Season 7 · 2:17am Mar 17th, 2017
So they showed some teasers or whatever, and it's apparent that they're not done with Starlight Glimmer or the antler-clown-bug-horses.
Some points now.
1. I go back to the drow from D&D again. Now, occasionally, some drow do turn against their evil society and become good, or neutral in the very least. The thing is, they don't undergo a magical transformation that signals to everyone that they have become good. They still look like drow with dark skin, white hair, and red eyes. They have to deal with both the rage of their former kin and the suspicion of the "good" people they have chosen to interact with. That creates some interesting stories and conflicts and calls into question their motivations. It's easy to turn to the side of good when you have this vast array of people cheering you on and easy acceptance. Not so much when you're greeted with tension at every turn. Changelings get the easy way out, and I think that only burned away interesting stories that could be told about them.
I actually found the whole fight for the changeling race with Chrysalis and Thorax sort of interesting. It reminds me of the conflict between Lolth, the primary drow goddess and her daughter, Ellistrae, the goddess of good drow. Yes, there is such a thing. Thing is, Ellistrae was killed at some point, though she was able to redeem a huge swathe of drow. Even with her resurrection, Ellistrae only won a partial victory. Most drow were still ruthless, cruel, slaving, conquerors, but a portion of them had been saved. I think it would make for more interesting stories to find out that Thorax's hive is but one of the many still-evil hives of changelings out there in the undiscovered areas outside Equestria.
2. The good changelings are fucking hideous. The color scheme is so garish that it burns the eyes. I'm reminded of the description of the Xanthous Set from Dark Souls 2. "Stinging yellow" sounds appropriate. What's with those antlers? They look like scarab beetle pincers. The evil changelings have a nice sleek look with all black punctuated by light blues. The good changelings look like clowns. Thorax looks like Bambi's retarded uncle from Mars.
3. I do like the fact that Thorax is a good king. Can't wait for all the stories where he turns into a queen, or is replaced by a queen, or marries a queen and is reduced to "prince-consort".
4. They better show a Celestia episode.
5. Apparently Starlight Glimmer has "graduated". I can believe this. If only because Twilight is such an incompetent teacher that she just passed Starlight without giving a rat's ass. But whatever. Get her to the Crystal Empire and fuck Sunburst or something. She's overstayed her welcome and needs to go. I found her playing fast and loose with free will pretty interesting, but I doubt they'll do anything more with that. Time to go.
6. So Applejack's parents are going to show up or something. I find that rather iffy. Fictional dads tend to come in one of the three flavors: Homer Simpson, Darth Vader, and Uncle Ben. As long as he was absent, AJ's dad was easily relegated to Uncle Ben. Having him show up increases the likelihood that he's Homer Simpson.
I agree the new good changelings are ugly.
I also get annoyed that almost all the villains get redeemed so fast. I enjoy having villains and if they do get redeemed I want it over time with some fun episodes in between.
Sadly I think Starlight is going to be staying somehow. I think she is the new substitute Twilight and she is used to replace her whenever possible. I think they realissed after making Twilight an Alicorn that the show lost a lot of its purpose. It could still do comedy episodes (which it still does well often enough) but it lost a lot of its drive. The obvious answer would be to do something similar with the rest of the cast growing into new roles but they only are doing it slowly with some of the characters (Rarity, Dash, and perhaps the crusaders) and they do not focus on that enough to make it really effective.
I agree with your points on changelings, and you can ' t deny that it was extremely satisfying to see Chrysalis to swat off that helpig hoof.
Good changelings looks like reindeers that fallen into a candycane vat.
I honestly disagree on getting rid of Starlight tough. I despised her as villain, she simply didn ' t fit because she was not meant to be villain, only child with anger management issues. But redeemed she has potential, especially because she is not perfect.
But AJ parrents? That terrifies the crap out or me. Some episodes made subtle suggestions that they may be dead, and honestly HOW would you apologize them missing for so long when Apples are so family centered people?
There were moments when bad writing made mess, and not only in MLP. but here lazy writing may cause more mayhem than shipping Discord with Garrosh Hellscream.
If you splice together every scene with Celestia in it from all six seasons, you might have fifteen minutes of runtime tops.
I'm running out of straws to grasp :/
Don't Want to watch the trailer but everything I've read says rainbow dash's parents get revealed. Where did you see AJ's parents?
4459782
In an earlier Q&A or something of the sort. We get an episode with Dash's parents, but we'll also get a flashback about AJ's parents romance, I believe. Not sure whether that changes whether they are currently around or not in present time.
4459786 thank you for the response, friend! Hopefully it's in flashback form. I always admired applejack and the apple family because of the rumor that their parents were dead. If only because both of mine recently passed and I like to model myself after her.
...hm. that sounds wrong. I admire them because they can still be happy after such a tragedy.
This will be the first time I go into a new season not feeling excited for it. I'm sure there'll be things I will like (Discord was on-point in the trailer), but between the new changelings rearing their ugly, ugly heads again, the staff proudly proclaiming that the season has a whole five songs, and every indication that the Starlight Glimmer Show isn't over yet, I'm feeling very burned out by the whole thing. I'm especially frustrated by this graduation day premise, because it sounds like the perfect excuse to push Starlight into the background again where she belongs, but in my heart I know it's more likely just the lead-up to Starlight undeservedly becoming princess number six.
Don't get me wrong, though, I'm not pretending that any of this will get me to stop watching. I'm well aware that the ride never ends.
New changlings look just ok, but thorax looks awesome so let's call it a wash.
4459805 THE RIDE NEVER ENDS.
Isn't it charming how they insist on focusing on the least compelling characters?