@Rozy Fly
I mean everyone was in the heat of the moment. Sprout’s own mother distracted him away from her. I think all the citizens of Maretime Bay and Phyllis should be blamed more for enabling Sprout and avoiding responsibilities. But Hitch didn’t really do anything wrong. He probably did talk to Sprout off screen. Hitch did nothing wrong.

Honestly, by looking at your profile, I kind of figure you’d sympathize with Sprout and Starlight. Do you consider Diamond Tiara not a villain either? I’m actually pretty curious right now. If you don’t want to clog up this comment section, you can DM me or something.

@Wayneponeth
I agree with first part. Sprout should have acted better too. His actions are his own. Hitch cannot predict what Sprout would have done. Totally agree!
Still disagree that he’s a villain and that Hitch has no blame. He has. My point is that at the end of the movie, Hitch should act better and actually go to his best friend and talk. But he ignored him and didn’t do his best. That’s it.

I won’t continue, I’m just sharing my view. Don’t be aggressive now if we don’t agree on something. ;)

For me, Discord was a villain, but I can’t say that for Starlight. Maybe a little bit. I would rather said that she lived in error and was lonely. You know, everything about cutie marks and her childhood friend Sunburst.

@Rozy Fly
No he did not. He did everything he could. Sprout should have acted better too. His actions are his own. Hitch cannot predict what Sprout would have done. He already acted all he could to help Sprout.

If you want to continue denying that Sprout is a villain, then I can continue to say Hitch has no blame for Sprout’s actions too. And when Sprout is reformed, he should be treated like all the other reformed characters like Starlight and Discord. He used to be a villain, and now he is not.

@Wayneponeth
I never said that. When? It’s not only Hitch’s fault, mostly Sprout’s of course. But Hitch had some blame on himself too. He should act better.
Still Sprout is not a villain. And no one is afraid of calling him a villain. He just isn’t.

Even if Sprout is later reformed. He will reform. They must do that. Otherwise, this series will be s…

@hironakamura
Yes, Hitch does care about Sprout, and Hitch does show effort to help Sprout. He tries his best. Maybe we should stop undermining the protagonist to boost the morale of the antagonist.

And if we do have a villain in a fiction, we should actually admit they’re villains. Sprout is still technically a villain for putting on a dictator outfit, trying to kill Izzy and Sunny, and destroying Sunny’s house. Even if Sprout is later reformed, he would used to be a villain. I mean if we treat Starlight Glimmer and Discord like that, why not the same for Sprout? Is it because what the others did was worse? I really think people are afraid of calling a character villain because that would make their precious biased character seem bad. If that’s the case then you should admit it too. Just say you don’t like a character being called a villain instead of denying them being a villain.

@Rozy Fly
And you made it sound like everything is Hitch’s fault, and that Hitch became a sheriff purely to spite Sprout. He didn’t take anything away from Sprout. He was given a position and had to be responsible. He didn’t destroy Sprout’s dream because he accepted the job. He didn’t know Sprout was so jealous. Sprout obviously wouldn’t show his tendency to Hitch. And it’s like that he should refuse the sheriff position to spare Sprout’s feeling even if he did. Yeah Hitch isn’t perfect either. He obviously pays too much attention toward Sunny and is probably biased toward her. He probably should have been more strict with Sprout whenever he shirks work, but that doesn’t mean Hitch is the cause for Sprout’s actions. Hitch isn’t a superhero, but he definitely shouldn’t be blamed for Sprout. He never had ill intent toward Sprout. He just wanted Sprout to act and be better. Sprout is the one that decides to build a war machine. Hitch didn’t do anything to make him to that. He tries his best.

@TOMNICE
Ok, I got it wrong. It seemed so to me 😄

I never said that.

@Wayneponeth
@TOMNICE
You’re saying saying like Hitch is a super hero and Sprout is an evil villain. Which is not. Yes it is Sprout’s fault of course, because that power of authority came into his head. He did a big mistake, but I’m saying that it’s not just his fault.

@hironakamura
Agree, they should leave together ;) But Hitch left Sprout and didn’t care about his problems. Sure Sprout didn’t want to go, but Hitch could bring him anyway. But the creator did what they did. At the end Hitch didn’t really care much about Sprout… Wasn’t really a good best friend. He was looking down on him, and even Sprout’s mom didn’t care. When they destroy that robot, someone should step to Sprout and made him talk… His last words were: Mom was I a good sheriff? And his mom just ignored him. Hitch, as his best friend should come to Sprout AND talk with him (WHY HE DID THIS? Or something like this.) But he just went to the girls and act like he0s their best friend or even more… He thinks he’s a chick magnet. Be around girls and forgot about his best pal… I feel sorry for Sprout. I really didn’t like this part. Sprout need to apologize (and even Hitch needs to apologize to him), and he needs a second chance! Creators just cut him out.

On the other hand, I think it’s going to happen in upcoming series and one movie, because this ending left This ending left a lot of unanswered questions. That’s why I’m defending Sprout, Wayneponeth. He’s not an angel of course, but it’s not just his fault. Also it’s a mane character.

HUGS to all of you! ^^ And I don’t hate Hitch! I hope there will be no misunderstanding here. He’s a cool guy I would hang with.

@Wayneponeth
I have no doubt Hitch cares about Sprout. He probably considers him like a little brother. But there’s no way it was a good idea to go after Sunny together or otherwise.

If they left together, the town will be without protection. And if Hitch leaves, Sprout is duty bound to act as sheriff because he is deputy. This was bad form on Hitch because he already knows Sprout can’t do that alone.

As for villains vs atagonists, its just a terminology thing. I can write a properly formed 4 act story with an arc and conflict but not require a villain at all. The g5 movie never had a villain. Western literary styles tend to rely on villains to create conflict but its not really required.

@Rozy Fly
Honestly I’m almost indifferent toward your support toward Sprout, until you started undermining Hitch’s efforts. You make it sound like Hitch never even tried to help Sprout and that he is a terrible friend but Hitch always tries his best to push Sprout to do something. It is Sprout who lets his fears win over him and runs away or refuses to try whenever Hitch wants him to help. Hitch has no choice but pursue Sunny on his own because Sprout didn’t want to follow him. Sprout always runs away in fear whenever Izzy shows her face. Hitch does try to push Sprout to do something to defend Maretime Bay, but Sprout is always too afraid to act. Hitch does care about Sprout and want him to be a good deputy and maybe eventually become a sheriff one day but if Sprout constantly shirks responsibilities, how is he going to be a sheriff?

Villains, antagonists, or whatever, this fandom seriously has an issue with the terms. Why are we so afraid of calling a character villain nowadays? Isn’t a villain just as good a character to like as a hero? Is it really a taboo to call a character villain and admit they’re villains now? Being a villain doesn’t suddenly invalid their existence or hurt them. It is their role and it’s fine for them to be addressed as such. It’s so weird we’re so afraid to call anyone a villain in this fandom like that’s some sort of offensive slur. Yes, calling them villains means they’re bad, but I thought that’s the point. I thought we enjoy their delicious evilness and being bad. I thought we see villains as bad not as actually bad for real, but more for fun in a fictional way. So what if they’re evil? Villains are still valid to like as long as they’re good characters and fun to watch.

@Background Pony #A73C
@Rozy Fly
Also, Sprout is far from harmless. He abused his power and destroyed a house.

@Background Pony #A73C
Disagree. Sprout is not a villain! Never was. End.
Like you said, “he got drunk in all that power”. Yes but that’s more like antagonists.
Antagonists and villains are two different things.

I like at how people are arguing about whether Sprout is a villain or not.

Guys, there’s something called ‘harmless villain’, villains that just laughable and for most of time harmless, like Team Rocket. There’s also well-intentioned extremist, villains who do bad thing because they thought it’s for greater good or they are misguided.
Sprout is between these two spectrums. Yes he’s just as prejudiced as most g5 ponies and not truly evil, but he escalated it further. Not to mention he also got drunk in power during his brief tenure as dictator-sheriff hybrid. During that time he’s quiet close to evil.

Izzy’s cute af and she knows it. :3

@Crimson Prose
Antagonists and villains are two different things.

Why did you just remind me of Dr. Robotnik from the Sonic movie LOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

@Crimson Prose
Antagonists don’t have to be actually evil villains.
Just meant to be in the role of opposing the protagonist and the goal said protagonist has.

@Crimson Prose
Villains are strawmen. They twirl their mustache and laugh maniacly just because they’re evil. Sprout was the antagonist of the story but he was not evil. His mind set was no different from 99% of the ponies in that movie. If the giant robot was in the command of either the unicorns or the pegasi, they would do the same that Sprout did. I would say any pony in Maretime Bay who commanded the giant robot would do the same thing Sprout did. Well, at least that’s what it looks like based on the Stanford Prison Experiment.

@Background Pony #7DE1
I don’t understand this argument. Regardless of competence or intent, he clearly acts as the antagonist for the finale. Isn’t that what a villain is?

The heck happened to his mom then?! O_o

Oh cool, impersonation.

Honestly thought that was Commander Firebrand for a second.

Sprout is not a villain. There is no actual villain in this movie.

@hironakamura
Ah, You right, you right. I understand a bit more now

Maybe this will help. A while back when people were planning to use tribe swapped mane 6 of G4 as the stars of G5, this was what they were planning to do with AJ. Look at the character beats. “Underdog.” “Needs to work a little harder.” “Bad-ish.” “Redemption arc like Sunset or Tempest.” Doesn’t it sound familiar? Compared to Hitch, Sprout is an underdog. He has to work a little bit harder just to gain the smallest amount of respect that Hitch gets handed to easily. There’s also the part that says this version of AJ doesn’t agree with Twilight. Doesn’t that sound like Sprout and Sunny? Even before Sunny and the G5 ponies were made, they’ve had it in the books to have the sixth member (AJ) be the reformed member of the group instead of all 6 members starting out as friends.

@PeggieLegs06
They don’t need to trademark mane 6. Don’t they own that already? If you watch the g5 movie carefully, you’ll find a lot of unfired chekov’s guns dropped everywhere for all the prominent characters. Izzy’s happy bday to me card. Sprout’s childhood dream to be sheriff. Pipp and Zipp’s hang ups with their mom. Hitch’s animal magnetism. Etc. None of this was addressed in the movie. All of it is gonna be addressed in the series and Sprout is a bif part of it because he shares a ton of significant back story with both Sunny and Hitch. If they were just gonna dump him, why did they give him such a decisive creation process behind the scenes. There’s so much work put into his conceptualization and they’re just gonna trash that? No. Anything they couldn’t put in the movie is gonna be in the series. Why? Because its 3dcg. They’re not gonna waste more money creating new assets when they can just use unused ones that were already made.