Perhaps unsurprisingly, I've seen at least one take on that idea.

Suffice to say that Bulk (or rather Snowflake, as he was then known) would rather Scoots not have to walk in his horseshoes.

Also the wiki put up an ad on this thread for a band called Foals.

I just realized that Spike was wrong about his superhero identity in Power Ponies.

He wasn't "Humdrum", he was...

So, I'm probably about to summon a typhoon of excrement, but, um, what exactly is the problem with "My Little Pony" and it's representation of males?

They tend to be unflattering or shallow. For a long time, all we got for regular male characters was Spike, who was explicitly the little brother (if he wasn't outright the baby brother), Big Mac, who spoke in monosyllables and didn't really interact with anyone, and Snips and Snails, who were annoying morons.

It also resulted in Big Mac being shipped with just about everyone for a while, despite basically having no personality beyond The Quiet One for a long while.

Edited by Redmess on Feb 5th 2019 at 12:47:55 PM

That's an incredibly outdated view, though.

Since then Soarin got fleshed out, Big Mac broke out of his shell and became an excellent supporting character, we had great guest male characters with genuine depth like Cheese Sandwich and Quibble Pants, etc.

Bulk remains a gag character, but they have shown that beyond his roided, excitable persona, lies a man that's in fact sensitive.

Bulk shines whenever the spotlight rests on him on EQG.

The dude likes arts and crafts and makes gifts for his mother, is selfabsorbed about his exercise routine but if you get him to do something always gives his all, is an excellent dancer, and retains his rather sensitive side, as he cunningly faked a little scenario in the beach just to get AJ and Timber to stop competing and work together.

Bulk is fricking great.

Oh, and he hangs with Derpy quite often. Except that time when the Dazzlings' song almost got them to engage in physical violence, they seem to get along quite well.

Edited by MrSeyker on Feb 5th 2019 at 4:37:44 AM

Big Mac is definitely better these days, though I am not sure about the choice to make him a crossdresser who dreams of being a princess. I am not sure if the show wants us to take that seriously or just laugh at it.

I'd add rumble and sky stinger to the list of well developed males. Even chancellor neighsay who has the honor of being the first male redeemed antagonist.

Are those really regular male characters, though? I don't even remember who Rumble and Sky Stinger are.

No, they aren't. They don't need to be either.

Post of the Day #2417

Posted by Bluespade on Thu, 12th Jul '12 6:19:51 PM - Post #247821 in the old thread

None of the amazing custom dresses Rarara makes for the Mane 5 ever see more than one episode of use.

When 90% of Equestria is perfectly fine naked, including all her friends, at most wearing simple accessories, the fancy dresses are only going to see ocational use at best.

Her efforts to open stores in Canterlot and Manehattan make a lot of sense. Fashion is a thing in those places.

Wonder how much the Ponyville boutique sells compared to the other two.

Well, I feel my point still stands that this show has very few well-developed regular male characters. And I use "regular" loosely here. Spike really is the only one who can reasonably be counted as regular, really. And when episodes focus on him, he tends to be the butt-monkey little brother character more often than not.

Don't forget Shining Armor, who is basically Prince Charming. He's a character who feels like he could be a lot shallower than he actually is, with the show's emphasis on his relationship to his sister instead of his wife adding some layers to what would otherwise have been a fairly standard archetype.

Filthy Rich is also a surprisingly positive role model in most of his appearances (EQG notwithstanding). Like, he feels like he should be a sleazy, money-grubbing scumbag like the Flimflam Brothers but he's actually pretty fair. Rarely do his appearances make you want to punch him in the face like most characters of his archetype do.

There's also Sunburst in the later seasons, but the less said about him, the better. Apart from "The Parent Map", that is; that episode was pretty stellar.

Discord's not a great male role model but he's fun to have around. Sometimes. When written well.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 5th 2019 at 8:26:39 AM

(Sees Post of the Day)

~HHHHHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSS~

Yes, that is still the worst story of Season two and it still baffles me that the writers went with this form of a story about Spike, Rarity, greed, and generosity.

How could someone forget Sky Stinger and Vapour Trail?

I guess my weird photographic memory for this show is weird.

I thought that was Discord.

Whether or not Discord qualifies as "redeemed" is questionable at best.

Especially since "redemption" and "rehabilitation" are conflated so frequently in discussions of fictional judiciary. In the sense of having a big dramatic moment where the character Does A Good and then all is forgiven and he's counted as a good guy forevermore, I'd say Discord was probably redeemed at "To Where and Back Again".

But he's still a far cry from rehabilitated.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 5th 2019 at 10:40:18 AM

Basically, the problem with male representation on the show is that it largely fails the Inverted BechedelTest.

Edited by Rytex on Feb 5th 2019 at 1:06:03 PM

@G Ninja

We are just passionate of the thousands of characters. I have trouble some time, but retain a stupid amount of names and stuff from a wide variety of shows and movies.

You have no idea how much it bothers me when I'm watching a pony reviewer (just a reviewer, really) just forget or mix up characters.

I automatically correct the screen, sometimes even verbally.

You mean that most of the time, when at least two male characters converse, it's about a female?

I suppose that can be a problem but it's a bit unavoidable when, and I might be wrong, roughly 90% of the characters- and all of the protagonists, which recurring male characters are tightly bonded to- are female. After all, it is for and about girls.

However, as the page for it on this website puts it, many works of fiction that are not feminist or even portray females in a manner that isn't sexist or disgusting such as Manos The Hands of Fate and Showgirls don't bugger up when it comes to Bechdel.

Even Mulan, which is about feminism, buggers up when it comes to Bechdel, "for the same reasons why it has strong feminist themes: The movie discusses sexism (and overcoming it), and thus is set in a world too sexist for it to pass the test. The protagonist starts out in an environment where women are valued only for their ability to get a man and produce babies, and then moves into an environment where there are no other women at all because it's not allowed."

If a work of fiction buggers up when it comes to Bechdel's test, that doesn't automatically mean that said work of fiction is sexist or can't portray females in a capable manner.

As for my two cents: it's edutainment for little girls. Male presentation is not really a problem for me in it, especially since a couple of recurring male characters are not really that annoying or despicable.

Yes, not even Spike (when a story isn't about him).

Snips and Snails can go choke on a pine-cone, though.

Snails was kinda rescued in my books when became a buckball zen master.

Snips is still in the dog house.

Their human counterparts are the worst.

Snails was only saved by surgically removing all his previous character traits and replacing them with something else entirely. He might as well be a different character in that episode.

He had any that weren't "inane doof"?

I'll take the characterization surgery.

Edited by fredhot16 on Feb 5th 2019 at 12:34:14 PM

@Mr Seyker

Like when Silver Quill said he couldn't remember Aria Blaze of the Dazzlings. I was like, Really?

Or when people habitually call Sunburst 'Starburst'. That's the one that gets to me. Like, he has no star imagery on him whatsoever. (Yes I know a sun IS a star. Shut it. XD)

Edited by GNinja on Feb 5th 2019 at 9:07:38 AM

That's a critique that doesn't work on me. When characters are as one dimensional as Snips and Snails, and honestly a lot of early supporting was, adding traits is absolutely the way to go.

His zen competency (at an incredibly specific task at that) is framed as a byproduct of his well established tremendous stupidity/simplicity, and to me they just work.

I never reject new character traits, even among more dimensional characters like the manes.

When Cadance and Shining got introduced and their relationship to Twilight explained, my reaction was never "this doesn't make sense with anything established about this character", my reaction was "oh, so we're going to fill in the blank pages that are Twilight's past. I'm fucking in, lets do this".

I'm specially peeved when they start exchanging Starlight and/or Sunset (Sunset is more often than not on the receiving end of this from reactors that are Starlight fans).

I get their backgrounds and roles are somewhat similar, but their personalities and looks are so different. Can't wrap my head around that.

Or when Applegeek completely forgets the name of the one shot character while going over the episode at the end of his reactions.

I get they are recorded well after the fact, but he is often observed forgetting names while watching the episode, and still won't retain them during his analysis despite always checking episodes twice before doing those.