@TheQuietMan
More like the writers who did watch G4 prior asked Hasbro’s higher ups about that and said “Little girls don’t care about lore, they’re fucking stupid. And the virgin horsefuckers who still are attached to our franchise? Fuck em. Just FUCK EM.”

Other than that, I just think they’re all long dead.

@TheQuietMan
Pretty much. They wanted to ride off G4’s success while making sure they could also say “BRONIES STAY OUT!” with their writing. But that’s just cynical me talking with that last part as I know that some bronies are still enjoying G5 and I really wish my standards weren’t that strict so I could enjoy G5 fully like they are. At least I’m still watching both G5 shows.

@Incursor
Guess you could say they’re “Elder” now.

@Red-Supernova
Accept that making a work in the quality of ATLK was unrealistic for those reasons. But that is what Hasbro was trying to do/expectations they were pandering to by setting it in/re-using G4’s continuity, even if they didn’t realize the ramifications.

@TheQuietMan
The dragons are the only race we know are that so long lived, and it’s explained they’ve been dormant. It’s more a question of why said long lived characters didn’t stop Opaline back way back when.

@Red-Supernova
You would think long-lived characters would show up by now to stop Opaline but instead they are somewhere else very far away and made a solemn vow NOT to intervene ever.

@TheQuietMan
Oh dang really? Sounds like Hasbro never had much faith in G5 based on that decision.
I doubt a race genocide happened as well. Even with Hasbro killing off everyone from G4.

@Red-Supernova
Closest we’ll get though. Since the main show is ending too soon. And anyway, I doubt they would talk about them. But I kinda don’t want to imagine a race genocide happened.

@TheQuietMan
Ah. Unfortunately the comics aren’t canon.

@Red-Supernova
>>3157370

@TheQuietMan
Then where are they?

@Red-Supernova
They’re not in MYM

@TheQuietMan
G5 brought back zebras? I haven’t watched the recent chapter of Make Your Mark just to let you know.

@Incursor
And yet I feel like I’m the only one who enjoyed it.

With how much I hear people praise Avatar: The Last Airbender all the time and that a good number of bronies are fans of Avatar as well, I’m not surprised that they hoped MLP would be like “Avatar: The Last Airbender: Colorful Horse Edition!”
I’m not saying the high fantasy stuff we got was flawless but I’m not surprised that Hasbro thought that asking for the same level of attention to detail with how much previous show knowledge new writers should have was “too tall of an order.”

@Red-Supernova
Agree with fans treating it as/wanting it to be high fantasy is holding it to unfair expectations/the shows pandering to such might have hurt it in the long run.

But Avatar: The Last Airbender shows similarly family friendly cartoons are able to successfully incorporate/be such. So unless there’s an explanation for why this theoretical can’t work for the MLP show but does for others, it sounds less like fans “know better” as opposed to “want better”.

@Red-Supernova
That certainly didn’t stop g5 from having an entire race of zebras.

@Incursor
I mean I did. So many bronies love high fantasy that it was like an addicting high for us compared to everything else that the show wanted to do.

What I mean by a fandom “knowing better” is that they feel like they understand certain concepts and characters more than the source material even though it sets them up for disappointment. I still have this mentality with certain concepts in MLP to this day because what the fandom presented to me sounded more compelling towards that concept compared to what the show gave us.
Since a lot of stuff in the comics are shown as temporary canon compared to when they actually do happen in the TV show such as pre-Shadow Play Starswirl and Sombra returning in the comics and getting a happy ending with the show undoing that, most fans see comic canon on the same level as fanon.

@Incursor
I believe it’s more the misconception that Starswirl was a typical wise wizard. Both portrayals in comics and the show are anything but that. There’s gentle but incompetent and stern but pragmatic.

@Red-Supernova
Agree fans are holding the show to unrealistic quality standards.

I still don’t get what you mean by fandom “knowing” better. You can argue the fandom has higher quality than what was put into the show, and it’s practically a tautology that fanworks are more to the tastes of the fans who created them. But this is not about comparing fan Starswirl and canon, but two canon portrayals of him. How are you defining “correctness” of the portrayal to argues fans are wrong?

@Incursor
Personally I wasn’t sure what to think of the comics’ take on Starswirl since I was currently unsure of what my opinions on the comics as a whole were since everyones’ personalities didn’t match with how they were in the show. Comic Starswirl seemed to be clueless and incompetent, like the claim that he accidentally created the Changeling race.

I don’t think I can think of any other piece of media where the fandom claims they know better than the people making the media than MLP. Mainly because a lot of us are heavily into lore focused video games and anime, mainly of the fantasy kind. And a lot of us were curious about concepts that I’m sure the official writers never even thought deeply about when it came to the silly horse show.

@Red-Supernova
I agree that the canon Starswirl is unfairly hated (given he’s supposed to be disliked for such and get’s better), but this isn’t a issue of fan knowing better, but comparing to official takes on the character.

The comics take was uncontroversial, while the show’s take was divisive. That’s doesn’t sound like arrogance as opposed to objective comparison.

The one fan arrogance I see is failing to consider if X version of Starswirl’s personality would be a better fit for Y story.

@Swiftgaiathebrony
No offense and I know this is rich coming from me but isn’t it kind of arrogant of us to say that we know better than the official writers when it came to Starswirl?

@Incursor
Exactly.

@TheQuietMan
Dumbledore in the books and film vs. Starswirl in the show and this pic, yes?

@Incursor
We’re talking about the character aren’t we?

@Incursor
Oh right, I remember now. Yes that’s the one I’m referring too. Star Swirl was a lot better in that one and if I remember correctly he believed Luna could change and encouraged Celestia, giving her encouraging words that make her have tears of joy.

@Incursor
TBH, can’t remember.

@Swiftgaiathebrony
His only other comic interaction with the Princesses was “Reflections” which is when they were adults. His being their mentor was in the book “Journal of the Two Sisters”. Any of those what you mean?