Anybody else have doubts?

[FemtoYour hearts desire is to be told your destiny through your cutie mark. The destiny is that there is no destiny.]

I'd agree with comparing the show to golden age Cartoon Network, or Nick. I would make an exception to comparing it to Batman TAS. Much as I love the ponies, and as enjoyable as the show was, Batman was something at the pinnacle of animation for me. Where FiM appeals well beyond it's demographic, it's still a cartoon, a very well written and animated cartoon, and never tries to be anything else (nor does it have to. Batman TAS took things past that and went for something that wasn't just a cartoon. FiM makes something for little girls enjoyable to all. While I'm not dismissing that accomplishment, it's been done before. Look at Pixar, or even Disney. Batman was an adult show made entertaining (and appropriate) for children.

I do agree with this though. A couple years ago I decided to watch a bunch of my favorite childhood cartoons again, and not too surprisingly, nearly all of them were terrible. I loved them as a kid, but now I found them painfully unwatchable. But not Batman TAS. It was just as awesome as I remembered, and I bought all the DVDs and re-watched the whole series. Still my favorite cartoon, possibly even favorite show.[/quote]

Man, isn't that just the best feeling? There are some shows that I think I love even more as an adult; Samurai Jack and The Simpsons for one.

As for doubts, well I suppose it depends on where your standards lie. For me the show is mostly just a fun way to cheer myself up Saturday morning, and eight to nine times out of ten it delivers (and four of those times it exceeds my expectations by a mile). I think HH's posts are mostly valid, there's a lot more subtlety to the writing than most sane people give the show credit (though less than the crazies who go to fansay standbys instead of knowing what they're talking about say, but I'm willing to put that down to being ill-educated in being able to express this sort of thing. I know I am ). Most people got their standards blown away because they were waltzing into a My Little Pony cartoon and the bar was pretty nonexistent, hence why it blew it away. Most people have their mind blown coming in with this standard, and someone coming in hearing the hype is going to be going in with standards that are quite a bit higher (or looking to dislike), so little wonder it fails to match up.

It's a (well)above average kids show. Sometimes I'm reminded of this, and it can be mildly disappointing, but I know what to expect, and for what it is it's hard to argue with how well it succeeds at it. It's like how the Indiana Jones films are not films that deal with deep meaningful facets of human existence, but they know what they are and they do it so well it's easy to meet them on their level and enjoy it on their own terms. At least that's how I make sense of it.

It's also the first show where the fashionable one is likeable, well-developed and has a personality (indeed, same goes for all of them. They're all recognizeable archtypes, but you're not going to see many people using just that as a shorthand to describe them). That alone makes it worthy of recognition. Hell, I identify with the athletic one because she has the same neuroses and fears I do, and I'm a sedentary adult male human.

[NisslMarching bravely into a bold new pony future]

Sometimes I wonder if being forced out of most major sites and banding together is part of what's made pony fans at large so vocal about the show.

SA is the only major site I'm aware of with a pony ban in place. There's even usually an active thread on /b/ still, albeit regularly filled with spammers trying to destroy it. However, I think the hate the show receives, in real life as well as on the internet, definitely inclines some of the fans towards a crusader mentality, which irritates people who don't like the show even more, and the cycle continues. It probably also reflects insecurity in a certain segment of the fanbase.

[SvidrigailovI am the one who bucks.]

It's good that we're getting our Dark Night of the Soul out of the way all together like this.

[ArtificerGoes well with All Natural Milk Naturally Flavored with Natural Flavors.]

It's good that we're getting our Dark Night of the Soul out of the way all together like this.

Ponies are a journey in self-discovery, then?

I suppose that's not wholly wrong. I never thought I'd be watching it.

[FemtoYour hearts desire is to be told your destiny through your cutie mark. The destiny is that there is no destiny.]

The true nature of a man and his society is measured in his actions and motivations after the novelty has worn off.

I think that statement works more for things like revolutions or historical landmarks more than fads based on children's cartoons, but hey, the great statements tend to be pretty universal.

[BartonFink]

Y'know, at the risk of derailing a little bit, I really don't think there's anything wrong with digging into the substance (even of a children's show like this) and trying to figure out "why does this work/not work so well?" It's interesting in and of itself and can make the show a tad more satisfying. I sometimes see an attitude of trying to read into the show whatsoever as being somehow a bad thing, and really, sometimes digging into stuff a bit can be fun.

I can get annoyed by people who (unironically) speculate on the plot elements of the show (like baseless speculation on how Equestria was founded or something), but reading into stuff like "how does the show write Fluttershy in such a way that her shyness is effectively used for humor" (or something like that) always struck me as worthwhile.

[FemtoYour hearts desire is to be told your destiny through your cutie mark. The destiny is that there is no destiny.]

Y'know, at the risk of derailing a little bit, I really don't think there's anything wrong with digging into the substance (even of a children's show like this) and trying to figure out "why does this work/not work so well?" It's interesting in and of itself and can make the show a tad more satisfying. I sometimes see an attitude of trying to read into the show whatsoever as being somehow a bad thing, and really, sometimes digging into stuff a bit can be fun.

I can get annoyed by people who (unironically) speculate on the plot elements of the show (like baseless speculation on how Equestria was founded or something), but reading into stuff like "how does the show write Fluttershy in such a way that her shyness is effectively used for humor" (or something like that) always struck me as worthwhile.

Damn straight son. If we didn't try and ask why certain ideas or franchises or stories worked the way they did, we would still be in the stone age artistically, and immeasurably poorer for it. Trying to dig into the structure or character interactions or sociopolitical ramifications is not only natural, but should be keenly encouraged. I may not always agree with HH on every little point, but I respect him a damn great deal for being willing to look within himself and a thing that he loves and trying to see why the two fit together so well, and extend that to what others may be experiencing as well. Hell, I do the same thing with video games I like out of habit (keeps me sharp when I have to do it for literature for school, you see. At least that's my excuse, truth of the matter is that I can't turn it off, and games are easy to do and something I'm familiar with). Hell, if we never had anyone looking at a work and seeing why things work the way the do, we wouldn't have writers. Even the foundation-shaking ones had to realize the mental shortcuts inherent in certain narrative devices or characterizations and recognize where to look deeper and how to communicate those ideas to others (art is similar to science in this way, but don't tell anyone or they'll get upset).

My point is that deconstructing and analyzing a show made for 6-11 year old girls is exactly like what led Hemmingway to write The Old Man and the Sea. True fact.

[SlateSlabrock]

Y'know, at the risk of derailing a little bit, I really don't think there's anything wrong with digging into the substance (even of a children's show like this) and trying to figure out "why does this work/not work so well?" It's interesting in and of itself and can make the show a tad more satisfying. I sometimes see an attitude of trying to read into the show whatsoever as being somehow a bad thing, and really, sometimes digging into stuff a bit can be fun.

It's disorienting when the live streams are full of , and then the discussion threads are nothing but "worst writer, worst episode, worst characters. " Not that that's unique to this group -- the same thing just happened in the Doctor Who thread on SA.

I just think it's important, even if you enjoy putting the series under a microscope, to also be able to step back and remind yourself to have fun watching. Everyone seems to have one episode that gets under their skin in a particular way, and if we only focus on "What did they do wrong this week?", a very sour atmosphere can develop. More specifically, I've seen it happen with writer-hate in other shows before, so I'm very nervous about it cropping up here.

[AramekYour MRI results have shown total infection to now be approximately one fifth of the full mass of the tissue."So you're saying..."Your brain is about 20% tumor.]

"What can change the nature of a man?"

[HollowThis place needs a miracle.]

No, "epic" doesn't mean "perfect amazing wtf awesome various superlatives with sarcastic tildes,"

The english language is a-changin'. Just because your dictionary says otherwise, doesn't mean that the internet/society in general follows its rules. When my friends say something is "epic", they mean it's "super awesome amazing perfection", so...

And I just don't get why so many people seem so insistent on disowning any praise, or anything that SOUNDS like praise, of a thing they like.

I never said "man, I hate it when people say CT is good". I hate it when they fawn over it, spaz over it, act like it's the greatest thing ever, and dissect every little bit of its code and come up with inane theories about every 1 and 0.

People do the same shit with ponies, nowadays. It's unhealthy.

[ArtificerGoes well with All Natural Milk Naturally Flavored with Natural Flavors.]

Well, random theories are good if it's just for the humor and laughs. If you seriously take some of the theories seriously, like the one in season one about Celestia offing Luna offscreen, then....yeah that's a little unhealthy, but otherwise I feel it's okay.

[AngoraNot obsessed, a connoisseur]

This show is a Nice Show as someone else put it. It is pleasant and makes me happy


The only difference is that you have to choose who you come out to

[drunkill]

I like the show for it's animation and jokes/references you normally wouldn't find in a kids show.


I don't think it's the best thing, no, but it's probably one of the best animated things aimed at kids these days.

[BHHammyTOY SPECIAL 3AVAILABLE AT ALL WALBOGS]

Some people are aware of how I tend to be pretty critical of why I like/don't like certain episodes of this show. The fact that I can -be- critical of this show in a constructive manner with both positive and negative examples speaks volumes about it's quality.

Best show ever? No, but they've made something pretty damn special. In my case, it's a show that doesn't hide under that "kids show" umbrella. It's a show where the creators put their hearts into it, and it's apparent. It has compelling characters, excellent visuals (and visual gags), great music, and (most) of the writers actually treat the show very well.

Hell, it's a cartoon that took a character like RARITY, and made her incredibly likable over the course of the show.

[numsOic]

If you make any kind of character an actual relatable human being, they tend to become endearing no matter how their type is usually played out. Which is funny, because these are tiny horses we're talking about.