) I can safely say that My Little Pony: A New Generation was great! 
And here are my random thoughts:
MLP villain ranking: Cozy Glow · 8:44pm Feb 27th, 2019
0/10 - AWFUL (unsalvageable, never should have been made, wouldn't recommend to anyone)
1/10 - HORRIBLE/BORING (tedious, hurts to watch, a bore, no reason to watch him/her, whatever positive things about him/her are tiny and not enough)
2/10 - VERY BAD (slightly less terrible, maybe there were one or two things you liked kept him/her from being a 1 but still very painful)
3/10 - BAD (the kind of bad where you're checking your watch over and over to see how much time is left before he/she gets off the screen)
4/10 - MEDIOCRE (not awful but not really that good either)
5/10 - EH (average, didn't love or hate him/her)
6/10 - DECENT (the first positive rating on this list, fine overall, glad you saw him/her once but wouldn't watch him/her again)
7/10 - GOOD (enjoyable enough that you'd maybe watch him/her again in future, had some noteworthy flaws but is overall a worthwhile villain)
8/10 - GREAT (a solid, enjoyable villain, very entertaining)
9/10 - EXCELLENT (very engaging, awesome, you definitely recommend to anyone)
10/10 - MASTERPIECE (extremely engaging, an absolute must-see)
Cozy Glow
Okay, look.
If the writers wanted to finally take a break from “sympathetic” villains and snapshot redemptions and have a straight-up evil villain again, fine.
If they wanted to make a twist villain who was playing everyone like a fiddle from the start of the season, fine.
If they wanted a villain who didn’t mock the magic of friendship and recognised its power but only focused on the ‘power’ aspect to use as a means to an end, fine.
If they wanted a pony villain who betrayed her own kind and was conspiring with Tirek to drain Equestria’s magic out of a lust for power, fine.
If they wanted a villain who didn’t get reformed for a change, actually suffered consequences and even got sent to Tartarus for her crimes, fine.
But if that's what they were planning to do, why did they make Cozy Glow a child?
If she was a grown mare attending Twilight’s school, the Mane Six and Princesses would’ve looked less horrible when they imprisoned her in Hell and yet gave Neighsay a fucking redemption (so the writers couldn’t even stick to not forcing a villain redemption). The supervising director of the show, Jim Miller, claimed on Twitter that "when [we] were making the episode, kids in cages wasn’t such a REAL issue" and that "it seemed fun and subversive at the time". Okay, even taking recent events out of the equation, locking children up in cages is still fucked up, Jim!
“But being cute doesn’t mean you can get away with committing such selfish and terrible crimes!”
Funny, that didn’t stop Twilight and company from forgiving and not punishing Starlight, Tempest and Stygian. Grown-ass adults who’ve all committed crimes just as bad, if not worse. It’s kinda hilarious that the writers thought people would stop complaining about their long string of shit villain redemptions if they finally broke the cycle by throwing a child in Hell.
“But I thought you wanted a straight-up evil villain again? She was evil and nearly destroyed Equestria so she deserved it!”
There’s a difference between “Cozy Glow did nothing wrong and doesn’t deserve punishment at all” and “a literal child shouldn’t be thrown in Hell and then turned into stone for all eternity”. Villainizing a child just to subvert expectations and then imprisoning her in stone forever is a stupid and pathetically edgy writing choice, simple as.
“But I thought you’d like her, seeing how she didn’t get reformed?”
So I’m supposed to just congratulate the writers for doing the bare minimum? Just because they didn’t do the same overused villain archetype with Cozy Glow doesn’t mean that’s all it takes for her to be a good villain. They still had to stick the landing with her. And the show staff may not have redeemed her but they still couldn’t resist stapling a redemption onto Neighsay.
“But she’s so smart and manipulative!”
No, instead of School Raze showing her cunning and intellect, the finale’s plot relies on the writers making all the characters (the Mane Six, Spike, Starlight, the students) gullible and stupid enough to not notice anything suspicious about Cozy Glow and to blindly believe every word she says, even though they’ve shown to be smart enough to know better, just so she can look smart and manipulative by comparison. Rather than Cozy Glow being intelligent enough to outwit the heroes, the heroes got an intelligence decrease for the sake of the plot.
In fact, over the months after Season 8 finished, a much better question popped into my mind:
Why was Cozy Glow even here?
Why was she the season villain? Why did the writers think choosing a literal child to commit such a horrible crime and get thrown in Hell for it was a good idea? Why wasn’t Neighsay the season villain when he was right there?
Or better yet, why wasn’t Queen Chrysalis the season villain? So her appearance in The Mean Six wouldn’t have been completely pointless, especially since her vow for revenge in Season 6? So she would've had some credibility again?
Think about it, Cozy Glow’s plan to drain all magic from Equestria would’ve had disastrous consequences, seeing how much Equestria relies on magic for pretty much everything. It’s insane, it’s not well thought-out, it screams Chrysalis! She never thinks her plans through! This finale was practically gift-wrapped for her to reappear! The writers had the opportunity to team up Chrysalis and Tirek, two of their most gloriously hammy villains, and they didn’t take it!
Nope, the writers instead “liked the idea of an unexpected villain”, thinking twist villains automatically work just because and not bothering to consider whether this was a twist villain written well or even if this was a good idea in the first place.
Yes, because the writers explicitly made it that way and explicitly chose for Cozy Glow to be the villain. They didn't have to but they did. And that still doesn’t answer why they used her instead of Queen Chrysalis when she was right there.
"Well if she did turn out to be Chrysalis in disguise, it would’ve been confusing why she didn’t get her revenge on Starlight in Marks For Effort when she was alone with her!"
True, but they could've had Chrysalis capture and impersonate the real Cozy Glow near the season’s end and carry out the same evil plan. Or Cozy Glow should’ve simply been written out of Season 8 entirely.
“Wow, you’re so unsatisfiable. You wanted a classic MLP villain again, you got one, and you hate her? What do you WANT?”
A classic MLP villain who’s written well and in an equally well-written episode. And Cozy Glow is little more than the writers’ poorly-made response to the backlash on their recent villains.
1/10 HORRIBLE/BORING
LINKS TO OTHER VILLAIN RANKINGS
Nightmare Moon
Discord
Queen Chrysalis
King Sombra
Sunset Shimmer
Lord Tirek
Adagio Dazzle
Starlight Glimmer
Midnight Sparkle
Gloriosa Daisy
Juniper Montage
Stygian/The Pony of Shadows
The Storm King
Wallflower Blush
Vignette Valencia
Chancellor Neighsay
Cozy Glow (you're already here, you potato)
PostCrush
Grogar
I like to call Cozy Glow "the pony Darla Dimple".
OK, in all seriousness, here's what I would have done. If we absolutely, positively, had to have her be a child, I'd tie her to Neighsay then - make her, say, his niece, who he sends in covertly to scope out Twilight's school, find out the ins and outs of the place, win the ponies' trust, set up trouble there that would justify him shuttering the place, etc.
Because, admittedly, while I like the idea of a kid character who's a villain fangirl behind a saccharine façade and corresponds to Tirek for advice in her own evil plan... yeah, the Tartarus thing was a step too far. (To put it mildly.) Yeah, I think the implication they were trying to send is that Tartarus is more like a prison rather than the fire-and-brimstone hell it's commonly associated with, but the fact that they give a big pass to Starlight and Stygian and Tempest feels incredibly wonky to say the least.
5020902
You're missing the point though: why was Cozy Glow here at all when the season had already set up Neighsay and Chrysalis for such a huge villainous act? Why didn't they go with Chrysalis when this finale, evil plan and team-up with Tirek would've been perfect for her?
5020946
I'm just saying, man. If I absolutely, positively HAD to use this character in some capacity, that's what I'd have done.
Me, I would have very much preferred seeing more Chrysalis. Especially the idea of her and Tirek.
That little bit I typed out before was mostly just a quick attempt at hashing out a hypothetical "way to save this concept" and all.
5020949
Just write Cozy Glow out of the season completely, replace her with Chrysalis and you get:
"Chrysalis teams up with Tirek to trap the Mane Six in Tartarus and use the artefacts in Twilight's school to drain Equestria's magic out of revenge. She's stopped and, for her crimes, gets locked up in Tartarus. And Celestia strips Neighsay of his title for locking up children and usurping Twilight's headmare position in her absense."
A million times better finale. A perfect send off for the former Queen of the Changelings. I will never, for the life of me, understand why they chose Cozy Glow for this instead.
5020955
Fair enough. And that would have been much much better as a finale too.
Who the hell knows, man.
if I was the writers I would have made her turn out to be some sort new evil monster that can disguise itself. kinda like a changeling or something.
5020963
You mean like this?
derpicdn.net/img/view/2016/2/18/1091246.png
5020967
I actually believed in that theory for a time from when Cozy Glow first appeared until the Season 8 Finale when I was proven wrong.
5020946
Because of season 9.
5140793
I mean, that wouldn't have been a bad idea, but the Legion of doom was a really cool idea that was generally the highlight of the season whenever it was the focus. The premier, frenemies, the summer sun setback, and to an extent, the finale were all the best episodes of season 9. And Twilight did say that she was better now ASIDE from the odd trivia night. She didn't say she'd completely gotten rid of the flaw. Just when it came to the important stuff.
Also season 2 is one of the best seasons, but season 1 is one of the worst.
5141090
Uhhhhhh...hypocrisy much? Also, Season 2 is basically Season 1 but kicked up a notch in every single way. The dialogue, the ideas, the animation, the music, the voice acting, the highs, the morals, the execution of the stories, the character development, Twilight as a character in general, etc.
There is a story on here that runs with that premise; the CMC find Cozy Glow locked in the cleaning cupboard.
Ok I have a question how exactly did the other reformed villains did worse than Cozy?
Honestly, I'm much, MUCH more likely to forgive an errant child than an adult who should know better. I'd forgive either if they show a proper spirit of remorse, but the child is much more easily forgivable because they literally might not understand the difference between right and wrong.
5020955
Also, clears up her "plan" (?) in Marks For Effort. Imagine Chryssy actually distressed about getting three little kids in trouble No reason to think she's completely heartless.
5153027
Where's that?
5348444
I'll go and look for it for you.