrity in her own right, that'd be different.