Unpopular opinion time

@Terminal Red  
In the middle of a joke after saying it was already over and after April Fools had ended.
 
Riiiiight. But don’t mind me.

 
…Welp…

Man, so agressive. xD

@Myoozik
 
 

There are no good male characters in the show, besides Spike.

@UserAccount  
Not even Gallus?

@Latecomer  
I hate Gallus. Thorax was okay before he turned into a hideous neon green abomination.

@UserAccount
 
There’s barely more than like 5 male characters to begin with.

@Dustcan  
And that’s good, because the writers can’t write them at all. You can actual track the show’s decline in connection to introducing males to the show.

@UserAccount  
I don’t think there’s much relation. If anything, the writing of males improved over time - it’s just that the writing in general didn’t.

@Latecomer  
I think it got worse. Braeburn is a better character than any of the later male characters and he still sucked.

@UserAccount  
Well, that’s pretty subjective.

@Background Pony #6052  

 
I doubt it will go down, but do you think it’s possible?
 
 
@Latecomer

Male characters got better but by the time they did, the show’s writing had gone to crap. Spike’s still my favorite character to this day and I liked how they developed Big Mac from S5 on. Even the bro friendship they developed with discord was a great addition to the show, its just a shame they added it so late.
 
Thorax was cool enough but Gallus and Sandbar didn’t do anything for me. I think the writing in general was just too far gone for me to ever connect or even like them as characters.
 
I seem to remember sometime between S3-6 we got a hint the writers had an understanding of how lackluster a job they were doing with the male cast. The early show was very clearly depicting Equestria as a matriarchy simply because ladies ran everything and were a clear majority of the show’s cast, bg ponies included. In fact, one big one I remember around this was back during S2’s dragon quest. The ep’s moral was basically to reject aggressive masculine dragon culture and embrace the more femininely inclined pony culture. There was less nuance in the writing those days and it was clearly a cultural battle of the sexes episode. There was a real conversation on how the show portrayed male characters (either almost nonexistent, quiet, overly dumb at times or as an antagonistic force) and the writers apparently caught on later in the show with a more equal balance of male and female. In fact, I think there was a note in the staff about possible future pony gens and how the fans didn’t want to see guys as the typical bumbling male stereotype character in a future gen. This was a long time ago but maybe this bodes well for what we’ll see in G5.

@Background Pony #E406  
True.

@Background Pony #E406  
Well, we have Hitch… we just don’t know what he’s going to be like yet much.
 
 
@Background Pony #A9A4  
No. It’s deliberate exaggeration for April Fools.

@Latecomer  
Thank goodness. Have you encountered these before? The “ I’m from the future” comments? Do they come true?

@Background Pony #E406  
I think Dragon’s Quest was an allegory for trans issues. Spike wants to be a girl, not a boy.

@Background Pony #A9A4  
No more than any other wild prediction, as far as I know.
 
 
@UserAccount  
Hmm… possible, I guess, with all that coding. But it seems a bit different - I mean, he doesn’t turn into a pony or anything. (That might have made an interesting episode.)

@UserAccount  
I think it was more about reclaiming one’s personal sense of masculinity than that.

@Latecomer  
Well, that’s good.

Gender for me doesn’t matter for a character as long as they’re written well. In the case of males, off the top of my head I like Spike, Thorax (both versions), Gallus, Shining Armor (wish he was used more), Sunburst and Flash Magnus.

Overall, I think characters such as Spike, Discord and Shining Armor are well written.
 
I think that depends on the episode. I like Spike in Inspiration Manifestation and Secret of my Excess, but I don’t like him in Princess Spike.

@Background Pony #44DB