TheAndyMac
88p77 comments posted · 2 followers · following 0
9 years ago @ Equestria Daily - Short Preview of The U... · 0 replies · +1 points
9 years ago @ Equestria Daily - Season 5 Episode 18 - ... · 1 reply · +1 points
At least this most recent episode handled the topic in a better way, I feel. Not going to discuss it here in case you haven't seen it, though.
9 years ago @ Equestria Daily - Possible Hint from Big... · 0 replies · +4 points
9 years ago @ Equestria Daily - Season 5 Episode 18 - ... · 3 replies · +1 points
Troubleshoes seems fated to be a rodeo clown not out of any skill, or ability to perform tricks, but because he's clumsy. And while one could argue that his clumsiness is some innate ability to do these sorts of things, in his personal life it's more of a curse than anything else. It's caused him inconvenience and physical harm.
Put this way, he's not trying to clown. He's not trying to perform slapstick and look silly, those things are happening by accident, without any control of his. He's messing up the tricks that he's legitimately trying to do. And yet the episode tries to have us believe that this is the mark of a great entertainer?
9 years ago @ Equestria Daily - Season 5 Episode 18 - ... · 5 replies · +3 points
Is he supposed to be just generally good at entertaining? Is he meant to be at home in a rodeo, but restricted to being a rodeo clown because of his clumisness?
9 years ago @ Equestria Daily - Season 5 Episode 18 - ... · 7 replies · +3 points
9 years ago @ Equestria Daily - Season 5 Episode 18 - ... · 9 replies · +3 points
Now, at this point I suppose I should make it clear that the pony, from the evidence we've seen, doesn't necessarily have to make the connection between the talent and cutie mark. It's not presented as a matter of "I really like this activity, and I'm good at it, therefore it must be my Special Talent." In more cases than not, it seems that the realisation is deeper than that, and not accociated with cutie marks until the mark appears. But, as far as I'm aware, all the special talents we've seen so far have arose from ponies doing things that they enjoyed. Things that they wanted to do.
Now we come back to poor Troubleshoes. True, he had a realisation that what he was doing was something that, paradoxically, he was good at. He had a talent for messing up. But the important thing is that it wasn't something he enjoyed. He didn't like being the butt of the joke, having ponies laughing at him. So why would it be that his mark appears in a moment of dispair?
I understand what I think the writers were trying to do with AMW. Investigate an interesting story idea that's been hinted at before, the idea of what happens if a pony doesn't like their cutie mark. And yet, that very scenario doesn't appear to be very plausible, going by the show's own mythology.
Now, its perfectly possible for a pony to have conflict because of their mark. Maybe it's not a very useful talent that they possess, something that doesn't really pay the bills. But to have completely misinterperated a mark in the way Troubleshoes has, and to have gained it in a way that seems so out of order with the mythology? That stretches belief somewhat, and I think that's why people reacted so badly to the episode, and why I think it doesn't enrich the canon.
9 years ago @ Equestria Daily - Season 5 Episode 18 - ... · 11 replies · +2 points
The way that cutie marks are presented in Call of the Cutie, and in many other canon sources, is that finding a cutie mark is about knowing one's self. Either Troubleshoes didn't know himself, and still got a mark regardless, or he was right about it all along, and the crusaders were pretty much BSing to try and make him feel better. Either way, I'm not sure there's much of an enrichment of canon going on there.
9 years ago @ Equestria Daily - Why Would Hasbro Rip U... · 0 replies · +1 points
9 years ago @ Equestria Daily - \"Slice of Life\": Epi... · 4 replies · +2 points