@Background Pony #5BE4  

 
How fortunate that I’m used to reading those :P
 

 
Yeaaah… The change in design was off-putting. They already had a red and black villain in Sombra and that’s all they altered in Tirac with Tirek’s color scheme. Before, he was reddish and blueish, now he has every evil OC color lol
 
Though the colors don’t bother me as much as everything else. His monkey-esque face made everyone think the new villain was Rafiki from The Lion King, and I can’t blame them, even as he gets stronger and bigger (an ability I don’t understand in a centaur, at least with Erebus it kinda makes sense for a cloud to get bigger, how and why does Tirek get bigger? If he got younger, then I’d understand, but come on, they don’t even explain it…) his face doesn’t change. And then there’s his muscles, which become part of his personality. Every time he kissed them or flexed I rolled my eyes, they turned a classic monster into Gaston from Beauty and the Beast xD. And not just that, but he got so muscular his lower body got so tiny he started to look silly. How do those legs even support this tank of an upper body?
 

 
I forgot about Sunset, which doesn’t surprise me. Much like everyone, I like her better as a good guy.
 

 
In the show, of course. Another one shows up in the comics and he’s even worse than Iron Will lol
 

 
The writers have often cited inspirations from other works, particularly Disney, and I can see a lot of Ursula from The Little Mermaid in Chrysalis, especially the ‘disguising as another to trick a prince and become queen of somewhere else but wait, there’s more’ bit. They both have green going on, though mostly in their songs, which leads me to another Disney villain that had a lot of green during their villain song, Scar from The Lion King, who promised his hyena army food for their obedience, much like Chrysalis and her ravenous changelings, as far as we knew.
 
That’s what I saw in Chrysalis when she first appeared but she soon became her own character in my eyes in following appearances. And I do agree, she is arguably the best in all of FiM.
 

 
I remember seeing a video about how the season 9 finale kind of assassinated Discord’s character. Applejack’s “For all the time you’ve spent with us, you really haven’t learned much in the ways of friendship, huh?” rings true, methinks.

@DarkCarioca  
Warning, this will look like an essay.
 
Agreed entirely. The original ones take archetypes and make them their own. The ones who take their name and most of their design, not as much. Impostor Grogar is easily the worst, though Tirek is easily not far behind. The aversion to humanoids in FiM definitely has influence on it. Tirek’s design really ups the look of crossing a centaur with a Minotaur, which was only ever so slight to begin with. It didn’t go far beyond the horns. This bovine head doesn’t instill the same sheer intimidation though physical design, although it succeeds in being outright ugly, most of the time we see it anyway. When he’s this decrepit wraith and his horns aren’t visible he kind of looks like an ape, which is less unpleasant looking, yet somewhat most intimidating and creepy in execution. It’s almost on par with gen one, though not quite. It wouldn’t have been as awful if they simply left it at that and not brought him back for more hamminess.
 
I find myself liking Nightmare Moon, Chrissie, “D”, Midnight, and Sunny most of all. Moreover, two of them I like more in one incarnation more then the other, referring to corrupt version and regular version. Cerulean lady with crescent moon symbol, silver shoes and flowy hair is quite beautiful, but kind of incompetent and ignorant, and generally not someone you would want in office. A glutton for punishment who has consistently made brash decisions that have made the masses miserable may be well intentioned, but ultimately is more a troublemaker than she is worth.
 
SS is a well beloved character nearly everyone loves, mostly for good reason, but she didn’t start out as such. When first we see her she’s a petty bully who often rains on other people’s parades and is simply short fused and unpleasant all around, quite snobbish. Not a major villain at all, quite shortsighted and slow in fact. But she went on to be the most sincere and loyal friend one could wish for, and quite humbled. One of the most sincere reformations when you cut out the awkward middle ground which isn’t very pertinent to her character anyway. One of her core traits early on is her distaste for violence which is fed to us rather explicitly and reveals she is not evil, though she is flawed. Being corrupted by magical jewelry does not an evil villain make. Poster child for redemption and empathy.
 
One works better as a villain, the other as a hero. Starlight falls somewhere in between. She’s an awful mess, and that remains one trait of hers that doesn’t go anywhere. She made a great antagonist for sure, easily among the best for a first viewing, but second ones onward don’t work as much. Once you see her motivations and turning points of her life, or rather the turning point the whole thing is a major let down. Backstories should be well thought out and not forced last minute. And her turnaround was easily the most rushed and liable to break suspension of disbelief. I think she falls into mary sue traps quite often, and rarely gets to escape them. I like her character, but her stories tend to be pretty forced. Essentially she and Spike have something in common there: Great character, not so great stories. When things aren’t contrived to work out for them in unbelievable manners, they make for some of the best eps. It’s like the writers who rotated frequently didn’t know what to do with them. They in particular make me wish Faust and Larson were kept on task the entire time. Jim Miller and M. Williams are hit and miss, great, terrible, and everything in between. Things like Putting Your Hoof Down demonstrate how low they can get. It’s staff like them who usually handle Starlight and Spike. Having great skill and technical knowledge that makes the likes of Celestia sweat yet botching things up as a result of being clever but not wise, or the universe insists on messing with one doesn’t help get away from the mary sue label.
 
Your link reminded me of a couple of chars I hadn’t thought of in a year. Bray and Zeb. They are the kind of chars I wish Tirek was. They are both one shot individuals we only see once, and once is enough. They also happen to be the only ones of their kind we see in their show. It doesn’t paint them in a favorable light, but we fortunately don’t see a large abundance of donkeys and zebras, but I presume they wouldn’t use villainous ones when they showed up if they did. Sorcerers were typically evil, but there were good ones in the bunch.
 
FiM gives us Iron Will who is the only one of his kind to note, and while he isn’t a villain per se he is antagonistic. He doesn’t commit any real crimes that would get him locked up, but he does do things to establish he’s in it for profit alone and is lawfully shady as they come. His introduction in Putting Your Hoof Down is a good as he gets, and that’s not flattering either. The advice he gives is more theatrics than anything remotely useful, smoke and mirrors. He will honor his agreements, but will also use them to avoid such loopholes in the future that could be used against him, but keep ones he can exploit. He’s shady and sly like a bloodsucking lawyer. He’s not above doing anything within legal limits so long as it’s not explicitly breaking any laws, and is pretty abrasive besides. If he were only shown just that once, it would have been a fluke. But he showed up several more times, none of which were in especially good episodes, and most of them had him there simply to be his obnoxious self as possible. Once Upon a Zeppelin and A Matter of Principals pointlessly brought him back because some fans really like him and the eps are very pander-y. One was especially mean spirited for seemingly the hell of it and the other was redundant, using effectively the same gag over and over with little variation, and does a disservice to “D”s character. What they did with Iron Will is practically exactly what would happen with Tirek, only actually evil rather than simply amoral.
 
Chrysalis is easily the best. She was written as wicked from the start and never strayed from her roots. She had no direct precedent, so comparing to anything is silly. Being one who knowingly and willingly spreads misery was always her character, and it doesn’t get boring or pander too much. With all the redemptions and not really evil characters, she is refreshing. She’s the only thing remotely resembling Tirec with her irrepentive and stubborn wickedness. Others simply fall into the chaotic neutral or sociopathic and immoral molds like Iron Will.
 
“D” easily falls into the good but incompetent crowd. He isn’t a corrupted being like Nightmare Moon or Midnight, but he is an ignorant being he never experienced legitimate friendship and only ever saw it from the outside in. Once given the chance, he clearly likes Fluttershy and Spike truly. Above and beyond all of the others by a landslide. I honestly think were there a world ending cataclysm and he could only save two others from obliteration, he would take Fluttershy and Spike as his first and second picks with no hesitation nor question and leave the rest to their fates. I wonder if he even likes others apart from them two.

@Background Pony #B667
 
I think they can bring back characters if they manage to improve upon them, there are past gen characters that could be better.
 
So long as they don’t do what they did with Tirek and Grogar, among others. More original villains would be fine too, since every time I see some of the G4 villains in action I mostly see the characters they got inspiration from, but when I see Tirac in Rescue of Midnight Castle, the satanic influence (once he reveals himself) only heightens how horrific he is.
 
With Nightmare Moon, I saw Sleeping Beauty’s Maleficent (especially the moment NNM said ‘Stand back you fools’ in the same vein as Maleficent), though not as much in her later appearances. With Discord, I see Star Trek’s Q even after his reformation. With Chrysalis I saw a mix of TLK’s Scar and Little Mermaid’s Ursula, though like Nightmare Moon she got better over time in my eyes. With Sombra I saw a pastiche Sauron in horse form, though Season 9 changed that… Admittedly, probably not for the better seeing the fan reaction lol
 
Tirek? Well, Tirek reminds me of an entirely different G1 villain. Starlight, the Sirens and the Storm King were fun but they seem to retread the danger of Tirek absorbing magic (or stealing cutie marks, which Tirek also did) to get stronger (mostly in the case of the sirens and when they first appeared at least, since Starlight in the S5 finale did something else). The Pony of Shadows’ constant talk of “THE DARKNESS THIS, THE DARKNESS THAT” kinda harknes back to Tirac but there isn’t much else to the Pony of Shadows to begin with anyway lol
 
And Cozy Glow’s just a well known archetype of little girls hiding their true monstrous nature, the most popular example of that probably being Darla Dimple who Cozy Glow resembles quite a bit, especially hairstyle-wise.
 
Grogar was the only one that got me excited to see what they could do, other than Tirek once I ignored that he didn’t feel like Tirac at all, but the Season 9 finale was a slap to the face to those wanting to see him in action.

@DarkCarioca  
Then it would appear to me we mostly have the same line of thinking. I think the excessive use of parallels to every specific thing, place and person really hinders most of FiM, not as problematic in the first couple of seasons, possibly third.
 
But do you think it’s worse or better than the way they lessen existing characters?

@Background Pony #B667
 
Nah I don’t typically like that in most works of fiction. I rarely like parodies to begin with.

@DarkCarioca  
I presume you prefer sparing usage of parody in professional creative work. Would I be correct about that?
 
Commenting about it, which do you think is less pleasant? Excessive usage of parody/ponification, or dragging good and/or great characters though the mud? I think FiM itself is a victim of its own success. It gets increasingly impossible to stay original when you go on indefinitely, and overstay your welcome. And I think the reintroduction of existing characters was a desperate attempt to refreshen the series. Tirek was at his best when he was a creepy wraith dude who was barely alive, and we hardly saw him. Bringing him back after his defeat wasn’t the best move. It’s like Spongebob or the Simpsons: They go on till you get sick of them, and political stuff and pop culture become the cornerstone of later seasons. Let it be the content of bronies.

@Background Pony #B667
 
One could say the brony reception partially (if not mostly) contributed to these complaints of yours.”

@DarkCarioca  
Merci. I also think FiM often gets too indulgent with parody. EQG not as much. It’s one thing for the bronies to do it, quite another for the DHX staff and so on to do it. The first couple of seasons did it sparingly. Three onward started making it excessive.
 
The old series was neither great nor terrible, but it certainly fell into the “Good” or “Okay” categories. It did its own thing and didn’t feel the need to oversaturate itself with parody and pop culture references. It certainly benefited from happening before the Internet exploded and was still in developing stages, only things like sending email purely in texts. And trying to make films and programs popular by beating us over the head with existing stuff wasn’t trendy as it would be in the early two thousands. Neither Aladdin nor Shrek kickstarted that trend yet. And being movies gives them leeway.

@Background Pony #B667  

 
I don’t see this opinion often enough

@DarkCarioca  
MLP. FiM is at its best when it deals out original characters. When they use preexisting ones they tend to seem slapped on. The sheer mystery of Gen one’s character is what made him good or even great. Getting too much of him removes whatever made him frightening, and even turns him into a punching bag, a walking gag. I have similar opinions on impostor Grogar.

@Background Pony #B667
 
In MLP or in general? lol

@DarkCarioca  
I cannot think of a case where they recycled an old character and made them better. And Tirek may be the worst of them. How do you take a character who is made by their vocal performance and is shrouded in mystery and make them as dull as can be?

@Background Pony #D584
 
You mean Tirac :p

Superior version of Tirek by a landslide. A classic case of less is more. Don’t run good things into the ground, like they did with he and Chrissie.