Community soapbox time, where opinions from around the fandom are dropped down below for you all to discuss and debate! Expect these posts normally when not late every Tuesday at 2:00 PM MST And now Saturday at 2:00 PM MST. To submit your own, see this post. Note: These soapboxes do not at all reflect the ideas of EQD. They are an open forum for anyone to post whatever crazy theory they want.
Headlines for the week:
- The Purple Pony Perplexing Paradox
- Could Smolder be Spike's sister?
- Rarity's Unexpectedly Brilliant Guitar Skills: A Brief Exposé
- What is a My Little Pony “generation”?
- Sunset’s Cutie Mark is balance, but two worlds are not
And get your soapboxes below!
The Purple Pony Perplexing Paradox
By: Do You Really Care?
Pop quiz, name this character: an assistant to Twilight Sparkle with an over-inflated ego and stereotypically tragic childhood whose primarily color is purple that, while being fairly mature and intelligent when serving as support to other characters whether needed or not, is often portrayed as incredibly childish and incompetent in their own solo-motivated outings to the point that they consistently put people’s lives in danger and yet are heralded as a hero despite largely coasting on the work done by others.
I’m 99% sure two characters came to mind with that statement (regardless of the header), and I’d like to talk about the hypocrisy (okay, more double standard) that comes with it.
Now I’m sure people could point towards X comment or Y poll to say otherwise, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that people tend to offer more positive reception to Starlight than they do Spike despite the pubic “base-breaker” label given to the former, and that kinda bothers me. Whereas Starlight is seen as a complex character with a past worth dissecting given her contradictory backstory and ex-villain status, Spike is often seen as childish and uninteresting despite the fact that him being a culturally displaced child with little if any knowledge of his history is just as, if not more interesting a character to explore. I also tend to take issue where people use Starlight’s past as an excuse for her mistakes (instead of all the more reason to require her to change more) whereas Spike being an often described “BABY DRAGON” is somehow not enough credence to garner the same relief. Throw in the fact that Starlight’s solo outing blunders are considered her base character while the same behavior is consider out of character for Spike, and I just can’t help but start to raise some eyebrows and whether people are really as objective as they say they are or if a cute face and pony plot are all that are needed to garner acclaim.
Again, this is a tad over-simplistic, but whereas one of these characters is often regarded as having a vocal minority of “haters”, the other is far more largely dismissed whenever an episode about them comes up, and given the comparisons I can’t help but take some exception to this.
Rarity's Unexpectedly Brilliant Guitar Skills: A Brief Exposé
By: chad
It's no secret that the show has thrown plenty of curveballs at us in the 7+ years of it being on the air. However, there's one such curveball that I feel that hasn't been talked about in depth. What may have been something just randomly out of the blue is actually not only very creative, but also genius on the show staff's part. That curveball in particular is how Rarity was able to use Pinkie's guitar like a rock star in Honest Apple's second act.
Following the first day of the fashion contest, despite Applejack feeling optimistic and thought that she was doing her part, Rarity was obviously stressed and in less spirits knowing how well the competitors took AJ's advice. Upon crossing paths with Pinkie and following her suggestion of playing the guitar to help her relax, the fashionista managed to achieve this unexpected feat by channeling all of her stress into the guitar, taking Pinkie, and all of us when we initially watched it, by surprise at how well she did it. It was both cathartic for Rarity and mind-blowing for us. Kudos to Kevin Lappin and DHX!
Could Smolder be Spike's sister?
MegaSean45
Ok, I'm taking a shot at the dark here with this theory, just like my theory on Scorpan giving Celestia Spike's egg, but I think this makes a whole lota sense!
We know Ember appreciates Spike for helping her become Dragon Lord, and I'm sure she'd really want to repay the favor for Spike, sooooo... I'm thinking that, what if the whole reason Ember brought Smolder to the School of Friendship was to introduce Spike to his long-lost sister, that way he could have the chance to reunite with his supposed family? Judging by the personalities of Spike and Smolder, they seem similar! Sarcastic, snarky, but loyal to their friends, only difference is, Smolder is probably Spike but with a "dragon" personality, if ya catch my drift! Ember was so eager to introduce Spike to Smolder, wasn't she?
I mean I'm not saying this WILL happen, and Smolder could just be a cousin of Ember or something that she wants to represent the dragons at the school, but she coulda just chose Garble to be in the School, but she didn't! It's a 50-50 shot of this theory being true or not, but... I WANT THIS TO HAPPEN! I'd still be incredibly surprised if this is true!
What is a My Little Pony “generation”?
By: Nightmare Muffin
With much talk of “g5”’s looming arrival, it’s grating to hear/see talk of it from the fans- not because g4 is still ongoing, but because it’s inaccurate. Those who speak of g5 see the upcoming rebooted television show and praise animation as “the supreme canon”. Now, I get it- the cartoon is great, but as a collector, and someone who grew up with older gens- it’s like nails on a chalkboard to see the term “generation” used by the g4 fandom, when most have no idea as to what it means and what dictates a new gen. (hence the reason why so many wrongly label MLPTales as g2 with the change in animation from the cartoon series, when the toys continued to stay the same design. In actuality, g2 “Friendship Gardens” didn’t even have a tv series, but only a toyline and computer game).
Put simply- The different incarnations of MLP are commonly separated into “G” or “generations”, as classified by collectors, based on the toy line. Fans who more closely follow the show forget Hasbro is a toyline first, and that the animated series has never been a proper metric to judge when a Generation ends and another begins. We could get a new tv series, but the toys still look like they’re from g4, and it’d still be g4, not g5.
Sunset’s Cutie Mark is balance, but two worlds are not
By: Nightmare Muffin
The taijitu symbol seen in Sunset’s cutie mark is supposed to represent duality. Balance. But her place in the human world is anything but balanced. IDW’s “reflection arc” showed us that there’s dire consequences to misplacing a pony from one world and throwing them in another for too long, like both wolds/AU’s threatening to merge together. We’re seeing this in EG’s canon as well, through the portal opening and Equestrian magic being drawn over more and more, because of Twilight’s temporary entry into the AU and Sunset’s permanent one. In an anime called “Amnesia”, because the main character is traveling to other worlds, but doesn’t belong in them, the universe sets out to basically kill her in whatever world she goes to in order to eliminate her from those foreign AU’s. In the Manga of XXXholic, Kimihiro Watanuki is told that he’s not meant to exist due to having been pulled from an alternate timeline and living in one that he’s not supposed to be in. If Sunset's cutie mark really symbolized balance, then her remaining in an AU is, in actuality, hindering her own destiny, since the two worlds are not in balance.
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