@SpacePaladin
 
To put it bluntly, yes. I would honestly take a well-meaning occasional screw-up over an honest asshole almost any day of the week. Admittedly, the screw-ups of the Mane 6 and the CMCs are constant, but that’s yet another weakness of the show’s loose continuity.
 
And in the CMCs “defense”, they seem to get punished for their actions more often than not, such as in “Ponyville Confidential”, “Appleloosa’s Most Wanted”, and “Hearts and Hooves Day”, IIRC. They generally take responsibility for what they do, and don’t expect anyone else to join in. That’s more than can be said for Diamond Tiara in her “redemption” episode, where she mostly seemed to pin everything on her mother.

Yeah, about Gilda…

@matt0044
 
I feel like I’m being misrepresented here. I was not advocating punishment toward the characters who we’re supposed to be sympathetic to for screwing up catastrophically, but rather stating that if characters who screw up catastrophically are allowed to be forgiven, why should I hold the unrepentant jerk characters who do far less damage as irredeemable? Just because they’re unpleasant? It’s simply that the conversation was steered away from that point.

@SpacePaladin  
A rebuttal: http://seraphem7.tumblr.com/post/73259779940/read-the-comments-here-specifically-ones-by-a-mr

@SpacePaladin  
Unfortunately, your dream of a deconstruction of the show might never happen. It’s escapism for young girls and that sort of thing you suggest would never fit the tone of the show period. Older fans come second in this case, suffice it to say. I’m not saying that it couldn’t happen to a degree but going all South Park is nothing but a fever dream at best.
 
Just take for what it is: A cartoon not meant to be taken so damn seriously.

@Background Pony  
@Background Pony
 
Trixie did issue the challenge to challenge her, but it was the main characters that antagonized her to start with for no good reason.

@Background Pony
 
Ah yes, the “it would be boring” argument. Claiming whenever characters repeatedly do dangerously stupid things that I want the characters to be scrubbed of their flaws, when what I want is their tendency to not stop themselves from doing dangerously stupid things actually be explored as legitimate character flaws.
 
But no, we can’t have this kind of personal introspection on a kid’s show, now can we?

@Background Pony  
Oh yeah, never mind that part.

@Background Pony  
Trixie was the one who challenged them.
 
@SpacePaladin  
That would make for an awfully boring series.

@Background Pony
 
I’m sick of “they didn’t mean it so it’s okay!”
 
At some point they kind of need to step back and realize they shouldn’t act like that. That it becomes “I shouldn’t be doing this” the next time they find themselves heading toward a similar situation, instead of being all like if something goes wrong I’ll just apologize. That there shouldn’t be a “9 times out of 10” in the first place because they got the message after 3.

@The Smiling Pony  
Maybe though I can see her retaining her egotism but to a lesser extent.
 
@SpacePaladin  
Here’s the thing: with Gilda busting Pinkie’s flying contraption and threatening her to buzz off, she was being malicious. With the Mane Six, what harm they might cause is unintentional nine times out of ten (as in not always but mostly. Boast Busters could’ve used tweaking to make the Mane Six being annoyed by Trixie but not to such a great extend. Maybe Trixie could’ve challenged them instead of vice versa).

@Background Pony  
Bit of an aside, but I always figured Trixie’s “Great and Apologetic” thing was her joking around.

@Background Pony  
It’s just that when characters do some extreme things entering into potential hospitalization and life endangerment, I find that a mere “I’m sorry” makes it okay while not saying “I’m sorry” while merely being a jackass makes you irredeemable promotes an extreme lack of proportion.

@The Smiling Pony  
There’s a distiction with Gilda: she was not remorseful for her actions and didn’t apologize like the Mane Six and CMC have most of the time (even if they weren’t shown, I assume they did for a grand majority of the incidents you listed).
 
And this isn’t exclusive to them. Trixie apologized for her actions under the influence of the Alicorn Amulet (but is evidently still egotistic and show-offish) as well as Sunset after purified by the elements. Luna’s actions as Nightmare Moon clearly weren’t held against her when she apologized to Celestia. Lightening Dust was in a deleted scene in WBA where she did express remorse but it was left out due to the 22 minute limit.
 
So it seems Equestria is a place that promotes second chances. Gilda might’ve gotten one if she cleaned up her act but she didn’t and Dash had to let her go (I imagine it was harder than it looked).

@The Smiling Pony
 
Thank you Smiling Pony. Don’t forget to add the Mane Cast ruining The Grand Galloping Gala and the Canterlot Garden Party. And the CMCs drugging Cheerilee and Big Mac. And RD kicking the dragon in the face, nearly resulting in her friends getting demolished by a dragon (yeah, that was an attempt to fix the situation, but what part of provoking a creature 100x your size, and that’s it, is considered a good idea? Especially when Lightning Dust doing something similar was so condemned).
 
And @matt0044:
 
I don’t mind it when the characters make mistakes. I hate when people say that to me as an excuse for when the characters screw up and arguably quantitatively more at the very least than the antagonists. What I mind is the lack of consequences for them. They do some very dangerous or abusive things and after the episode, no one looks at them sideways for it after the episode ends.
 
Even if they’re national heroes, I want to see an episode where they cause some major ruckus and some background character, after seeing all the damage to her event, has to hold herself back and tell herself “They’re national heroes, they’re national heroes, they’re national heroes…” before putting on a fake smile. I would have liked in Sweet and Elite the reason Ponyvillians are looked down on is because of the events of The Grand Galloping Gala.
 
I’d like to see the CMCs get a South Park Craig-style calling out.
 
Craig: “Do you guys know why nobody else at school likes hanging out with you? [the other boys look at each other] Because you’re always doing stuff like this. You’re always coming up with some stupid idea to do something, and then it backfires, and then you end up in some foreign country, or in outer space or something. That’s why no one likes hanging out with you guys.”

@The Smiling Pony  
I never liked the blanket term “villain.” I always preferred antagonist.

Why do you tag it text if it’s text only?

@matt0044  
Do not take any of this too seriously:
 
-> AJ & PP poisoning the town with muffins and getting off scott-free in Applebuck Season.
 
-> RY, AJ and RD being jerks at Trixie’s free show in Boast Busters; if a non-main character had done that to a main, we’d immediately dump them in the “villain” lot. Later followed by RD wanting to chase Trixie down, most likely for a beating, giving the airs she was giving.
 
-> AJ and RD both cheating in Fall Weather Friends; if a random BP had tried any of those stunts, they’d be classed as villains and punished.
 
-> RY during Sonic Rainboom; it’s not possible she didn’t realize what she was doing to RD. Admittedly she got her comeuppance and apologized.
 
-> RD again immediately resorting to violence (see Boast Busters, Dragonshy) after being shown up by Strongheart in Over a Barrel.
 
-> TS brainwashing the entire town in Lesson Zero, then her “punishment” being less homework.
 
-> PP in Luna Eclipsed, constantly trolling Luna despite it being obvious she wasn’t enjoying herself (something she would be able to tell given the emphasis on that in Griffon the Brush Off).
 
-> AB stealing from Zecora in The Cutie Pox. Admittedly suffered for it.
 
-> RD chasing down and assaulting a local hero in MMDW, simply because she was stealing her thunder. RD likes violence a lot.
 
-> RY in Sweet and Elite, lying to her friends, in their faces even, and never telling them what her plans actually were. As far as her friends are concerned the “Opal is sick” story was the legit reason for RY staying in Canterlot, and her knowing all the nobles was just a happy coincidence.
 
-> Minor, but RY laughing off the cakes in Baby Cakes. Quite the Element of Generosity, that one…
 
-> RD stealing from a hospital in Read it and Weep.
 
-> PP being an utter nuisance in A Friend in Deed. That a deus ex machina saved the day in the end doesn’t change the fact that she was both harmful and annoying up to the very end.
 
-> FS during Putting your Hoof Down. If a pep talk is all it takes for someone to go uber-jerk mode, they have serious issues. FS assaulted several people and mentally scarred her best friends.
 
-> TS in It’s About Time. She wanted to stop time. Ie. destroy everything.
 
-> Nearly all of them in MMMystery, considering how the other chefs were being portrayed as bona fide villains up until it was revealed they were innocent (and then shortly after as guilty as the rest, but still).
 
-> The CMC in One Bad Apple; they rigged the float so that Babs would lose control and drive off a cliff into the lake. She could have freaking died in the wreckage or drowned, christ. And they got off without even an admonishment. Sure, Babs needed a good slap across the face, but that was attempted murder!
 
-> Minor, but letting Harshwhiney hold the illusion that the way Chickadee had been welcomed to the Empire was “normal” was just plain wrong.
 
 
^{I have a lot of free time today.}

@SpacePaladin  
One other thing, I like it when characters make these sort of mistakes. Why? Because it shows that they’re not perfect like any human or pony. It’s something that bugs me when cartoon characters are shown as constant do-gooders without any apparent flaws. Like the Zordon era of Power Rangers compared to say, Dino Thunder. The latter has more realistic characters as they are teens but not the same goody-good teens from the former.

@SpacePaladin  
Out of sheer morbid curiosity, what specific examples can you bring up to back yourself up?

@matt0044
 
It’s just the level of bullshit that the Mane Cast would proceed to do to other people that gets me frustrated. It’s hard for me to take the show seriously when it expects me to see Gilda as the bar for going too far, and then have the heroes do things that cause far more damage.

@PonyPon  
Gilda was clearly not going to get any better like that. Some people are much more stubborn and I know that from experience.
 
Though maybe if she returns…

@matt0044  
What do we call forgiveness?

@SpacePaladin  
Well, seeing how your friend been an a-hole to your other friends isn’t something you can let slide.

@SpacePaladin  
Well Gilda had not been fair to Pinkie. She was quite possesive of Dash.  
Though Rainbow didn’t have a strong reason as too abandon Gilda. Yes, I would have stood up to her, but then I would have gone and talked to her alone.
 
It could be some lesson about how your friends sometimes won’t be friendly with each other or something.