now i'm wondering if Irish is the only zombie in this thread.

They do have very lovely brains.

But yeah. With the amount of main characters, it means someone is going to get shafted in each season and the ensemble episodes are going to suffer. On the other hand, it ensures that we'll get lots and lots of character interaction episodes. They haven't even run through all the possible combinations, let alone ideas. Except for Applejack. They've done about as much with her as they can without introducing some new personality trait.

No, he's not. I'm a zombie too, thanks to Orion {Who may or may not be a vampire/bat pony, if one of his avatars is any indication}. Though Kegi's behaviour is a little suspicious.......

CDRW: Well, we still haven't seen AJ interact all that much with Rarity since Look Before You Sleep {The short scene from the S3 opener aside}, and her stubborn trait and rivelry with RD seem to have been forgotten about. So there's still more that they could do with her, it's just that...... For some reason they never do anything with her. What do the writers/hasbro have against southeners, dammit?

edited 28th Jun '13 12:20:32 PM by marston

Be careful with Pinkie Brain, it's like can of died coke, mixed with glass of sugar.

A Nd @Marson I actually like fact that show have many characters (and I would like to see cast expanded). I can accept that some characters having less spotlight because of huge cast.

And poor Rarity get episodes not because of that but because writers didn't had ideas for her stories and only episode about her was turned into AJ story (who also is unlucky in case of spotlight).

Which batman symbol do you like the most◊, assuming numbers 1 to 25 run from left to right (e.g:, the top row is 1, 2 and 3)?

I wouldn't say that it has too many main characters, but I do think that it could be a problem if they keep introducing new characters without continuing to develop the old ones. If it were up to me, S4 wouldn't introduce any new characters, and would instead focus on developing the main cast's relationships with the secondary cast. So we'd get an episode focused on Pinkie and the Cake family, maybe an episode where AJ takes Sweetie to a conference with Cheerilee, Rarity and Fluttershy interacting at length with the Spa ponies, that sort of thing. That and bringing back more one-shots like they did with Trixie. Bring back Gilda, Iron Will, Philomena, the buffalo, Cranky, etc.

So, I'm browsing through Derpibooru's "equestria girls" tag to see if there's any good screencaps of green-haired dreadlocks dude. I decide to skip to the last page and go backwards, essentially going in chronological order from past to present.

It has now just dawned on me how many pics there are of people judging the movie before it was even released.

I don't believe in the concept of too many main characters.

I know what you mean, but I think that there is a limit to how many characters you can spread the focus around on before it gets too thin. That limit depends on the story. But like I said, the issue here isn't too many characters, it's that it introduces new characters without developing the ones that it has. I'd much rather have a small but well-developed cast than a large cast with characters that don't contribute much.

I'd like even more characters honestly. The show just needs to get in the habit of actually using the characters they got. The way they handle it now, if a character isn't the main focus of the episode they're treated mostly as a background character. It's not hard to write in little spotlight moments for the characters who aren't getting the main focus. In fact, pretty much all of my favorite Applejack moments fall into this category, like when Twilight confided in her on the way to Shiny's wedding and AJ had to give her advice.

I agree with I love shows with lots and lots of characters.

This too. They still need to flesh out Big Mac and Cheerilee before they go introducing new main characters. They did a pretty good job with Shiny and Cadance though.

edited 28th Jun '13 1:09:33 PM by Bluespade

@ Apple: Since some of the rows don't go straight across, it gets confusing. I'll just say the fourth one down in the row on the right.

JT and Bluespade make good points.

@ Syd

Thank you.

@ Characters

I actually think that they should focus on developing what characters they have now too. There's a lot of real potential in there.

I wouldn't mind seeing more of Diamond and Silver developed either, even if they're "villains."

Ditto. I'm great with expanding the cast, but I don't think they should do that until the characters they have now are a bit more rounded out. That and I like it when shows like this have more recurring cast members.

They should spend half of season four building on these ideas.

Are you asking for a Relationship Upgrade?

@crimson: I'm not. I actually slipped some zombie virus into the punch last week. You should all be feeling the effects in a couple of days.

I wouldn't be averse if they decided to make their hookup official. If only to lol as I watch the Caramac shippers self-destruct.

But seriously, I'd really like to see the minor characters get A Day in the Limelight type episodes. Hearts and Hooves Day was cool, but it had Big Mac and Cheerilee basically brainwashed for the bulk of the story.

@JT: The Caramac shippers self-destructing? What about the Fluttermac shippers? I mean, if they already got upset over the plot synopsis of Hearts And Hooves Day, then imagine how they'd react to Big Mac and Cheerliee actually dating.

If there are any major charactors who need to be fleshed-out more, it would be the CMC's, SA and Cadence. The CMC's arn't so bad when their on their own {Sisterhooves Social and Sleepless In Ponyvile, for example}, but when their together they all have pretty much the same personality. They also lack any of the charactor development that the mane 6 have gotten throughout the 3 seasons so far, which also makes them kind of one-note and really boring after a while if you ask me. Since Twilight recently became an alicorn and showed us that the status quo won't always remain the same, maybe these three will eventually get their cutie marks and actually do something interesting.

SA and Cadence don't even have much of actual personalities despite having shown up in 5 episodes so far {I won't hold the S3 finale against them since it was just a speaking cameo appearence}. I can't think of much if any personality traits for them apart from them being nice Reasonable Authority Figures. I'm hoping that S4 will correct this, but for now even artists like Madmax and Veggie55 have given them more personality then they have in the actual show, which really says something since Madmax and Veggie55 always play SA and Cadence {As well as everything else} for laughs.

I agree about Celestia and Luna.

edited 28th Jun '13 1:45:50 PM by marston

Wouldn't mind it, but I like the indication that Cheerilee and Big Mac are old friends who are completely platonic. Actually I kind of got the impression from Hearts and Hooves day that they may have given romance a try in the past and ended it on good terms, but that's probably just me reading into things too much.

And oh yeah, Luna and Celestia (ESPECIALLY Celestia) need more focus as well.

Read Water Margin and come back to me about six being too many.

That reminds me, I still need to watch Legend of the Galactic Heroes. It's got 660 named characters.

edited 28th Jun '13 1:51:09 PM by CDRW

A Song of Ice and Fire has got well over a thousand.

That's just because they all keep dying