CelestiaShe wasn't angry; just being stern, and not without reason.
When I hear the tone of her voice shouting out "Twilight Sparkle!" appearing in a ball of light, glaring for several seconds then smashing down into the ground with enough force to create swirling dustclouds, with Twilight groveling on the ground in fear and humiliation...I read some hint of anger in that.
Granted she was probably justified, given the consequences of Twilight's actions, but Celestia has previously shown a tendancy to not strongly react even when the situation warrants it. For example...
Here's how concerned she looked when she confronted Fluttershy over having birdnapped her pet phoenix:
Here's how concerned she looked when the avatar of chaos returned from 1000 year banishment, stole the elements of harmony, and showed up in her palace:
Yeah, there's some emotion on her face. And she shows more later on. But overall, shock seemed to be her strongest reaction to Discord. Parasprites destroy Ponyville? She thinks they're cute. Mane six destroy the gala? She thinks it's awesome. Anger is not something that Celestia often expressed, but in Lesson Zero she seems angry. Though granted, the comparison might not be the best one, since as I've said before I think
Celestia and Discord were in it together.
Actually, I have a theory that the whole My Little Pony story is actually an allegory for a fourth density spiritual being taking on a third density soul as a pet/student. Though I'm pretty sure the script writers wouldn't see it that way. But if so, then it would actually make a lot of sense for Celestia to more angry than in any of the other cases. She's effectively a Goddess, able to make and unmake the world. Those other events were of no consequence. But her prized pupil bringing harm to others in an attempt to manipulate and deceive...that might actually be the most significant negative event in the series to date.
Celestia probably would've given a light lecture on not worrying so much
lest things get far worse than they need to be, and left it at that.
Well, we can speculate. But Celestia does explicity state that she'll "forget Twilight's punishment" if the other five start submitting friendship reports too. Implication being, that more than a light lecture was being considered. Though granted, given my view of Celestia it would be in-character for her to say such a thing even if she intended no actual punishment.
RarityRarity's always been self centered
...what? Rarity who:
* Upon first meeting Twilight in episode 1, immediately insists on giving her a makeover
* Cut off her own tail to give it to the river dragon in episode 2
* Allows Fluttershy to take her place in the spotlight in Green Isn't Your Color
* Diplomatically assures Twilight that her nest in Winter Wrap Up just needs a few minor touchups so as to not hurt her feelings
Rainbow Dash is self centered. Rarity is not. In fact, I'd say that she, along with Applejack, are the least self centered of the group. She simply doesn't have a very good grasp of the idea that others are more comfortable within their own expectations than hers. But the same could be said of Applejack. Think about it: when misfortune befalls Rarity, she generally tries to insist that it's not such a big deal. Why? Because it's important to her to not inconvenience anyone. But whenever somebody else is in a situation that she personally would detest (bad hair day, for example) she immediately goes out of her way to try to make it better for them.
If a carriage sprayed mud on a pony, Rainbow Dash would laugh. Pinkie would be oblivious, or possibly jump in the mud herself to see if it was fun. Twilight would get excited about how she could look up methods for mud removal, and be too involved with that to notice that you'd already cleaned the mud off hours ago. Applejack would offer assistance. Rarity would immediately stop whatever else she was doing to clean the pony up. There may be more wisdom in offering assistance than immediately rushing to aid someone, but she'd be just as willing as Applejack to try to be helpful, and more likely to feel genuine sympathy. The primary difference between the two is that they have different expectations about what constitutes a catastrophe that one might desire help with. Both of them lack
empathy over what other ponies are actually feeling. To some extent, that is self centered. But nopony else of the mane six is any less so.
Some people are calling Rarity out of character in the last
three episodes due to being frivolous and such
That's not how I'm seeing it. Things that most other ponies consider frivolous have generally been very important to her. If you want to call her frivolous, I won't strongly disagree. I'm saying she's out of character because she's being presented as helpless and whiny, which she definitely isn't.
In season 1 she was given a few one-shot Gone with the Wind references. Unfortunately I think some of the writers thought these were funny and misinterpreted the joke as actual character. For example, in The Best Night Ever, around 1:25 in, Twilight bemoans about how they'll get to the Gala without her magic mice-horses, and Rarity put on a Scarlett O'Hara back of hand to forehead pose, and says "Whatever shall we do!" Then she gives Twilight a look clearly indicating that she's mocking her, then immediately solves the problem by gettin some stallions to pull the carriage. Followed by Twilight looking embarrassed that she'd overeacted.
Rarity does this kind of thing a couple times in season 1. Similarly, when she's kidnapped by the diamond dogs, she's totally calm and collected, though annoyed, but remains polite, doesn't get intimidated and ends up mastering the situation. However,
other characters have imaginary dream sequences about how helpless and whiny and pathetic she must be, even though those dream sequences all turn out to be completely wrong.
I think somebody has been seeing the mock Rarity, the sarcastically mimicking Scarlett O'Hara Rarity, the dream sequence Rarity, and pieced those together to create a Rarity in Lesson Zero that is not merely flanderized, but totally not who she is at all.
FluttershyI don't consider this any worse than her actions in Best Night Ever.
Fluttershy has had some OOC moments before, yes, but three episodes in a row in getting to be a bit much. Also keep in mind that in Best Night Ever, she still has some mousy scenes: expressing concern over the mice, panicking when Rarity's cat jumpson the them after they've been transformed, looking quietly dismayed but not saying anything when Applejack spits on her hoof, etc.
Whereas in Lesson Zero, she doesn't have any of that. When Twilight explains her problen, Fluttershy is the first to smugly say that it doesn't matter. When Twilight explains that the fight happened because she enchanted the her doll, Fluttershy is the one to ask her why she would do such a thing. When the five go to confront Celestia at the end to speak in Twilight's defense, is she the last one in? No, she bursts through the door up front with Applehajack. Yes,
Fluttershy bursts down a door before Rainbow Dash even enters the scene.
Never throughout the episode is she shown in character at all.
Big MacI think this is a consequence of him having so few lines. What he DOES speak
is going to be indicative of his character, and if he doesn't speak much and rarely
But again, he didn't used to be that way. Watch the beginning of episode four. He's as talkative as any other secondary character. But in Lesson Zero, he's nearly a mute.
Here's hoping he's secretly into cute stuff, real men wear pink and such.
It would be a nice touch of character development for him if they went with it. But at this point I'd be content with it merely being a one-shot joke...one of the few lately that hasn't been at the expense of previously established character.
I'm going to wait until a lot more episodes have aired before
calling jumping the shark. Remember, season 1 had some duds too.
Agreed. Watching through season one I was skeptical until about halfway through. Seems to me there were fully 7 or 8 episodes that I found painful to watch. Lesson Zero wasn't painful. Neither was it awesome. But I do recognize some things going on in the episode that I'd rather not become trends.
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Topic: When did ponies become awesome? What else have I missed? (take 2) (Read 439567 times)