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

In hindsight, Gusty’s actions are worth writing home about, because it seems like she took care of Grogar for good.
 
@gingerninja666
 
And with option C, making Discord actually be Grogar, and thus be taken out of the power equation in one fell swoop killed two birds with one stone. People were theorizing Discord was his son, or something, have that factor into something.
 
Simple fact of the matter is: unlike Starlight, it’s not overly easy to have a plot where Discord is both contributing and at full power and conceivably have the enemy be a threat that could rival/surpass him, but also have most of the heroes be anything more than an insect to them in comparison, outside of “rainbow magic” as Tirek put it.

@PonyPon  
And the villain trio were brought together by Grogar, formed their alliance to challenge his power, and gained their strength from his bell. He, like Obi-Wan, had the important role of moving the true pieces into position.
 
 
@gingerninja666  
The problem is that they are not undone by their lack of friendship in the finale - just overwhelmed by the strenghth of the opposition. They brang almost no philosophical element to the table, and I feel that the show could really have used one here.

@EotD
 
That’s why I said “in retrospect”
 
Like, we’re supposed to see it as a potential sign that they could turn good. And then when you see the finale you realize “Oh, they really did reject it”. Like it’s leaving the motivations not entirely clear so the solution in the end isn’t obvious.

@Latecomer  
Discord did most of that.

@gingerninja666
 
Basically, this is exactly what it was.
 
Like say, how DBZA (that is, the parody version, not the original) Frieza considered changing… and immediately went “nah!”

@gingerninja666  
They say that, but then go on to be perfect partners in crime without a hint of eyes on betrayal towards anyone but ‘grogar’.
 
The last person whose words you should take at face value is a villain.

And in a way, doesn’t the villain trio being capable of friendship, only rejecting it, make them more devious?
 
Like, they aren’t incapable of friendship. They felt it’s fleeting caress, and chose to turn away from it out of pride, spite, and hatred

@gingerninja666
 
I feel like it’s the inverse of what Paarthurnax in Skyrim said, about being inherently good vs fighting your nature so you can be good:
 
Is it worse to be born evil, or to willfully defy being virtuous, when you could be?

@PonyPon  
What do you mean?

@Latecomer  
He brought them together, and got them to form an alliance.
 
Making yet another magic-sucking artifact, that’s all on the actual grogar.

@PonyPon
 
True, but they were also fully willing to hurt EVERYONE around them. Part of being a good friend is realizing when your friend is doing something bad and trying to help them be a better person.
 
The villain trio don’t do that. They help each other bring everyone else to ruin for their own selfish ends or sadistic enjoyment. The one exception is the very end of Frenemies, which is what they reject. And then they never show that kind of altruism again.
 
So by the moral framework of the show, the Trio are not good friends even if they do have affection for one another.

If I were to have Grogar turn out to be a fake and have been someone else, I would have had it be Sombra. Like say he’s powerful enough to split his being into two forms or that the one in the premier was a fake, but that he basically used himself as bait to set up the need to form the team. It plays off his previous characterization of him being a chessmaster, that the one who would want to form a team would use themselves as a decoy to show off why it is a good idea and it would tie into the season premier. Like say because Sombra split his form up and that half got defeated, he was in a severely weaken state and thus needed the bell to get back some of his powers. But once the deception is revealed, the other villains, who have bonded, recognize that Sombra was just using them and that he’s too weak to be of any help to them and so they discard him back into the void before their big assault on Canterlot

@gingerninja666  
It’s not going to be seen as something bad by friends who all more or less have the same moral system.
 
I don’t know what point you’re trying to make there.
 
And I can recall times when our main ‘heroes’ didn’t follow such a rule.

@PonyPon  
Yes. And that’s all anyone needed to do - existing after that would be redundant.
 
 
@EotD  
An interesting alternative. What would you have done with Discord, then?
 
 
@gingerninja666  
I was hoping they would find friendship while remaining evil - the show leans too hard on “friendship = good” sometimes.

@Latecomer  
The bell’s still the same, same powers and move sets. He goes in, cause the mane 6 more or less get him to, so he’s all confident and sure there’s nothing that can beat him, only for his powers to get drained by the bell

@EotD  
Well it would mean a lot of cries of “Worfed!” but I suppose no more than the Princesses usually get.

@EotD
 
I’d say there’s two big logistical problems if you did it that way though.
 

@PonyPon
 
My point is that them liking each other doesn’t necesarily turn them good.

@gingerninja666  
Also good points. I wonder if having a real Grogar who was just disposed of unceremoniously might have not been the least worst option.

@gingerninja666
 
Also, Sombra is actually weaker than Celestia and Luna, because those two actually beat him without the Elements in the flashback.
 
Celestia and Luna tried to go for the same exact move that stomped him with Cozy Glow in this two-parter, but got their magic drained for their efforts.
 
Having him suddenly be that powerful would make no sense, since Celestia was still fighting back in S5.

@gingerninja666  
Sombra in Season 3 was nothing more than vapors until the last second before he was “thrown into the either” and his threat came from implied danger and the traps he set up, nothing he himself actually did in the flesh. And It’s not like I’m saying he’s at half power, just that on some level he can split himself up into two forms. You could easily have him be using most of his power during the premier and even then that’s not enough, but still have him have a little left to intimidate the others
 
 
The “twist” plays into Sombra’s character, or at least his presentation in the season 3 premier. After all he was the one who knew first hand that having others around defeated his plan, as without Spike there there would have been no way The Crystal Heart would have been freed. So him recognizing the power of “friendship” or more accurately in his case, the strength in numbers, works. And then it plays into his more strategic nature, that he would be okay losing most of his power for the time being because he’s playing the long game, it’s just he miscalculated his approach because he doesn’t understand friendship and so the three villains turn on him once they have an advantage and toss him aside because he serves no use to them, indicating the more villainous intent of the new trio.
 
Discord’s plan does play into the story thematically, sure but it doesn’t pay off the story beats. Grogar is this big imposing force that is coming for our heroes, the story is saying “GROGAR IS A BIG FREAKING DEAL” through tone and actions set up in the story structure, only for it not to be paid off by going “Well Grogar’s actually not a thing and Discord just wanted to test Twilight”

@gingerninja666
 
I came pretty damn close to calling it (remember, that’s not a spoiler thread guys) months ago.
 
(I was skeptical of that twist, but I was partially right)
 
Sombra was out of the question in my mind.

@AC97  
Unlike Most Villains Sombra wasn’t “Born” with his powers, at least as far as we know
 
They could just have had it revealed that he was working on his dark Magic and experimenting while hiding

@EotD
 
He seemed to be beaten straight up by Celestia and Luna by themselves. No elements needed.
 
It would make sense for Sombra’s character, but there wouldn’t really be a set up for it and he wouldn’t be in the story enough to justify the complex sequence of events needed to get us here. We’d be seeing him in a fake context in the premiere (since the foppish, arrogant Sombra arguing with Grogar wouldn’t be the real him. It’s not his real personality), and then when the reveal happens, and we see the real him, he’d just be explaining himself before getting banished a few minutes later (if we’re following the structure of the actual finale)
 
And having it be Sombra still wouldn’t pay off the story beats as you describe them. Grogar would still be a big imposing force that’s coming for our heroes, who we then reveal is a weakened, easily disposed of Sombra.

@gingerninja666  
And took the Crystal Empire with him for over a 1000 years
 
And? I was saying if they had to reveal Grogar as a fake, it would have worked better if it was Sombra than Discord, not that either one is inherently preferred as a resolution to Grogar’s role in the story.
 
But it plays far more into the ideas of friendship and the good guys while showcasing exactly what the bad guys are missing. Grogar doesn’t win loyalty or respect, he’s using fear and intimidation to goad the others into falling in line, that when they have the upper hand they turn on him, showing how unstable the dark side is, highlighting how and why the villains will fail instead of it being “Oh Discord really fucked up and now we’re in deep shit”. It;s at least replacing a dark overlord with another dark overlord figure