Seeing this whole thread about Sprout not a villain compared with Cozy being a villain and Starlight being a former villain makes me think that some people would end up loving these three despite having different personalities.
@Wayneponeth
yeah, and the way fluttershy was mad to him for tricking her like that, it was a wakeup call for him to not trick any one of your friends like that, especially if they’re new.
@Shimmering Spectacle
I like Starlight too. She actually has the attitude of a reformed character, actually showing regret, fear, guilt etc. And yes, she did save Equestria and did multiple other good things like making Trixie and better pony. I will still admit her backstory needs some work but I really like Starlight’s reformation. She is likable, cute, and I totally forgive her for everything she’s done. That much can’t be said about Discord but I probably shouldn’t go on another anti-Discord tantrum.
@Wayneponeth
Imo Starlight’s is okay, and it’s just that some often forget that she was responsible for Chrysalis’ defeat along with Trixie, Thorax, and Discord, cause otherwise her and the changelings would’ve taken over anyhow, without Starlight altering the timeline.
@Badumsquish @hironakamura
As much as I like Cozy Glow as a villain, I actually agree with this. Discord kinda proves that they only care about reforming if it benefits them. I mean why else would they keep tolerating his betrayals and damaging antics? He is literally the most useful (Even though he literally never does anything useful.)
I think that Cozy Glow is what happened after Starlight Glimmer’s reception. They realized the fandom hated they kept reforming characters, so they decided to create one that can’t be redeem. And this may sound harsh but they probably didn’t give Cozy Glow a backstory because Starlight’s backstory was received poorly. They were just afraid of repeating the same thing. I know I shouldn’t assume the writers’ intentions so I’ll say all these are a maybe.
@Badumsquish
Cozy is badly used as a character. That’s all. They lumped her up with a bunch of semi immortal ancient evils when Cozy is only a regular pegasus. They didn’t even put any back story to her motives. I don’t mind regular pony villains but if they’re not 1000 year old ancient evils, you have to explain why they’re doing what they’re doing.
My guess is they wanted to focus on using Neigh Say as the red herring at the time and thought they were so clever using Cozy as the villain for the student six. Cozy could’ve been a more grounded villain like Diamond Tiara but she somehow got mixed with Tirek and Chrysalis and Sombra. Someone in charge thought it was a great idea so it got green lit. Maybe they just didn’t care anymore.
@Wayneponeth
The characters didn’t know that, though. It’s like they just didn’t try. Only difference between Cozy and Starlight is Twilight actually heard Starlight out. It actually makes Twilight and her friends seem super self-serving since they only seem to care about reforming villains if they can use the villain for their own devices, or if it’s an act of desperation because the villain has them backed into a corner. Maybe they’re supposed to be that Machiavellian though; who really knows :P
@Badumsquish
I think the idea is that Cozy wasn’t convinced by all the lectures in the world so she was deemed irredeemable. I mean how many characters literally changed their mind just because a few sentences were spoken to them. XD
@Wayneponeth
He’s a well-written character. He has a backstory, he has a relationship with the main characters, he has qualities beyond being an antagonist, his actions are congruent with his motives and his personality, and he has character development. He’s not a “deep” character but he doesn’t need to be. Like you said, villains don’t need a sob story to make them interesting; a sympathetic backstory doesn’t automatically make a sympathetic or identifiable or interesting character, and villain can be really interesting without them. Also, heroes can (and in fact should) be flawed and have negative qualities. What matters is how these qualities are used to tell a story. The thing that rubs me the wrong way in a story is when characters do things that doesn’t line up with their character: Like, I have no beef whatsoever with Cozy being a villain or going unreformed, but I think it was immensely out-of-character for everyone to be okay with just writing her off as irredeemable and locking her in a cage in Hell to be forgotten about without knowing who she was. It just seemed way crueler than any of the characters have ever been established to be. It’s a writing flaw that could have been fixed with a single line of dialogue at the beginning of Season 9: have Twilight want to redeem Cozy the way she redeemed Starlight, and have Celestia outright say that they know nothing about her, there’s no records of her, and she’s refusing to open up to them so they just can’t do anything with her :D
@hironakamura @Rozy Fly
And my point is the mane five shouldn’t be brought down just to sympathize with Sprout. I also want Sprout to change and I’m sure there will be chance where he does, but I’m not gonna keep looking for problems with the Mane Five or anyone else to boost Sprout’s morale. We keep trying to paint the protagonists as bad as possible just so the antagonists would look better. Suddenly the Mane Five are problematic because they didn’t try hard enough and then Sprout is suddenly the victim. If Sprout was to be commended, it should be because of his improvement and change, not because what others do around him. Again, stop demonizing the protagonists to victimize the antagonists. This should be about Sprout himself, not the Mane Five and their actions.
@Wayneponeth
I 100% agree with hironakamura here. Sprout didn’t get any chances to change and make new friends. They just forgot about him. He didn’t get a chance to know any unicorn and pegasus. He didn’t get to actually know Zipp, Pipp and Izzy… yet.
That’s why I said that Hitch should do better to, but he just forgot about his best childhood friend (who is almost like a brother) and just hang with girls. Badass.
And all about this “racism”, war,… @hironakamura is right. There was a lot of “racism” in the movie if you think this way. Not just Sunny’s questions, Izzy’s song,… When Zipp saw Izzy and Sunny together she was so surprised and act weird. “Unicorn and earth pony? TOGETHER? Ok this is interesting.” Because they weren’t friends. All ponies were enemies in this movie.
And I also say that Sprout just tried to protect his home. Then he should get a chance to know them.
@Wayneponeth
Ah but Sprout hasn’t been given a chance to change yet. He hasn’t been given the chance to get to know a non earth pony.
My point here is every pony in that movie was racist. Izzy’s whole song was racist. But people think only Sprout was racist when it was everyone in the movie.
Its the same way people thought Sprout was starting a war. These three tribes were already at war before Sprout was even born. But he gets blamed for it.
I have no doubts Izzy had good intentions but she could have approached “making peace” with non unicorns with discretion. This reflects Sprout’s motive to protect his home. I have no doubt he only wanted to protect his home from the enemy but it could have been executed better.
@hironakamura
Well, at least she gives someone a chance and proceeds to be less racist. Like I said if someone has stereotypes toward me but doesn’t try to shun me away, at least that means they’re willing to learn. Sunny tried to improve while Sprout did not.
Them being enemies doesn’t really make Izzy’s actions wrong. That means she wanted ponies to stop being enemies. She received a message thinking earth ponies want to be friends again so she went to potentially make peace. Calling her a war starter kinda goes overboard when she was there to break the cycle of prejudice and fear.
@Wayneponeth
Yeah that’s the thing. People have pre concieved notions that the three tribes are friends… They’re not friends in the movie. They’re enemies.
Sunny IS as racist as Sprout. Look at that scene where she was asking Izzy questions about unicorns. She’s saying things like “you must be reading my mind already.” That’s racism. Sunny believes the same things Sprout does. But just cause she doesn’t fear it doesn’t mean its not racist.
I think we’re a bit too obsessed with victimizing the villains and demonizing the protagonists. We want to make emphasis on the protagonists’ flaws to make them the villains while excusing all the things villains have done to turn them into little angels. Suddenly villains turn into precious little angels that never did anything wrong while protagonists are terrible monsters that committed the worst sins. I think it should be more like protagonists have made mistakes but still try their best to be good while villains have redeeming qualities but their past actions shouldn’t be overlooked either. There should be a balance in all these. Good guys can be flawed and bad guys can have wholesome qualities that make them look sweet. I mean no one says Mr Freeze isn’t a villain because he’s trying to cure his wife by attacking and killing people, and Batman isn’t a villain because he goes on the street and punches criminals in the face. Why are we trying to make people hate the main characters so much? And again, why can’t we just like evil for being evil? Need I remind people that these are fictional characters and liking their evilness doesn’t mean liking evil in real life?
@hironakamura
Okay, most of your points work except for Sunny’s and Izzy’s. Calling Sunny both a racist and an anarchist for trying to overthrow a racist government is contradictory because that means being racist is okay as long as the whole government is just as prejudiced and discriminating. Only long as it’s within the law, being a bigot is okay. Besides, Sunny’s conditioned stereotyping shouldn’t be worse than running away in fear and leaving someone all alone without as much as a “hi”. Sunny tried to welcome Izzy and prevent her from being hurt while everypony else treated her with fear and coldness. As an Asian myself, even if I was stereotyped into knowing Kung Fu and being good at math, I would still be happy if people welcome me to their new country with friendliness and respect. I mean I could always help them change their thoughts if they were fine with me being around them to being with.
The point with Izzy is weird. You’re comparing real world border control to Equestria. Equestria itself is a country with everywhere else being a city or town. There is no sign telling her she shouldn’t be there and Maretime Bay is just some walks away from arrival, with no walls stopping anyone. Maretime Bay is not North Korea and Izzy isn’t stepping into a different country with strict border control. Maretime Bay is more or less just a little town. Yes she caused chaos and fear but that’s because of the earth ponies’ own fear and prejudice that make them react that way. If they didn’t want a unicorn to walk into their town they should get better border control. Izzy isn’t a trespasser. She just visited a different town looking for new friends. Honestly I think you’re reaching here, trying to make Izzy sound like the worst one because the only thing she did is what Zipp did.
And finally, all these don’t really mean Sprout isn’t at fault or that it’s all the Mane 5’s fault instead. Sprout’s actions are his own and still wrong. Others’ actions being wrong doesn’t change that. Nothing should excuse what Sprout did and victimize him. If it is because others also do bad things so Sprout is fine, it can be applied to real life. I guess since there are so many bad people in the world, I am also allowed to be bad. And yeah, it’s probably my fault that I do wrong things but hey, all those other people, they do bad things too. You should give me a break because they’re not such pure babies either. I deserve to get away with crimes scot-free because people around me are just equally as terrible.
Sunny is an anarchist. She spoils the fun of Maretime Bay ponies every year by crashing Canterlogic. She’s also as racist as Sprout because she also believed in stereo types like unicorns reading minds. I mentioned it before. Its like assuming all asian people know kung fu or something and she thought it was cool.
Hitch is a corrupt cop. He lets Sunny off the hook through nepotism and chalks it up to doing her a favor. He also abandoned his post to catch Sunny instead of doing his duty as the town’s protector. He should have protected the town from its own fear instead of chasing aftet one pony.
Izzy is the real war starter. She trespassed earth pony borders causing fear and chaos among the earth ponies without even thinking about the consequences of her actions. This wasn’t like mexicans crossing the border illegally. This was like crossing the DMZ from North Korea to Seoul. You’re not just gonna get deported. You’re gonna create an international inccident.
Lastly Pipp and Zipp. One has no problem with the narative of fooling all pegasi about the royals ability to fly while the other one stole her mother’s crown and abandoned her sister when she was needed the most.
None of those ponies are squeaky clean. That’s the point there. Sprout’s not traggic. The other ponies are just not different from Sprout.
@Badumsquish
Ken Jeong’s performance is too good. Removing Sprout would just remove that extra bit of good comedy for the film.
Honestly I’m just so tired of people constantly trying to victimize villains or antagonists, especially by making the protagonists look bad in the process. Bad guys can just be as lovable as the oppose sides and they don’t need to be tragic or victims to do so. Cozy Glow can stay evil and she is still an awesome character. Chrysalis can be a terrible tyrannical mother and she is still really cool. Even Sprout could stay a bigot and I’ll still love him. I guess it’s the effect of this show constantly reforming villains, but we seriously like to victimize and sympathize with evil characters way too much. Why can’t bad guys just be bad and loved anyways?
I think the whole point of Sprout was just to kind of show how bad people could become because of their bigotry (and to add some action to the finale). The movie went out of its way to not blame anyone for the way things were and just sort of neutrally showed how they all discriminated against each other, Sprout wasn’t any worse than anyone else for the majority of the movie and actually has redeeming qualities, you could argue him stepping up their game made sense since Izzy showed their current anti-Unicorn defenses were laughably ineffective, he was pressed to take action by the panicked townsfolk and then took it too far rather than him just stepping up and seizing power, and he was largely unnecessary for the movie – like, remove Sprout from the film and all that happens is it’s about 10 minutes shorter, loses its best song, and has a more boring finale. I’ve said it before, but in the grand scheme of things he’s somewhere between Lesson Zero Twilight and Tanks For The Memories Rainbow Dash in terms of “villainy” so I’d say he’s definitely a jerk and certainly not a good person, but hardly a “villain” or “the antagonist” of the movie :D
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