YMMV / My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (IDW) Issue 34 to 37

• Accidental Innuendo: While the princesses rid Sombra of his Umbrum magic, Luna says, "I would follow Twilight anywhere." The expression she makes while saying it doesn't help.
• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: The comic ends with An Aesop about trusting friends and how it redeemed Sombra. However, Radiant Hope trusting the Umbrum led to the conflict of the story, while talking things through with Sombra is what brought about his Heel–Face Turn. Then there's the Villain Team-Up realizing too late that the consequences of their actions would negate whatever they hoped to gain, and Princess Cadance hearing Hope out nearly fixing things until a anger-blinded Twilight Sparke ruined it. This led many readers to view the Aesop as not to act too much out of emotion.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Hope's telling Twilight not to get in Sombra's way. Some interpret this as a Pet the Dog, others as her saying "do what he says or die" due to the fact she makes no attempt to actually stop Sombra when Twilight refuses (Sombra instead being stopped by his current weakened situation).
  • Hope in general. Is she a sympathetic Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds who deserves sympathy and is a Well-Intentioned Extremist, or a selfish, unsympathetic monster who is willing to throw away countless lives just to get her boyfriend back? Or is she simply a naive idiot who has no idea what she's actually doing and has given next to no thought to the consequences of her actions? Fans have interpreted her as all three. Even her Heel–Face Turn doesn't help much with this, as she still seems more concerned about protecting Sombra and doesn't show one bit of remorse for anyone she's gotten hurt, though this could just be because of Poor Communication Kills.
• Anti-Climax Boss: The Umbrum actually get their flanks kicked by Produce Pelting (among other things). And when they finally start getting serious, Sombra pulls a Heel–Face Turn and reseals them.
• Awesome Art:
  • King Sombra's shadow form is incredibly well drawn. Even many of the arc's detractors are fond of it.
  • The true forms of the Umbrum also qualifies.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Radiant Hope. She's either a somewhat sympathetic Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds who crossed the Despair Event Horizon and is being manipulated, or an Unintentionally Unsympathetic villain who would sell out two kingdoms to tyrannical despots just to have her psychotic boyfriend who caused all of her misery back (whether or not her revealing that Chrysalis would've had to be fought anyway reduces this is up to you).
  • Chrysalis is either a savvy Pragmatic Villain with Villain Has a Point on her side, or just a cowardly Hypocrite who's starting to become something of an Invincible Villain by managing to escape scot-free yet again. A third party feel it's less she's an Invincible Villain and more she was the only character in the arc written to be intelligent and competent.
• Broken Base: This arc has been... incredibly divisive to say the least.
  • Some think the plot with Sombra and Radiant Hope makes up for its shortcomings, other find the vilification and Idiot Ball moments as just too much to tolerate.
  • The justification that Flim, Flam, Iron Will, and Lightning Dust remain with King Sombra out of fear. Some people accept this as at least adequate Hand Wave. Others view it makes this worse by making them Dirty Cowards. Others feel it would have work if not for failing to act like this was the case. When they all just disappear from the plot completely in #37, some were grateful for it being swept under the rug, while others felt it was too little too late and/or proved the whole thing was a narrative mistake.
  • How easily the heroes lose in Issue 35. Some feel it's reasonable given Sombra's Power Nullifier and Trap Master history, others feel the heroes were all thrown the Idiot Ball and Sombra handed a Game-Breaker spell just to justify the Darkest Hour.
  • Whether or not Radiant or Twilight is at fault for the Umbrum being freed. Some point out Twilight being blinded by anger was solely responsible while others point out Radiant jumping in the way of her shot was a stupid thing to do, considering she KNEW Sombra was leagues tougher than her and had just shrugged off another of Twilight's beams easily. Others say both were at fault for both reasons.
  • The artwork. While the art is over all beautiful, some point out the expressions don't properly convey how the characters should be feeling most of the time, with Radiant Hope being the worst. This is particularly noticeable when Jeremy Whitley says his intentions on his twitter but the expressions do nothing to express this. Whether the beautiful nature makes up for it or not is debatable.
  • Whether the arc was fair and at least passable or absolutely terrible. For those that do hate it.
• Don't Shoot the Message: The author posted a tweet comparing Radiant Hope and Twilight Sparkle implying the former was a stronger character for dealing with their friend turning evil and the guilt of blaming themselves for that and the ensuing tragedy, something Twilight never faced. Many fans, even those who wanted to agree liking Radiant Hope for being such a Deconstruction of the series themes and Twilight's character, were not happy seeing it as propping up Radiant Hope after failing to depict those aspect in the comic by ignoring/devaluing Twilight's accomplishments.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Queen Chrysalis was the one member of Villain Team-Up not to need vilification and the one well received part of it. She gets epic fights that don't hinge on the Idiot Ball, and her calling them about the mutual threat of Umbrum is the moment they started acting like the mislead victims the were supposed to come off as.
  • The Umbrum due to having a wicked awesome and terrifying design. Even the arc's detractors consider them one of the best part of the story.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • King Sombra is alive, redeemed, and out there with Hope exploring Equestria to find the shards of Princess Amore. This practically begs to be explored.
  • What is the story of Rabia's daughter, Ira?
• Fanon Discontinuity: The Villain Team-Up between Iron Will, the Flim Flam brothers, and Lightning Dust alone had fans declaring the comic's not canon to the show as many of the entries on this very page can attest to. The development and conclusion of Radiant Hope and Sombra's character arcs throughout the Siege arc has garnered so much criticism, especially with their debut in the Fiendship issues receiving a lot of praise, that many declare this arc not canon to comic's canon much less the show. This eventually became official with the season 9 premiere with Sombra returning in a very different manner (though ironically — said premiere would receive its own share of FD in favor of this arc, courtesy of Vindicated by History).
• Fourth Wall Myopia: Many critics of Radiant Hope point to her trusting the Umbrum as as an example of her stupidity. However, while readers are shown in the prior story enough to know that they're evil, Radiant Hope doesn't know that or about the Umbrum, who went through great efforts to hide their true nature and to disguise their Obviously Evil forms for over 1000 years prior. The Umbrum also spent 1000 years deceiving Radiant Hope against her people, preying on her brokenness and guilt to make her desperate to believe them, explaining her initial resorting to villainy instead of talking things out and how long it took her to realize she was deceived and wrong happening largely offpage compared to the consequences and calling outs held against her.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • At the time this story arc was being published, the season five finale aired which showed a Bad Future where Sombra ruled half of Equestria starting with his resuming his rule over the Crystal Empire when the city was returned from his spell.
    • Said finale implied the Bad Future caused by Flim and Flam was worse then Sombra's or Chrysalis'. Refuge in Audacity aside, one must second-guess if this arc really exaggerated their potential for evil.
  • Chrysalis pulling another Karma Houdini here after the events of her FIENDship issue. Almost a year later — the Season 6 finale ends with her enduring a triply satisfying Break the Haughty moment via dethronement (literally: Her Cool Chair Power Nullifier gets blown to smithereens), becoming the only Changeling excluded from their collective Evolution Power-Up, and then self-imposed exile.
  • The Season 9 premiere, Beginning of the End, likewise involve a Team-Up between villains (In this case, Tirek, Chrysalis and later villain, Cozy Glow) that resulted in Sombra resurrecting. Though ironically where in the comic he worked with the villains to stop the Mane 6. In the show, he utterly refuses to do so.
• Memetic Mutation: Chrysalis laughing at the petrified Celestia and Luna in the second issue has been picked up as "Chrysalis laughs at your misery" to go hand-in-hand with the "Cadance laughs at your misery" meme, as a reaction image for Chrysalis mocking the misfortune of others.
• Misaimed Fandom: Sure, Hope's actions were Base-Breaking Character-worthy; but some fans actually saw her as an inexcusable Sociopath deserving of a Cruel and Unusual Death (versus the visibly-broken, Didn't Think This Through Unwitting Pawn that she clearly was). Ironically, some of those same fans viewed Chrysalis positively after her Only Sane Man portrayal — even though her rap sheet far exceeds Hope's, and she's actively a Sociopath in canon.
• Misblamed: Much of the problems people had with the Siege of the Crystal Empire arc were not entirely Jeremy Whitley's fault; the arc underwent heavy Executive Meddling from both Hasbro (who gave him an extremely small list of villains he could use for the Villain Team-Up, forcing him to complete rewrite things several times) and higher-ups at IDW (doing a Villain Team-Up to begin with, and forcing the arc to be only 4 issues, leading to rushed pacing and several parts with members of the Villain Team-Up getting cut from the final issue). That doesn't excuse some of the other problems people had with it, but Whitley was hardly the only one responsible.
• Narm:
  • In Issue #34, when Radiant Hope uses a really powerful healing spell to revitalize King Sombra, that appears very intense and painful. However, it's hard to take it seriously when Sombra starts yelling "The pain!"
  • #35 gives us another moment: Sombra, upon learning that Hope stole the Crystal Heart so he could return unharmed... runs up his underground staircase back to the Crystal Empire while giving the absolute-cheesiest Evil Laugh ever, looking like a little kid pretending to be a Large Ham supervillain.
  • The extended Star Wars Shout-Out in #37, which simply parrots Tarkin and Leia's dialogue before Alderaan is destroyed, doesn't sound natural at all coming from these characters. To make it worse, Rabia's dialogue makes no sense as her "more fitting demonstration" amounts to petrifying Shining in private, and she has no way of knowing what the town in question is even like at present to say it's "too remote" because she's been imprisoned for eons.
• Tainted by the Preview: The preview for Issue 34 had this effect for many, due to vilification of well liked antagonists.
• Sequelitis: Following up what's widely consider the best comic to come out of the series. This ones questionable at best but mostly subpar characterizations and loads of plotlines poorly realized or that go nowhere drag down the actually followup to the original story.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Rabia's daughter Ira. She could've made a great Foil/Evil Counterpart/Shadow Archetype to Sombra, but instead she serves no purpose other than to show how Cadence and Radiant were fooled by Rabia.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Despite all the hype surrounding the Villain Team-Up in synopsis, the villain team up is only on screen with one another for one panel and only interacts at all for two or three panels in #36 before four of them decide to turn good. This left many readers wondering why Flim, Flam, Iron Will, and Lightning Dust were even there as opposed to Chrysalis' changelings, who could have easily done all their jobs.
    • Flim, Flam, Iron Will, and Lightning Dust taking part in the final battle to make up for their crimes might have been cool...except they just disappear from the plot after Chrysalis abandons them. They aren't even in #37.
  • The fact the Crystal Ponies simply disappear from the plot after Sombra's revived and are barely even acknowledged until Issue 37. Instead of having Radiant Hope interact with the people she's betrayed and harmed (possibly help with the Unintentionally Unsympathetic problems), but instead the entire population of the Empire just seems to vanish into thin air.
  • Even Discord can't escape this. It would've been awesome to see how his chaos would do against the Umbrum's darkness. Instead — he shows up for just a couple of panels to empower Fluttershy's animals for the fight, complain that he's too busy taking a bath, and then leave.
  • While the heroes do bring back up, many were disappointed at how few allies they called in and would've loved to see allies like Trixie, Gilda, and others, or possibly the Royal Guard actually getting some actual fighting in. But instead they only bring in their families and no one else.
  • The Princesses have a history with Hope...but we hardly see any of it. The Princesses just show up and get turned to stone, then help make Sombra mortal at the end. They have no other interaction with Radiant, nor do we get more of their past. Both also have pasts (Luna has Nightmare Moon, Celestia has the events of Reflections) that would justify how easily Sombra and Hope were forgiven that nothing is made of. Some fans have even pointed out that the Princesses showing up could've simply been moved to the Final Battle and nothing of value would've been lost, and their initial appearance adds a borderline plot hole in how they received their correspondence so quickly.
  • Radiant Hope could have been a Shadow Archetype and Deconstruction of the basis of the franchise, who's willingness to forgive (done successfully in the series) was something that could go wrong. Word of God arguing Hope was a stronger character than Twilight Sparkle for having to deal with a friend turned evil made the failure to make the comparisons in-story all the more stinging.
  • Less seriously, it's been noted that if there was any truth to Umbrum's Freudian Excuse, It could have made Hope a better character by making her actions morally grey and be consistent with the attempted Aesop on trusting friends. Low and behold...
  • When introduced, Rabia acts in a false motherly way to manipulate Hope that many readers found an interesting concept for a villain...but that part of her personality is completely dropped the moment she's freed, with her becoming much more generic as a result. Many fans would've preferred that initial characterization being kept and used by her to continue manipulating Hope and Sombra would've made her far more interesting.
  • The Aborted Arcs. The whole Villain Team-Up and the fact that there are more creatures in the Umbrum's prision then just them would've made for great stories, but nothing ever comes of it.
• Unexpected Character: With the issue centering on the return of Sombra and Hope, and the villain team-up, few expected Queen Chrysalis to return as well.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Radiant Hope was meant to be a Tragic Villain blinded to the harm she'd caused by desperation to save her friend Sombra and the manipulations of the Umbrum. But besides how much of their evildoing was the Umbrum's influence being unclear, Hope never show any regret or conflictedness over betraying her people nor when witnessing the harm caused, save when Sombra petrifies the Princesses which she's over literally the next panel they appear seconds later. Even after her Heel Realization she seemingly only stops and shows regret out of concern for Sombra. There's also her selling Equestria out to other villains for their aid with only a throwaway line suggesting she didn't intend to go through with the worst of it but no explanation how she could have stopped them (most likely she meant to use the Umbrum, their turn nature aside that leaves what she'd do if they acted or backstabbed her before freeing them).
• Vindicated by History: Somewhat. After the show's Season 9 premiere saw Sombra return as a Large Ham Generic Doomsday Villain, some fans started to appreciate this arc more for actually giving him some characterization that's not just Card-Carrying Villainy. The rest of the comic is still highly contentious, but the focus of the fandom is now on what's considered its best aspect.

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