Spike Doesn't Matter · 9:34am Jan 15th, 2020
I was hesitant to write this blog, fearing that by doing so I would come across as obsessed with Spike and/or fans of his. I recall writing a few blogs in the past but upon looking through my blog to find them, I noticed that this one was written back in January of 2017, and this one in January of 2015. Unwittingly I've created a habit of writing about Spike every couple of years in January.
Several days ago this was linked in a chat I frequent. I read it. My primary reaction to it is, "Fan of Spike takes the opportunity to show off his Spike-headcanon rather than actually discuss the topic indicated by the title of his blog, people being obsessed with him." The general tack of the article is to try to sell the reader on the virtues of the character and imply that is why folks are "obsessed." Very little is actually said about the sort of person that could be drawn to the character as I'd expect of such a title.
Among the virtues listed in the article are mostly "flaws." Like most fans of Spike I've talked to, it seems less about how great and/or powerful the little kid is/could be as a dragon and more about how the show/show writers have mistreated him/his character. "Being the ONLY target of slapstick in a kid's show," "He’s too kind," and "He’s okay with it" sections are all criticism of how he's presented in various episodes, his general situation in the setting, and so on. It's a more articulate and neutrally phrased version of "I don't like Spike abuse!" and "he should be way more badass like he is in my headcanon." From the article, "So after all that, he never snaps, he never tells the ponies off, and he never quits. There’s a difference between pure loyalty and being a push-over." As usual, the fans of Spike seem to see a badly done character, imagine him done better, and are fans of that headcanon.
The article spends a decent amount of time on Spike's role in the show and in the group of friends. "Non-Pony = Second-Hoof Citizen" mostly just presents how the author identifies Spike as a cultural orphan and how he relates to Spike personally. Honestly, if he'd stuck with that topic more this would have been a better article. "I identify with the character" is actually on-topic! "Being the ‘seventh’ wheel" shows the author mostly hung up on the term "Mane 6" and flailing about. He hits it on the nail with this line, though, "When I see Spike with them, looks more like ‘those are my older sister’s best friends’, I don’t necessarily see his connection with them."
"The people who disagree have fair points too" Is the author's token effort to come across as being fair/neutral/open-minded I guess? The first and only sentence in the entire article on this topic is "Don’t think I haven’t thought of the point of view of those who disagree and that Spike has always been fine no matter what." At no point does he list off any of the actual disagreements he's aware of or show that he understands them. Instead, he spends the rest of this section returning to his own personal "obsession."
My own conclusion is that Spike is a badly-written character, and he actually makes the show worse for his presence in the cast. Missing from the article were some of Spike's commonly fan-cited virtues like his acting as an anchor to Twilight and/or a voice of reason at times (such as in Lesson Zero). I'll go into more detail on those "virtues" later. Understanding Spike's character from a design standpoint is necessary foundational work.
Spike is not his own character, by design. He's an accessory to Twilight Sparkle. He's a feature of her character. Having a separate body, voice, and "personality" allows Twilight to talk to herself at times without being a crazy person. Twilight Sparkle is the main character of the show. In early seasons especially, they emphasized her fish out of water nature, being a native of Canterlot and unfamiliar with Ponyville's customs. We see this especially in Winter Wrap Up. Being unfamiliar with Ponyville's traditions lets her ask about them and other characters explain them to her and us in the audience. Because Spike is around, sometimes he asks those questions instead of just Twilight asking. Sometimes Twilight gets to answer because she read about it or talked to someone previously who explained it to her. This is why Spike is a detriment to the show. Instead of showing us that interaction between Twilight and one of her new friends, we see Twilight talking to Spike. Spike is a tool that makes it easy to keep Twilight out of scenes with her friends that would better be served by showcasing those friendships.
In Winter Wrap Up, Spike askes in an annoyed voice why they don't change the season with magic like they do in Canterlot. Twilight answers him. She learned about the earth pony traditions from somewhere in order to answer him. In a hypothetical FiM sans Spike, Twilight herself would ask this question (thus strengthening her character as being from Canterlot's culture) and someone like AJ could explain Ponyville's traditions to her. Letting AJ sell Twilight on these traditions and be on board with them would be much more interesting interaction. AJ gets to be a more interesting character. Twilight gets to be a more interesting character. We get to see how they're friends more. The primary purpose of the show and the characters is served better.
You could go through every such little interaction involving Spike and remove him. Replace his "anchor/advisor" virtuous role with one of the other M6. Each of the five girls is an expert in something and could be the voice of experience in different settings. AJ, being generally level-headed straight mare of the group, could easily stand in for Spike by default. I don't even like Applejack, and here I am advocating for a more prominent role for her!
There are several episodes centered on/starring Spike. Aside from Gauntlet of Fire, they're all pretty bad. Writing Spike-centered stories is unsatisfying. They're mostly efforts to turn him into a separate character from Twilight, but they never really flesh him out into that separate character. His hopes and goals are not those of the show and the main cast. The flaws the EQD author focused on would, if satisfied, shift the focus of the show away from a group of girls stumbling through friendship and push it towards the racial/cultural orphan story he wants to see. Spike episodes are bad because they go halfway towards that. They can't go the full way. The show would be better without them and more focused on the primary virtues of the show.
Equestria Games is a personal anti-favorite of mine. FiM, due to how it is written by various writers, sometimes produces what looks like story arcs in hindsight. The "Equestria Games Arc" appears to be one of these unintended arcs. Games Ponies Play was a random S3 episode attempting to justify the existence of the Crystal Empire as a sensible part of the Equestria landscape. (Talk about cultural orphans.) In it, we get a bit of character exposition for Rainbow Dash, who is especially motivated in the episode to see the Crystal Empire win the privilege of hosting the games. In S4 we get three more episodes that feature this upcoming horse-Olympics: Rainbow Falls, Flight to the Finish, and Equestria Games. Two of those three again feature Rainbow Dash. Her enthusiasm for the game feels more than just a one-off quirk of some random episode. It feels intentional. Purposeful. Rainbow Falls, in particular, has her at the center of the episode's conflict, with her loyalty to her new home in Ponyville in conflict with her hometown of Cloudsdale combined with her life goal of joining the Wonderbolts jeopardized if she chooses wrong.
We cap off this "arc" with Equestria Games centered on Spike suffering from "performance anxiety" we'll call it. Nothing at all with Rainbow Dash's concerns or character progression. Not particularly satisfying for Spike as a character either, because even if you appreciate his feat of dragonfire to save the day, you have to endure his cringe-as-fuck attempt to sing the anthem.
As a main character, we expect Rainbow Dash to progress and develop as a character through the series and she does. She goes from a braggart to a Wonderbolt through the seasons. She learns to embrace her feminity without loss of her reputation or accomplishments. She learns to express her emotions and open up to her friends instead of the closed-off, aggressive mare we met in season 1. Seeing the "Equestria Games Arc" snatched away from her to have a Spike story feels unsatisfying. Even knowing that the arc wasn't necessarily intentional, I can't help but wish the production process had allowed for the sort of collaboration that would have intentionally created it and thus reserved the Equestria Games episode for the climax and end of that arc. Maybe if Spike hadn't been in the cast at all, the episode would have focused on Rainbow Dash instead and created an unintentional but satisfying close to that "arc."
In simpler terms, the arc was an accident but not having Spike in the show means the accident could have ended better. Doing it on purpose would have been better still and they would not have made a Spike episode out of Equestria Games. Either way, Spike was a detriment to the season.
When it comes to the "good" Spike parts, such as Gauntlet of Fire, they're good not because of Spike but in spite of him. What made Gauntlet of Fire interesting was the expansion to the setting lore. Spike served as a vehicle to get us into the Dragonlands to observe this cultural event. Spike's particular stakes in the event don't really matter at all. Ember is a neat character though. She's interesting and if they'd wanted to make her presence in the show larger, they could have done so if we remove Spike. Instead of Spike being the "ambassador to the Dragonlands" have Ember come to Equestria and hang out with Twilight and friends. Hell, they basically did just that in Triple Threat.
By relying on Spike as a vehicle to get us into the Dragonlands, they were forced to make up a plot that concerned Spike. Tacking "the Dragonlands and all characters therein" onto Spike's character feels like a forced expansion to a bad character. This prevents them from just naturally and organically including the Dragonlands in episodes that don't concern Spike. This prevents them from turning the Dragonlands into a relevant piece of the setting as they attempted to do to the Crystal Empire. It prevents them from using characters like Smolder without falling into the easy traps of Smolder+Spike episodes. Sweet and Smoky was a mess of an episode because it tried to shoehorn Spike in, rather than let it be an episode about Fluttershy or an episode about Ember or an episode about Smolder.
The other big "presence" Spike has on the show, aside from being Twilight's familiar and/or a forced "main" character in some episodes, is his one-sided crush on Rarity. The EQD article touches on this topic but says nothing really of interest other than he's not a Sparity shipper. Ship whatever characters you want or don't ship them. If you ship them, it's easy enough to pick out fuel from the show to sail your ship. The obnoxious part is the insistence that your ship is/becomes canon. It's the insistence that other fanfic writers adhere to your headcanon in their stories. That's the difference between a fan of Spike and a Spiketard, as described in my previous blog.
If you're writing fanfic, you're explicitly writing your own story. One that does not take place in the canon. You have a lot of room to play with characters and setting without making an AU, and among the things you can easily get away with is shipping. Ship all the ponies(or whatever). Write whatever you please. It doesn't have to be canon. Canon is simply a useful baseboard to include or ignore as best suits your story. What is good for your story/shipfic is not the same as what is good for the canon, which is what I'm focused on for this blog. So keep in mind that difference and do not take the following as any sort of moratorium on writing your sloppy mare on dragon hot sex totes not self-insert Spike harem fic. You do you, just wash your hands.
Spike hooking up with Rarity would be a terrible thing for the show and I'm relieved they didn't. If you feel like venting and screaming about how they didn't explicitly say they don't hook up, feel free to reread the previous paragraph. Unlike Pinkie Pie who came in with the results of procreating with Weird Al Yankovich, there was nothing directly and explicitly indicating Spike hooked up with anyone, let alone Rarity. Also, Applejack and Rainbow Dash did not get married. What we saw on screen was more of their usual bickering, not the result of being married. Get over yourselves you obnoxious Appletards.
Hopefully, I can move on at this point without running afoul of yet more retards. Spike hooking up with Rarity would be a terrible thing for the show and I'm relieved they didn't. Any decent romance is two-way. Both members are interested in the relationship. It's appealing to both. It is enjoyable for both. It fits the personality/character of both members. That relationship is itself a story as well as a vehicle for other stories to be told. How the couple faces conflict together as well as conflicts threatening their relationship's continuation or even inception. The show has depicted Spike as interested, romantically, in Rarity. Rarity, on the other hand, has shown zero romantic interest in Spike. Including in Dragon Dropped. Whenever discussions on the Sparity ship pop up, the focus is invariably on Spike. Making Spike more suitable for Rarity (aging him up, for example). This is because it is obvious that Spike, as-is, holds no appeal for Rarity in the show itself. He's a child and she's a grown-ass mare. She's interested in participating in the social upper crust of Equestrian society. Spike is interested in comic books. Rarity wants a dashing prince (or princess in my headcanon) to sweep her off her hooves and give her the sort of fairytale romance she reads about between Shadow Spade mystery binges. Spike is neither nobility nor particularly interested in being a cog in the social circles of Canterlot. At best he could grow into a knight-like figure that battles monsters and protects some damsel in distress, but Rarity swoons over folks like Trenderhoof for being a major player in fashion trends. Her fascination with Prince Blueblood was due to his (perceived) social status as a prince and the expectation that he'd be charming as part of that package. Not that he'd toss on a suit of armor and joust a wyvern to rescue her.
In order for Sparity to sail in canon, we'd have to rework Rarity as much if not more than we'd have to rework Spike. Simply waiting several years (such as the epilogue showed) so that Spike isn't a little boy anymore isn't enough. You'd also have to deny Rarity any success in her romantic interests for those intervening years. You'd have to lower her standards such that Spike could rise into them. You'd have to stick to mostly a fairly shallow version of Rarity as shown in S1. Even back then, in Dog and Pony Show we saw that Rarity is hardly a helpless damsel in distress, even if she puts on a show of that sort of character when swooning over romantic ideals.
We'd have a worse series if Sparity had become canon. Mostly by worsening one of the best characters in the series. Once again, Spike ruins everything.
Instead of being more pro-Spike/Sparity, imagine if we'd gotten less. Get rid of all the Spike abuse and physical comedy involving him and the show's penchant for returning to his puppy-crush towards Rarity. Take Green Isn't Your Color, for example, and eliminate Spike from it. Maybe we'd lose the "Forever!" Pinkie joke but we have tons of those so no big loss. We'd still get to keep the entire dynamic of Rarity, Fluttershy, and Twilight caught between perfectly well. In fact, Spike's presence in the episode feels tacked on. Forced.
For all the episodes that explore Spike's relationship to Twilight, imagine if instead, we'd gotten more material for Shining Armor and/or Cadance. Her actual family. Instead of making Spike the Hero of the Crystal Empire garbage, let Twilight try to deal with her own hero status there. Instead of Spike befriending Steve the Changeling, imagine letting Twilight herself come to the realization that she should treat individuals as individuals and so on (and I hate changelings, so here I am once again defending something I hate that would be better without Spike). Also, minus another cringe as fuck "singing" effort by Cathy Weasluck in Spike's voice. Ugh.
Once again, remember that Spike is an accessory of Twilight's. By removing the accessory, all the storytelling resources that get split up between the two get consolidated into Twilight herself wherever possible, and into her friends and family when appropriate. We'd get to see a more in-depth Twilight, improving upon an already excellent character. We'd get more episode/screentime to develop other accessories like her BBBFF. We'd get to see more episodes showcasing her early friendship with the rest of the M6. We'd get to see in later seasons more of her friendship with new friends like Ember. Overall, we'd get more Friendship.
There were a lot of mistakes they made with FiM over the 9 seasons. One of the more fundamental, foundational ones was Spike's character. He was tacked on in a series that often felt like it had a character overload problem. He diluted Twilight's character. He served as a crutch for humor. His presence on the cast served to distract from other potential creative stories. A lot of people in the fandom like the little guy. However, even the fans when describing why they're "obsessed" with him are not fans of his actual presence in the show, they're fans of some hypothetical alternate show that got him "right." I'm a fan of a hypothetical alternate show that got itself right by not including him at all.
Vote one for replacing Spike and AJ with Coco.
A very enjoyable article. Could have done without the r-word.
5186647
I'll not retard my speech by eliminating words just because some people don't like them.
5186802
Yes, because likening people who are a bit passionate about a ship to the mentally disabled is definitely warranted and not at all harmful.
The character of Spike the dragon has always been an odd one in MLP canon, and the most recent one is no exception. Maybe next time we can skip him and just concentrate on the ponies.
I guess I see myself as a fan of Spike, because A)I really hate seeing slapstick violence happen to a child and B)I like the idea of Twilight having a motherly relationship with someone. But I have to admit, you make some good points. Spike's goals, especially in the early series, of basically "be accepted by the ponies" was always kind of orthogonal to the stories and goals of the Mane 6, and his crush on Rarity always made me uncomfortable, since it came across like a kid trying to woo an adult. I have to admit that most of the episodes I can think of where Spike plays a key role, except for the ones with Discord, would probably have worked as well or better if someone else had his role. And the fact that Twilight hatched him when she was like 6 and raised him as a child and everyone just let her also comes off as really weird.
It's definitely ironic that he got less time and attention in the last 2 seasons, as the main plot of the series embraced the whole "non-ponies trying to fit in with Equestria" meta-plot, but added a new group of teenagers and a new dragon to take that role instead of Spike.
The one area I'd really push back on is the idea that Twilight doesn't need a sounding board at all. I think each of the Mane 6 needs to live with someone they can talk to, to have the kind of semi-exposition conversations that don't really work between the Mane 6, to make their home feel lived in. Applejack has her family, Sweetie Bell happens to be staying over at the Boutique whenever Rarity needs to exposition to someone, Pinkie has the Cakes, and Fluttershy can actually talk to Angel even though we can't understand him, so he's the perfect exposition receiver. Rainbow Dash can't really talk to Tank like that, which is part of why we saw so much less of her house than anyone else's.
So I think Twilight really did need a companion/sidekick of some sort, especially in early seasons, who knew her really well. I don't think it would make that much sense for one of her friends to always happen to be at the library all day and night reminding her about herself and how things were in Canterlot. Maybe if Scootaloo had been her younger sibling, and their parents had allowed her to be transferred to Ponyville to live with Twilight, that could have worked better. Then Twilight's sounding board would also have gotten their own episodes as part of the CMC from time to time.
5186821
I said nothing about folks who are merely passionate about a character nor folks afflicted with a mental illness in my use of the word. I said retards. If you didn't catch it from my previous response to you, I am well aware of the proper use of the word. Retard. To hamper, slow down, prevent, or reverse progress. The folks I was referring to are specifically the folks who would demand the answers I gave in two paragraphs of the blog. Distracting from and attempting to derail from the point. Retarding the flow of the blog.
Again, I am not going to stop using a word just because some folks don't like it. Direct your outrage at actual ableists or something.
5186840
I hope so. Overall a smaller, more focused cast would be good. Interesting and appealing background characters, please. Bit parts, cameos, and distinct one-offs, yes. Even a cast that expands midway or perhaps towards the end, maybe. But try to keep the focus on fewer characters with more detail on their friendships and friendship conflicts.
5186943
Confirmation of my bias right there.
I actually kind of dislike it. I think we get plenty of motherly/sisterly vibes across the cast already. AJ, in particular, serves that role towards Apple Bloom while Rarity does towards Sweetie Belle. The former is more leaning towards motherly while the latter more towards sisterly. But we have no lack of mother/child-type interactions even without going into Fluttershy.
I think they mishandled this Twilight/Spike motherly relationship pretty badly. As many fans of Spike often point out, Twilight treats him as cheap labor (which fits more in a sibling dynamic; getting my child younger sibling to fetch me things or do favors for me was normal behavior and they were happy just to have the attention of their older sibling). Many of them complain about how this "cheap labor" borders on slavery. Even the person I quoted from the EQD article asked if he gets paid for the "job" he appears to do.
Overall, they do show that they care for each other, but the relationship hardly comes across as healthy or well-advised if you look at it with any attempt at depth. As you point out, it is weird that they let Twilight hatch then raise him while she herself is a child who just got her cutie mark.
Good points and I did overlook the sort of live-together sounding board aspect they had with Spike. A prime example I think would be in Owl's Well That Ends Well, though feel free to offer your own example episode if you think another showcases your idea better.
That said, I think the show could have managed better without Spike even in that regard. Talking with Celestia, even long-distance, via magic (her own instead of dragonfire) seems like it would be in-character for her but they avoided it outside of Friendship Reports(TM) and the occasional crisis. One of the thrusts I offered in the blog was the increased presence and interaction between Twilight and her other supporting characters. Celestia is certainly among them and getting to see more of their relationship as we finally got to see in Celestial Advice and Horse Play should have been in from the start and leveraged.
Imagine the alternative of a homesick, lonely Twilight in her library home at night, talking to Celestia back in Canterlot before bed. Expressing her worries and fears the way Twilight and/or Spike do in the real show to each other. Let Celestia pick up that "pseudo-motherly role" that you like from Twilight to Spike, and let Twilight take Spike's role and have her concerns expressed to Celestia.
Your idea with Scootaloo is pretty keen as well. She had a lot of unsatisfying status through most of the series, with many convinced she was homeless or an orphan or both. Many folks are on board with "Scootadopt," particularly as an addition to Twidash shipping, having her become the child of a main cast family. Your idea would neatly improve her characterization in the show and give her a much better presence.
Either way, Spike soaks up characterization opportunities that could easily be picked up by others by omitting him.
5187035
Of course, one can't ignore the way that Spike's character was misused, particularly in regards to Rarity. That relationship was left unresolved for the course of almost the entire series, which was totally ridiculous. It was perfectly clear to all that in in spite of the feelings of friendship, the love part was one sided, and Rarity should have made that clear years ago instead of taking advantage of Spike like she did.
5193072
Sparity shipping is particularly gross and the teasing/overt fuel is a stain on FiM. As you point out, it's one-sided. That Rarity didn't take more overt steps to quash it are a failure on her part as an adult and the show writers never realizing that is bad writing.
Dragon Dropped was an exceptionally disgusting episode that threw Rarity's character under a bus with so much vitriolic intensity I thought a jealous Spike fan had held the staff hostage to get his fanfic into the series.
By and large, hatred of Rarity is pretty necessary to either ship the two (by making her character subservient to the ship) or in efforts to resolve his crush on her in order to send him after someone else.
Twilight gets some character assassination in order to explore Spike's stories as well, often taking the role of slave driver.
Overall, there is a big pile of bad writing and bad interaction involving Spike. He could have been utilized better, maybe. But fundamentally FiM is a story centered on the friendships between the main characters. Removing Spike from the series would have removed those same problems and freed up many episodes to show more important characters in better light.
Back to Rarity. Imagine FiM sans Spike. Without Spike around to conveniently carry her stuff they might have held back on the easy slapstick jokes. We saw Sweetie Belle carry her stuff in Sleepless in Ponyville and Sweetie has been eager for attention from her big sister as seen in Sisterhooves Social. Perhaps we could have gotten more screentime for Sweetie Belle and perhaps Rarity would have been more mindful of taking advantage of her sister. Hopefully the writers, without their go-to gag, might have been more thoughtful.
A lot of perhaps's, but the sandbox of ideas for the show without Spike is open for playing in.
I enjoyed each and every Spike episode.
I'm sorry, but looking at that blog and this one, I think you mostly have a notable lack of resonance with Spike as a character (likely hardened by too many encounters with what you dub "Spiketards") which leads you to seek out or invent reasons why the show would have been better off without him just like FlareGun45 focused on reasons why he was likeable and sympathetic.
(Now, I don't really expect to persuade you of this much, because if you can watch the show all the way and not feel Spike has as much of a personality as any Mane I really don't know how to sell that - it seems like a fundamental disconnect.)
I will admit that Spike is both a sounding board for Twilight sometimes and his own character at other times, and examining which role he does better at could be interesting. But playing multiple roles like this is hardly exclusive to him - for instance, Sweetie Belle can be her own character, Rarity's sister or part of the CMC unit.
As for if Twilight's character, or her interactions with her friends, would have been somehow improved without Spike as her accessory... well, that's a complex discussion, and I can't say for sure (though I'm mostly against). But I can say that they would almost certainly not have been improved so much that the loss of Spike as a character in his own right would have been justified, IMO. (But of course, if you don't appreciate him as such, you won't think that way.)
To summarise... that you don't like or care about a character doesn't make them a bad or badly-written one. And while Spike could certainly have been handled better in some ways, I find him a boon to the show overall.