The soapboxes cvontinue! As always, these are the opinions of fandom members, not us here at EQD. If you'd like to submit your own soapbox, hit up this post for infos.
Have some headlines:
- Does Twilight alone deserve to be THE icon of friendship?
- The Equestrian Civil War: Prelude to MLP G5
- G4's Problems Aren't Justified by G5's Existence
- My Little Pony Timeline
And go read them below!
Does Twilight alone deserve to be THE icon of friendship?
By: FlareGun45
By: FlareGun45
Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship. To be honest, I sometimes question that title of hers. That mare has a huge ego, and I don't quite agree with her idealism completely. Sure, she understood what the Elements of Harmony meant, she discovered Starswirl's spell on friendship, but she is still very close-minded on friendship. She only seems to focus on facts about it - thinking that friendship is only done a certain way, which is why she made that School of Friendship.
Friendship isn't something that gets taught at a school, it's something learned from experience! Friendship is learned in completely different ways, ways that Twilight hasn't even considered about. That's pretty much why she failed at teaching Cozy Glow friendship. I'm not saying Cozy Glow is the "good guy" here, but Twilight ain't a saint either. I mean.... she sent a kid to jail! She never even tried to learn her backstory, or find out WHY she's basically evil.
Yunno what else her problem is? She always thinks about herself more than anyone else. There are villains out there in desperate need for friendship: Chrysalis, got abandoned by her own people. Tirek, got left behind to rot in jail by his own brother. Did Twilight do anything to try to solve those problems? No.... she keeps focusing on how she thinks would be the best way to become a better princess - she opened a School of Friendship. How about Cozy Glow? Did she try to help her? No, she focused on preparing to become the Princess of Equestria all because Celestia asked her to! She never even says no to Celestia. She idolizes her too much. She wants to BE like her!
She wants to be like her so much, that she "tested" Rainbow Dash of becoming the cheer captain. Friends don't test eachother. There coulda been a better way to convince her. Her closest friend in the whole world, Spike? She doesn't even understand him. What happened when Spike was being the target of slapstick? She completely ignores it. She didn't even know he wanted to be an actual brother to her until he cheated on the Sibling Supreme challenge. She was already the Princess of Friendship, and she tried so hard to win a meaningless crown.
I'm not saying Twilight is a bad friend - but being THE icon of friendship? Honestly, I don't think she deserves it, at least not alone. It took SIX ponies and a dragon to beat all those villains, and she's the ONLY one to get rewarded for it, from the wings, to becoming the leader of Equestria, and her friends just blindly support her thinking she's always right, when she's exactly the same as them. She really lacks empathy.
I know Twilight can be so much better than this though, but she's gotta be more open minded and more empathetic too. She is, after all, more open to learning. Hey, Twilight, y'think you can learn all this?
The Equestrian Civil War: Prelude to MLP G5
The world of My Little Pony Generation Five features a disunited Equestria with the royal government dissolved, cities and local communities self-governing, and Earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns living almost always with their own kind.
The upcoming MLP movie and the G5 tv series will feature ponies like the Earth ponies Sunny and Hitch, the unicorn Izzy, and the unnamed Pomoronian Pegasus trying to increase friendship between pony races and eventually reunity and recreate Equestria.
How did Equestria fall apart as a unified nation? Answer:civil war. As Princess Twilight Sparkle ruled Equestria with the aid of the other members of the Mane 6 meeting as the Council of Friendship, Twilight aged very slowly because she was an Alicorn, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy eventually grew old and died of old age. Without her close friends, Twilight grew more autocratic and eventually many Equestrian citizens rose in rebellion against her.
Eventually, the royalists lost ground to the anti-royalists and the royalists under Twilight Sparkle surrendered. Tonight's political authority was limited to the city of Canterlot, and overall government of Equestria was given to a provisional council composed of leaders of the anti-royalists.
However, the provisional council found it's own authority challenges as various cities, towns, and villages declared themselves independent of Equestria. In the years that followed, there was an increasing tendency in the larger cities for Earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns to live in neighborhoods composed almost entirely of one pony race and in smaller cities, towns, and villages to be composed almost entirely of a single pony species.
Welcome to the world of G5.
G4's Problems Aren't Justified by G5's Existence
By: Quick Fix
By: Quick Fix
Before anything else, I want to stress that I'm not calling out anyone's opinions as wrong. If you didn't like G4, how it ended or G5, that's your thing. That said, when people are using the brief synopsis of the G5 movie, without any further context, as indisputable proof that the situation Equestria is in is directly Twilight's fault, and therefore the idea that any issues they had with G4's writing or ending are now hard fact because her work didn't last forever...That's a bit harder to swallow.
I will say I never had any major issues that ruined things during season 8 or 9, and was quite happy with how The Last Problem turned out. That said, I was fully aware that Twilight wouldn't rule forever after and everything would just be okay. That's how life works, and because G5 would probably be boring. There's no evidence that she or the rest of the mane 6 completely broke things, and more indication that enough time has passed that they did alright, lived the rest of their lives peacefully and passed into positive legend. I mean, wouldn't they be remembered different by anyone but a villain if that wasn't the case? But no, because their harmonious utopia didn't last until the end of time, clearly everything they ever accomplished was in vain because Twilight wasn't perfect by season 8. I'm aware the fandom (and society in general) has become somewhat more cynical over the past decade, but I don't think that the idea that things didn't last by G5 is because of what you see as wrong with G4's writing is the right way to go about it.
What if that doesn't end up being the case, and G5 happened because of events generations after Twilight stepped down from ruling Equestria? What if the mane 6 did do a great job of leading and everything fell apart after they were all too dead to do anything about it? I'm worried that at this point, that group may double down on their stance and attempt to push a wave of G4 focused hatred on any newcomers even when the evidence is more clearly the contrary. I genuinely think the fandom might not survive that.
I'm not asking anyone to change their mind if they didn't like anything from G4 or 5 so far. I'm just asking, at least until we have a clearer picture, please keep them as separate entities, as they should be. Don't treat G5's limited info as god given proof that what you disliked about G4 is unarguable. Or things from G4 to turn against what you dislike about G5 when the time comes. Keep promoting the love and harmony G4 taught, rather than celebrating that they didn't work until the end of time. And please, remember that there are still some of us out there that have no critical complaints about either. We enjoyed it as it was, please let us have that.
My Little Pony Timeline
By: UnicornDreams
By: UnicornDreams
I worked out a timeline of how I think major events are connected.
Gen 1-
Ponies begin:
Ponies develop rudimentary building and farming. (shown by the castle and the first AppleJack farming apples)
First contact-
Humans make contact:
Firefly crosses the rainbow and introduces Megan and her siblings to the ponies
The first separation:
Due to the ponies getting chubbier (because they work less because human technology exists in their world now) some decided to part ways as the others joined the humans.
G2-
Dream Valley:
Not much is known about this era, All that remains is Clover the Clever and his amazing findings.
The Human Ponies:
The ponies that went with the humans eventually evolved to be humans but with vibrant skin tone and unknown magic skills.
Pre gen 3-
Ponies separate:
For the first time the ponies start fighting and divide into different races; Earth ponies, Pegasai and unicorns
Gen 3-
A shaky reconnection:
Over time the races reunite. First the Pegasai found by SkyWishes, then the unicorns when the first Rarity gets lost. They form a shaky truce that becomes stronger over time.
Gen 4-
Races united:
With the races united a relative peace reigns as the g4 canon plays out.
Human world discovered-
EQG:
Twilight goes through the mirror and humans are officially reconnected with Equestria.
G5 speculation-
Hundreds if not thousands of years pass, equestrian magic mixes with human technology. Though computers and that sort of tech does not transfer over.
Princess Twilight and her teachings are long forgotten and like the blurb said mistrust spreads and the races are once again separate. No fighting just silent separation.
The main 6 are just legendary figures, not even historical just legends.
