Season 8 Surpassed My Expectations with One Character · 8:19pm Jan 30th, 2019
Okay, so I've finished season 8, and I've got to say, it surprised me. For such an old show (especially one that's had difficulties with executive oversight stepping on the team's toes frequently) season 8 still managed to not only have some great episodes, but some solid characters and even more interesting lessons and concepts. But out of all of those, the one that shocked me the most, and ended up being my favorite character of the season?
Gallus.
That's right, the griffon member of the Student Six. Because they (the creators) played a very daring game with his character, one that caught me by surprise and increased my respect for them several notches. Sands, I'm surprised the execs or even maybe the censors didn't catch wind of his character background and go "No way. Absolutely not. You cannot put that in a story meant for all ages."
Why? Well, it goes back to what the school introduced this season is, and why Gallus is there.
Basically, the School of Friendship is a diplomat's school. Students from all over the place, coming together to learn together and build connections between them. Sponsored by ... well, we assume the Equestrian Government, since I'm not sure where else the funding would come from (they certainly don't tackle this one in the show). But that means the student's tickets are paid by scholarship (and they do mention this). Each nation Equestria knows, meanwhile, is asked to send a student to participate.
And, like in diplomatic schools of old (there may be a more proper term for them, but that's how I've always named them) we get a fairly predictable spread. Silverstreak is there because she's the niece of the queen of the hippogryphs. Connection to a royal family. Yona, IIRC, was suggested to be a relative of Prince Rutherford. Ocellus is a changeling nymph who is fascinated with other cultures and very brainy, making her a natural pick. Sandbar idolizes the Mane Six. Smolder is Dragonlord Ember's younger sister.
Yeah, all of them have connections. Important ones. And then there's Gallus.
Gallus is there because ... he's an orphan. No, wait, that's not the worst part. He's there because the room, board, and education are free, and so the griffons shoved him off there so that his lack of a family wouldn't cost them any more cash.
Yeah. Worse, they made him completely aware of that. It's outright acknowledged and discusses in the season's Hearthswarming episode.
Whoa. Yeah, for a show that's "family friendly" that's actually pretty, well, dark. Not the orphan bit, we've all seen a TV show, even for kids, where there's an orphan character. But usually it's played light, with jokes being made about it or a TV cliche like "Oh, life is great because I don't have any family to worry about ... just kidding!"
Gallus doesn't get any of that at all. Instead, we basically got the eternally unwanted foster child. An orphan who's been shoved off from group to group because he's "expensive" only to be told that he's being shipped across the country to another nation simply to save everyone else a few bucks, because it's a paid scholarship so he can stop costing everyone else money.
Yeah, told. He's fully aware of how unwanted he is and trying to deal with it. Celestia's Beard, MLP, talk about a heavy topic! Most shows would rather run a clip episode then tackle a subject like this. And yet ...
Season 8 did. Not only that, but it gave it some weight and dared let it be part of Gallus' character. The moment that episode aired, all his prior behavior and attitudes from his very introduction made sense. As did his torn nature between actually befriending those at the school and staying disconnected and aloof.
And once that connection was made, Gallus went from "hey, new character" to quite possibly the most interesting character of the season for me. Plus, I have to hand it to the writers for MLP right now. They are not lacking in ambition. Episodes touching on subjects like racism, divorce, even parental issues where parents refuse to see that their children have become adults? That's one thing, but Gallus' situation is a couple of levels beyond that.
There's been talk of the next MLP "generation" or show, even season being a sort of Fraiser-style spin-off that follows the Student Six, and I have to admit that if this is the kind of thing it'd work with, I'd watch it. Gallus' background caught me completely off guard, but then threw me for a second loop with handling that actually acknowledged it and worked with it, rather than dodging like just about 99% of television I can think of. And at a family-friendly, all-ages level too.
Gallus: Best griffon. Claws down.
Even if it totally doesn't fit into the DGS canon at the moment, this character makes me want to make it do so.
Slomder and Ember arent related as far as i know?
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I could have sworn they said in episode one that she was related directly to Ember, but maybe I was mistaken.
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From the MLP wiki, which incidentally featured the Smolder article when I loaded the main page.
Ember just personally forced Smolder to attend Twilight's school in the S8 opener for whatever reason.
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Huh. I wonder where I got that impression?
Still, far better reason for being there than Gallus.
So... Twilight's running a Schola Progenium to create
Equestrian Commissars"diplomats" tosubvert foreign governments"spread Harmony" throughout the land.I hadn't quite caught all the implications of Gallus's situation.
I was, however, aware that the scientific name of the chicken was Gallus Gallus, though, which likely isn't a great name for a gryphon to grow up with.
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I did not know that. Bet Gallus has had it thrown at him more than once though.
I feel I'm going to have to find a way to work Griffonstone into TDGS in a fashion just so that Gallus can canonically exist in it, because the guy's got my admiration as a character.
YAAAAY! I LOVE GALLUS!
They've been taking more chances on stories lately, and it's paying off in a big way. I didn't quite pick up on just how deep Gallus' backstory went, but I think your little writeup swayed me even more. He really is a fantastic character.
But I'd also like to call some attention towards Silverstream (you called her Silverstreak up above, by the way
). She has connections, sure, but she's also has a fairly dark history. Because of the Storm King, she basically spent her entire life in hiding, fearing discovery and enslavement. Now that the hippogriffs are freed from hiding, she's suddenly experiencing all sorts of new things. She seems like Pinkie Pie with a beak at first glance, but she's genuinely happy to exist and be free for the first time in her life, and that really sets her apart in my opinion.
Shucks, now that I think about it, Ocellus went through a similarly bleak upbringing under Chrysalis. Those students really are intriguing when you look closely at them.
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Whoops! Sorry Silverstream! My bad!
I did pick up on that with her. Actually, she was my favorite until Gallus' history reared its head. So now she's number two, and if I were a shipper, I'd probably be pairing them, since they do play off one another well.
But you're right, I should have mentioned that she's a war child. How many shows do that? Not many!
But that's partly why she's such a strong character, personally. She's endlessly upbeat and exuberantly positive despite that (there was actually a story about her I faved recently on that very topic), even though sometimes it's a bit of a front.
Unrelated to my previous fact-checking... I think this is an interesting perspective; if I ever do get the gumption to go ahead and specifically watch all of S8 (I think I've missed some of S7 too?), this blog post will probably be an entire half of it.
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I had the same impression and would have totally believed you on this until I looked it up. I'd blame it on that "But mooom!" moment early on.