Kill-R 
And that was my point with the whole thing about Nightmare Moon. Just because we don’t get to see much of the consequences of her permanent night doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have had some pretty serious consequences on the livelihood of every pony in Equestria. Yet from the very pilot, the universe establishes that evil is dealt with in very different ways in Equestria than in other fictional stories, which in a way makes it harder to really define where that Moral Event Horizon really is.
That’s something that exposes the larger problem to me. Starlight could have been written to simply be evil for the sake of it and have her face a fate much worse than what she got and be done with it. It would have been the path of least resistance in terms of writing effort. Instead, the fact that they gave her some backstory as to why she acted the way she did is what makes her have an interesting personality, a chance at redemption, and something that shows some additional amount of effort on the part of the writers, however little more it may be. It takes ever-so-slightly more talent to write villains you can sympathize with than to write “Evil Characters 1, 2 and 3” and use them simply as a means to give the heroes a hurdle to overcome for the sake of it and leave it at that. Again, this ties in with my point about the writers seemingly wanting to create a dynamic between these three characters that actually gave them some depth, something I think could have been a stronger friendship lesson fitting for the series finale, all achieved by leading some people to believe there was going to be some character-depth involved in the process, rather than just backpedaling on that and saying nah, they’re just evil. Yes, under the assumption that they are pure evil, it makes sense to just trap them in stone, but that’s lazy writing, and is why people think makes for a weak finale of a show that lasted for a whole 9 years.
True, but I’d say that’s just more grounds to begin an argument as to why writing antagonists for the sake of being evil does not take skill and generally leads to somewhat lackluster stories that don’t stick with people as much as the ones that present actual depth.
I don’t deny that a finale that ended with everyone smiling and being happy would have been a bit ridiculous after how difficult the three had proven to abandoning their evil ways, but I do think there could have been space just fine to have them receive a bit of tough love (but not too tough like a stone imprisonment for eternity) and imply the ponies are willing to take their time to reform them individually, keeping them subdued from gaining power back in the meantime. Once again, because these could have had backstories that shine a better light on why they act the way they do, like you pointed out with Starlight.
I’m gonna take the liberty to reply to your other post as well since I think the context of it ties with what we discussed above that it is worth addressing as well:
Agreed. However, the thing about writing is that you have to consider that what you write isn’t in a vacuum, and may potentially come back to bite you in the ass in the future. So, even if you can justify Discord being more morally gray than how he was initially portrayed, the end result is that you still wrote aspects of him that show him being more evil, and have to account for it. It doesn’t matter how you may play the character in the future, the thing you wrote is there and can now be used as arguments for establishing certain points in a discussion, just like @Background Pony #9260 did by pointing out Discord was, in fact, not as nice as they tried to play him later. His argument is still valid in showcasing inconsistencies between him and what people use as justification for the fate of the three series-finale villains.
No, not necessarily. Starlight was taken from a pony who stole cutie marks just to enact power and control over a town for no evident reason other than being evil, to someone who was given a backstory, in just the two episodes of the S5 finale. This could bring up a whole discussion as to how good or bad it was to create a seemingly sudden backstory for Starlight like that and make it be about a tantrum for a former friend of all things, but it’s there nevertheless, and people accept it.
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when a character crosses what is known as the Moral Event Horizon, where they do something so evil and unforgivable that reforming them would be a huge strain on the suspension of disbelief
And that was my point with the whole thing about Nightmare Moon. Just because we don’t get to see much of the consequences of her permanent night doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have had some pretty serious consequences on the livelihood of every pony in Equestria. Yet from the very pilot, the universe establishes that evil is dealt with in very different ways in Equestria than in other fictional stories, which in a way makes it harder to really define where that Moral Event Horizon really is.
Starlight genuinely thought she was doing something good with her village
That’s something that exposes the larger problem to me. Starlight could have been written to simply be evil for the sake of it and have her face a fate much worse than what she got and be done with it. It would have been the path of least resistance in terms of writing effort. Instead, the fact that they gave her some backstory as to why she acted the way she did is what makes her have an interesting personality, a chance at redemption, and something that shows some additional amount of effort on the part of the writers, however little more it may be. It takes ever-so-slightly more talent to write villains you can sympathize with than to write “Evil Characters 1, 2 and 3” and use them simply as a means to give the heroes a hurdle to overcome for the sake of it and leave it at that. Again, this ties in with my point about the writers seemingly wanting to create a dynamic between these three characters that actually gave them some depth, something I think could have been a stronger friendship lesson fitting for the series finale, all achieved by leading some people to believe there was going to be some character-depth involved in the process, rather than just backpedaling on that and saying nah, they’re just evil. Yes, under the assumption that they are pure evil, it makes sense to just trap them in stone, but that’s lazy writing, and is why people think makes for a weak finale of a show that lasted for a whole 9 years.
Also, King Sombra and the Storm King got far worse fates than they did, yet no one seems to care much about them, do they?
True, but I’d say that’s just more grounds to begin an argument as to why writing antagonists for the sake of being evil does not take skill and generally leads to somewhat lackluster stories that don’t stick with people as much as the ones that present actual depth.
Honestly, seeing any of these monsters get reformed, especially after all they did in the finale, would be completely undeserved and not make a lick of sense from a story-telling perspective
I don’t deny that a finale that ended with everyone smiling and being happy would have been a bit ridiculous after how difficult the three had proven to abandoning their evil ways, but I do think there could have been space just fine to have them receive a bit of tough love (but not too tough like a stone imprisonment for eternity) and imply the ponies are willing to take their time to reform them individually, keeping them subdued from gaining power back in the meantime. Once again, because these could have had backstories that shine a better light on why they act the way they do, like you pointed out with Starlight.
I’m gonna take the liberty to reply to your other post as well since I think the context of it ties with what we discussed above that it is worth addressing as well:
However, the character was so popular with audiences that they had to give him a greater role for the rest of the series, and the only way to do that properly was to reform him…and since the only really bad things he did other than making things weird all over the place was either just implied or specifically to stop the Mane Six from turning him to stone, it wasn’t to hard to re-imagine him as this more jerkish-yet funny morally grey character than a straight up villain
Agreed. However, the thing about writing is that you have to consider that what you write isn’t in a vacuum, and may potentially come back to bite you in the ass in the future. So, even if you can justify Discord being more morally gray than how he was initially portrayed, the end result is that you still wrote aspects of him that show him being more evil, and have to account for it. It doesn’t matter how you may play the character in the future, the thing you wrote is there and can now be used as arguments for establishing certain points in a discussion, just like @Background Pony #9260 did by pointing out Discord was, in fact, not as nice as they tried to play him later. His argument is still valid in showcasing inconsistencies between him and what people use as justification for the fate of the three series-finale villains.
If the villain trio were to be reformed, they would need at least a full season to show they were genuine about it given that they have all shown next to no redeeming qualities for the majority of the show
No, not necessarily. Starlight was taken from a pony who stole cutie marks just to enact power and control over a town for no evident reason other than being evil, to someone who was given a backstory, in just the two episodes of the S5 finale. This could bring up a whole discussion as to how good or bad it was to create a seemingly sudden backstory for Starlight like that and make it be about a tantrum for a former friend of all things, but it’s there nevertheless, and people accept it.
