Uploaded by kleptomage 
1920x1080 PNG 1.17 MB
Interested in advertising on Derpibooru? Click here for information!
Help fund the $15 daily operational cost of Derpibooru - support us financially!
Description
No description provided.
Source
not provided yet
You misunderstand my intent here. I like Rarity. My only point was that I hate how they choose to portray her primary flaw as a virtue.
Eh, just don’t say that there wasn’t anybody who tried to tell you the other side of things.
I really, really don’t feel like being arsed with arguing with you anymore, even though I do disagree about your assessment and I feel that it’s mostly just grasping at negatives in order to maintain a dislike of the character, but I will politely ask you to just not be that guy who goes on to every Rarity picture and starts shitting on the character and trying to ruin everyone’s good time totally unprovoked. Nobody likes people like that, trust me.
That is what we call pessimism.
I see you’re another one of those who doesn’t want to see good in bad.
@ghostfacekiller39
….wow you guys have said a lot while I was away. Please forgive the wall, as now I have to address each of your relevant points individually.
Being “abused by the writers for cheap drama” and being “portrayed in a positive light” are not the same thing. So basically everything you said about Fluttershy was a complete waste of your time. Her nature is not the one being disputed here.
Well yeah, that’s why the other 4 stopped their bullshit behavior after that episode. That was good. But Rarity did’t, and for her it was portrayed as a virtue later on.
Ok wait, so all of that was Spike’s imagination? Okay, that changes things significantly. Also makes Spike look more pathetic.
Being manipulative is technically an improvement over being a doormat, I guess. It’s just trading a flaw that doesn’t benefit you for one that does. Also, as far as the payment goes, that doesn’t change the fact that the behavior in question (in this case, deceptive flattery) was being shown as an appropriate way to talk to someone. I didn’t notice the payment though. That does take a little of the edge off. I wonder how many members of the intended demographic noticed it?
I’m not ‘looking past’ anything. This incident with the postal pony is only the latest in a series of similar events. That was my point. Also, you skipped the bit about the dog episode. The one that I specifically listed as making this unfavorable aspect of Rarity’s nature out to be the moral highlight of the episode.
Well i didn’t see anything bad with this scene or any scene in Putting your hoof down or Mysterious Mare Do Well. Just with the mail pony scene with Rarity.
I do want to add that while the Secret of my Excess scene is pretty much entirely wrong to look at it in that sense, it’s a totally understandable misconception. I mean, the writer himself had to clarify on it, sooo….
so what you mean by that is that all other scenes you mentioned can be viewed differently but this one with mail pony not? If yes i completely agree with you. About Rarity, not about Fluttershy but that’s different. I just wanted your opinion, not to argue. Thanks for answering.
What I meant by what I said is that the writers could’ve used the same setup differently in order to not make her look like a bitch in that scene while still trying to get the point across in a way that was just as effective. In other words, it isn’t the viewers that should have approached it differently, but the writers themselves.
Hope that helps!
it happens :D still didn’t answer my question. I’m just curious because as i said before i didn’t like that scene and it looked like you were saying that it can be viewed differently and i’m asking how?
@ghostfacekiller39
Makes some valid points.
Just sayin’.
@Philosopher Stone
Blech. Strike that. Sorry about the misunderstanding there xP I didn’t really read the comment in full and just saw where you were asking about that one particular scene, so I just assumed that you were just jumping in on their side against me.
Completely my bad, man :\ Sorry if I seemed like a dick.
Also, I don’t know why you’re singling out this one part of my argument. Do you agree on everything else I said or do you just want to draw attention to the one thing I admitted he was right about? - which, by the way, I brought up to show that he was willing to look deeper into a situation that made the character look bad when she was being portrayed as good but not looking to find anything other than the bad in situations where she wasn’t bad to begin with, which hurts the credibility of his argument pretty severely, I’d have to say.
I said myself that I couldn’t argue that and that he was right, so I don’t know what you’re asking me this question for.
It had a purpose, which was to set up the fact that Rarity had a lot of charm and charisma and was a smooth talker just in case somebody who wasn’t familiar with the series had watched that episode (seeing how her charm and charisma is how she salvaged RD from being disbarred from the Wonderbolts from life and all), but all in all it could’ve been executed in a better way that presented this setup without it being used to get her own way. The vast, vast majority of the time in the series that I’ve seen her do this she had an ulterior motive that could be considered inherently good - this was one the few times that I don’t really see much of a positive ulterior motive past just making her own life a bit easier.
So yeahh. There wasn’t much good in that scene and I won’t contest that with anybody who takes issue with it. I will contest the other three examples he brought up, though.
Can you tell how you meant that with mail pony scene? I didn’t see anything good in there. Maybe you did. Tell me what. I’m just asking.
“manipulating Spike into giving her his prized ruby in ‘Secret of My Excess’”
A quote from M.A. Larson, the writer of the episode -
“getting some vegetable (asparagus, I think?) from the nerd in ‘Putting Your Hoof Down’”
Not only was she going to trying to help Fluttershy learn a way to be less of a pushover, so she did have good intent, the shot clearly shows her refunding the stallion after she got the asparagus from him.
source
In the Ticket Master, I didn’t really get the impression that it played any of them in the right for being like they were for the ticket - and if you remember the episode, they all were trying to cajole the extra ticket for themselves, not just Rarity - and she was even the first to forgo the opportunity to have the ticket when it was shown that what they all were doing was wrong. There’s one time where it showed her being wrong for doing so, so I don’t see where the complaint is with that one.
There’s one time where she used her charm in a way that I don’t think calls for a negative portrayal, one time where she was shown as wrong for doing so and admitted so herself, and there’s another that you brought up that doesn’t even apply to what you’re saying.
While I can’t argue the scene in Rarity Investigates, I’d say putting thought into that to call it manipulative would require some deeper looking into due to the way it was portrayed, which it wasn’t really portrayed as a bad thing and it was really only to set up how she could use her charm and charisma to help out RD later on in the episode. It wasn’t a necessary setup because many people already knew that, but it was likely just added for the few people who were new to the series.
My point being with that last paragraph was that, because of the portrayal and the significance of the mail pony scene, it required some looking into to form an opinion. So why are you willing to look past what’s being shown to you here but you aren’t willing to dig a bit deeper into the subject when it doesn’t make her look bad?
“Okay. Skipping your rant about Fluttershy because it has no bearing on this conversation…”
Also, it does have bearing on this conversation. You yourself said this:
@Somber Star
I was simply using Fluttershy’s main flaw and its portrayal to try and show you that Rarity isn’t the only one guilty of having her flaws portrayed in a positive light. It directly coincides right back to what you were saying about Rarity’s flaws versus the rest of the mane 6’s flaws, thus I don’t see how it’s irrelevant.
^^
Okay. Skipping your rant about Fluttershy because it has no bearing on this conversation…
How about the methodology she used to get what she wanted from any male character who had it? Such as manipulating Spike into giving her his prized ruby in “Secret of My Excess”, getting some vegetable (asparagus, I think?) from the nerd in “Putting Your Hoof Down”, manipulating the delivery pony in “Canterlot Boutique”, she also tried (and failed) to use it on Twilight in “The Ticket Master”; and those are just the instances I can name off the top of my head. Hell, “A Dog and Pony Show” basically makes respecting this behavior the moral of the episode. I’m not going to go through each and every episode and try to track down every last time she acts like this just to convince you of this pattern in her behavior.
Sorry, meant that for,
@ghostfacekiller39
TL;DR
I’m glad I’m not the only one who got pissed off at the part where Rarity and Pinkie start crying because of Fluttershy, Rainbow was crying too you assholes!!!
If you want to get into brass tacks, I’m in the mood to whip out the claws.
“But at least they acknowledge that it’s a problem. The fans are the ones who are failing to understand how serious Fluttershy’s issue is.”
Nope. Not buying it.
What is treating a flaw like a flaw?
Character development is usually a character overcoming some form of adversity - be it internal, external, out of their grasp or completely within their own control - and at the base of their biggest obstacle in their growth is working out the kinks in their personalities to become a better person, or in this case, pony.
I can name 4 Fluttershy episodes off of the top of my head that are about her shyness - Putting Your Hoof Down, Dragonshy, Filli Vanilli, and Hurricane Fluttershy - and all 4 of those episodes can be removed from the series entirely without affecting her character in any real way, shape, or form. None of them are necessary to her development because she manages to revert her development by the next episode, turning her back into this helpless individual who can hardly do anything other than sit there and do nothing of value.
If they were treating this as a flaw and not something to glorify the character, I think they would do two things:
1.) They would gradually show development throughout each shyness episode as opposed to just retcon it by the next episode.
Shyness isn’t an easy thing to overcome. If I actually want to leave a good impression on a group of people, then I’m often scared out of my mind to say what I think or feel or anything that isn’t in agreeance, and that’s if I’m even talking at all. I understand that it’s not a one or even a two episode type of flaw to overcome, but for fuck’s sake, they didn’t do shit to show improvement for 4 whole seasons and by the time the current one rolled around they made her slightly bolder. Slightly. She’s still more of a hindrance than a help most of the time, so this has just gone on too long for them to not realize what they’re doing at this point.
So why do they just ignore all the development episodes by the time they finish out?
2.) To Jerk this Fandom’s Gherkin
In a way, I can agree that the fandom is the source of Fluttershy’s weakness, but when it comes down to it the fact of the matter is that the writers aren’t working to give her any real resolve on their own merit. Maybe it’s because they’re just lazy with the character and don’t know what else to do with her (I know I wouldn’t, her personality is as flat as a fucking piece of paper most of the time) or they just want her to be cute. With the shit in “Tanks for the Memories” where Pinkie and Rarity started crying just because Fluttershy did, the cancer that was wrought upon me by the scene really spoke to me as to what I think it is. It’s just a mixture of both and it’s entirely within their own control, and they neglect to give her proper development on their own accord and thus that’s not treating it as a flaw, but a crutch to hold up the character.
So don’t go blaming the fans for the writer’s actions. They may have some influence over the decision, but at the end of the day it’s the writers who are the ones doing all of this by their own fault. Be it laziness or ineptitude, they’re the ones responsible for lack of development on her part and they don’t seem too eager to have her grow or blossom into a multi-dimensional character any time soon.
Their lack of action in spite of how many times we’ve seen Fluttershy overcome shyness temporarily and then have that growth made meaningless as soon as the next episode is why I think they don’t treat it as a flaw. If they did treat it as a flaw, then we wouldn’t have had 4 seasons of stagnation followed by a slight, slight pick up in the fifth season.
“I like how the show never addresses the fact that Rarity thinks that being passive-aggressive and manipulative is “nice”. Like they don’t understand that this is a major character flaw like Applejack’s xenophobia, Twilight’s OCD, Pinkie’s emotional dependency, and Fluttershy’s severe SAD. Come to think of it, Rainbow Dash is ironically the most well-adjusted of the Mane 6, despite being an adult child.”
Give me some evidence to prove that she’s a passive-aggressive manipulative bitch, then I’ll be able to take your statement seriously.
As of what I’ve seen from this show, I’d have to disagree entirely about that interpretation of the character and your lack of forming a foundation for your argument as to why the character sucks past the simple exclamation of what you think leads me to believe that you’re just really missing out on a lot here, be it intentional or unintentional.
So, prove it to me that she’s as bad as you say she is. Give me some transcripts from the show or some screenshots or anything past just saying something is true without providing backup to it, because otherwise your argument is entirely hollow and meaningless.
But at least they acknowledge that it’s a problem. The fans are the ones who are failing to understand how serious Fluttershy’s issue is.