Ranking The Side Characters of G5 · 6:58pm Nov 12th, 2021
I already covered the mane five, but I don't think much attention has been given to the side characters. Let's change that with a ranking of them from worst to best (or if you prefer: least favorite to most favorite). There are a total of five characters that meet the criteria of being a side character, but which stood out for better or for worse and which blended into the background? Well, read on and find out. As always, this is just my personal opinion so please respect it.
5. Alphabittle: Much like Pipp Petals, Alphabittle really got the short end of the stick when it came to focus. Both he and Queen Haven are really more obstacles for the protagonists to overcome rather than fleshed out characters. But Alphabittle suffers from one crippling flaw: His status as leader of the unicorns. It's never established in-universe until suddenly there's an argument over the unicorn crystal, at which point Alphabittle is inexplicably treated as the leader more or less. Before then the only thing we know about him is that he's apparently a swindler, and like the other unicorns he believes in the superstitions involving magic. There's no explanation as to how he got the unicorn crystal or if he even knew what it was. He really just comes off as a one-dimensional bully character, even after he surrenders the unicorn crystal and starts trying to help. Hopefully, we'll get to see more of him in the G5 show, though then again FiM pigeonholed the likes of Cheerilee and Mayor Mare into their roles and never really let them be anything else so chances are already kind of slim that Alphabittle will get much besides maybe being an occasional mentor. Interestingly enough, early concept art reveals that Alphabittle was originally planned to be vastly different. He'd be a blind, eccentric unicorn living alone in a cave. Yeah, maybe that's a little bit cliche and Yoda esque, and maybe they wanted Izzy to stand out more. But making Alphabittle a cooky but wise kind of authority figure sounds like it would've at least given him a personality and made him feel more three dimensional.
4. Sprout: There's already rumors and speculation that he'll join the cast of main characters in G5's show, though for right now that's all they really amount to: Speculation. If Sprout does join the main cast, that could make for an interesting dynamic assuming they're willing to make his quest for redemption more like Sunset Shimmer or even Starlight Glimmer in Season 7 and to an extent Season 9 of FiM. I'm not expecting Prince Zuko levels of redemption arc writing, but I most certainly don't want Sprout to end up like so many FiM antagonists where he's easily forgiven and they just skip over showing him facing the consequences of his actions. Putting that aside, the big problem with Sprout is that he becomes a villain almost out of left field. He doesn't get enough focus early on to signify that he'll be the antagonist. And when he does become that, he suffers from the problem of being impossible to take seriously even when they want us to. They spend way too much time treating him like a joke until suddenly he riles up an angry mob, and then out of nowhere he decides to become emperor and go on the attack. He's meant to be a foil to Hitch, but it doesn't really work when we see him shirk responsibility only to turn around and whine about being left alone. It kind of feels like going from Chancellor Neighsay being billed as the next big bad in Season 8 to inexplicably shifting to Cozy Glow at the last minute, it's like they second guessed themselves on the antagonist and what we got was a joke that didn't work. If you wanna see goofy or hammy villains done right, take a look at the Storm King. At least the Storm King had a personality and moments where he could be serious, he just lacked any in-universe explanation for why he was so feared.
3. Queen Haven: She kind of falls into the same pitfall as Alphabittle in just being an obstacle for the main characters to overcome, and like Queen Novo she kind of gives off the vibe of "Queen who doesn't want to help because potatoes". But unlike Queen Novo she has no given reason even on-screen not to help. She doesn't need the pegasus crystal to keep up the deception, and it's never revealed that she had any part in separating the crystals or trying to hide their existence. It's possible that her family used the crystal as a means of control or as a claim to power, but if so we never learn that on-screen. She's not quite an evil queen, so at least she avoids that cliche. And she does have a few moments where she gets to interact with her daughters (both Zipp and Pipp). But unlike Alphabittle she is established ahead of time as the pegasi's default ruler and authority figure. It's surprising that she ends up being captured when the truth about her flying is exposed, but her easily slipping away from the royal guards kind of makes her arrest pointless. However, her escape does give us a chance to see that her love for her daughters is legitimate and that she wasn't just concerned with breeding them to take over the throne. It's not much but it does give her something.
2. Phyillis: Considering how much attention she's given early on, especially when she's established as the head of Canterlogic and seems to be the leader of the earth ponies by default, you'd think she would be perfectly poised to become the main antagonist. After all, Sunny is directly challenging her world view and her demonstration should realistically have convinced the earth ponies that Phyillis' tech wouldn't do what it was designed to do (keep them safe). Even her convincing Sprout to take over in Hitch's absence says more about her ability to read the crowd and sense an opportunity than it does about any kind of merits or personality Sprout might have. But nope, she is quickly shoved aside in favor of her son and is just as confused as we are about how rapidly he rises to power and decides to go on the offense for no given reason. It does sort of get her to realize that her world views are wrong and that what she's done has caused Sprout to go down this dark path where he's beyond reason. But by the end of the movie Sprout is back to seeking her approval and it seems like she's more or less helping him duck responsibility. Assuming Phyillis was never meant to be the main antagonist from the start, the least they could've done was make the transition from her to Sprout more seamless. She should be whispering in his ear and encouraging him to do more, until he slowly but surely becomes drunk on power. Plus, there's the whole weird detail of her picking up Hitch as a child even though he's not her son. JoshScorcher summed it best in his review of the movie, with Phyillis and Sprout it's like we got a lesser version of the Fairy Godmother and Prince Charming from Shrek 2. Phyillis' moment of realization and large presence in the plot early on are primarily what elevates her over most of the competition.
1. Argyle: Yeah, it's probably kind of cheating to put him at number one since we only ever see one side of him. He's the typical Disney parent who's just too good for this world and thus must be killed off off-screen (presumably, he could just be missing for how little we know about what happened to him). But I think there is enough to see him feel the most real. The biggest moment is in his opposition to Phyillis, he doesn't challenge her directly or say that she's wrong. He's smart enough to realize Phyillis is too set in her ways to be challenged directly and yelling or talking down to her won't change anything. He simply realizes that with someone like Phyillis it's best to just ignore them and do your best to lead by example. Like with Queen Haven and Alphabittle it's questionable whether he knew about the crystals (it would seem like he didn't given that he used the earth pony crystal in a lamp), but since it's left vague there's a lot we can try to inquire about. Ultimately, he wins out simply by having the fewest flaws to him. Hopefully, we'll learn at least a little bit more about what he knew and when when the G5 special and show come around next year.
And there you have it.
I'm pretty sure you already know this by now, but...Sprout and Phyllis were honestly what I consider to be the worst characters of the film. Queen Haven and Alphabittle weren't likable to me at first, but they grew on me as the film progressed. And as for Argyle...well, he was forgettable at the most.
5606429 Sprout would've replaced Alphabittle as the worst character if not for the fact that Alphabittle got no build up as the leader of the unicorns. Not even a throwaway line or two from say Izzy. He was just an obstacle until suddenly the plot needed someone to be the unicorns leader. Queen Haven and Phyillis at least were established in their roles earlier on and even Sprout at least we had seen before (not that it made much of a difference with how suddenly they made him a threat).
5606779
That’s true. Still, Sprout was honestly the most annoying character in the entire movie, something that Alphabittle wasn’t.
5606786 I wouldn't say Sprout was annoying so much as he was completely pathetic. He felt like a joke character that took too long to get to the punchline.
5606796
That’s actually one of the reasons as to why he annoys me. His sense of humor and the jokes revolving around him irritated me to no end, and no matter how threatening he makes himself I just couldn’t take him seriously. The fact that he hardly develops or changes as a character despite the newfound developments in the story only makes him all-the-more unbearable.