Discussion Characters / FriendshipIsMagicSupportingCast

I think the six famous background ponies, sans perhaps Dr. Hooves, should be moved here — Slice of Life aside, they've all had prominent cameos in the show or movies. They aren't just "pony that appears in the background a lot," they usually appear in some significant capacity.

Cameos are completely and utterly irrelevant. Supporting cast is for characters that play important roles. Before you decide to just move characters to wherever you want, ask yourself "Does the episode still work if the character in question didn't appear or someone else take their place?".

You guys should put your fanboy-ism aside and think of it like any other body of work. Frankly, I'm tired of having this same argument over and over again.

If Derpy, Dr.Hooves, Bon Bon/Sweetie Drops, Lyra Heartstrings, Octavia and Vinyl appear in another episode and are integral to the episode's plot, like in Slice Of Life then and only then can they be a part of the Supporting Cast.

"You guys should put your fanboy-ism aside and think of it like any other body of work." - It isn't fanboyism, it's my opinion that they are supporting characters at this point rather than just background ponies.

"Frankly, I'm tired of having this same argument over and over again." - that implies others feel the same way, so what automatically makes you right?

"If Derpy, Dr.Hooves, Bon Bon/Sweetie Drops, Lyra Heartstrings, Octavia and Vinyl appear in another episode and are integral to the episode's plot, like in Slice Of Life then and only then can they be a part of the Supporting Cast." - Rules are not set in stone, that's why discussion pages exist. If you want specific examples, Derpy is prominent in The Last Round-Up, Vinyl is important in Rainbow Rocks, and Bon Bon, Lyra, and Octavia have prominent supporting roles in the film and in other episodes. The exception, again, is Dr. Hooves, who doesn't appear as frequently.

As a point of comparison, Bulk Biceps - he only has one episode where he is important, Rainbow Falls. In all of his other appearances, he is a cameo, and he started off as a background pony and a visual joke. Yet, he's here counting as supporting cast when he's just as prominent as the other mentioned characters. Same for Pound and Pumpkin Cake. Just because a character does not feature prominently in two episodes, does not mean they're more or less important than characters who do. Fancy Pants has a speaking role in two episodes, yet characters like Derpy, Lyra, etc, have much more total screentime and are more prominent in the show.

This is not fanboyism simply because our opinions conflict with yours, put aside your hostility and discuss this like we're all intelligent people, because we are.

Okay, I've thought it over, and while I think that the others are still fine in one-shots (for now, also I won't go into detail in regards to why), perhaps old Derpy may be moved to Supporting characters. It would be hypocritical of me to not include her while allowing Bulk and Twist (who hasn't had a speaking roll since season 2) in the supporting.

Vinyl is a bit iffy. Should pony!Vinyl and human!Vinyl be considered the same character? Pony!Twilight and human!Twilight are clearly different characters. Just going by the pony one, Vinyl would be considered a One Shot. But if take into account that the animators consider her a secondary character on the same level as Cheerilee and is what had her placed in the movies in the first place, Vinyl is considered by the team as a supporting character.

The EQ counterparts should be considered separate characters from their Fi M counterparts.

Agreed, each Eq G film differentiates them more from their counterparts.

I still think the other characters should be moved, though at this point we need more input either way to make a final decision.

Can you recall a time that Bon Bon, Lyra, Vinyl, Octavia and Dr.Hooves appeared aside from Slice Of Life where they were more then just Spear Carriers or background crowd fillers?

Bon Bon, Lyra, Octavia, and Vinyl have been getting bit parts here and there. Being rude or a jerk on several occasions for Bon Bon and being a brainwashed bridesmaid for Lyra. Octavia and Vinyl basically show up whenever the situation calls for their respective music, being most prominent in The Best Night Ever and Pinkie's Wonderbolts rap video.

So in other words, they're Spear Carriers.

More like Bit Characters since they're recurring and occasionally get speaking lines. Well, Lyra and Bon Bon do.

They are a step above Spear Carriers since they are generally first pick for specific purposes. Bon Bon is generally brought in for when a pony needs to be a jerk to the main characters. Lyra is the quirky pony with her own set of unique animations. Octavia is classical musician #1. Vinyl essentially monopolizes her own niche. She's literally the only DJ that the animation team would even consider using.

They all have their own defined personalities and you can easily pick them out of a crowd. At the very least, they are minor characters on the same level as the Royal Guard ponies. More so in the Expanded Universe.

Vinyl as DJ Pon-3 I think has the next strongest case for adding to the Supporting Cast. Hasbro loves putting her in for advertisements and merchandise and identified by name.

But they don't add much to the actual plot of the episodes they even appear in. Their roles in previous episodes could have been done by other characters!

This is literally Fan Myopia at its finest. You're putting too much importance on these background characters because they so happen to be people's favorites (despite adding very little to the grand scheme of the show).

Give them a single episode of spotlight and suddenly people think that they're more important then the characters that the writers clearly intended people to focus on.

They're staying in one shots until they get other appearances that actually deserve the "Supporting Character" moniker. I really don't want to play favorites with fan favorites.

You can keep insisting this is our fan bias, but it doesn't make your opinions right. For that matter, it isn't true, either. I don't know why the fandom latched onto these specific six and don't share the obsession most have with them. I simply think they're important enough and significant enough to count as supporting cast. Drop the opinionated snootiness, please.

Where are you getting "opinionated snootiness" from? I'm merely stating that because they haven't interacted with the Mane 6 in ways beyond "talked or showed up on screen once and don't appear for the rest of the episode", they aren't important enough yet to be counted with the likes of characters who really do interact with the Mane 6 on a daily basis.

Tell me then, why is it so important that these fan favorites be grouped in with supporting characters despite the fact that they haven't actually appeared in these roles before Slice Of Life? Should a character with literally less then a minute's worth of screentime have the same importance as a character who makes regular appearances?

If it's really that important to have them grouped together, why not make a brand new character page about them?

"Where are you getting "opinionated snootiness" from?" - from you constantly talking about how we just want them listed here because they're fan favorites and that's wrong.

"Should a character with literally less then a minute's worth of screentime have the same importance as a character who makes regular appearances?" - because as we have been said, they make regular appearances. Or do you want to argue that characters that have speaking roles in two episodes (Cranky, Matila, Silverstar, Steven Magnet. Heck, Pound and Pumpkin don't even have a second speaking appearance) are more prominent characters than the likes of Bon Bon and Lyra who repeatedly feature in dozens of episodes and get the occasional speaking part?

"they appear in at least two episodes with important roles" is a very bad definition of a recurring character. A recurring character is someone who appears multiple times over many episodes. It is not someone who appears in two episodes several seasons apart and is not mentioned or seen outside them. Derpy is a recurring character. The Mayor, Zecora, and Cheerilee, are recurring characters. Steven Magnet is not.

Now, in a show like MLP where the same background ponies appear over and over, ofc not all of them can be listed here, but they have their dedicated page for that. Yet, even among the constantly appearing background ponies, some clearly appear more often than others and occasionally get to talk and play a minor part in an episode. And those characters are the ones that should be moved here - Vinyl, Octavia, Bon Bon, Lyra, Derpy, and perhaps a couple others I'd have to research to see how often they appear and what roles they play.

At the very least, classifying them as "one shot" characters is ridiculous because they appear many times. Even if we don't move them here (which we should), they should be moved back to the background ponies page. I'd be totally on-board with "prominent background ponies" being made as a new folder and them and some other characters being grouped there with the explanation they have a bit more prominence than other background characters.

EDIT - on a second look at the current structure, "Friendship Is Magic: Background Ponies – Special Ponies" seems a perfect place for them, alongside the Spa Ponies and such. I motion that we move the mentioned six there.

There's a high chance that the writers will actually give them more prominent appearances in later episodes. So it wouldn't be completely right to arbitrarily separate them from other support characters when that time does come.

As for the definitions of what a Support character is, they need to interact with the main characters in a meaningful manner. Derpy is a legitimate supporting character so she's now fine here. Her interactions in Rainbow Falls really do cement her as such.

Perhaps the Spa Ponies could actually be moved to support characters as well. Now that I think about it, they're about as distinct as the Royal Guard and Wonderbolts are (who are in Support characters), as they're more defined by their jobs then actual personalities.

I'm still not really comfortable with Octavia, Vinyl, Lyra and Bon Bon in support since Slice Of Life is still the only Friendship Is Magic episode where they do something that isn't just playing music in the background, sitting on benches or saying one-liners. So by current definitions they should be in One Shots. But if you really want to, you can fix the definitions on what a One Shot actually is.

In terms of directly interacting with the main characters, it would actually be Bon Bon who had the most screen time and impact, even more than Derpy. Her interaction with Apple Bloom and Applejack in Call of the Cutie has Applejack shutting down the stall for the day and Apple Bloom banned from doing any actual selling. Her dismissing of Rarity's talent in Green Isn't Your Color is what pushed her to full-blown jealousy. Again acting like a jerk to Fluttershy in Putting Your Hoof Down to push her to violence. Bon Bon's been overlooked, but she actually had some good parts.

Lyra and Octavia interaction are admittedly sparse, so I have no problem having them stay where they are for now. Vinyl just gets a pass since it's really only a matter of time until they give her a more significant role. They already made her humane counterpart part of the main band.

I do think the character sections needs fixing. There's too much overlap at this point. The Wonderbolts have enough individual personality to stay in the Supporting Cast. The Royal Guards I think should actually be in the Special Background Ponies. The alt Mane 6 don't belong there simply because they actually had a major role, so they are a step above.

All those examples seem too disjointed for Bon Bon to really qualify as a singular character, let alone an important supporting one. Bon Bon was essentially a go-to filler character for an anonymous pony who the writers can do sometime with or to (usually in the role of a jerk or the victim of something). What with giving her a different voice for every appearance until this Slice of Life.

Nevertheless, they are still clearly her roles. At this point, her many voices are considered to be a part of her personality that solidified in Slice of Life. So they still count.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTJoTjeyqmA

Interesting trivia about Bon Bon is that she would actually be doing different voices during her conversation with Lyra in the early draft of Slice of Life. Then Larson ended up having it as her secret agent persona.

I dunno. May want to ask Lost And Found on this.

I'm wondering why he's in the Supporting cast list in the first place. He's only had one episode where he's more then a background character.

The wikis (and IMBD for that matter) aren't official sources; did they have a cited source?

EDIT: Wikipedia said it was Chiara Zanni, too. Then again, it's Wikipedia, so I'll have to take its word with a grain of salt, too.