Season 9 Discussion Thread [Warning: SPOILERS!!!!!]

AWGear

The Devil's Advocate

@AC97
Ya, the problem is, that her “coming out” as the villian in School Raze suggest otherwise. It suggest that the writters expected us to be suprised about this. Besides, we had only a few moments when Cozy was alone, so most of her “acting” was observed by other ponies.

There is no reason why they wouldn’t see through her disguise faster (especially Starlight, who knows fully well about “pretending”). Id still put most of Cozy Glow’s appearance to ethier bad writting or bad performance (or bad desing). Her “acting” should have been much more subtle than it came to be.

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AC97

“I mean, growing up as a love-starved changeling? Or hiding underwater from an evil king all those years? Trusting anycreature must be so hard for you. And griffons never want to be around anycreature, even other griffons. And dragons are so fierce compared to us. There must be days you can’t wait to get away from all us cute ponies. ‘Everypony know yaks think yaks are best!’ Making friends with any other creature must seem like a step down. It’s just so impressive how you keep trying to understand friendship, even though it isn’t in your nature.”

I mean, the red herrings were there, if you’re trying to deny that?

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AWGear

The Devil's Advocate

@AC97
What?

I just said that she was so obviousy the bad guy, that you don’t have to pin point “red herrings”.
Her whole Desing, character and performance in a red herring. She is probably the worst “disguised” villian I’ve seen in the media.

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Anonycat

Okay, I guess.

@AWGear
Even kids know that any character sporting Cozy’s hair is bad news.

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Philweasel

Right About Everything

@AC97
Ya, the problem is, that her “coming out” as the villian in School Raze suggest otherwise. It suggest that the writters expected us to be suprised about this.

It really didn’t. She was outright stated as a bad guy before ‘School Raze’ had even hit the opening credits, if you had missed her pretty much shouting “I’M A BAD GUY!” in ‘What Lies Beneath’. The dramatic revelation was mostly for the characters, with a side of revealing just how crazy she was, and how damn competent given she had disabled Starlight and had a full blown doomsday weapon up and running.

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AWGear

The Devil's Advocate

@Philweasel
The worst part of that was the fact that the main characters were supprised tough.

Generally, its good to have viewers see the plot twist before the characters in the show, But not to the point that after premiere you already know who will the main bad guy be. It just shows that everyone in the cast are incompetent. It would be much diffrent if Starlight or The main 6 were suspicious of her, and lost a fight while trying to capture her.

Instead, you have all those smart ponies fail to realize that the filly with “I’M BAD” basicly written on thier forehead, is the actual villian.

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Philweasel

Right About Everything

@AWGear
To be fair, Cozy was pretty convincing around Twilight and the CMC. She outright faked being bad at friendship, just so they would write off any slip ups she made. She’s shown putting a lot of effort into being helpful and kind to everyone at the school, and her… rather overearnest way of speaking isn’t any worse than Fluttershy or Pinkie Pie.

The Student Six should have been a little more suspicious of her… and they were! Smolder was totally on to her from the beginning.

That she was capable of threatening Equestria and taking out Starlight, that was a little more shocking. But frankly it shocked quite a lot of fans as well, and we had a much wider perspective than any of them.

It just shows that everyone in the cast are incompetent.

…I don’t know how to break it to you, but the show could pretty much be retitled “Cute ponies do moronic things, before being bailed out by their friends”. The vast majority of episodes are entirely driven by the principle character being painfully stupid.

Starlight and Twilight are in particular ridiculously gullible, and have been fooled by MUCH worse actors.

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AC97

@Philweasel

And let’s not forget how Tirek managed to trick Discord into helping him in his villainous plot, when Discord himself is an excellent manipulator, and certainly not unintelligent in general.

(Tirek isn’t stupid either though, to be fair; you really have a poor grasp on his character if you think he is)

You can have blind spots, regardless of intelligence, and emotions can be a factor.

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Background Pony #6E6A

Have you noticed Celestia and Luna are childish, despite being thousands of years old?

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AWGear

The Devil's Advocate

@AC97
But the diffrence is that Tirek’s acting was at least decent.

Nobody should belive that a “bellow averege age” friendship student who constantly kisses ass of everyone around her, while also getting them into trouble is just an “ordinary pony”.

Her acting was off from the moment she appeared in the show.

Yes, characters do stupid stuff, but it’s never to the extent of beliving someone who is lieing so clearly, that you can spot it on the first sight.

Especially Starlight, who has years of lieing and spotting liers in her own village, should see through her disguise right away.

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AWGear

The Devil's Advocate

@Background Pony #D111
Have you noticed that Luna is “retireing” only after about 4~ years of “being a princess after banishment”?

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AC97

@AWGear

What do you mean Starlight’s good at spotting liars?

She failed to instantly catch Fluttershy’s ploy to get out of that shack, didn’t she?

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Dustcan

Dogs

Cozy is a kid.

As trite as that excuse is for trying to absolve her of consequence, it is a valid one for pointing out how she was beneath suspicion in the first place. Especially since, you know, her entire shtick is to play up that fact.

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AC97

@AC97

Oh, and Starlight failed to see that Trixie was initially “befriending” her to one-up Twilight too.

She’s never been a master of seeing through lies, has she?

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gingerninja666

Kaze ni Nare

Shadow play is what happens when you have the cast being as competent as their resource list suggests they should be. The Pony of Shadows was fucked from the start and the conflict was built around what TYPE of insta-win they would go with.

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AWGear

The Devil's Advocate

@AC97
I was more going on the fact that she was lieing to her village for years about her cutie mark, and (since she had this “mind control chamber”) had to catch some ponies doing that to.
@AC97
Also, Trixie wasn’t befrending Starlight just to one up Twilight. Trixie said that herself. (“Beating Twilight was just a bonus”)

@Dustcan
And? That doesn’t make her non suspicious, especially in the world where Changelings exist.

We had seen them change into kids on multiple occasion, so one child (who nopony has seen ever before) is acting wierdly, they should have been suspected from the start.

@gingerninja666
Eh, Shadow Play had diffrent issues (like rushed plot, or non interesting characters). I think it’s biggest flaw was downplaying Starlight’s involvment in the victory at the end. If not for her, they wouldn’t even try to talk to Stygian.

Also, Book horse was blinded by a Fundamentalist Idol, so it’s kinda understandable why she acted that way.
It’s much harder to find excuse for Sunburst, who should have stood on Starlight’s side from the begining.

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gingerninja666

Kaze ni Nare

@AWGear

If they’d sided with Starlight from the beginning, then neither Stygian nor the Pillars would’ve been saved.

Also, Twilight appreciated what she did, and that seemed to be what mattered to Star.

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AWGear

The Devil's Advocate

@gingerninja666
Ehhhhhhhh….

… would that be so bad tough?…

It’s not like they went anywhere with thier characters after that finalie, so we could just as well not have them at all.

Also, I ment after the Pilars were saved. Once Sunburst saw that Twilight’s ideas tent to “not work out”, he should have sided with Starlight on saving Stygian.

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AC97

@AWGear

Starlight probably wasn’t in charge of her cult for “years” though, with the village being set up and all.

Reason we know that is because Rock Solid Friendship establishes that it was set up sometime after Maud Pie (the episode), because she met Starlight in the process of doing a dissertation to get her Rocktorate, and she only set out to get said Rocktorate after her introduction episode, which was in S4.

So in conclusion, she probably had that village up and running, with no cutie marks but hers for what, 6 months, tops?

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Philweasel

Right About Everything

@AC97

Oh, and Starlight failed to see that Trixie was initially “befriending” her to one-up Twilight too.

She’s never been a master of seeing through lies, has she?

Starlight shows all the signs of actually studied psychology and rhetoric, she can psychoanalysis and manipulate people quite well.

…this is obviously an attempt to compensate for the fact that her social empathy is awful. She consistently mistakes the tone of conversations, offends when she’s just trying to be honest, condescends when she’s just trying to be helpful, and fails to catch the most obvious sarcasm and deception.

Twilight on the other hand is often surprisingly suspicious of others, especially in the books, but tends to constantly give others the benefit of the doubt. She seems to consider doubting the good intentions of others a moral failing.

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AWGear

The Devil's Advocate

@AC97
6 months? If “rocktorate” is as complex as degree in our world, it’s work for at least a few years. Especially if you concider the fact that she had to travel whole equestria for it.

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AC97

@AWGear

I mean, the point is, I think the Cutie Map sent the Mane Six to shut the cult down not very long after there were no cutie marks on anyone but her.

I doubt that there was say, a 2-year gap between S4 and S5, and there was no qualifier like “early/late into my travels” with Maud, in any case.

Perhaps you could think of a “Rocktorate” as being like a sort of course, that doesn’t take years?

@Philweasel

I still like to headcanon that Starlight’s about 5 years older than Twilight (not like say, 10-20 years though), but because she didn’t mature very much until recently, that’s partially why her “social empathy” has been terrible.

That’s also partially how I conceptualize her seeming to be more competent in combat to start out with, because I think in a few ways, she’s had more experience than Twilight, because of age/what she did in her spare time.

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Vivace

“ShimSham my GlimGlams”

@AWGear
“Bonus.” That was a parallel to how stopping the Rainboom was “just a bonus.” The stated goal was just pretext at the time.

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AWGear

The Devil's Advocate

@AC97
Or maybe Maud was working on her Rocktorate before the that episode? It could very well be that she didn’t tell pinkie about that untill then. She tends to keep quiet about alot of things, especially since pinkie tends to “not let her” speak most of the time.

@Vivace
Again, Trixie herself says that she is “Starlight’s Friend” as Starlight runs out. Her acting suggests she was sincere about that.

@Philweasel
Starlight has awful social empathy?
You know…

When she tried to redeem 3 (or 4, if you count Trixie as “not redeemed” by the “No Second Prances) villians in the show, even tough nobody felt sorry for them?
Took geniue care about the ponies in her village?
Sensed that something wrong is going on, after talking with the changeling versions of her friends, something that even princesses were shown to not be capable off?

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gingerninja666

Kaze ni Nare

@AWGear

I didn’t get particularly strong general empathy vibes from most of those. She reached out to Trixie because she was the first new pony she met who had anything in common with her. She reached out to Chrysalis because, again, she saw herself in Chrys. She wanted Twi to try talking to Styg because she noticed, as a detatched observer, that Twi was acting off. Then she used pretty cold logic to back herself up. Pointing out that the cutie map only summons ponies for friendship missions. Not to just fight evil.

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