Unpopular opinion time

GenericArchangel
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@DanielTepesKraus  
Finally, someone who gets it!
 
Twilight’s not a bad person- far from it, I think she’s a pretty good one. But she can’t swallow her own pride to save her life or the lives of others and it causes problems. She’s let herself become so convinced she knows what she’s doing she stopped taking time to consider if what she was doing was wrong or hypocritical, to the extremes of missing her own point to her friend’s detriment. What Twilight Sparkle needs, as a ruler, is not a council of her friends- they’re sycophants, in a lot of ways. She needs people who will tell her “no, you’re not doing this right, you need to stop and reconsider.” In many ways that was Celestia’s and Luna’s biggest advantage: they had each other to counteract the other one, even if Celestia often ignored her younger sister. Twilight doesn’t have that.
 
All of this is what makes Twilight dangerous, and it’s ironically the same problem Trixie has: she’s too convinced of her own rightness to listen to anyone else. The difference between Twi and Trixie being that Twi is actually right a lot of the time, which only makes her more dangerously arrogant. And unlike Trixie, Twilight never really got a comeuppance for this, a moment where life sat her down and bitchslapped her for being too full of herself. And yes, this comes into play during the finale in what I regard as the most horrific act any character ever did in the entirety of FiM.
Philweasel
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@DanielTepesKraus  
I like to think of myself as a benevolent utilitarian, so I’m totally ok with that motive for redemption.
 
As much as anything else, it gave them a goal to drive their redemption. There’s a measure of having to earn it in the concept of “we’ll forgive you, because we believe you might be useful”.
AC97
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Chrysalis is simply too PRIDEFUL to redeem herself. She would view it as defeat, and in a way it is. I admire her spirit. Being redeemed might be better for her in the long run, but it would lessen her. I loved the fact that even at the very end, she was declaring vengeance and leaping forward.
 
I think Tirek sums it up regarding her mindset, back in Twilight’s Kingdom, aside from her “disease” spiel in Frenemies that she made.
 
I am surprised that someone with your intellect does not see this ‘friendship’ is but a new form of imprisonment. Clearly you’ve had to abandon your true nature to stay in their good graces.
 
She just refuses to be subservient to anyone, to admit that she could possibly be wrong, and that’s undoubtedly a trait she’d hate in Starlight; if she was as obstinate as she, in a twisted way, perhaps she could respect that, but no, she’s spineless, like the rest of those ponies, letting herself be enslaved by friendship, which would never be her.
 
Cozy Glow: Grogar left me in charge.
Queen Chrysalis: No, he didn’t. And even if he did, Chrysalis obeys no one.
 
She’s been at it for such a long time, and she’s a tyrant that leans towards Order, even if she’s Neutral Evil in any case, so her mindset isn’t chaotic in the right way to be open to change, ingrained in her attitude as she is.
 
Unlike Tirek and probably also Cozy Glow, I don’t see her as being the type to beg for her life in the face of being at the mercy of someone who’s going to kill her. She’d more likely be snarling and fighting to the very end, if she could.
AC97
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@DanielTepesKraus
I like to think of myself as a benevolent utilitarian, so I’m totally ok with that motive for redemption.
As much as anything else, it gave them a goal to drive their redemption. There’s a measure of having to earn it in the concept of “we’ll forgive you, because we believe you might be useful”.
 
I think I can agree on that one; that’s kind of explicitly why Celestia tried to have Discord reformed in the first place (Twilight applied that reasoning way better, mind you; one can look at how many times her attempt went out of her way to betray her trust and endanger anything from the country to the entire world, in comparison to Celestia’s), even if there’s other reasons aside from “not inherently powerful”… not to try when it comes to the likes of Cozy and Tirek.
Latecomer

@AC97  
Difference is, though, that it costs quite a bit less to tri when the subject can be decisively overpowered. just having Discord loose is risku - but how dangerous is Cozi without trust or artefacts?
GenericArchangel
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@Latecomer  
Twilight never really listened to Starlight, though. While there is the one exception with the Pony of Shadows, that hardly counts since Twilight already doubted the position she had taken- all Starlight did was confirm she wasn’t crazy for thinking Starswirl was wrong.
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Humata, Hukhta, Hvarshta
as for why the writers do this on a meta-level? i dunno. maybe they think giving a more substantial motivation beyond “friendship saves” to forgive horrible people makes it more believable and acceptable, maybe they think the power of friendship is stupid and are subtly making fun of it, maybe it’s just one gigantic coincidence and they never intended it to come off this way. really, my only criticism with any of it is it’s a very cynical take on the power of friendship, as if to say it’s not worth it unless you can get something out of it.
 
I don’t know about that, but that reminds me of the changelings’ reformation - in hindsight, after the beginning of the second part of To Where and Back Again, it should have been obvious that they were going to be reformed, if anything, because they were too powerful to continue opposing the protagonists and with Thorax on the table, having them going out like Pinkie’s clones wasn’t a option they could go for anymore.
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@AC97  
“Chrysalis obeys no one” doesn’t mean much when she’s literally obeying Grogar’s orders at that point and was shown sweating scared shitless towards his presence.  
I honestly don’t know why she even bothered saying that.
Mr.Myoozik
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@Background Pony #A30C  
There wasn’t anywhere else for her to go by that point since she got reduced to a vengeful laughing mess after she lost everything. As for the whole her being scared at Grogar, probably because she saw how much Grogar meant business and how he appeared to be more powerful and imposing than her.
gingerninja666
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@GenericArchangel
 
I always liked the moral of Shadow Play.
 
Perhaps it could’ve been constructed more elegently, but “Teacher needs to be reminded of their own teachings by a student after an extremely emotional situation causes them to lose sight of what they already knew” is a perfectly valid story thread in my opinion.
 
Twilight is a bit of a loon, and the miraculous return of Starswirl, someone we’ve been shown time and time again that she idolizes, would;ve be a big deal for her even if she wasn’t.
AC97
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@GenericArchangel
 
To be fair, that “plot to betray them” thing happened at the end of Frenemies, whereas “Chrysalis obeys no one” happened before the Villain Song.
 
…I wouldn’t doubt Chrysalis was already seeding the beginnings of plans of “betray him” by that point, in her mind, though, if only in the “fantasize” stages because she didn’t have a discernible way to go about it.
Philweasel
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@Myoozik  
Yeah, Chrysalis is prideful and arrogant, but she’s not stupid. She saw what happened to Sombra.
 
She made it clear she wasn’t happy working for Grogar, but she wasn’t going to outright defy him with nothing to back it up or no plan of what to do afterwards.
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Just when you think there’s no more good memes to be had Long Glimmer comes along.
 
It’s just a recycling/ponifying of an old meme and yet it still ends up being a gem.
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I have seen a lot of people complain that Trivial Pursuit is repeating lessons used before, but I found the episode to be a pretty funny stand alone episode, like how Applejack managed to fail an apple question or how Twilight began nitpicking the rules.
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