Unpopular opinion time

Candacefan29
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I don’t recall Pepe LePew trying to “seduce” no kittens.
 
Foalcon/Underage really squicks me out. Like, REALLY squicks me out…
 
I have to agree with a BP post I saw: “it’d be funnier if it was a generic bad OC and Twilight’; because of the whole “self-interest shipping/waifu” thing?.
 
Again, it was still an amusing animation, just that the age-difference (and the brony stereotype) left a bad taste in my mouth.
QueenCold
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The teenaged dragons for Dragon Quest arguably did nothing wrong.
 
Let me explain:
 
First of all, only three of the teenagers shown did anything of substance on screen. If any of the others wronged Spike, they did so off-screen, which doesn’t count.  
Second, the episode tries to paint the teenagers as jerks from the get-go, but their teasing isn’t anywhere near as mean and unwarranted as that of the ponies in the first act. Teasing was to be expected from the group of teens, since Spike was an oddball and tried to be accepted as one of them. The teens gave Spike four chances to prove himself worthy of hanging out with them. They were under no obligation to do this. After deciding Spike had proven his worth - or that he’d been through enough - they accepted him and threw a welcoming party. They earn the title “awful” for this and the ponies do not wish to leave Spike in a place where he is happy, because xenophobia. We really aren’t given another reason at this point.  
This is where Williams apparently realized that if she were to maintain the show’s status quo, she’d have to give ponies a valid reason to drag Spike back to Ponyville. So the dragon raid happens…  
This basically the part where the episode gives up. In order to ensure Spike’s return to Ponyville, it resorts to making the dragons look bad. Not only is it the laziest way to go about it, it doesn’t even work.
 
Let me explain:
 
Phoenixes by nature cannot be anything but pest creatures. If allowed to live, they will do so forever. They breed and become engulfed in flames when upset. Population control is essential. Dragons are the only other creatures known to be fireproof and they are predators, so it stands to reason they are the natural enemy of the phoenix.  
We don’t know what the teens would have done with the eggs after smashing them. Maybe they were looking for lunch and the egg shells are tough to break. Maybe they would have just smashed the eggs for their amusement, because dragons simply don’t value the lives of unintelligent creatures. The latter would be morally wrong by pony standards, but dragons aren’t ponies.  
Dragons are a radically different species, they have different morals and values, and their society is most likely survival-based. In short: they don’t play by pony rules. It would be incredibly ethnocentric of the ponies to expect them to, especially when they find themselves surrounded dragons instead of the other way around.  
Besides, it would be incredibly hypocritical of the ponies to judge dragons for their treatment of prey animals, when they themselves keep other sapient species in captivity.
 
As for Garble threatening Spike in the end, there’s no way to tell what he was going to do. He looked threatening for sure, but that’s his job. Garble was the obvious leader of the group, Spike was the rookie. Garble risked losing face in front of his friends if he were to let Spike defy him on his first day; he may have had to do damage control for weeks after the incident if he hadn’t put Spike in his place; he may have had to beat up his friends if they tried to challenge his position.  
He may have hurt Spike, which could possibly be condemned by the elders, but he very well may have not been too hard on him. This, we’ll never know.
 
All in all the teen dragons weren’t anywhere near as bad as the episode wanted to make them out to be.
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@QueenCold  
If you’ve read the actual in continuity EU material, the stuff by Amy Keating Rogers, you’d realize that ponies are willfully and hatefully ignorant of dragons. If they find them capable of culture at all, they definitely think that their “culture” is inferior to pony culture.
 
For example, Celestia disregarded the dragon concept of ownership and the multifaceted importance of a hoard and assumed something like “What, I can’t just march into a dragon’s cave uninvited with a full army demanding a part of what he technically owns without him getting pissy at me? Dumb dragon.”
 
For reference, Celestia went out of her way to research ways to defuse an international crisis with the griffons, but the second a dragon stood in her way, she marched in with an army and threw a hissy fit until she got what she wanted.
 
To be honest, it probably would have been better if she had done it the other way around. At least constantly being threatened by griffon attack/raid would be easier to handle than, you know, over a thousand years of a constant threat by a species that can breathe fire. I mean, even if you think dragons are disgusting scaled monsters why would you make them your race’s eternal enemy when you have an option not to?
ColdhardSilver
Thread Starter - Cartoon/Western Animation General

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@QueenCold  
“They earn the title “awful” for this and the ponies do not wish to leave Spike in a place where he is happy, because xenophobia. We really aren’t given another reason at this point.”  
>Because that would mean that they would lose Spike. Notice how the dramatic zinger didn’t arise until Spike talked about staying there forever, not because of who he was staying with. The ponies didn’t start a fuse when he was excepted and they even tried to help him pass his hazing tests.  
Remember that the mane ponies followed him was that he made there and back in one piece.
 
“Phoenixes by nature cannot be anything but pest creatures. If allowed to live, they will do so forever. They breed and become engulfed in flames when upset. Population control is essential. Dragons are the only other creatures known to be fireproof and they are predators, so it stands to reason they are the natural enemy of the phoenix”  
>This is a great theory, but doesn’t have enough canon bearing for me.  
Phoenixes haven’t been presented as pest-like unlike creatures like Twittermites and Parasprits, so how is this idea that they are is supposed to be convey to the audience if they are as you say?  
How do we know that their relationship is predator/prey? Many creatures kill for sport so what exempts that idea; especially since that’s what the episode implied.
 
“We don’t know what the teens would have done with the eggs after smashing them. Maybe they were looking for lunch and the egg shells are tough to break…”  
>But they ate during the party and were full by its end so why go somewhere to get food when the migration spot already had plenty? Why waste the effort and energy if food was the motivation? You could argue that maybe they taste better, but again if that was the case then why wouldn’t such a thing be explicitly made know? The chimera made it’s purpose of eating AB very clear so it’s not like they couldn’t if that’s really what they’re going for.
 
“Dragons are a radically different species, they have different morals and values, and their society is most likely survival-based”  
>How do we know that? The only pieces of dragon culture that we’ve witnessed is dragon greed, dragon migration, and the mannerisms of teenage dragons not dragon society as a whole. On that note, where would such a survival centered society come from since only dragon-on-dragon aggression we’ve seen was either out being territorial or for play like with the teens. Dragons are also continually shown as powerful beings with few equals so what would threaten them? Even ponies for all their magic and what not only mess with them if they become a problem.
 
“It would be incredibly ethnocentric of the ponies to expect them to, especially when they find themselves surrounded dragons instead of the other way around”  
>Again were not sure if this is dragon culture since we only see this age-group’s actions. If this truly was a common dragon act then would other dragons take party? Their was like 10 teen doing teen things, but only 3 went hunting and even the adult dragons didn’t partake in any of the teen’s activities nor did other teens like derpy Crackle.
 
“Besides, it would be incredibly hypocritical of the ponies to judge dragons for their treatment of prey animals, when they themselves keep other sapient species in captivity.”  
>Again that assumes that firebirds are actually their prey or that phoenixes are prey animals.
 
“As for Garble threatening Spike in the end, there’s no way to tell what he was going to do. He looked threatening for sure…This, we’ll never know.”  
>Again, how are we supposed to get that if that really was what the writers were trying to convey? Grable showed no previous signs of caring about his position since he had it so securely and the other teens nor Spike really challenged him - even after losing by getting a head spike shoved up his tailhole - so where is the connection?
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Again, a phoenix is inherently a pest creature; the idea that five or six phoenixes would be born regularly would lead to “overpopulation” which would mean a ton of non-phoenix species would suffer.
 
They might be rare where ponies are from, but maybe not where dragons come from. Again, the poor implications in the episode are confirmed in stuff like the Journal of the Two Sisters where most of dragon behavior towards ponies is based off of a pony bias against them.
ColdhardSilver
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@Itsthinking  
“Again, a phoenix is inherently a pest creature…”  
If the show followed normal Phoenix conventions and normal world statistics on all points.  
Sure this could be seen as a stretch, but since MLP Wendigos don’t eat flesh, MLP Changlings don’t mainly transform into children, and MLP Ahuizotl hasn’t been shown to be particularly water-proof, I wouldn’t call it as such.
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@ColdhardSilver  
Aren’t phoenixes in most stories really, really, REALLY rare? I misspoke. I think in MLP they’d be a pest but not in other stories. Five or six phoenix eggs would mean that they aren’t that rare.
ColdhardSilver
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@Itsthinking  
“Five or six phoenix eggs would mean that they aren’t that rare”  
I see what your saying, but without any invasive traits, connected diseases, farm and/or livestock damage, or any real sense of being an annoyance I have trouble call them pest.  
Hell without being annoying I can’t even call them wasp-tier pests. :P
 
Excuse the random question, but where is the site criteria for being an assistant and who do you need to contact?
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@Itsthinking  
I have not read this, so I can’t say anything about that.
 
@ColdhardSilver  
The key word in my argument is “arguably”. Yes, it is a theory, but it isn’t based on nothing.
 
You fail to give me an explanation for why the ponies called the dragons awful after the party.
 
Phoenixes are creatures that die in a burst of flame, while living inside trees - which are flammable - then respawn an infinite number of times apparently. They also become literal fire birds when angered. Remember, only you can prevent forest fires.
 
Maybe the others were full, but the three who went on the raid weren’t. It is a possibility. I already covered the possibility the raid was for sport.  
Why would they explicitly state: “let’s go get some phoenix eggs, smash them on the ground, and cook them; because a phoenix egg is fireproof and we have to break it before we are able to cook the delicious fluids within”?  
They didn’t say: “let’s go get some phoenix eggs and smash them on the ground!” either, though that was clearly what they were going to do. The raid was just written in to be bad by pony (and people) standards. I already covered this. That doesn’t mean it cannot be explained at all. Again, “arguably” is the key word.
 
Dragon greed is not a cultural element, it’s a biological one. What would threaten them is other dragons, environmental obstacles and possibly other creatures such as Ursa Majors. I mentioned that dragon society is most likely survival-based, because they have demonstrated the base psychology of such a society; the base aggression against dragons coming too close, the loner lifestyles outside of youth or special occasions (the migration), and massive feasting (the party). They had clearly gathered a mass of food in the form of gems, and were competing by strength for status, both a couple of key things when it comes to survival-based cultures.
 
In regards to Garble’s position, he wasn’t worried because he had already established it without showing a sign of weakness. If he showed weakness, he would likely lose that security of position. The spine in his cloaca is easily explained as a cheap shot, by the way.
 
Those are just my thoughts.
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@QueenCold  
You know one thing I don’t get?  
If the dragons can literally swim in molten magma just fine. How hot do those phoenix fires get that is enough to burn the dragons?
 
Also, in my headcanon. The phoenixes in FiM are only immortal by age. But if they are killed in any other ways, they die, period.
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@SeraphimDawn  
There are hotter things than lava. Maybe dragons aren’t really fireproof, maybe they are just resistant to very high temperatures, but have their limits. I believe Spike is the only one who ever explicitly stated dragons are fireproof, but he’s not exactly an expert.  
What’s funny is that in spite of being resistant to high temperatures, dragons should not be able to swim in lava due to its density. They should float.
 
“Also, in my headcanon. The phoenixes in FiM are only immortal by age. But if they are killed in any other ways, they die, period.”  
My headcanon too. If they breed, something needs to be able to kill them, or they’ll wind up overpopulating the world.
ColdhardSilver
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@QueenCold  
“You fail to give me an explanation for why the ponies called the dragons awful after the party.”  
>Allow me to present my answer like this:  
Did all three of called them awful? No.  
Who did call them awful? Rarity.  
Did the dragons do anything that would cause her to personally call them that? Yes; roughhousing, hurting spike, there general personality, etc. Why wouldn’t she call them that?  
Does this connote to all dragons being awful? I won’t say so since they still love Spike and admired the dragons when they were passing Ponyville (including Rarity).
 
“Dragon greed is not a cultural element, it’s a biological one”  
>Yeah that was improper wording on my end, sorry pal.
 
“Why would they explicitly state: “let’s go get some phoenix eggs, smash them on the ground, and cook them; because a phoenix egg is fireproof and we have to break it before we are able to cook the delicious fluids within?”  
>Why would a writer go that needlessly far to explain it? Knowing Garble he’s probably make a joke about a late breakfast and then get to talking about a nice place in the forest with a five claw discount. That’s what I was referring too, just like the Chimera’s filly-fillet.
 
“What would threaten them is other dragons, environmental obstacles and possibly other creatures such as Ursa Majors. I mentioned that dragon…”  
Nothing to really argue that doesn’t just comes down “my interpretation etc reason etc” and it’s starting to get late on my end so I rather stick to bigger points. Hope this doesn’t come off as rude or that I’m brushing you off.
 
“In regards to Garble’s position, he wasn’t worried because he had already established it without showing a sign of weakness. If he showed weakness, he would likely lose that security of position.”  
I want to say something, but the wording kinda confuses me. Would you mind re-writing this point?
 
“The spine in his cloaca is easily explained as a cheap shot, by the way.”  
I know that is the joke, but the fact of the matter is that he still got knocked off by it. G-man didn’t even say anything about he only talked about failure when Spike failed to stay on the hoard.
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@TexasUberAlles  
I wish I could upvote comments.
 
Anyway, I think a big issue with dragon-pony relations is that Celestia pretty much fucked up thousands of years ago and neither species is willing to take the first step into not bothering/killing/stealing from each other.
 
Dragons in MLP are a bit different because they clearly have a culture of defined rules that is different because of their biology. Ponies can comprehend the differences of griffon, buffalo, zebra, yak, and even manticore culture because they’re relatively similar. Dragon culture is probably very similar to buffalo and/or yak culture, two creatures that ponies have had difficulty understanding even without a biological impetus for the way they behave.
 
The dragon that “stole” the Crystal Heart from the crystal ponies admitted it was just one part of his hoard, but he was treated so shittily by Celestia that he wasn’t going to give it up without a fight, it seemed. Despite that, you know, she could have just given him bits/something of equal value and he would have likely given it to her.
ColdhardSilver
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@Itsthinking  
“The dragon that “stole” the Crystal Heart from the crystal ponies admitted it was just one part of his hoard, but he was treated so shittily by Celestia that he wasn’t going to give it up without a fight, it seemed. Despite that, you know, she could have just given him bits/something of equal value and he would have likely given it to her.”  
To be fair I wouldn’t call the crystal heart just a trinket that I’d be too happy about it being taken; hell griffon’s grand treasure had no magical application and they were united with it and fell to pieces without it. Sure it’s who he is, but like the woman who kidnaps a child to be her child because that’s how she rolls, it doesn’t completely exempts you from certain factors.
 
Though I haven’t read the book that this situation come from so please just consider this as me just bringing a point.
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