On FIENDship Is Magic # 3: The Sirens · 2:02pm Feb 1st, 2016
It was a terrible comic. It ignored the point made implicitly in Rainbow Rocks that they were devastating whole provinces (indeed, given the depicted geography that they might have been attacking the original Tribal homeland) and reduced what they were doing in Equestria to infiltrating a singing contest. It also ignored that the strong implication in-show that their lives were being magically-sustained by their Power Drain with the aid of the gems, because the reason why the comic writer wanted to have them portaled into "modern times" was that otherwise wouldn't they have died centuries ago?
IMO, and in the Shadow Wars Story Verse, the Dazzlings are millennia-old immortal monsters with what amount to (as a trio) Alicorn-level abilities; ruthless predators whose ambition it was to spread global warfare on the Humanoid world in order to create massive amounts of hatred to feed upon. The sad thing about what IDW Comics did is that they'd already shown that level of power before in the voice of a member of the same main Kind (Sea Pony) in the form of Cassie the Kelpie.
The IDW version of the Dazzlings' origin was pathetic. It ignored the very obvious clues in the movie that the Dazzlings were only taking the guise of cute if somewhat bitchy teenage girls -- that they were really ancient, and thoroughly evil. This included the very structure of their songs and choreography, both of which were both archaic (delieberately modeled by the animators, I would guess, after Classical Greek modes) and alien (incorporating a lot of slow motions which probably would work better underwater.
Yes even the cute blue-haired ditz who likes tacos is an ancient alien monster. Just not a very smart one (and I like Alex Warlorn's concept that she suffered magically-induced brain damage at one point).
My model for Sonata? She's their "Ed," out of the trio of Shenzi, Banzai and Ed, the Hyena leaders in The Lion King. Ed was goofy -- but he was no less a killer than the others, and his goofiness was downright sinister in their final scene, where they turned on Scar. That last, sinister laugh ...
... might well be the last thing that anyone heard from Sonata Dusk if they made the mistake of imagining her harmless.
Basically, this comic was the way The Shadow Over Innsmouth would have read if it had turned out the narrator was just being paranoid and had misinterpreted the intention of the locals to throw him a jolly party in his hotel room, and all they had was a hereditary skin condition, plus Zadok Allen was all right and had just been detailed to distract said narrator while they got the party favors together.
Totally with you on that, man. My own concept runs a little losser, but the important part is my concept makes them reality benders, thus making them a threat serious enough that Starswirl would try something despite to deal with them. Good to see your breakdown if an interesting foe when the comics were too scared to handle them properly.
I wasn't remotely fond of it either; it makes what should be sinister into a comedy trio, a Team Rocket-esk harmless nuisance. Note also how the crowds in Cantalot no selled their songs on the justification that the music was too old fashioned.
Tne Nightmare Moon comic was, if anything, even worse; I actually gave up on it.
The worse part is, we know the comic writers can do much better: the Mirror Arc, the Return of Chrysalis, hell, Sombra's own Fiendship comic. Yet for every such piece, we have a clear misstep: the aforementioned Cassie, the ridiculous nonsense with the Cattle Ranchers, the even more ridiculous nonsense with the sapient Apples.
It's the same with characterisation: they've done splendid work with supporting characters like Big Mac and Princess Luna, yet they butcher Rarity's character as a matter of routine: with the honourable exception of the Nightmare Rarity arc, she spends much of her page time lusting after anything male the Mane Six encounter.
Essentially, I find myself wondering, with every new arc, will we have another excellent addition to canon, or something I would rather pretend did not exist.
Agreed on all counts, to say nothing of what it does to Star Swirl. Also, apparently all of Equestria was going through a Greco-Roman fashion at the time. I'm not normally one for vulgarity, but this comic pisses so much potential down its own leg that it's drowning in it.
And yeah, Sonata is as much a predator as the others, hence the obsession with the closest thing to minotaur she can get in the human world. My personal hypothesis is that she's closer to the norm, with Aria rather more clever and Adagio a siren super-genius. After all, if trios of sirens are that powerful, the only reason shoals of them don't rule Equestria in a constant state of strife is because their own nature precludes them working together. Classically speaking, the siren is an ambush predator, luring in prey and feasting when it's helpless. Territoriality and a strong independent streak usually come with that sort of hunting strategy. After all, there's a reason we can't just farm spider silk.
I'm not really a fan of any of the stuff mentioned here. But the Dazzlings did have moments where they were only interacting with each other or around people they controlled, so I think the wasy they were behaving was at least someone indicative of their real personalities. And while they may live underwater initially, their targets who they have to interact with, are on land. So why would they coreograph for unerwater?
I'd like to imagine that the Siren story was fictional in-universe. It feels very much like the sort of bedtime story you'd tell to small foals who you didn't want to scare.
The Kelpie comic for me is the most hated out of the entire series (even more than the cowboy comic, the deer arc, or Nightmare Rarity). Compared to that, the lukewarm origin of the sirens where is just there. Apparently they wanted to do Discord, but it got switched around so they had to scramble to write something for the sirens instead, thus why it's so uninspired.
So you LIKED the epic battle I write between Starswirl, the Princesses, the current Spike, and Shady Senior against the siren trio?
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Likely because they aren't the only seaponies in the world.
IDW does seem to have a problem that they have too many different development teams and they are so different in style and quality. I gt the same problem with their Transformers comics where I really like some artist's styles and writing and others are almost unreadable.
The Greek Sirens were actually beautiful heads of women with the bodies of birds.
Yeah, even fans of the series (Like myself) are bothered by that particular issue. It just completely undercut the Sirens as villains, to say nothing of making their powers seem utterly harmless rather than deadly dangerous as they were shown in the movie. (You can just ignore their singing and it won't affect you? Uh, okay.) Heck, it made Starswirl look like a jerk who exiled the Sirens just for being more popular than him. I can't believe that a pony like that would have become Celestia's usually-beloved mentor.
I can get that it was intended as a light interlude between the grimmer stories of Tirek and Nightmare Moon, as comedy for the kids, the main audience of the comic we must remember, but it still was not very good. People need to remember that kids are not going to drop dead from reading a scary story or seeing villains being villains. They can enjoy the latter especially if said villains get their well-deserved comeuppance in the story.
3726550 It's the same with characterisation: they've done splendid work with supporting characters like Big Mac and Princess Luna, yet they butcher Rarity's character as a matter of routine: with the honourable exception of the Nightmare Rarity arc, she spends much of her page time lusting after anything male the Mane Six encounter.
Oh, I agree with this so much, sir. Why must the comics turn Rarity into some dimwitted man-hungry bimbo again and again?
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Comics repeatedly miss the point that Rarity is highly intelligent. And imply that because she's a social manipulator she has no morals, whereas in the Show it's been repeatedly demonstrated that she cares a lot about the effects of her actions and tries to avoid hurting anypony.
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Though I would think that the movie was even more targeted at little kids than was the comic, and the movie quite adequately conveyed their ancientness, alienness and seductive evil. Couldn't the comic book have done at least as well? It's as if the comic was trying to reassure anyone who was scared by the movie "No, you didn't see what you think you saw!"
Seriously, given the personalities of the Dazzlings as shown in Rainbow Rocks, they could have been the villains of a Tales From the Crypt episode. I personally think that (1) they occasionally eat other sapients, as did the Sirens of myth, and (2) that's actually small potatoes on their scale of evil deeds.
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I could easily see that!
"Daddy, did the Sirens really eat Ponies?"
"Why no, darling. They ate tacos."
3728390 I'd say it doesn't help that far too many modern American comics (American entertainment in general, really) seem determined to make any intelligent character some sort of a jerk. Maybe they're afraid the audience's heads will fall off or something if they have a decent human being who happens to have a working brain?
3728405 "Daddy, did the Sirens really eat Ponies?"
"Why no, darling. They ate tacos."
"Tacos made out of ponies, that is."
3728402 the comic, and the movie quite adequately conveyed their ancientness, alienness and seductive evil. Couldn't the comic book have done at least as well? It's as if the comic was trying to reassure anyone who was scared by the movie "No, you didn't see what you think you saw!"
I heard this on the Internet, so take it for what little it's worth, but supposedly the writer of that particular comic seriously dislikes the older fans and enjoys antagonizing them. If I'm remembering right he's also the one who did the 'Dragontown' story with Spike and Luna which he called, without joking, 'the most socially important comic of the year'.
If true, then it's possible that he wrote the Sirens as a joke to mess with fans who expected something scarier and more serious. Unless he was simply told by his higher-ups 'You HAVE to do it precisely like this', which has also been a problem with the IDW pony comics from what I've read.
Given some of the ways fans have behaved or are said to have behaved in response to issues they disliked, like death threats, I can understand why he would have issues with demanding fans.
The comics are usually pretty hit or miss, and like someone else said one of the writers hates us (and allies himself with / put cuteosphere into a comic- the Power Ponies annual) and would write a bad comic just to fuck with us.
But, granted, the complaint isn't really valid about the Sirens comic, or Rarity's mischaracterization in the comics. We do that too. We treat the Sirens as harmless but bitchy teenagers more often than not, and too often forget that at least at telekinesis and illusion magic that Rarity is Twilight's better, and quite intelligent on her own. It doesn't help that in the show she's often shown mooning over pretty much everything with a dick.
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(*snerk!*)
I can really easily see Sonata Dusk doing that!
or should it be 
Next up, Equestrian Pony Cooking, with Sonata Dusk and Harmonia Pie. They make tacos and cupcakes!
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She's given two obsessive long-distance crushes in what are 2 years (short chronology) to 5 years (long one). Both of them fall apart when she actually meets her crush object. In addition, she has a long-standing romantic (?) friendship with Spike. This does not make her insanely lusty. Though in my fanon she is one of the two lustiest members of the Mane Six (the other one being the one no one ever blames for anything, no matter what she does, because she's just too darn cute!)
I personally read Rarity as being brilliant but having a very artistic (read, slightly impulsive and insane) temperment.
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Is he aware that the Show has also done racial prejudice and hostility? More than once?
3730003 I'm not sure. Judging by the admittedly limited exposure I've had to his work, he seems to see himself as the lone voice crying in the wilderness against the evils all about him.
But as I said, my exposure to his work aside from IDW has been limited, and what little I have seen doesn't make me want to spend my time seeking out the rest.
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Ted Anderson?
The only thing the comics really do is have her make good on her excessively flirty nature. And I personally read into the tension between Rarity and Applejack.
I see her not as insane but indulgent. Pinkie is insane, Rarity just lives in the drama of the moment.
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Yeah, but that makes rather a big difference.
3731731 Not from where I stand, friendo.
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There's rather a large difference between being flirty and being promiscuous. If Rarity had sex with everypony she flirts with, she'd have a line of Ponies outside her bedroom door every night.
3731845 I never mentioned promiscuity once.
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Then in what way do you envision Rarity making good on her flirtatiousness?
3731880 Either way, she hits on a lot of male ponies in both canon and comic verse. =3=
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Oh yes, I have her as flirty in my fanon as well. Sometimes more than flirty, but not as often as she's just flirty.
3731894 Anyway. Dos vidanye brother.
3731845 At least until Spike got big enough to stand there, hissing and snarling at them. That would thin out the competition pretty quickly.
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"Everypony, come quickly!" yelled Trenderblood Bluehoof III. "Rarity's been stolen away by a gigantic dragon! We need to rescue her!"
Princess Twilight stared at him for a moment appraisingly, and then shrugged. Trenderblood heard her mumbling, "Well, he should learn his lesson." But he dismissed it; he didn't have the least idea what the princess could mean. Meanwhile, several other ponies were gathering around, eager to be on the rescue mission...
Meanwhile, Rarity was staring up at her large draconic companion. "Why, Spike, thank you for inviting me on this picnic! But I have to ask - what made you grow so large?"
"I don't know, Rarity," the dragon rumbled, infinitely more calmly than the last time he'd been this size. "I was just thinking about you, and how much I wanted to be with you."
"Why, Spike! You want to horde me - that's so sweet!"
3738261 I think that's going to end with an offended Rarity and quite possibly a well-fed Spike, if dragons ever eat meat.