@Delphince
More and more it comes to look like you are stating your own opinion and not generalizing, i welcome that more than straight up pointing out something like it all was facts.
Here I’d like to admit that many very good bad guy characters in cartoon movies have an eye scar. That is no bad choice as well as a broken horn, that’s what i meant. There’s good and bad ways to use this design.
The overuse of it on bad OCs have spoiled you
@Naughtypony2010
There’s no denying the motivation behind her design, and considering the target audience, what was settled on was certainly a “safe” decision for helping small children identify the antagonist, but I don’t think it was warranted. Looking to the start of the series, one can argue that Nightmare Moon suffered from many of the same shortcuts, making evil look “evil” for the sake of recognition. The thing is, a design that successfully facilitates an identity doesn’t make it “good”. Gilda, Discord, Trixie, Starlight, etc didn’t have to “look evil” to be blatant antagonists, and the audience understood their roles just fine.
While I’m bothered that Tempest was essentially what I’d consider a huge step backwards in confidence towards the audience, it’s exacerbated by the cliché nature of the specific choices. Making a character taller than its peers projects “I am important/attractive”. This was acceptable for Celestia and Luna, because they were initial characters when the lore was still vague, and their height could have had anything imaginable to do with their status. Fleur de Lis (or Fleur dis Lee), likewise, was a supermodel. Tempest’s design, however, had no justification for this incredibly rare body type other than “make her look important and attractive”, especially considering her origins. The eye scar? One of the oldest and most recognizable “I’m tough and menacing” aesthetics there is. The broken horn has been a selection in the online pony creator, and carries a stigma as being the choice for OCs designed by young or otherwise amateur creators, most falsely believing that choosing the wildly different option will make their character unique. These tropes in particular are go-to decisions for inexperienced character designers, so for what should be a seasoned designer to incorporate all of them instead of taking a more subtle or original route is just flabbergasting.
That would be the end of it, but her reception has been overwhelmingly positive, and this might be where I’m seeing through a filter, but the majority of it seems to be regarding her physical appearance. This is where I get triggered: the human nature to overlook what would normally be criticized and instead lavish praise simply because of fame. It bugs me, a lot. There are artists, writers, and actors out there that despite their best efforts and incredible talents, are ignored or have small failings blown out of proportion simply because they aren’t “somebody”, and others that are worshiped as being the pinnacle of talent or beauty—despite having possibly significant shortcomings to either—because they are “somebody”.
As an example, let me tell you a story. Remember Clay Aiken from an early season of American Idol? I went to high school with him. He was a quiet, nice, but nerdy (I don’t mean that negatively, just painting a picture) guy that girls paid zero attention to. A few years after graduating, he came in second-place on AI, and suddenly the same girls that had rebuffed him originally now thought he was sweet, cute, and wanted his babies. The guy could sing, but he could sing in high school, and the praise wasn’t “his looks are ‘meh’ but oh what a voice”, he was “adorable”.
That’s my issue. I’ll call what’s good, “good”, but I’ll also call what’s bad, “bad”. Tempest’s design is bad. The only thing about her appearance that I approve of is her colors are balanced; dark, but balanced. Her eyes follow the tertiary color rule for complimentary colors that makes them “pop”. People are absolutely welcome to like her, or love her, or have pillows of her, but to cite lazy design choices as being “great” is not only fake, it’s annoying.
@Delphince
I’m sure you can tell an equally valid and worked out critique on how well a character from the show is written in comparison to your negative critique here. Otherwise i believe you are another of those who expect too much from a cartoon tv show. Not every team is a mastermind at everything.
There’s always mistakes or flaws where you expected better.
You could literally tell the basic story of the movie from seeing the trailer…and is that bad? No because its a cartoon movie.
The writers needed good guys the writers needed bad guys. Bad guys better look like bad guys. Tempest is a good bad guy and the design fits just right doesn’t it?
Maybe you can tell what would be a good design instead. With no ‘ooohh edgy’
This is also equestria and everything is possible. I mean that as in, a little pony running away because losing her friends might have hurt her as much as losing a family member. Would you agree to that? How in the end it is a valid backstory? Yes simple because the movie is only so long but valid
@DerpyFast
…Okay. It’s nice that your response was civil, but essentially your post was “she isn’t red and black, she’s purple and magenta”, the ambiguous pseudoscience of “color psychology” in relation to her palette colors, and then listed a bunch of common storytelling tropes that, honestly, could be applied to nearly every character in the film.
Regarding that, I didn’t say she was red and black, just a “dark color scheme”, and you didn’t actually say anything with the color theory, you just wrote filler to make the post longer. Now, if you drew connections between her actions in the movie and how they could relate to her chosen colors, that would make for a better argument, but in the end it’s still as definitive as a horoscope: the traits attributed to nearly any color on that wheel could be applied to her if you try. Lastly, naming off a list of common archetypal story patterns doesn’t argue that she’s a good character, it highlights that her foundation is unoriginal. Which it would be, if not for the parts of her backstory that are as downright ludicrous as Broly’s from Dragon Ball Z. A foal that received that kind of injury would have been given significant medical care and therapy, even if she had been an orphan.
To wrap up, I could write a short paper on her character design flaws, but who the heck would read that? This is TL;DR already. What is endearing about her is her voice actor knocked it out of the park.
@Delphince
She’s specifically designed to bait knee-jerk “ow the edge” reactions. Superficially, she looks like a red and black OC. However, actually doing the analysis reveals that her design uses analogous colours. (See the left side of the chart)
On top of that, there’s meaning to extract from the colour choices:
Purple: Nobility, mystery, magic.
Dark Blue: Professionalism.
Light Blue: Calmness, kindness.
Red: Actually, it’s magenta. Where a teenager would just go with red, here the purple coat tricks the brain into thinking her mane is red. This creates an illusion where her mane and eyes appear to have complimentary colours. It represents anger and passion. Criticizing this choice is like criticizing a musician for using a tritone or a diminished triad to create dissonance: that’s just how theory works. It conveys the idea without drawing too much attention.
The loss of her horn is an archetypal Loss of Innocence, as well as a life-altering disability. Her quest to get her horn back takes her through The Hero’s Journey, with her backstory consisting of the Call to Adventure, Refusal of the Call, Supernatural Aid, and Crossing The Threshold.
I’ve yet to read a criticism of her that had more thought put into it than her actual design and character.
@Delphince
Or you know, your too spoiled by the bad OCs in this fandom. You know, those that saved the world several times and try so hard to be soooo epic. Hurt looking characters that are drawn by life and past happenings are pretty famous, be it a big character or not.
Just because most ponies design from the show is obviously different doesn’t mean that a different design is generally horrible
Because her design is horrible. She’s voiced well, animated well, and developed well, but her appearance and backstory are as bad as a teenager’s first attempt at an original character. Dark color scheme, broken horn, eye scar, taller than other ponies, and wants to overthrow Equestria because of her “tragic past” when other foals were weirded-out by her disfigurement as a child.
One can argue that none of that’s “her fault”, but ultimately, she was designed to look that way and that design is awful. If she hadn’t been in the movie, practically no one would have any fondness for her, just like any other person that is ignored until they become famous, at which point people that would have cast scorn find any reason they can to like that person, simply because of fame, rather than actual merit.
