The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP:FiM

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Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Aramek (?) » Fri Oct 19, 2012 2:04 pm

Adelor Lyon wrote:Because she really likes her mane! :ohboy:
You beat me to posting this! Ahhhhhh! :twonk:
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Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Timber72 » Fri Oct 19, 2012 3:59 pm

Celestia isn't going anywhere. She is too important and it would shake up the shows general character statuses too much. The worst thing that will happen to her is she gets shoved into a background for a season even more so than she is now.

Twilight is too involved with Celestia. If something happens, it affects the main character of the show, and that really can't happen.

DasNasty

Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by DasNasty » Fri Oct 19, 2012 11:55 pm

The flaw with this whole argument that Celestia should die because she'd if the archetype or whatever is false because in the archetype of uber god(dess) level champions, said uber god(dess) level champions don't die.

THE CELESTIA FLYS IN THE NIIIIIIIII- I mean day. Ahem.

Ashenai

Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Ashenai » Sat Oct 20, 2012 3:50 am

Twilight wrote:Twilight is too involved with Celestia. If something happens, it affects the main character of the show, and that really can't happen.
That's exactly why it happens. That's the whole point of a coming-of-age story. The protagonist has to become an adult, which means their childhood supports have to be knocked out from under them.

Just look at A Canterlot Wedding. For the first time, Twilight has to face the unpleasant truth that Princess Celestia doesn't have all the answers, and isn't omnipotent. Yes, Twilight has had to solve problems on her own before (in the Season 1 pilot, for instance,) but before ACW, she always knew that she was acting according to Celestia's plan: if she screwed up, she'd have the Princess to fall back on (see also: Lesson Zero.)

But in the S2 finale... no longer. Celestia had no plan, and could not defend Twilight or anypony else. Possibly for the first time in her life, Twilight was playing for keeps; if she and Cadence failed, there was no guarantee that everything would be all right.

That's what growing up is about. You lose the safety nets and training wheels, and what you do, how you live, starts mattering. Really mattering.

dilettante

Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by dilettante » Sat Oct 20, 2012 3:57 am

Except Twilight couldn't do anything. :gotcha:

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Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by PhoolCat (?) » Sat Oct 20, 2012 4:12 am

She did enough... :twiright:
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Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Ashenai » Sat Oct 20, 2012 4:25 am

dilettante wrote:Except Twilight couldn't do anything. :gotcha:
Well, she's not an adult yet! Her story's not over. That's why I said A Canterlot Wedding was only hinting at this stuff.

dilettante

Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by dilettante » Sat Oct 20, 2012 5:42 am

Yeah, she definitely tried, and that's worth more than just giving up. Maybe if it does proceed how we've predicted, ACW could be seen as progression of her character instead of just pony fights the changeling. It was a hell of a lot better than her finding the elements and doing another rainbow of vanquishing. Success never comes easy in this show, which is definitely a reason why I like it.

Wylie

Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Wylie » Sat Oct 20, 2012 9:43 am

dilettante wrote:Except Twilight couldn't do anything. :gotcha:
What's interesting on this point (and something I'm probably going to think about and write a bunch more :words: about later) is that Celestia's advice to her before she passed out... was bad advice. The solution (that Twilight figured out on her own, almost as an afterthought) was to free Cadance and allow her to break Chrysalis' hold on SA. Celestia was still playing the one note she seems to know- the Elements.

numsOic

Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by numsOic » Sat Oct 20, 2012 9:48 am

It wasn't bad advice; Chrysalis just thought of it first. :-P

Timber72

Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Timber72 » Sat Oct 20, 2012 12:48 pm

Ashenai wrote:
That's exactly why it happens. That's the whole point of a coming-of-age story. The protagonist has to become an adult, which means their childhood supports have to be knocked out from under them.

Just look at A Canterlot Wedding. For the first time, Twilight has to face the unpleasant truth that Princess Celestia doesn't have all the answers, and isn't omnipotent. Yes, Twilight has had to solve problems on her own before (in the Season 1 pilot, for instance,) but before ACW, she always knew that she was acting according to Celestia's plan: if she screwed up, she'd have the Princess to fall back on (see also: Lesson Zero.)

But in the S2 finale... no longer. Celestia had no plan, and could not defend Twilight or anypony else. Possibly for the first time in her life, Twilight was playing for keeps; if she and Cadence failed, there was no guarantee that everything would be all right.

That's what growing up is about. You lose the safety nets and training wheels, and what you do, how you live, starts mattering. Really mattering.
I don't really disagree with any of that. I was more leaning towards the posters that said she is going to die. Nobody can die in this show, and I don't think an event will happen that casts her away for more than an episode either. It's too violent for MLP. The worst I can see happening is the Princess has to visit some far off land for like a week.
Last edited by Timber72 on Sat Oct 20, 2012 1:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by PhoolCat (?) » Sat Oct 20, 2012 1:02 pm

The way I see it is that Chrysalis basically blindsided Celestia and somehow managed to subtly blend herself into Cadenza's place without Celestia noticing. Chrysalis then slowly built her power - maybe even feeding off of Celestia herself - and befuddled Celestia just enough that she wouldn't notice anything wrong until it's too late AND weakening her enough that she fell easier.

"She caught me on a bad day, ok?" :pcstare:
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Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Ashenai » Sat Oct 20, 2012 4:28 pm

Twilight wrote:I don't really disagree with any of that. I was more leaning towards the posters that said she is going to die. Nobody can die in this show, and I don't think an event will happen that casts her away for more than an episode either. It's too violent for MLP. The worst I can see happening is the Princess has to visit some far off land for like a week.
Oh yeah, I agree that nothing too drastic is going to happen. Which is why I'm curious to see how the writers will handle it. "Mentor dies halfway through the story" is such an overused plot device anyway.

AlliterativeAxolotl

Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by AlliterativeAxolotl » Sat Oct 20, 2012 4:38 pm

Celestia is, in my eyes, a nicer and more kid-friendly version of Patrician Havelock Vetinari of Ankh-Morpork (from the Discworld series of books in case you haven't heard of him - read them, they are good for you!) mixed together with a good deal of Dumbledore.

She's an incredibly competent ruler who is capable of turning a hopeless situation into a victory with the help of her most loyal subjects. Yes, she could use tricks to achieve goals; but these goals are not hers, but those of all of Equestria. She just knows that sometimes you can't simply ask someone to save the kingdom; sometimes, the person in question has to go through some rite of passage sometimes to be capable of doing it.

This doesn't make her an evil trickster - it makes a clever, caring ruler out of her who is also very genre-savvy, someone who would do anything if it makes her land a safe place for everyone in it. And it's not like she's happy about having to be that clever and cunning all the time - she is forced to do it, otherwise the apparently numerous dangers and enemies surrounding Equestria might cause terrible damage to it. And yes, this means that she knew that Twilight would be capable of using the Elements of Harmony with her friends - she's immortal and most likely knows quite a lot about a lot of her citizens; maybe she tried to arrange some potential bearers of the elements in advance every generation in case they were in need?

She's also not perfect, I think, even though she's quite close to it - living for such a long time, I think she learned quite a lot how to deal with all kinds of situations; but I can imagine there being a lot of very embarassing things in her past where she was still too young and inexperienced to know how to properly rule the kingdom.

I really hope they show more aspects of her, because I really think that she's one of the most interesting characters in the show. :gotcha:

And yeah, her dying? No, that wouldn't be right. It would be different if they handle it more along the lines of " Celestia is forced to ascend to a higher plane of existence", where she has to deal with otherworldly problems in a higher sphere - she's a god, after all, why is she in the mortal world all the time? She would still be alive and could come back if there is dire need, but most of the time the Mane 6 and the rest of Equestria would have to deal with problems on their own - and succeed, because they have learned that, yes indeed, they have already saved the day more than once all on their own! And that's just the way Celestia wanted it to be.

I hope any of that makes sense :-I

Timber72

Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Timber72 » Sat Oct 20, 2012 4:58 pm

I guess I never really thought of Celestia as a god in a non ironic sense. I kind of assumed she was just another breed of pony that is either super rare or died off. Discord is arguably much more powerful, but I wouldn't consider him a god either. He just has very powerful magic. It seems to me that nearly everything supernatural in the world (besides that it's a cartoon that often breaks the 4th wall) can be explained by magic. That common joke answer to common MLP universe questions "BECAUSE MAGIC!" is generally not too out of place.

AlliterativeAxolotl

Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by AlliterativeAxolotl » Sat Oct 20, 2012 5:09 pm

Twilight wrote:I guess I never really thought of Celestia as a god in a non ironic sense. I kind of assumed she was just another breed of pony that is either super rare or died off. Discord is arguably much more powerful, but I wouldn't consider him a god either. He just has very powerful magic. It seems to me that nearly everything supernatural in the world (besides that it's a cartoon that often breaks the 4th wall) can be explained by magic. That common joke answer to common MLP universe questions "BECAUSE MAGIC!" is generally not too out of place.
Hm, that's true - that she's a god was never really explicitly said, right? But still, I think it would be interesting to see that Celestia is not "just" a pony and an alicorn, but that there's good reason why she's an immortal and powerful princess; either she started out as a normal pony and was gifted with these abilities or she was something otherworldly and decided to descend into the material world in the body of a pony (there was a theory that she was a windigo who got transformed at the end of HWE, dunno).

I think the first theory - that she was a normal pony who, along with Luna, had her own share of incredible adventures and slowly turned into that powerful being - is better than the latter.

But, as I said, that's all just theory bordering on fanfiction :pinkieshrug: Can't wait for that episode where they want to explain some of the background of Equestrian monarchy.


edit: Now I want an entire show just about young Celestia and Luna having crazy adventures in a world with monsters and gods and beasts and sunken temples and crazy cults everywhere :twonk:

Pineapple

Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Pineapple » Sat Oct 20, 2012 5:54 pm

Well she apparently literally raises the sun and moon, so yeah I assume she is some kind of divine being you could think of as a god. More like the Greek pantheon because she's certainly fallible, but not someone who's likely to be killed off by anything other than another god.

AlliterativeAxolotl

Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by AlliterativeAxolotl » Sat Oct 20, 2012 5:57 pm

Pineapple wrote:Well she apparently literally raises the sun and moon, so yeah I assume she is some kind of divine being you could think of as a god. More like the Greek pantheon because she's certainly fallible, but not someone who's likely to be killed off by anything other than another god.
You mean she's an Antropomorphic Personification? :gotcha:

That's Discworld jargon for "Natural Event which gets turned into a person" - for example the act of beings dying creates a person known as the Grim Reaper, the act of the world getting cold and frozen over once a year turns into Father Winter and so on and so on.

numsOic

Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by numsOic » Sat Oct 20, 2012 6:02 pm

AlliterativeAxolotl wrote:That's Discworld jargon for "Natural Event which gets turned into a person" - for example the act of beings dying creates a person known as the Grim Reaper, the act of the world getting cold and frozen over once a year turns into Father Winter and so on and so on.
Surely you know that anthropomorphic personifications, even the name for them, were a thing before Pratchett's work.
Pineapple wrote:Well she apparently literally raises the sun and moon, so yeah I assume she is some kind of divine being you could think of as a god. More like the Greek pantheon because she's certainly fallible, but not someone who's likely to be killed off by anything other than another god.
Here's another theory: she's just a very powerful, very specialized uni/alicorn, and like unicorns in general she has a special talent at which she excels.

Timber72

Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Timber72 » Sat Oct 20, 2012 6:14 pm

Pineapple wrote:Well she apparently literally raises the sun and moon, so yeah I assume she is some kind of divine being you could think of as a god. More like the Greek pantheon because she's certainly fallible, but not someone who's likely to be killed off by anything other than another god.
I'm still under the theory that Equestria was basically the entirety of 'earth' for S1, at least in terms of scope of the writing. Also, in S1, everything that happens in Equestria must be done manually. Only the EFF has naturally occurring events. Thus, Equestria, aka earth, must be rotated by Princess Celestia.

Disclaimer: Unless by 'literally raises' you mean planet rotation.

AlliterativeAxolotl

Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by AlliterativeAxolotl » Sat Oct 20, 2012 6:24 pm

numsOic wrote:Surely you know that anthropomorphic personifications, even the name for them, were a thing before Pratchett's work.
The concept itself must be as old as story-telling and religion itself I guess, but that the actual name for it was already a thing before Pratchett used it I had no clue, to be honest - I thought he had made it up to give a very complicated concept a scientific-sounding name that's also easier to remember. :flattered:

Yeah I'm dumb :v:

Lazy

Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Lazy » Sat Oct 20, 2012 7:05 pm

numsOic wrote:Here's another theory: she's just a very powerful, very specialized uni/alicorn, and like unicorns in general she has a special talent at which she excels.
At some point, though, how is that any different than a deity?
I mean, the Norse pantheon of gods/goddesses are just abnormally strong or wise humans, essentially. They aren't even un-aging unless they eat these magic apples, which could do the same for anyone else, and much of their strength comes from their tools(like Thor's hammer) and deals they've made(Odin trading his eye).
Hell, the only thing that makes Baldur exceptional is being very beautiful and charming. I'd say Celestia has enough of an effect on the world and is easily far enough above the normal people of Equestria to be called a "deity".

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Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Weird Autumn (?) » Sat Oct 20, 2012 7:16 pm

AlliterativeAxolotl wrote: The concept itself must be as old as story-telling and religion itself I guess, but that the actual name for it was already a thing before Pratchett used it I had no clue, to be honest - I thought he had made it up to give a very complicated concept a scientific-sounding name that's also easier to remember. :flattered:
"Anthropomorphic" means "having a human form or qualities" and "personification" is giving human emotions/motivations to inanimate objects, abstract concepts, etc. Figures like Father Winter and the Grim Reaper are humanoid (anthropomorphic) representations of natural phenomena (personifications), so "humanoid personification" is just how you would describe them.

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Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Headless Horse (?) » Sat Oct 20, 2012 7:39 pm

Twilight wrote:I guess I never really thought of Celestia as a god in a non ironic sense. I kind of assumed she was just another breed of pony that is either super rare or died off. Discord is arguably much more powerful, but I wouldn't consider him a god either. He just has very powerful magic. It seems to me that nearly everything supernatural in the world (besides that it's a cartoon that often breaks the 4th wall) can be explained by magic. That common joke answer to common MLP universe questions "BECAUSE MAGIC!" is generally not too out of place.
I'll point out that they casually treat her as a god fairly frequently, in the sense of taking her name in vain.

"Thank Celestia!"
"As Celestia is my witness..."

:-P

(I'm sure they do it just because it's a good joke, but that's the bed they've made for themselves.)

AlliterativeAxolotl

Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by AlliterativeAxolotl » Sat Oct 20, 2012 7:54 pm

Lazy wrote:At some point, though, how is that any different than a deity?
I mean, the Norse pantheon of gods/goddesses are just abnormally strong or wise humans, essentially. They aren't even un-aging unless they eat these magic apples, which could do the same for anyone else, and much of their strength comes from their tools(like Thor's hammer) and deals they've made(Odin trading his eye).
Hell, the only thing that makes Baldur exceptional is being very beautiful and charming. I'd say Celestia has enough of an effect on the world and is easily far enough above the normal people of Equestria to be called a "deity".
Which is quite an interesting worldview, isn't it? It gives humans a lot more power in shaping the world; essentially it says to the average human "Be brave and do something exceptional and you can become one of the movers and shakers of the world too!"

That's what my personal headcanon is regarding Celestia and Luna: They were normal ponies and then earned their powers by doing all kinds of heroic deeds, the biggest one maybe even being the fight against Discord or something. This has nothing at all to do with my desire to see a comic or show about these two travelling the lands and having epic adventures, no sir :-P

On the other side, of course, they could still be "outsiders" - powerful forces which turned into ponies, to live among them and help them - but Luna really does not appear to be that different from your normal pony. Celestia had some hundred years time to become wise and noble, that's why she sometimes appears to be somewhat more aloof. Except when there's cake, of course :gotcha:

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Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Dal (?) » Sat Oct 20, 2012 8:10 pm

If you guys want to go that route what says that the Mane Six aren't the personifications of Harmony? We have only seen three real avatars (maybe four if you count Candance) in the show, so who knows what governs these things as the MLP world is a weird amalgamation of many fantasy worlds and trying to apply any logic to it is futile.


That said, Celestia wears a lot of hats in this show and has proven to be nothing but benevolent and beyond component with all of them. I'll cut you if you say she is going away :ese:


Edit: to expand on what I think Celestia's main role is the wise older sister, even if the only time we see her in that role is the pilot.
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Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Wonkadoo » Sat Oct 20, 2012 8:22 pm

Celestia has this wise and powerful momjesty thing going, but Luna acts like a fairly ordinary young mare who's still figuring things out. To me, this implies that both Luna and Celestia were pretty young when the whole Nightmare Moon thing went down. It also implies that Luna was not conscious of the thousand years passing, because not only has her personality not changed beyond all recognition, she came out of the moon still angry.

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Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by AlliterativeAxolotl » Sat Oct 20, 2012 8:25 pm

Wonkadoo wrote:Celestia has this wise and powerful momjesty thing going, but Luna acts like a fairly ordinary young mare who's still figuring things out. To me, this implies that both Luna and Celestia were pretty young when the whole Nightmare Moon thing went down. It also implies that Luna was not conscious of the thousand years passing, because not only has her personality not changed beyond all recognition, she came out of the moon still angry.
Yes, that's what I think too. Well, let's hope that the next season really has an episode which sheds some light on the whole business around the creation of NMM; theorizing is fun and all, but sometimes, especially when there's not enough hard facts, it's nice to have some "official" answer to some questions.

Mostly because we then have new material to ask new questions, of course, but that's half of the fun of being a fan, right? :gotcha:

edit: And thank you for the creation of the word momjesty. It's wonderful and I will from this day on always use it. :awesomedash:

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Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Ashenai » Sat Oct 20, 2012 9:53 pm

AlliterativeAxolotl wrote:edit: And thank you for the creation of the word momjesty. It's wonderful and I will from this day on always use it. :awesomedash:
I think it's one of sun_tzu's. At least, I first saw it in his Where I Watch review-type things (which are well worth reading.)

I miss sun_tzu :fluttersmith:

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Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Yarma (?) » Sun Oct 21, 2012 3:47 am

Let us pause for a minute and decide how we can best define what it is to be a "god". If you mean that she has the kind of abilities that makes other ponies that find shiny rocks or farm apples look like non-gods in comparison then yes. But clearly she doesn't have any kind of expanded senses or intelligence beyond a regular pony really, at least nothing that would put her in the category of divine being. However she does seem to be immortal or barring that extremely bad at getting old and dying. I like the theory that she, like any other pony, has a talent that is represented by her cutie mark. That would put her sun deity status in some peril however and wouldn't explain why she is 1000+ years old.



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Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Dr. Forums Worst Poster » Sun Oct 21, 2012 7:52 am

I think that Celestia and Luna are alicorns who happen to be powerful and immortal (but still not literally gods), and also happen to have the talents of controlling the sun and moon. Alicorns who are not that strong can exist, and the sun and moon powers aren't restricted to 'special' ponies either. But between HWE revealing that unicorns could take the heavenly duties and ACW introducing Cadence and Chrysalis, Celestia's standing is nowhere near as elevated as it appeared at the start of the show. Maybe with S3 focusing on Twilight's magical studies and the Princess episode she'll get knocked down the rest of the way, completing Twilight's coming-of-age arc.

I wonder how the dynamics would have been different if Cadence had remained a unicorn as originally planned? If that were the case then maybe alicorns would still be thought of as automatically godlike.
Ashenai wrote:I think it's one of sun_tzu's. At least, I first saw it in his Where I Watch review-type things (which are well worth reading.)
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Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by PhoolCat (?) » Sun Oct 21, 2012 8:23 am

Perhaps Celestia never wanted the pony race to rely on her and Luna so much and has been looking to pass down her role and powers for generations until finally Twilight showed up.
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Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by marshmallow » Sun Oct 21, 2012 11:37 am

Celestia and Luna are on par with the Greek and most classical gods. They're probably not omniscient and they didn't create the universe like Yahweh, "my god is better than yours * infinity +1!"

Alicorns as gods got a little messed up because of Hasbro's executive meddling with Cadence. Poor Faust. Or maybe you could stretch it and say she's a god or spirit of love, like Aphrodite. She's basically a walking talking need it want it spell.

Timber72

Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Timber72 » Sun Oct 21, 2012 12:38 pm

Heh, yeah I suppose it really is just a semantics argument at this point. I suppose I twist the definition of god to mean something more along the lines of Yahweh rather than the Greek gods or Norse gods. There is definitely semblance there, and MLP is no stranger to referencing Greek mythos.

I guess I find immortal beings to be boring. I kind of assumed Celestia has a super long lifespan thanks to magic power or whatever, not that she will live forever.

Also, as for Luna being 'on the moon' for 1000 years, I never took the literal interpretation of that. I figured her magical essence was transformed to become one with the moon (the Luna face on the moon), and the spell was set to automatically break after 1000 years exactly. Thus as mentioned by another in here, time didn't pass for her and of course she would be still angry.

Though, as for Celest and Luna being referred to as Greek gods, it's funny because that's totally something I could see them doing.

:speakest: "And Zeus banished Prometheus to the moon for 1000 years..."

Lazy

Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Lazy » Sun Oct 21, 2012 12:47 pm

Well, again, complete immortality isn't nessecarily a trait of gods, just like knowing everything isn't. In the end it really just comes down to what you're going to use as a definition.

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Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Headless Horse (?) » Sun Oct 21, 2012 2:56 pm

Shifting gears a bit for no reason...

One interesting decision the show made was to eschew any hint at human concepts of "race". There isn't a pony with a stereotypically "black" or "Hispanic" delivery or set of mannerisms. They're all different flavors of white-bread.

Why would I expect there to be "ethnic" analogs among the ponies, though?

Well, because the creative team has definitely set a precedent for themselves:

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(From the "Pony Puff Princess" episode, :lol: )

Dee Dee's friends are unabashed tokenism pastiches—especially Mee Mee, who plays up the "sassy black girl" schtick to a degree that I actually think is starting to border on inappropriate by today's standards. The two of them are otherwise basically indistinguishable from Dee Dee in terms of personality—they're more or less just two more Dee Dees who have different skin colors and say things like "girlfriend".

Lauren seems to have backed way the hell off from this model when creating FiM. Some people might criticize her (and some did, notably that Ms. article from right back when the show first premiered) for casting six "white" main characters in an era when it's all but unheard-of to not spend most of your weeks of initial development time engineering "diversity" into your cast. But whether she consciously chose to do it this way or it just came naturally to her, the end result is that the six main characters have a distinctiveness that stems purely from their personalities, and not from whatever racial caricatures they were supposed to represent.

In other words, it would have been simple—and expected—for, say, Pinkie to have a "black" voice and Rainbow Dash to be "Asian", just because that's how cartoons are these days. But they're not. They're all more or less drawn using the same set of cultural paintbrushes. While they might attract some criticism for failing to be inclusive of big parts of the potential audience, the upshot is that the on-screen differences between the ponies end up being a lot more subtle and nuanced this way. They don't differ because of exaggerated, caricatured "ethnic" mannerisms; they differ because of the cultivated uniquenesses of how their minds all work.

It was a courageous and risky move on Lauren's part, but it's really set an interesting precedent, I think. It said "no" to decades of cheap and patronizing tokenism and said "The audience can appreciate this show's entertainment value no matter what gender they are or what culture they come from". That's a hugely powerful statement to be able to make, from a characterization standpoint.
Last edited by Headless Horse on Sun Oct 21, 2012 3:00 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Red Terra
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Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Red Terra (?) » Sun Oct 21, 2012 2:58 pm

I always thought Twilight was... either Asian or non-white IF she was humanized.

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Jupiter

Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Jupiter » Sun Oct 21, 2012 3:05 pm

Except Zecora, who's just about the most token magical black ma(re) in any show ever :smirk:

Headless Horse
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Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Headless Horse (?) » Sun Oct 21, 2012 3:09 pm

Well, yes, no getting around that one. :sheepish: Still, at least she's an ancillary character, not part of a carefully balanced and focus-group-tested main cast. Ancillary characters get to be caricatures because we don't see very much of them.

As for Twilight, eh, maybe. But that's all just fan speculation, right? It doesn't stem from her writing or her VA delivery. It's just fans projecting.

(And, I suspect, doing so because it feels uncomfortable and "wrong" to have as many as six human characters all looking so culturally homogeneous. Strip away the pony appearance and people can't wait to start applying the familiar engineered casting tropes. Fans are a product of our time.)

Timber72

Re: The Importance and Perception of Characterization in MLP

Post by Timber72 » Sun Oct 21, 2012 3:15 pm

Excluding Zacura, I thought the concept of race was always shown by pegasi, unicorn, earth instead? Then we have the other 'sub' races that get treated like dirt, such as the sheep and cows. There is also Over a Barrel too.

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