I remember them doing a similar spin with the Recess variant, Mikey is 'saved' by Vince, so starts basing every aspect of his life on him, to the point he actually becomes more competent than him and makes him feel completely redundant.

I admit this topic was always YMMV, I've given my two cents on my personal preferences for a developed character, then again I always tend to prefer more comical characters over serious or realistic ones.

For some reason when I think of AJ, I actually think a more badass variant of this guy:

I think it's a good example of a 'rough around the edges' type character that has a kind of down to earth and tame demeanor, but still gets a lot of humor and vibrancy out of it.

His frustrated clash with the first gluttonous monster in particular ("Don't even THINK about it!!") seemed very AJ-ish in particular.

edited 29th Dec '12 5:26:16 PM by Psi001

I, personally, like seriousness and subtlety more.

And tragedy and heartbreak.

Maybe too much on the tragedy?

My favorite part of Too Many Pinkie Pies was "poking at the ground, making frowny faces".

And also why Party of One is in my top three.

I think it varies, I admit a comical characters needs some extent of poignant moments to gain pathos, though I still find slightly exaggerative whimsical ones more likeable. I get a much clearer view of how their personality works.

A Sad Clown if anything can be twice as effective for serious moments.

edited 29th Dec '12 5:27:26 PM by Psi001

Well heres the complete opossite. I LOVE Baby Cakes precisely for how light-hearted and nice it was the episode. It makes me feel so happy and I´m not even a fan of Pinkie that episode is just gorgeous on how nice it was.

Good character development is what matters to me, doesn't matter if it's comic or tragic. Most of the episodes are A or B episodes for this reason, which is why an episode I find to be average depresses me.

And a lot of those episodes would be A episodes if one little thing wasn't added (Sonic Rainboom was marred by the Acquired Situational Narcissism and Ponyville Confidential was hit hard by literally everypony but Twilight, Rarity, and the CMC's not getting the Aesop and being hypocrites.

edited 29th Dec '12 5:27:16 PM by terlwyth

What are A and B episodes?

http://derpiboo.ru/197068 I was same thing when I saw that scene.

(Its one of funniest of not most funny scene from show BTW).

@Lost Anarchist Yeesh talk about overreacting.

You take this show way too seriously.

Episodes that get A or B on his rating scale, I'm assuming.

And yeah, I like subtlety in my characterizations. Gives the show more rewatchability because you can pick up stuff you didn't notice the first time.

edited 29th Dec '12 5:37:46 PM by JapaneseTeeth

I think subtlety works, but I still like the characters being whimsical about it for the large part. As said I think Twilight works better in both flawed and Straight Man roles despite similarly being one of the more lucid ponies, largely because her flaws often seep through in everything she does, whether it be over the top or very subtle gags. Her very brief role in this episode is a good example (...."Uh huh"....). She is whimsical but still capable of subtlety. There are only a few odd episodes her personality 'turns off', usually early ones and even then it's not that consistant.

edited 29th Dec '12 5:43:40 PM by Psi001

Pretty much like school grades ya' know A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, C-, D+, D, D-, F. Most MLP episodes fit somewhere between A and B-, only 6 have earned the A+ and not that many have been boring or generic or off-putting enough to just be average (C+-C-) or below average (D+-F).

I know most tropers prefer 1-10 scale but I think that's a little too specific, and I know troper Sereg uses tiers, but that doesn't really get the point across like an A or B.

Or in short what Japanese Teeth said.

edited 29th Dec '12 5:43:53 PM by terlwyth

I use tiers as well, mainly because trying to quantify something as subjective as the quality of an episode into a number or grade implies more precision than I can actually come up with. Like using a number scale implies that there's some sort of objective difference in quality between say, a 9 and an 8, when often it comes down to "I liked this episode more".

I half expected her to immediately go back to reading after fixing the inkwell.

Well, still more forgiving then ginger's obsession with perfection in villains, but, seriously saying "i only like characers with X trait" is just way way way to limiting. I dont give a fuck about anything except "did I enjoy this" all that matters, the why can come later.

only thing that really just pisses me off and makes me stop caring is lack of internal constancy. baring a show that is explicitly Negative Continuity.

Speaking of episode ratings, since this is the mid-season break, should we start throwing up our current rankings of the episodes for the season or should that wait till later when we start running out of things to talk about?

Well, the characterization conversation is starting to get kinda stale, and we don't have anything else to talk about, so I'll just throw out my current rankings:

1. Magic Duel

2. Wonderbolt Academy

3. Spike at Your Service / Sleepless in Ponyville / Too Many Pinkie Pies

4. One Bad Seed / Crystal Empire pts. 1 and 2 / Apple Family Reunion

edited 29th Dec '12 6:02:24 PM by JapaneseTeeth

..mid, 3/4 same diff. but

Magic Duel

Sleepless in Ponyville

Crystal Empire

Babs Seed

Spike at your Service

Wonderbolt Academy

To Many Pinkies/Apple Family Reunion

and even the "worst" on that list would be in the upper half of the other two seasons lists.

I think that's what really burns about this episode, ..if it was last week and the Family Reunion was this week, it wouldn't have been so bad. But now with such a meh! episode, that's the note MLP ends on for three weeks.

I just hope Polsky can deliver next week with "Keep Calm and Flutter On"

But very well from 9-1

9. Spike At Your Service (C)

8. One Bad Apple (C+)

7. Magic Duel (B)

6. Wonderbolts Academy (B+)

4. Apple Family Reunion (A-)/ The Crystal Empire, Part 2 (A-)

3. The Crystal Empire, Part 1 (A)

2. Sleepless in Ponyville (A) (Number 7 in the top ten until another A+ worthy episode comes around)

1. Too Many Pinkie Pies (A+) (Number 5 in the top ten)

edited 29th Dec '12 6:15:32 PM by terlwyth

Well my current list looks like this. . .

1. Too Many Pinkie Pies

2. Sleepless in Ponyville

3. Wonderbolt Academy

4. One Bad Apple

5. Magic Duel

6. Apple Family Reunion

7. Spike At your Service

8. The Crystal Empire

The third season started on a low (Crystal Empire was meh, while TMPP and OBS were fine, but nothing special) then slowly rose up for me (Magic Duel was a pretty good episode, followed by two great Character Developing episodes for RD), then started to jolt a bit back down (disappointed by the two AJ episodes, though SAYS was fairly enjoyable).

edited 29th Dec '12 6:00:25 PM by Psi001

What does SAYS mean?

Would it kill you guys to just spell out the episode name?

I though the premier was pretty damn good. one of the best episodes, just, not as good as the last two two parters, though above the pilot.

And th number one brony song of the year is....Living Tombstone Discord.

....

Called it!

Kinda sad it won with 2118 votes, thats...well a really low number.

Oh and Crystal Empire was the best episode for me this season. Why? It had an awesome villain! Oh and a good story too. Still unless they pull another Baby Cakes I´m gonna stick with that as my favourite.Magic Duel came close buuuut I didn´t quite like it that much. SO yeah Crsytal Empire for me.

I'd definitely put Spike at Your Service over Apple Family Reunion. AFR is probably one of my least favorite episodes of the season. It's not bad, but there's just nothing particularly memorable about it either. It's just kinda there.

Lists are fun.

1. Crystal Empire

2. Apple Family Reunion

3. One Bad Apple

4. Sleepless in Ponyville

5. Magic Duel

6. Wonderbolt Academy

7. Too Many Pinkie Pies

8. Spike at Your Service