That's why I like the idealistic interpretations of villains like Trixie or Gilda. It just feels more in-character for the show

edited 22nd Jul '11 8:49:32 PM by gingerninja666

^I agree with what's mostly been said already. What would the friendship report for that week look like? "Dear Princess Celestia, today we learned about unspeakable evil and how sometimes, condemning another soul to oblivion and the eternal nothingness After is preferable to the ultimately fruitless task of trying to redeem them. All seven of us learned that, including Spike, because we've barricaded ourselves in my Library and are not coming out again ever."

edited 22nd Jul '11 8:59:45 PM by RedSavant

And Celestia would go...what makes you think you locked the evil out??

I hate to say it (and I know I'll get grief for it) but I honestly do NOT like the optimism. Yes, it's good and entirely normal for a kid's show. But life does not work that way. People are NOT mostly good, you need to know that bad things exist and prepare to deal with them, not expect people to act nicely and normally whenever you deal with them. Of course, that's just because I'm a highly depressed, misanthropic, self-hating pessimist.

About Gilda, I don't think she's evil, I think she just has jealousy issues. As the only Gryphon we've seen on the show so far, and with the Fantastic Racism that's been implied elsewhere in the show, it's unlikely she had many friends in flight school. Then, her best friend got kicked out. Years later when they meet up, she's moved on and Gilda doesn't take it well. Simple, understandable, and fits in with the show's idealism. Gilda just needs an episode where SHE learns a lesson or two about friendship. Not that she's guaranteed to get one...

TROLLESTIAAAAAA!!!

I understand, It's just I've got loads of depressing shows I can watch if I want a cynicism fix. I like MLP because it's a rare show that's good AND idealistic. I'm one of the few people in this world who honetly believes that there's good in everyone, even if it's insignificant compared to their evil. Plus, horrifically mean-spirited shows aren't... fun. I watch a show to be entertained thanks

edited 22nd Jul '11 9:17:02 PM by gingerninja666

But the show does have nasty people that they have to deal with, and the sort of people you are likely to deal with. Noone can prepare you for some fire-spewing psychopath, no matter how much you try, but you can be taught how to deal with jerks like Gilda or Trixie.

I think he means he doesn't like the concept of those guys EVER being redeemed, which depresses me actually

edited 22nd Jul '11 9:19:51 PM by gingerninja666

It's a little jarring to see "I dislike the optimism; life doesn't work that way" in the same post as as good a bullet-point defense of Gilda as I could make, I must say.

I also have to say that there've been times in my life when I'd have agreed that idealistic and even optimistic shows and messages are borderline irresponsible because of how unrealistic they seem... but really, there's little harm in wanting to believe the world works that way. Even if it's not true in real life, Equestria does work that way, and it's lovely.

Funny that he should be claiming that that's the way the world works, if that is his intention - There have been few enough truly irredeemable people in the past few hundred years to count on one hand, though granted I may not be truly up to snuff on my history in that regard.

Hell I reckon EVERYONE should become friends by the end of the show XD

btw. Do you reckon Twilight respects Trixie at all? cuz I always thought that SHE would be the first one to extend to olive branch of friendship to her

A tennant of real life is that NO ONE is evil and no one is good, we're just a big grey mess, and both idealism and cynacism have a place in it.

edited 22nd Jul '11 9:30:46 PM by gingerninja666

^^Well, it's different talking about real people. There's enough fogginess when it comes to inner workings and mental processes that I'm not sure how I feel about that - except that I'm very sure we don't want to get into a debate on which historical figures were evil or not. Let's keep things fictional, where we can examine motives and such laid out on paper. =)

^I'd imagine Twilight has a scholar's respect for anyone else involved with magic, at the very least.

edited 22nd Jul '11 9:29:31 PM by RedSavant

You know what I hate? When I suddenly remember a quote that would've fit perfectly in a conversation that's kind of over.

Eh, maybe it's applicable here too. Sort of.

"Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,
And vice by action sometime dignified."

Except David Tennant.

edited 22nd Jul '11 9:35:14 PM by TurnwaysFlip

Holy shit it's you Red Savant. Didn't recognize ya with your new avatar XD (god i'm stupid)

which side is he on? XD

edited 22nd Jul '11 9:36:13 PM by gingerninja666

^Ah, sorry. =) I'd been meaning to avatar-ize it for a while now, and finally decided I'd get around to it.

A bit of expansion on my earlier points-

There is nothing purely good or purely evil. Purely selfish? Maybe. Perhaps even likely. But not good or evil.

Redemption: Possible, but only if both the redeemer and their surroundings are willing to accept it. Gilda is a good example, she isn't willing yet and isn't sure how to redeem herself (or so it seems).

You can prepare for a fire-breathing dragon or just about anything else if you have proper instruction. You can at least learn how to properly hide from it or something.

I never thought Twilight disliked Trixie, they just had their differences and Twilight had peer pressure to deal with.

This is a good show, and it teaches good lessons. I just personally dislike the optimism. Like I said, I have problems.

Anything else? PM me, I'll be back in the morning.

edited 22nd Jul '11 9:43:06 PM by randomguy123

my sis mentioned it earlier, but it's highly amusing to me that while everyone else's avatar is pony related, mine has Prince Fucking Schneizel on it (wish someone could ponify him so I could change it) XD

till the end of time I'll always say that she was willing to change, just not in front of all those people

edited 22nd Jul '11 9:45:06 PM by gingerninja666

Hopefully, ours.

Whoa. Which one of y'all is Andrew Joshua Talon on FF.net? I know you're a troper, man! You namedropped CMFIS!

There's optimism, and there's blind optimism. The latter believes that everyone is good, even if they're acting selfishly. They believe that said person can be changed, they just have to try hard enough.

The former, the realistic optimist, has a similar stance, in that an "evil" person can change, that everyone has the capacity for good. But they also realize that their efforts can only go so far, and that sometimes a person cannot be redeemed because the conditions are unfavorable, and that it would take a kind of effort that they simply cannot supply.

And yet, because they believe in the capacity for good, their tendency is not to condemn, but to forgive. And sometimes, that gives one sufficient reason to change.

^ TV Tropes didn't invent the term CMFIS, and even if we did, there's no guarantee they picked it up from here.

edited 22nd Jul '11 10:00:01 PM by KylerThatch

I thought that was Widely known fanon by this point. I don't even read Fan fiction and I've heard of CMFIS

edited 22nd Jul '11 9:59:04 PM by gingerninja666

I'm pretty sure CMFIS was a term that started here. I don't know if it's spread or not.

Okay, just to clarify, when I said optimistic, I didn't mean the sort of "everything is always going to turn out alright" kind of things. Not even MLP is like that; I'm pretty sure one of the things Faust mentioned in an article somewhere was how much it bugged her that everyone always became friends in the end, because things don't work like that.

What I meant was that I enjoy having a show that doesn't take place in a world where everyone is a jerk or an idiot. Those people exist, but they can be dealt with. And I honestly think it's kinda important that some of the antagonists aren't shown turning good in the end; as noted, the world doesn't look that way. (I'm not trying to start up another morality debate about Gilda and Trixie, I'm just pointing out that within their episodes, they didn't befriend the mane cast) I think it's good that the show manages to balance it's "try to be understanding and nice to people" with "even if you're nice to them, some people will still be jerks anyway".

As Kegisak mentioned, the show doesn't have any complete monsters, but that's okay not everyone encounters them. The show focuses on everyday-type interactions with jerks, and teaches kids how to deal with that, which is a billion times more practical that either "the world is a Suger Bowl" or "the world is a Crapsack World".

In short, I like the fact that it portrays a world where people have their flaws, but those flaws can be worked through.

^^^^I like to think of myself as, oxymoronically, a realistic optimist.

^^^Yeah, but he also suggests looking it up on TVTropes...

Hm. What kind of fandom-web-overlap tends to occur, I wonder? I imagine Equestria Daily helps in making sure that a lot of people read the good stuff, but I was surprised recently to see Luna, in the Desktop Ponies application, inquiring after Abacus (her, well, abacus), from "Progress".

edited 22nd Jul '11 10:04:45 PM by RedSavant

I've always had a rather bizarre approach to life - I'm essentially optimistic, but not through any real belief that everything will work out, or that everyone can be good. I do believe those things, but not on their own - I believe that everything will work out because I will make it work out, and the like.

Not sure what you mean by fandom-to-web there, Red?

edited 22nd Jul '11 10:12:38 PM by kegisak

I just had an idea.

You know how Luna wanted to bring about eternal night because her nights weren't appreciated? Everybody would always sleep through her nights and so nobody could appreciate them?

Luna's return to Equestria could serve as the explanation for why the days grow longer and the nights shorter towards the summer solstice and the opposite happens towards the winter solstice. The two sisters coming to a compromise and working out a system of sharing one twenty-four hour period where they each have their time of the year when the days are longer and the nights are longer. I mean, this is the kind of thing you'd hear about in myth as an explanation for why the days vary in length at different points in the year.

What do you all think of this idea?