My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

 

 

 

 

**** [[Uncanny Valley]] also explicitly applies only to things that fail to look human, and thus is the wrong trope entirely for this.

***** Not really, if you think about it- in order to be able to identify with cartoon critters, we need to recognize them as human on some level, hence the high amount of anthropormorphization on cartoon critters (raging from minor examples like the ponies to [[Petting Zoo People]] who identify with their animal sides.)

** My theory: The head and body are clearly not human from the side, but not so clearly when viewed straight on (the snout is not readily visible and the body's length disappears). They edge into the uncanny valley from the far side.

 

** My nephews seem to enjoy it, one is 4, the other 3. I'm tempted to introduce my older nephews (7 and 6) to it.

** I babysit for a 9 year old and 4 year old, both boys. The former thinks that Pinkie Pie is the funniest thing ever, while the latter keeps trying to pull off a Sonic Rainboom. They both said it's their favorite show.

** Out of curiosity, where would they find shows like [[Hidamari Sketch]] assuming they don't watch anime?

** My seven-year-old nephew enjoys this show, and his favorite character is Rarity.

*** That's bad too, and it desperately needs to be fixed. However, two wrongs don't make a right. Personally, having just one decent male character with some kind of recurring role (but NOT a main role) would be sufficient.

**** Two wrongs don't make a right, but there's no wrong in making a show focusing on females. There's also no wrong in making a show focusing on males--but there is wrong in making ALL THE SHOWS focus on males, just as it would be wrong if every show on TV was about females. FIM is merely helping to correct the balance. There's room along the whole female-oriented side of the spectrum for more shows with differing gender balances, and FIM doesn't have to cover it all by itself.

** Faust did want more male characters, but it's one of the few things Hasbro didnt allow. I'd like to think however, that the gender ultimately doesn't matter that much anyway. Any of the mane six could be a boy (colt?) and would still be the same character.

*** Except that reaction to them would be much ''much'' different. If Rarity were male, he'd be seen as a flaming homosexual and [[Moral Guardians]] would scream about a gay character in a show targeted at kids. If Fluttershy were male, he wouldn't be "Cute", he'd be seen as annoying and bratty. And likewise, Applejack as a male would be seen as a "Walking Stereotype", even though Applejack is a Walking Stereotype enough as is. Rainbow Dash as a male would be seen as a musclehead, and Pinkie Pie would have been seen as annoying or like Rarity, a flaming homosexual.

** Also, if the purpose of the show is to sell the toys, shouldn't the characters in the show match their toys, even if that makes the show worse? And why did the toy store owners want Celestia to be pink, but not Rarity and Sweetie Belle, who are almost the same white? Finally, if they absolutely wanted pink ponies to sell, why didnt they just order lots and lots of Pinkie Pie?

 

** Twilight gave Spike, Snips, and Snails moustaches. Rarity cut her tail and attached it to Steven Magnet's moustache, and it later grew back. The Great and Powerful Trixie turned Rarity's hair into some green, grassy thing. In short, magical hair care exists. A fairly small increase in the volume of Rainbow Dash's hair like that is well within the realm of possibility.

*** Not to mention that, lots of the time, when frizzy hair is straightened you can really see how much length it has. Personally, my own hair is curly and big, and seems short, but when I straighten it, you see it's actual length. Maybe Rainbow Dash straightened her mane?

** Oh they recognize it, all right (why do you think every time they see anything Gen 3 they start screaming "kill it with fire"?). They just have the mistaken belief that G4 Rarity was based on Glory - to be fair, they ''do'' look a lot alike - instead of her actual inspiration, Sparkler. Honestly, I thought the same thing until I saw Lauren's drawings of the G1 ponies.

 

** Hasbro lost all the G1 names and designs except for Applejack, but G3 names and designs could be used.

*** Those are G1 designs. They reused the G1 designs for Sparkler and Posey. All they did was change Sparkler to white and remove her highlight, and they changed Posey's Cutie Mark.

** No, that's just an old, balding, white pony with pointy ears. In fact, it seems to be an elderly ''male'' pony, judging by what seems to be a full-body appearance in the Mare-Do-Well episode.

 

** The Ponyvillians have shown themselves capable of being prejudiced. Zecora is a prime example of this. Plus, there are jerks like Rainbow Dash's bullies, so, it's not unlikely she'd get crap from at least some ponies. How much crap she gets varies from work to work (ranging from a few jerks to constantly being taunted), because even in that second comic, the crowd scene is stated by the author to be more POV than reality.

** True, but remember that by the time of "Luna Eclipsed," the mayor described Zecora as "our friend," and she was given charge of the town's children. And even the ponies that bullied Rainbow Dash seemed to have learned a lesson by the end of "Sonic Rainboom." So while they aren't perfect, the ponies of Equestria in general, and of Ponyville in specific, seem generally to be good-hearted equines who are able to learn their lesson when they do go wrong. Ponyville just doesn't strike me as the kind of place where somepony would throw a rock through another pony's window just because she looks odd.

** He prefer gems or any stuff what normal creature can't eat.

** We can't even be sure if the mature dragons we've seen so far are carnivores. After all, the one in Dragonshy didn't seem like he wanted to eat the ponies, and only attacked them because Rainbow Dash attacked him first, and the second one was mad at Spike for eating his gems.

** The term you're looking for with the eating of gemstones is Lithovore.

 

** Twilight Sparkle is a Grad Student, hence why she's Celestia's prized pupil. She spends most of her time studying.

** Fluttershy also has several chickens, so she probably sells some of their eggs.

** Taking care of the woodland creatures is a valid job. Kind of like a forest warden.

 

** And also if adult dragons eat gems as well, then it's an edible bed. Take a nice long nap, and when you wake up, breakfast!

** Also adult dragons seem to have more than just gems in their hoards, the one in "Dragonshy" clearly had gold coins and other trinkets as well.

 

* Derpy Hooves seems to be the same or similar age to the mane cast, but she (assuming fandom is correct) has a daughter? Just a nagging tidbit.

**** Ahem. "Suited for Success," the Letter to Celestia. Twilight uses the phrase "don't look a gift horse in the mouth." Ponder the implications of this idiom existing in the Equestrian lexicon for a moment.

**** Not to mention, in "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", Applejack saying "I'm so hungry I could eat a-" before she was interrupted. The full saying, of course, being "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse." Maybe there was an equivalent to the Donner Party in Equestria's history at some point?

** It's not just Spike. 'Bridle Gossip' has Applejack making a bit and reins for Rainbow Dash, then digging in with her heel in Rainbow's side to spur her on. Think about ''that''.

** 'The Best Night Ever' has Twilight turning mice into beast-of-burden horses, suggesting that real ones exist for her to have gotten the idea from.

** [[Rule of Funny]], that's all.

*** What is so funny about sending ponies to the moon?

*** That makes even less sense and is a big waste of magic.

** Here's the thing: you're interpreting the line "Using the magic of the elements of harmony, she defeated her sister, and banished her permanently to the moon" to mean "the elements of harmony were necessary to send her to the moon; she could not do so without them". This is a valid interpretation, but not the only possible one. It could be taken to imply that she only needed to use the power of the elements to defeat her sister, and exiling her to the moon was done with her own power after Nightmare Moon had been sufficiently weakened; or that she needed the elements to do both, but only because she was facing her sister, who could otherwise fight her to a draw; or simply that the elements were what she used and that was how she used them, but that she could have done the same through some other route (perhaps if she didn't expend any power in making sure her victim survived on the moon). All of these alternate interpretations are as valid as the premise you're arguing from; if any of them are true, Celestia could banish our hypothetical newborn filly quite well. As for why it's supposed to be funny: if you, sir, or madam, don't see how Celestia sending a foal to the moon because it's just easier than changing its diaper is funny, I'm pretty sure the problem is on your end.

** I think she's actually more like a [[Cool Big Sis|big sister]] to him, and the way he treats her in the series seems to prove this. That's pretty much what being a big sis is about - sometimes you're a surrogate mother, sometime you're a [[Butt Monkey]], while mother-son relationship would rather exclude the second part.

** He's her "number-one assistant", not her adopted son. Though "little brother" and "friend" also work pretty well to describe the relationship.

*** [[Word of God]] is that Celestia's the one that raised him after Twilight hatched him. So... no, Twilight is not his mother figure.

 

** Watch that episode again. You clearly missed the joke.

 

 

* It may be just me, but is Celestia a god to the ponies? The thought comes to me in the sisterhood episode, when Rarity states: "Celestia as my witness, I WILL have my sister back."

*** [[People's Republic of Tyranny|Glorious Pony's Theocratic Principality of Equestria!]]

 

** My guess is that the changes were made to show that nothing is set in stone, and that there are exceptions. Fluttershy is, as far as we know, the only pegasus that doesn't live in Cloudsdale or a floating house/castle, and had a cutie mark that isn't related to weather or speed at all, showing that there is more depth to the pony races than you'd imagine. We're already seeing how earth ponies have to struggle to make up for their lack of a horn or wings, so a pegasus with fourth-wall powers? Probably not...

** Because the moral of the show is [[Be Yourself]], not [[Unfortunate Implications|be what's expected of your race]].

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[[Category:Headscratchers (animation)]]