History YMMV / TheRiseOfDarthVulcan

* CatharsisFactor: [[spoiler: Seeing Leo give Vulcan a well-deserved beatdown is this...which is why some find Vulcan ''still'' winning in the end infuriating.]]

* MoralEventHorizon: Ted arguably crosses it when he almost kills Artful Dodger in a fit of rage after mistakenly believing Dodger willingly sold him out. Though he is stopped, this is perhaps the clearest sign that there is something seriously wrong with him.

* IdiotPlot: Some readers feel this way, feeling that Vulcan gets more victories due to the other characters' stupidity than his own competence, including [[spoiler:Tirek waltzing into his lair and trying to brute force steal his power despite canonically being extremely intelligent and ''not'' doing that against Discord when he wasn't strong enough to beat him, or no one warning Leo of the incredibly obvious weakness in his MageKiller armor]].

* WhatAnIdiot:
** Dodger is nearly murdered by Ted in a fit of rage after the latter mistakenly believes Dodger betrayed him.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Dodger decides hanging out with an unstable person who can easily kill him and has just tried to kill him on suspicion of being TheMole might be a bad idea in the long run and [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere runs away with his Tooth Breezies]].\\
'''Instead:''' He places all blame for the incident on Luna for making him an unwitting spy and stays with the guy who nearly killed him. Though this could be justified if he's only pretending to stay loyal to Ted out of fear.
** As mentioned in the main page, Ted relying on the Amulet's power is an incredibly stupid move, especially by a former tabletop game player. It would be TooDumbToLive, except it hasn't gotten him killed yet.
** The ''entire'' reason Ted is in the mess he is right now is because of this trope. Instead of just taking off the scary outfit and asking for help, he decided to terrify ponies into meeting his demands when it was completely unwarranted. This goes exactly as well as you'd expect it to.
** The heroes deciding to [[spoiler: use Leo after suiting him up to be a mage killer as a distraction]] instead of [[spoiler: making it an actual spearhead to stop Vulcan. Had Celestia and Luna showed up to help, in all likelihood, Vulcan would've been done for. Because they didn't, Leo loses and they only come out of it with a relatively minor victory instead of winning]].
** [[spoiler: The ''entire'' reason Vulcan wins against Leo is because someone decided it'd be a good idea to let opening his visor make a hole in the magical protection and leave him vulnerable...and ''didn't bother to tell Leo that''. Note, the visor on a knight's helmet ''opens for a reason'', namely to let them get a better view of their surroundings because the visor itself restricts their vision, something that can be a matter of life and death in a battlefield. I.e., one of the most obvious things in the world someone wearing armor might end up doing. Yet ''no one'' bothered to tell Leo that.]]

* TooBleakStoppedCaring: The story is at this point for some. Equestria is made into an awful place, characters are made either stupider or more villainous than in canon, the heroes get minor victories at best no matter what, and the main character is intended to be a completely unlikable jerk yet for some reason is always right and never suffers a meaningful loss.

* TooBleakStoppedCaring: The story is at this point for some. Equestria is made into an awful place, characters are made either stupider or more villainous than in canon, the heroes get minor victories at best no matter what, and the main character is intended to be a completely unlikable jerk yet for some reason is always right and never suffers a meaningful loss.

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: The story is at this point for some. Equestria is made into an awful place, characters are either made more villainous or stupid than in canon, no matter what the heroes get minor victories at best, and the main character is intended to be a completely unlikable jerk that for some reason is always right and never suffers a meaningful loss.

* MoralEventHorizon: Ted nearly crosses it when he almost kills Artful Dodger in a fit of rage after mistakenly believing Dodger willingly sold him out. Though he is stopped, this is perhaps the clearest sign that there is something seriously wrong with him.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: Quite a few readers feel [[spoiler: Tirek]] was a complete waste. Not only for being such a high profile villain given a brush off death, but because [[spoiler: his presence actually goes along with some of Vulcan's arguments and could've contributed to the plot quite a bit more if he'd been a major threat]].

'''You'd Expect:''' Dodger decides hanging out with an unstable person who can easily kill him and has just tried to kill him on suspicion of being TheMole might be a bad idea in the long run and [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere runs away with his Tooth Breezies.]]\\

** [[spoiler: The ''entire'' reason Vulcan wins against Leo is because someone decided it'd be a good idea to let opening his visor make a hole in the magical protection and leave him vulnerable...and ''didn't bother to tell Leo that''. Note, the visor on a knight's helmet ''opens for a reason'', namely to let them get a better view of their surroundings because the visor itself restricts their vision, something that can be a matter of life and death in a battlefield. I.e., one of the most obvious things in the world someone wearing armor might end up doing. No one bothered to tell Leo that.]]
* TheWoobie: The Remedial Class pegasi. The sheer injustice they went through almost makes you ignore that they went to Vulcan to get payback.

* RonTheDeathEater:
** While not flat-out evil, Celestia and Luna make a ''lot'' more morally dubious decisions than they do in canon, to the point some readers have come to see it this way.
** The heroes [[spoiler: basically using Leo as a diversion in a battle he can't win with a lunatic]] strikes some readers as this, too.

* ShallowParody: Many people find it this. While explicitly trying to deconstruct the setting, the story is set in a version of Equestria tailor made so Vulcan is always right and many things that never existed in canon (the thestrals, remedial pegasi, and others) are at the core of this, to the point the majority of Ted's army is composed entirely of fanfic exclusive problems with Equestria. Thus it comes off less as deconstructing the setting and more trying to make Equestria look as bad as possible.

** The Cutie Mark Crusaders, Silver Spoon, Twist, and Babs rousing Diamond Tiara from her fug and proving that Darth Vulcan was lying to her. Especially because she's been nothing but horrid to four out of these six fillies.

* DracoInLeatherPants: Ted/Darth Vulcan. Due to how he completely deconstructs the show by delivering incredibly satisfying [[BreakThemByTalking breaking speeches]] to the Princesses for all of their stupid decisions and his false NobleDemon personality, people like him much more than the ponies. However, he isn't SUPPOSED to be completely in the right, shown when he [[WouldHurtAChild nearly drowned Diamond Tiara]]. Even if it's [[{{Jerkass}} Diamond]] [[HateSink Tiara]], and she might have [[BreakTheHaughty needed an attitude adjustment]], this wasn't the way to do things, but it still wasn't completely absorbed by the readers because of how hated she is by the fandom. The author has gone on record regarding how much this disturbs him, and this attitude from some readers has turned others off from the story by convincing them this was the author's intent.

* MisaimedFandom: The fans who root for Ted as some sort of AntiVillain or AntiHero fixing Equestria rather than the messed up VillainProtagonist he actually is. It says something that back in the comments in Fimfiction before it was taken down, the moment the genuinely heroic and likeable Leo was brought in, they were disturbingly anticipating Ted tearing him, an innocent man who had done nothing wrong, to pieces as if that was a GOOD thing.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
** Flim and Flam. In this fic, they became con artists in spite of being gifted inventors (See: Super Cider Squeezy's different functions), because their work wasn't appreciated enough even when they wanted to change Equestria with their products for the better at one time while making a steady profit, rather than their original incarnation as a pair of hucksters out to make a quick buck at the expense of the Apples in spite of having a Gold Mine in the form of their machine.
** Leo is polarizing out of universe to readers. Some see him as a genuinely good and noble man who helps the ponies and fights Vulcan because he feels it's the right thing to do. Others see him as an immature, self-righteous fanboy who sees the ponies around him as side characters in his own personal fanfiction, and who only helps ponies and acts like a noble knight of yore because he wants to be a "hero". His first person narration provides evidence for both interpretations.

* DracoInLeatherPants: Ted/Darth Vulcan. Due to how he completely deconstructs the show by delivering incredibly satisfying [[BreakThemByTalking breaking speeches]] to the Princesses for all of their stupid decisions and his false NobleDemon personality, people like him much more than the ponies. However, he isn't SUPPOSED to be completely in the right, shown when he [[WouldHurtAChild nearly drowned Diamond Tiara]]. Even if it's [[HateSink Diamond Tiara]], and she might have [[BreakTheHaughty needed an attitude adjustment]], this wasn't the way to do things, but it still wasn't completely absorbed by the readers because of how hated she is by the fandom. The author has gone on record regarding how much this disturbs him, and this attitude from some readers has turned others off from the story by convincing them this was the author's intent.

** The CMCs, Silver Spoon, Twist, and Babs rousing Diamond Tiara from her fug and proving that Darth Vulcan was lying to her. Especially because she's been nothing but horrid to four out of these six fillies.

* SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment|s}}: The CMC's, Silver Spoon, Twist, and Babs rousing Diamond Tiara from her fug and proving that Darth Vulcan was lying to her. Especially because she's been nothing but horrid to four out of these six fillies.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Flim and Flam. In this fic, they became con artists in spite of being gifted inventors (See: Super Cider Squeezy's different functions), because their work wasn't appreciated enough even when they wanted to change Equestria with their products for the better at one time while making a steady profit, rather than their original incarnation as a pair of hucksters out to make a quick buck at the expense of the Apples in spite of having a Gold Mine in the form of their machine.

* BaseBreakingCharacter: The title character is polarizing to say the least. Some love him and find him a threatening, competent, and sometimes funny villain and like how he tears the show's flaws apart; others loathe him for being ''too'' competent for what amounts to an edgy teenaged bully thrown into a world he barely knows, to the point it feels like the narrative is bending over backwards to allow it, and find said tearing apart of the show's flaws too mean-spirited and frequent to be enjoyable.

* BaseBreakingCharacter: The title character is polarizing to say the least. Some love him and find him a threatening, competent, and sometimes funny villain and like how he tears the show's flaws apart, others loathe him for being ''too'' competent for what amounts to an edgy teenaged bully thrown into a world he barely knows to the point it feels like the narrative is bending over backwards to allow it and find said tearing apart of the show's flaws too meanspirited and frequent to be enjoyable.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Some feel that Ted being in a deconstructed version of Equestria, heavily undermines the fact he's intended to be an UnreliableNarrator, and that the character might have worked better in a {{truer to the text}} version where his POV is more clearly warped and flawed.

* BaseBreakingCharacter: The title character is polarizing to say the least. Some love him and find him a threatening, competent, and sometimes funny villain and like how he tears the show's flaws apart, others loathe him for being ''too'' competent for what amounts to an edgy teenaged bully thrown into a world he barely knows to the point it feels like the narrative is bending over backwards to allow it and find said tearing apart of the show's flaws too meanspirited and frequent to be enjoyable. A third camp [[DracoInLeatherPants likes him too much to the point]] even the ''writer'' was disturbed. Another group believes the problem is less with Ted and more with the fact he's in a deconstructed version of Equestria, which heavily undermines the fact he's intended to be an UnreliableNarrator, and the character might have worked in a {{truer to the text}} version where his POV is more clearly warped and flawed.