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

@Background Pony #2AC9  
They also need to do things, preferably interesting things.

I was indifferent with Grogar actually being Discord. I didn’t like it, but it didn’t bother me really.
 
I mean knowing how cliche this show can be, I kinda saw it coming. I’m not very impressed but this show has done worse.

@PonyPon
 
Bringing Sombra back from the dead, summoning the villains to Tartarus, and being able to restore Tirek to a more powerful form with just a small ball of magic aren’t interesting things?

@Background Pony #2AC9
 
That arguably goes for all three of them actually.
 
None of their motives were of much complexity beyond Despotism Justifies the Means.
 
The only possible “tragic” thing about them is how their pride was far too much to even become friends amongst themselves, let alone with the ones they hate so much, and even that’s a stretch. (Well, I guess you could also say the tragic thing about Tirek was, his own brother wasn’t enough for him to stop, and he wouldn’t even accept responsibility for forcing the latter to betray him. As for Chrysalis, maybe it’s how she has a pathological allergy for taking responsibility that could make it “tragic”)

When I think of it, Discord just  

@Shimmering Spectacle  
ooh

@Shimmering Spectacle  
but hard to explain or to tell?

@Background Pony #2AC9  
Not when adding the context of who he actually is.
 
They were when they happened.
 
He was made less interesting because we’ve officially never actually met him.

@PonyPon
 
And whose fault is that? The writers. We had a legitimately threatening and powerful villain in Grogar, only for him to not even be real.

Thing is, if they were dead set on the trio being iredeemable then Grogar was a hinderance. You could argue that he shouldn’t have been introduced at all, but with the way they wrote the premiere they had three options:
 
A. The Trio are jobbed out early on in the finale by the heroes in order for Grogar to pull a Thanos and “do it himself”. Which would make them look bad.  
B. The Trio are bitched out by Grogar early on and he takes over as Big Bad, in which case why did we bother focusing on the villain trio so much?  
C. They get rid of Grogar and the trio are the big bads of the finale.
 
They chose option C. The finale was always going to be bloated because it’s the triumphant ending of a show with a billion characters. Grogar in a big role would add yet ANOTHER thing to deal with. Another thing to explain and exposit about.

@gingerninja666  
That option C is the cause almost the entire fandom went mad.

@gingerninja666
 
What about the fans who have been wanting Grogar to appear since Tirek was brought back in the S4 finale?

@Background Pony #EBAE  
No, it’s becasue of how they did it. If they’d drained Grogar to death and he’d had nothing to do with Discord, a lot of people might be wondering what the point of him was but I doubt many would get that worked up about it.

@Background Pony #2AC9  
Well, they were kind of dumb in the first place, but perhaps the producers shouldn’t have toyed with their hopes.

@Background Pony #EBAE
 
I don’t get why though.
 
Now, I have been massively pissed off by this TYPE of twist before. Dresden Files comes to mind. Harry spends the whole book bonding with this cute and friendly book store owner who helps him out in a pinch a few times. But then it turns out “LOL! She was actually a seductive soul sucking fallen angel trying to manipulate him the whole time”
 
And it genuinely pissed me off because the story took a character I genuinely really liked and replaced her with yet another seductive type character in a book series full of them.
 
But the difference here is that Grogar was intentionally never characterized that much. He’s kept generic and all focus is given over to the villain trio because they’re the ones that matter.
 
If Grogar was suddenly the big bad then what the hell was the point of Frenemies or Summer Sun Setback. Why give all this focus to those three if they’re nothing compared to Grogar?

@NeoEnvy  
think about it, if discord managed to get the bell, the events of season 9(mainly affected by cozy, chrysalis, and tirek) likely wouldn’t have happened

@gingerninja666  
Because they set up a plot point and didn’t pay it off. They built up Grogar as this imposing threat, unlike any which we’ve seen before and then went “Well he’s actually nothing, all this build up for him was pointless.” It’s the same thing they did with Snoke

@gingerninja666
 
Maybe because Grogar was set up to be an extremely powerful, threatening villain who fans have been wanting to see in G4 for years, and a great final villain for the show, only for the writers to pull off the stupidest twist the show has ever had? Maybe that’s why fans are mad?
 
I mean, if you can’t see why fans are mad about this, I don’t know what to tell you.

@EotD
 
And Snoke never bothered me either so I guess that settles that then.
 
I’m just not capable of getting it.

@EotD  
Yes, and that was both necessary for his role and a red herring of sorts.
 
 
@Background Pony #2AC9  
It’s more important that the final villain be interesting than imposing, and an alliance of existing and popular villans would seem to fit the bill. Now I do think they dropped the ball on them a bit, but that’s a separate problem.

Oh, and if people are going to draw Star Wars analogies… was Obi-Wan unimportant in A New Hope because he didn’t make it to the climax?

@gingerninja666  
If they were dead set about making them irredeemable, they wouldn’t have given us frenemies.
 
@Latecomer  
No, because his influence was strong on the main character and felt long after his death.

@PonyPon  
And it was the natural conclusion to his part in the story. Luke is the main hero and thus Obi-wan’s lost, especially on his own terms, helps the story flow and structure

@PonyPon
 
In retrospect, isn’t Frenemies just them ultimately rejecting friendship, all while learning that they work best as a team, which is what makes them dangerous in the finale?
 
Like, they almost realize how good friendship is and then turn away from redemption of their own free will.

@gingerninja666  
But that’s only set up with the finale information in mind. That’s working backwards from the “solution” so to speak. It’s not set up as them rejecting and shunning friendship for all time and space, it’s not set up as them damning themselves but rather them seeing and feeling the effects of friendship only to not follow through on them at the moment. And it doesn’t help that the scene is played as comical, thus undermining any kind of dramatics with it and said “Revelation”