Bad Antagonists

Who do you think is the worst villain in the My Little Pony series?

A villain is usually an antagonist, but not all antagonists are villains.

Going solely on what I’m familiar with (i.e. FiM), Sombra is still number one. Sunset was poorly handled, don’t get me wrong. Holy shit, a former student of Celestia?! Why did she run off? What’s her motivation? Why is that her motivation? Can we talk about those things that could be really interesting? As it turns out, lolnope. But Sombra is still worse, because, as one dimensional as Sunset was, Sombra had no dimensions.

Chrysalis.
 
Ignoring the fact that everyone acted a bit stupid in that episode except Twilight. Her entire plan relied on sheer dumb luck. It’s sure lucky that love juice just happened to be strong enough to beat Celestia. Sure lucky that Luna wasn’t there to help her sister and beat her ass. Sure lucky Cadence decided to stand still for a whole day and not busting her way out of the (apparently fragile) room and trotting about the caves. Also she put Twilight in the same room as Cadence.
 
Chrysalis…isn’t very smart.
 
That said, however, the episode was still good regardless and had the best song ever in MLP.
 
On the other hand Best Villain is Sombra. The only reason he lost was sheer dumb luck on Spike’s part. Any other day he might have come out on top and crushed Spike.
 
Even if…you know…the Elements of Harmony would’ve blasted him the next day.

@Princess♠Molestia  
If not for Spike, Twilight would have still been trapped in the tower, so no EoH. Sombra can corrupt crystal, and the crystal heart is made of crystal. We don’t know what he could do if he had that. So consider everything, Sombra could have been a serious threat had he succeeded.

@Grieffon  
He’s the only villain that wasn’t defeated by hubris. They’ve really got to stop standing there when the EoH are getting ready to fire.

@Grieffon
 
@Itsthinking  
And that’s why he’s the best.

@Princess♠Molestia  
If he did everything right and still lost, wouldn’t that mean he was the worst villain?

@ClownDicks  
No, it just made him the unluckiest. When someone do everything right and still fail, there’s only luck to blame.

@ClownDicks  
Nope. It just means luck did not favor him that day.
 
Had something like say, the wind just been a bit different that day or Shining Armor aimed just a little in the wrong direction, Cadence misses. Spike goes splat/ gets caught by Sombra. Sombra wins.

@Princess♠Molestia  
Or it could mean he was an unimpressive threat.
 
Wait, why am I even discussing these things with you? You proudly admit that you rubber stamp every episode.

@ClownDicks  
And again, I have to disagree there. I found him to be a threat, a big enough one that he needed to be caged outside the city. He made the Nightmare Door, hid the Crystal heart pretty well, had that booby trap all around it, and brainwashed all the ponies of the empire. And, atleast to me, he came off as being of pure evil. No morals, no real desires, just evil incarnate.
 
As for the episodes. I’ll admit to flaws in episodes, but I still like them regardless if they entertained me. Not gonna say their all masterpieces, because believe me they aren’t, but I will still like them. I just don’t have as high standards as everyone else.
 
I prefer to look at the positives also instead of just focusing on the negatives like everyone else.

@ClownDicks
 
Sombra, despite not being in peak condition, was within inches of reclaiming his former domain and removing most of the potential threats to his rule in one fell stroke before sheer dumb luck saved the day.
 
There’s no way you can rank that as unimpressive.

If we are counting minor antagonists, I would say Sliver Spoon and Diamond tiara. Its just filler for them to be bitchy in a kids cartoon. Which is typical for every cartoon to have a bitchy character.

If you’d asked me this before Equestria Girls, I’d have said Sombra, in a heartbeat. However, I’ve really gained perspective on the dark king, and now I rank him pretty high up there. For me, Sombra was a fantastic concept of a character that only got a mediocre execution. As Molestia and others have said, he was the closest of any villain to winning. The reason he came so close to winning however, was his actions one thousand years ago. Had he not used his mastery of magic to place nigh fool proof defenses around the Crystal Heart, it would have been found in short order.
 
That’s my biggest problem with him. King Sombra was a brilliant, genre savvy master wizard… One thousand years ago. The state he spent the majority of the episode one however, was that of a lobotomized genius with a fairly generic design. He is a brilliant character, and could have been a far superior evil counterpart to Twilight then Trixie and Sunset, but he was just badly misused. He could have been replaced with a natural disaster and very little would have to change.

@Trickquestion  
>implying a glorified retinal scanner is indicative of genius

@ClownDicks  
I was referring more to the to the dark crystal wall directly around the heart, which he actually warded against teleportation, an incredibly rare power in the setting.

Iron Will. he was really great as a character but as a villain he sucked, How the hell is an anti-bully guy a villain? I liked him but he shouldn’t been a villain

@MonkeyDzyrax  
He wasn’t.
 
@Trickquestion  
It’s been a while since I saw that episode, but wasn’t that wall from him breaking into the city Empire?

@Princess♠Molestia  
Her plan only had one flaw: She didn’t make Twilight angry enough before leading her to Cadance.  
If she had, Twilight would have murdered Cadance the moment she saw her, and no one above ground would have realized what was going on before it was too late.
 
Plus, the wedding took place during the day, so of course the princess of the night wouldn’t be there.

@PaskaNaakka  
Luna isn’t allowed to stay in during the day, but Celestia can stay in at night.
 
Makes sense to me!
 
That said, you have a point about pissing Twily off.

@PaskaNaakka
 
>Plus,the wedding took place during the day, so of course the princess of the night wouldn’t be there
 
But Celestia had to stay awake for nocturnal events,why Luna has to be excused for not being there simply because is night time?
 
And the wedding was an important event that involved royalty sure,we could say that maybe Luna and Cadence have yet to know each other better thus she’s not obligated to attend,but it still doesn’t make sense for Luna to not be there,considering she wants to share and interact with her subjects just as much as Celestia.

Sunset Shimmer, if we count Equestria Girls.
 
Yes, Sombra was a shallow hunk of snarly nonsense, but at least he was so freakin’ evil. His design was EVIL, his voice was EVIL, his motivation was EVIL.  
Sunset Shimmer is… not interesting at all. She has little to no motivation, little to no character outside of being a bitch, almost nothing for her to stay fresh or interesting.  
And the fact that she had Snips and Snails as lackeys made the entire thing even worse.

@The_Mungoman  
The fact that Sombra controlled his entire empire by himself, without soldiers, administrators or any kind of non-slave subject is a bit implausible, but at the same time speaks volumes about his magic power. Sunset Shimmer never demonstrates any significant magic ability of her own, save a couple of incredibly short range teleports in the beginning.

Wait, does G1 count? If so, those witches that created the Smooze.