Maybe that’s WHY the camera went black

@PonyPon  
Nothing, really. I mean, it’s not like it’d be that hard to find us through a simple Google search.

@Background Pony  
What, pray-tell, is so horrible about linking the thread?

I’m being stupid again and I’m taking others down with me this time. I never freaking learn. I’ll just completely leave you guys alone now.

…why did I just do that very assholish thing?

@clockworkinsomniac  
They never punished Trixie.  
It is Gilda’s fault that she found Dash’s all pranks.  
In the party, she acted like a jerk to all other ponies except Dash.  
It was Gilda who:  
insulted Dash’s friends,  
try to make her abandon her friends,  
leaved the party.

@sentinel28a
 
(another Text wall! people are gonna love me using this place as a forum)
 
 
@sentinel28a
 
Well i wasnt really talking about the second appearance honestly, but i dont think we should really take it into account. The mane6 didnt get held accountable for things they did under Discord’s spell, Trixie shouldnt for things shes done under an amulet of evil. And frankly, what else could she possibly have done to her? Shes literally got nothing. All thats left is being thrown in jail and the mare would probably appreciate three solid meals a day.
 
Recently Faust said that she thought people underestimated Trixie and she could have been a much worse villain than she actually was - as in Nightmare Moon sort of level. My two cents is that Trixie should probably still consider this as a viable course of action. Shes already had life completely shit on her twice and nothing seems to show any sign of changing. Maybe if she goes full villain people will finally give her some respect at least.
 
It worked for Luna.
 
Gilda only attempted cartoon-murder. Look below for my reasons on why im not totally happy with how Gilda was presented.
 
And yes, it IS only a cartoon. which was my original point, but its still a little fucked up for a cartoon like this to try and give out morals when its so utterly fucked up.

@Background Pony
 
Yes, Trixie is a jerk. She’s actually a little bit more than that really. She’s semi-sadistic, power-hungry and seems to have absolutely no one she cares about. But the thing is… being nice doesnt excuse poor behaviour, and being mean shouldnt get you worse punished within itself. The punishment for being mean is having no friends - and as we know from Trixie’s complete reduction to manual labour, she apparently has absolutely no friends or family to fall back on. She’s a jerk, and shes alone because of that. Doesnt mean she should be locked up.
 
You cant get angry at someone for having an ego as big of yours and then defend it by saying ‘well im not a jerk’. Its hypocrisy.
 
As for Gilda… people defend her mostly because A) she seems to care genuinely about Dash and B) the party at the end in which she’s kicked out of ponyville just seems so… mean.
 
Basically the first scene of them together is proof of point A. Go back and rewatch as Dash pesters Gilda into singing the old flight song with her - its sort of adorable. She’s embarassed and clearly doesnt want to do it. But literally says ‘only for you Dash’ and starts singing along because itll make her friend happy. Thats actually heartwarming.
 
But throughout the episode it becomes more and more clear that she’s got some serious anger issues to work through, and that Dash seems totally unaware of these somehow.
 
The reason Gilda loses her cool at the party is because she (and indeed we the viewer) believes until Dash says otherwise that the party is a trick from Pinkie to make her upset. And frankly, even the Buddha gets angry if you hit him enough, and Gilda is not the Buddha. Its numerous pranks, one after another, with a crowd of strange ponies laughing at her. Anyone would get embarassed. let alone a hothead with a serious anger problem.
 
The episode doesnt end on any sort of moral or high point. It just ends with horrible spat between previous best friends. Gilda barely even believes Dash when she finds out that those were her pranks. Shes just shocked. and Dash doesnt really give Gilda any sort of out or way to recover from this. She just says that Gilda had made a fool of herself and that she should go find some other ‘cool’ friends somewhere else, which is an extremely bitchy way of saying ‘get the fuck out of my house’.
 
All in all, its a genuine friendship thats been ended because one side had antisocial problems she couldnt hide and the other is an unthinking bitch who apparently had never paid attention to her friend in her life. The show is literally called ‘Friendship is Magic’ - episodes shouldnt conclude with broken friendships. Its literally against the premise of the show.
 
I thought the moral for that episode was going to be ‘not all your friends have to get along’ or something. Turned out the moral was supposed to be ‘Griffons are jerks - especially if you hit them with enough stink bombs’.
 
And hell, remember how Dash is supposed to be the Element of Loyalty? Applejack can barely even lie for a surprise birthday party shes so honest. Can Rainbow Dash really not follow her previous best friend after a spat and see if shes alright?

@clockworkinsomniac
 
Have to disagree about Trixie–a little. Trixie’s crime in her first appearance was basically boasting, so yes, it was no worse than Rainbow Dash. (The ursa minor showing up wasn’t Trixie’s fault.) Her crime in her second appearance was far worse: she practically enslaved Ponyville, then said she wanted to take over Equestria–after taking off the Alicorn Amulet. If this was a “serious” show instead of a cartoon, Trixie would be facing some serious punishment from Celestia (especially since she just admitted to planning a coup!). She gets away with it with an apology.
 
RD threw Gilda out not because she was throwing over her oldest friend for Pinkie, but because Gilda was being a bitch. Again, difference between cartoon and Serious Business: if you take it as the latter, Gilda attempted to murder Pinkie.
 
When it comes to Twilight–one can still be an introverted bookworm with little to no social skills with a stable family life. As a teacher, I see it all the time.
 
You’re right that there is some Karma Houdini going on with the main characters–Twilight’s use of out-and-out mind control (which earned her a mild scolding from Celestia), Pinkie inciting a riot on several occasions…we can probably go down the list, which reaches as high as Celestia. The technology mix is messed up as well (Vinyl Scratch’s DJ setup is my eyebrow-raiser).
 
But what the hay, it’s a cartoon. We shouldn’t be taking things so seriously; it’s not really meant to be. If we did, Wile E. Coyote should be in prison for possessing weapons of mass destruction.

@clockworkinsomniac  
Well, with Trixie you also have to keep in mind that she’s much more of a jerk than Rainbow Dash ever was, as evidenced by her humiliation of her challengers and her treatment of Snips and Snails. Even with that, her punishment in “Boast Busters” was disproportionate to her actual wrongdoing, true; however, remember that her response to that was to get an extremely powerful and dangerous magical artifact in order to exact revenge, a move that ended up endangering not only her supposed enemies but herself as well.
 
And Gilda… Why do people persist in defending her? She cruelly pranked a decrepit old mare, stole an apple, bullied Fluttershy, and blew up at the party over some mild pranks. And Gilda was the one who wanted Rainbow Dash to ditch her pony friends; if she had shown any signs of remorse, I expect Dash would have given her a chance to stay, but Gilda had made it clear that she didn’t want to stay in Ponyville.
 
Your other points are well made, though; they haven’t reached the point of seriously bothering me (except for the video game in “Hearts and Hooves Day”), but such inconsistencies are somewhat disconcerting.

@martianmister  
It has a little less.

@PonyPon  
And MLP don’t have that much coherency and consistency?

@Hsere
 
The key word there is ‘for a cartoon’. For a cartoon it IS pretty consistent. But again, its certainly not as consistent as Avatar was. No problem with that as entertainment, the problem comes that when you get people like us who overanalyse you get weirdness. Especially when it comes to the moral questions (lets not let Feeling Pinkie Keen go quite yet eh?).
 
Theres some wonderful cases of designated antagonist and karmic houdini-ism for the Heroes that goes on in the show actually. I go to Trixie because shes the easiest example really. Since her two crimes are boasting (which Rainbow Dash does so much her problem in that episode is literally that she doesnt like the idea of Trixie being more awesome than her - way to go moral superiority!) and lying, which Rarity (the other pony telling her off) has also committed for entirely selfish reason (remember that - when she lied through her teeth for her own gain and got away with it completely without punishment or even having to claim she was wrong?)
 
I have moral problems with large amounts of the shows messages honestly. To use another designated antagonist, i never liked or understoof what the heck happened with Gilda. It seems like weve got half an episode or something with that. Dash just gets into a slowly escalating spat with her chidlhood friend, and it ends with her basically saying ‘Get out of my house!’ and then talks about how good it is for Dash to be loyal to her friend Pinkie when she just told her older friend to fuck off. Way to go Dash!
 
And again, theres the aforementioned musical stuff, which obviously isnt ‘really’ happening. And Twilight’s slowly improving childhood. Remember when her entire character concept was that she spent her entire life up to that point learning magic, and that made her into a social incompetent? Remember how she occasionally flipped inand out of being that social incompetent and slowly grew a more pleasant childhood complete with loving brother and babysitter?
 
As for smaller stuff, theres stuff like the general technology level of MLP in general. Earlier on especially electricity was mostly hidden away, candles were used, lampps in the park were run on glowflys, etc (apparently that was Faust - she insisted that using technology if they could get away with anything else was laziness - though even she wasnt perfect with it). And then we start getting things like hydroelectric dams and - for some ungodly reason - a full modern designed human based hospital with a complete 21st century maternity ward!
 
Especially weird when we know Ponyville is still a small town.
 
Again. Its not that bad compared to most cartoons. But we take this show very seriously, so its imperfections are magnified. ( Plus i was spoiled by Avatar’s excellent world building. )
 
Jeez. that was a long one.
 
@martianmister
 
I get what your saying, and i sort of agree despite what i said. The thing i think Adventure Time has over MLP though is that when the protagonists do something fucked up they generally get called out on it. It seems to have a slightly better moral centre basically.

@martianmister  
I was trying to sound profound.
 
My point being that the stories, through all their absurdity, still have coherency and some consistency.

@PonyPon  
What line?

@martianmister  
A line lacking sanity can still be called a line.

I don’t get why people portray “Adventure Time” as a more consisted show than MLP. Most of AT’s humor comes from it’s randomness and absurdness of events.

Nobody cares about the cameraman. :P

@clockworkinsomniac  
Could you provide a few examples? From what I’ve seen the show is pretty consistent for a cartoon.

@Jadefire
 
Relax.
 
The pony world doesnt make any sense or have any consistencies, so dont worry about it. Its not like Avatar or even Adventure Time - where things are kept consistent and have consequences. Its more like Family Guy, where you might as well flip a coin to figure out if something is going to be serious or not.
 
Thats why i always thought it was fucked up for the show to offer morals really though. Because sometimes a character doing something will have an episode ending in laughter and hijinks, and sometimes itll end with someone doing the same thing loosing their livelihood or being banished from Equestria or something.

I like this headcanon.
 
I also like that it was in Twilight’s mind and her attempts to fly in S4 should be…well, hilarious.

NUUUUUU! NOT THE DUCKLINGS!

Those poor ducklings!

I assume Twilight flying was only part of the song and didn’t actually happen in the pony world.
 
My headcanon is that whenever a song starts we’re seeing an alternate universe where everypony sings and dances and when it’s done we slip back into the regular pony world.
 
SHUT UP IT MAKES SENSE!