Why didn't anyone like It Aint Easy Being Breezies?

[smileyface1010]

Okay, so I've noticed a LOT of hate towards this episode, and I can't figure out why. To me, it wasn't bad, just meh... I did find the Breezies to be not so good characters, but they weren't too horrible. And then of course there was the obvious toy ploy, but come on, its a show made to sell toys! So why does everyone hate this episode? Smiley wants to know

[RarityDash]

Copied from another thread, since it sums up my feelings on that particular episode.

It's for a number of reasons really.

• The breezies themselves I found to be obnoxious. Their voices are grating and hearing them all at once is a headache.
  
• The breezies are also useless. They can't do anything on their own and several belabored minutes are spent emphasizing how fragile they are.
  
• it's a failed opportunity to introduce new and interesting world lore. Not only is this new species we have introduced not worth caring about, they also live in some pocket dimension apart from Equestria, safely out of sight.
  
• It has very little plot. The first half is mostly clumsy exposition and useless scenes involving the non Fluttershy mane six that add nothing and aren't funny (the bizarre Rarity sequence, where they roll her out just to show off another strangely hideous fashion to kill half a minute comes to mind). Where a lot of episodes seem rushed, this one is padded out.
  
• Has the most painful Spike sequence in a while. Seriously. Doesn't even seem in character and makes you want to slap him.
  
• It takes what could have been an opportunity to do something new with Fluttershy's character and just seems to retread ground with her. She needs to be firm sometimes to be kind. Big revelation there. Fluttershy stressing over how to assert herself is like 80 percent of her episodes.
  
• Somewhat awkward, forced feeling ending sequence full of breezy transformations that seems tacked on.
  
• Most importantly of all though, It's just not funny or entertaining. I can't recall a joke that worked. It was slow to start, and once it did start not much of interest happened.
  

To it's credit, I don't think the head Breezy Fluttershy has to deal with, Seabreeze, is an entirely awful character since they provided him a reasonable motivation for his behavior (even if we're ignorant to it until the end), and I really love the presence of Flitter, one of my favorite background ponies, in a small speaking role. In most regards though, it's just not a good episode for me.

Opinions will vary though. I know some people liked it fine. Despite it all, I would still encourage those who haven't seen it to give it a watch.

[Harv0kz]

It's as you said, a blatant toy ploy. Plus I'd have to agree with the points made above. They just simply dropped in a new race with a click of their magical fingers. And while true target audience wouldn't raise a finger because children just go "Hey look! New creatures! Shiny!", and be done with it, we see a obviously plotline being shoved into a spot.

Although yes, getting Fluttershy to go "not kind" was a good change from her usual routine, it was the Breezies themselves, that would be the target of peoples criticisms.

[smileyface1010]

Copied from another thread, since it sums up my feelings on that particular episode.

Hm... I actually would agree with you on about half of the points you have there. It was a pretty huge chance for world building, and I really do hate the exposition dumps we get yet still don't have enough info about the breezies. And yeah, I did find the episode to be pretty boring.

But aren't the breezies supposed to be useless? I mean, they shouldn't have been that useless but I could imagine them having a struggle while trying to get through Equestria. And they were supposed to be useless- or at least weak- so Fluttershy could take care of them. I kind of see it as a mother not wanting to let her son go type of thing. (Also, I did find the Spike scene slightly annoying, but it was kind of a minor thing so I can let it go)

And about Fluttershys character.... I don't even know. Its always... confused me. People say she learns the same lesson over and over again, and i think thats partially true. I actually think she learns variations of the same lesson. In Dragonshy, she learned to stand up for her friends. In Hurricane Fluttershy, she learned to face her childhood fear of flying. In Filli Vanilli, she learned to conquer her stage fright. In Putting your Hoof Down, she learned to be assertive and stuff, and in Breezies, she learned not to be too kind to anyone. So yeah, she seems to learn different variations on the lessons "Stand up for your friends, be assertive, and face your fears."

^ And that, my friend, is my opinion on Fluttershy

[QuickLime]

Yes but the thing is NONE of the stuff she learns seems to ever stick >C

[CommanderPonyShep]

To me, I didn't care about the breezies and their uselessness.

As I said in a previous thread that is locked right now due to everyone turning it into a Spiderman thread, all I cared about was Fluttershy's contribution to opening the Rainbow Power box, namely by learning a lesson about her Element of Kindness, and receiving a key from Seabreeze as a result. Same for Rainbow Dash and Applejack, even if their own key episodes were as badly written as Fluttershy's, and as a badly written as everyone keeps claiming that they are alongside Fluttershy's key episode.

Again, the reason is because by the time Twilight faces a conflict based after her own Element of Harmony, all of her friends were disempowered by Tirek and reduced to complete states of helplessness and disposability, especially since Twilight had to keep the alicorn magic a secret from not only Tirek, but also her friends "for their protection". Then, we have a big fight between Twilight and Tirek that further reinforces the disempowerment of the Mane Five through the former's godlike power-levels matched against the latter. So, the only time the Mane Five were useful were during their key episodes, up until Twilight's own key episode where they might as well be brutally murdered and stuffed into the refrigerator for the benefit of Twilight's story-arc.

I mean, haven't I dealt with this in Dragon Ball Z, where tons of other martial artists like Goku, most particularly the non-saiyan ones, all get pushed by the wayside and reduced to complete states of helplessness and disposability, in-exchange for the empowerment of not only Goku, but also Vegeta, Gohan, Goten, and Trunks? Sure, the only time they were ever useful was the same time all of Earth's population was useful: In powering up Goku's Spirit Bomb to destroy Kid Buu. But it was during the end, and before that they were brutally murdered and stuffed into the refrigerator alongside both Earth and its entire population, just as a lazy justification to demonstrate Buu's power-levels.

Hell, if anything, I might as well consider Twilight's Kingdom the worst of the key episodes, not Rainbow Falls, It Ain't Easy Being Breezies,or Leap of Faith, because of the way it disempowered the Mane Five and reduced them to complete states of disposability and helplessness, in-exchange for the empowerment and godliness of Twilight Sparkle. Yes, Tirek sucked their magic dry, Twilight received the alicorn magic from the other three princesses, and Tirek holds Twilight's friends hostage to get her to surrender the alicorn magic. But that's not how I see it compared to everyone else.

And, I might as well consider the Mane Five more useless than the breezies themselves. They were useless in Canterlot Wedding because Shining Armor and Cadence saved the day. They were useless in Crystal Empire, because Spike saved the day. And they were useless in Equestria Girls, because it was their human counterparts who saved the day. If anything, the breezies might as well kick the horse manure out of the Mane Five in a fight, because of those three aforementioned examples, plus Twilight's Kingdom, where they were disempowered and made helpless by Tirek.

[QuickLime]

It's generally good manners to come to peoples threads and NOT bring up your own rants, You are welcome to make your own thread but honestly nobody wants to hear you rant about anime and mlp again and how the mane six should be beat up =/

[RarityDash]

To me, I didn't care about the breezies and their uselessness.

As I said in a previous thread that is locked right now due to everyone turning it into a Spiderman thread, all I cared about was Fluttershy's contribution to opening the Rainbow Power box, namely by learning a lesson about her Element of Kindness, and receiving a key from Seabreeze as a result. Same for Rainbow Dash and Applejack, even if their own key episodes were as badly written as Fluttershy's, and as a badly written as everyone keeps claiming that they are alongside Fluttershy's key episode.

Again, the reason is because by the time Twilight faces a conflict based after her own Element of Harmony, all of her friends were disempowered by Tirek and reduced to complete states of helplessness and disposability, especially since Twilight had to keep the alicorn magic a secret from not only Tirek, but also her friends "for their protection". Then, we have a big fight between Twilight and Tirek that further reinforces the disempowerment of the Mane Five through the former's godlike power-levels matched against the latter. So, the only time the Mane Five were useful were during their key episodes, up until Twilight's own key episode where they might as well be brutally murdered and stuffed into the refrigerator for the benefit of Twilight's story-arc.

I mean, haven't I dealt with this in Dragon Ball Z, where tons of other martial artists like Goku, most particularly the non-saiyan ones, all get pushed by the wayside and reduced to complete states of helplessness and disposability, in-exchange for the empowerment of not only Goku, but also Vegeta, Gohan, Goten, and Trunks? Sure, the only time they were ever useful was the same time all of Earth's population was useful: In powering up Goku's Spirit Bomb to destroy Kid Buu. But it was during the end, and before that they were brutally murdered and stuffed into the refrigerator alongside both Earth and its entire population, just as a lazy justification to demonstrate Buu's power-levels.

Hell, if anything, I might as well consider Twilight's Kingdom the worst of the key episodes, not Rainbow Falls, It Ain't Easy Being Breezies,or Leap of Faith, because of the way it disempowered the Mane Five and reduced them to complete states of disposability and helplessness, in-exchange for the empowerment and godliness of Twilight Sparkle. Yes, Tirek sucked their magic dry, Twilight received the alicorn magic from the other three princesses, and Tirek holds Twilight's friends hostage to get her to surrender the alicorn magic. But that's not how I see it compared to everyone else.

And, I might as well consider the Mane Five more useless than the breezies themselves. They were useless in Canterlot Wedding because Shining Armor and Cadence saved the day. They were useless in Crystal Empire, because Spike saved the day. And they were useless in Equestria Girls, because it was their human counterparts who saved the day. If anything, the breezies might as well kick the horse manure out of the Mane Five in a fight, because of those three aforementioned examples, plus Twilight's Kingdom, where they were disempowered and made helpless by Tirek.

1. I don't think you understand very well why that other thread was locked.
   
2. You are only marginally on topic here. Be careful with that.
   
3. Twilight's friends were not useless in the finale. It was only when the box which took all six of them to open opened and they all got Rainbow Power that they beat Tirek.
   
4. I'm still wondering who has been saying Leap of Faith was a bad episode. It really wasn't at all.
   
5. I'm not sure you realize it, but FIM is not an action series best examined in terms or arcs. It is largely episodic and episodes with any action elements at all comprise very little of it. The characters importance thus should not really be judged by how they might perform in just a few episodes and situations. When you look at the bulk and heart of the show, all the many episodes between the openers and finales, every single one of the main characters gets enough moments to shine.
   
6. People are always going to have different opinions about things; it's best to learn to respect that.
   

[CommanderPonyShep]

1. Twilight's friends were not useless in the finale. It was only when the box which took all six of them to open opened and they all got Rainbow Power that they beat Tirek.
   

Yes, but nearly everyone hated the Rainbow Power and Rainbow Castle, despite restoring the Mane Five's relevancy to Twilight's journey as an alicorn princess. This is because of the designs, their marketing potential, and because the former bordered on Deus Ex Machina and the latter replaced Twilight's library and didn't fit with Ponyville very well.

As a result, nearly everyone unintentionally devalued the Mane Five and made Twilight so important that she renders her friends as useless as Goku does his friends. If anything, the Mane Five might as well be more useless than the breezies, because the fans implied it with their opinions of the finale.

[QuickLime]

Stop saying "Everyone" You do not speak for everyone

[RarityDash]

Yes, but everyone hated the Rainbow Power and Rainbow Castle, despite restoring the Mane Five's relevancy to Twilight's journey as an alicorn princess. This is because of the designs, their marketing potential, and because the former bordered on Deus Ex Machina and the latter replaced Twilight's library and didn't fit with Ponyville very well.

Therefore, everyone unintentionally devalued the Mane Five and made Twilight so important that she renders her friends as useless as Goku does his friends. If anything, the Mane Five might as well be more useless than the breezies, because the fans implied it with their opinions of the finale.

It's like you think what the fans think (not that anywhere close to all the fans even think that) changes the context of what actually happened in the episode. That's utterly ridiculous. The episode gave all six ponies new powers together. People can think whatever they want and it's not going to suddenly change what happened.

[CommanderPonyShep]

Stop saying "Everyone" You do not speak for everyone

Just so you know, I've put the word "nearly" next to "everyone" in both paragraphs, to emphasize the fact that not everyone thinks that way. But even then, "nearly everyone" would be like 75-90%, if not 100%, and that's over the disempowerment of Twilight's friends exchanged for the empowerment of Twilight Sparkle, despite the Rainbow Power and Rainbow Castle.

Besides, that's also what's going to happen in Rainbow Rocks. Like in the first Equestria Girls, Twilight would trade away her friends for their human counterparts, rendering the former as useless and disposable as they were the past four times in a row.

[RarityDash]

Rainbow Rocks has nothing to do with the topic of discussion for this thread. Comments pertaining to that should be saved for a more appropriate thread.

This thread is about the Breezy episode. Posts which do not represent productive, on topic discussion may be removed as I or other members of the staff see fit.

[QuickLime]

I must admit, while I disliked the episode, I REALLY loved the Character SeaBreeze! I liked how he had a pink mane and was male and wasn't "Girly" he was tough and frantic due to having a family he might NEVER see again, he was a very good character!

.....Annoying voice though, the high voices/making them not speak common equestrian was a bad call >_>

[starswirlthebearded]

Shep, you really need to stop. Really let it go. Please, for everyone's collective sanity. Nothing in your argument makes sense, your comparison is ludicrous, and your generalizations of the fandom is troubling to say the least. You said you have issues with making your point in an argument. I disagree, that isn't your problem. Your problem is that you form an opinion and alter or disregard facts or make up things all together (like saying most fans think something when you are incapable of knowing those things) to argue your point making crazy comparisons. You are supposed to use facts to support your argument, not use your opinion to shape the facts and make the argument. So I'm going to be very nice and politely ask you to stop with that argument. It is going nowhere because you are not addressing any counterpoint and just reiterating what you have said with nothing tangible to back it up.

That said. I cannot add anything that Rarity did not say in that quote from the other thread.

[SteelEagle]

Shep, just stop. At this point you are getting incredibly annoying and extremely rude. Just because your topic was locked doesn't mean you can take over someone else's topic to post your rants.

As for the actual topic that is being discussed here, I thought the story and designs were mediocre at best. I am not usually a fan of Fluttershy episodes anyway.

[GreatAndPowerful]

The reason I didn't like the episode was that it just felt average or boring to me. The amount of exposition in the episode was not needed unless we already knew about the Breezies, other than that it was an okay episode.

[brianblackberry]

I always felt if they made it so the Breezies weren't completely incapable of flying to and from their pollen collecting grounds without the ponies, they would have made much more sense. They could have written it so that Breezies are just fine in fair weather, so as long as they come across no storms, they could fly without trouble. An errant "wild" storm comes out of the Everfree (where it has been started the weather is not controlled and dangerous) and threatens the Breezies with its damaging winds. The ponies of nearby Ponyville, knowing the Breezies are in the area, come to their rescue by breaking up the storm. Fluttershy offers the shaken Breezies some time to recover at her home out of kindness. However, now that the weather is clear again, Sea Breeze wants to immediately continue on (timetable and wants to reunite with his family), but the Breezes with him are too shaken up to continue at first, only growing indulgent on Fluttershy's kindness as time goes on.

[smileyface1010]

I am going to ignore Sheps comments unless they have to do with the topic here, you are being downright rude at this point.

About what you guys said...

Yes but the thing is NONE of the stuff she learns seems to ever stick >C

Eeyup, you're right, none of the lessons she learns ever seem to stick. But I'm not much of a Fluttershy fan anyways so... yeah In fact, I'm a RD fan for the exact opposite reason. She learns from her mistakes and is always growing as a character. But that's for another topic

I must admit, while I disliked the episode, I REALLY loved the Character SeaBreeze! I liked how he had a pink mane and was male and wasn't "Girly" he was tough and frantic due to having a family he might NEVER see again, he was a very good character!

.....Annoying voice though, the high voices/making them not speak common equestrian was a bad call >_>

Seabreeze... I like him. He's a cool character. As for the voice, I didn't really find it too annoying, but maybe that's just me... 'Nuff said here

The reason I didn't like the episode was that it just felt average or boring to me. The amount of exposition in the episode was not needed unless we already knew about the Breezies, other than that it was an okay episode.

Yea, that's probably my biggest problem with the episode. It's pretty boring -_-

I always felt if they made it so the Breezies weren't completely incapable of flying to and from their pollen collecting grounds without the ponies, they would have made much more sense. They could have written it so that Breezies are just fine in fair weather, so as long as they come across no storms, they could fly without trouble. An errant "wild" storm comes out of the Everfree (where it has been started the weather is not controlled and dangerous) and threatens the Breezies with its damaging winds. The ponies of nearby Ponyville, knowing the Breezies are in the area, come to their rescue by breaking up the storm. Fluttershy offers the shaken Breezies some time to recover at her home out of kindness. However, now that the weather is clear again, Sea Breeze wants to immediately continue on (timetable and wants to reunite with his family), but the Breezes with him are too shaken up to continue at first, only growing indulgent on Fluttershy's kindness as time goes on.

Whoa... that would actually fix the episode! Of course, you don't want the Breezies to be too shaken up. I would imagine them shaken up at the beginning but then they start taking advantage off Flutters kindness, and only pretending to be unable to go later on. But I think that's what you were trying to say anyways so... good job *applause*

[Rosewind]

As I said in a previous thread that is locked right now due to everyone turning it into a Spiderman thread,

The thread wasn't locked because it turned into a "Spiderman" thread; it was locked because the relevance of your topic was exhausted, and it was evoking an inflammatory response from other forum users.

You are welcome to your opinion and to disagree with others -- without differing opinions, I daresay a lot of topics would be rather boring. However, I think your presentation needs work. As others have pointed out, you should flesh out your thoughts using hard facts instead of gross generalizations and hyperbole. Do this, and I think you will have a better time discussing what you're passionate about in a constructive way.

Here are some examples to give you an idea.

What you said:

Yes, but nearly everyone hated the Rainbow Power and Rainbow Castle

How you could phrase this differently:

I didn't like Rainbow Power or Rainbow Castle because I found the character motivations unappealing, and the story didn't seem to mesh well with the FiM universe as a whole since the season had spent a lot of creative time and effort building up to it. I watched these episodes with several of my friends and we mutually agreed they were not as good as other episodes we've seen this season.

See the difference? Take pride in your own opinions and own up to them. You can form the basis of your own argument without using gross generalizations (which just tick other people off and destroy your own argument).

[CommanderPonyShep]

The thread wasn't locked because it turned into a "Spiderman" thread; it was locked because the relevance of your topic was exhausted, and it was evoking an inflammatory response from other forum users.

You are welcome to your opinion and to disagree with others -- without differing opinions, I daresay a lot of topics would be rather boring. However, I think your presentation needs work. As others have pointed out, you should flesh out your thoughts using hard facts instead of gross generalizations and hyperbole. Do this, and I think you will have a better time discussing what you're passionate about in a constructive way.

Here are some examples to give you an idea.

What you said:

How you could phrase this differently:

See the difference? Take pride in your own opinions and own up to them. You can form the basis of your own argument without using gross generalizations (which just tick other people off and destroy your own argument).

That wasn't how I saw the Rainbow Castle and Rainbow Power. All I cared about were their symbolic values, and everyone hates them for their surface elements. They'd rather the fight because of its own surface elements, as if they want that heavy power imbalance between Twilight and her friends, where the latter's helplessness and disposability is traded away for the former's own empowerment.

On-topic, I think the Mane Five are even more useless than the breezies. Four opportunities to help Twilight, and they are all wasted by Shining Armor and Cadence (Canterlot Wedding), Spike (Crystal Empire), the Human Five (Equestria Girls), and the three princesses transferring their magic into Twilight to hide it (Twilight's Kingdom). Hell, if anything, Meghan McCarthy might as well stuff the Mane Five into the refrigerator for the benefit of Twilight's story-arc!

[smileyface1010]

On-topic, I think the Mane Five are even more useless than the breezies. Four opportunities to help Twilight, and they are all wasted by Shining Armor and Cadence (Canterlot Wedding), Spike (Crystal Empire), the Human Five (Equestria Girls), and the three princesses transferring their magic into Twilight to hide it (Twilight's Kingdom). Hell, if anything, Meghan McCarthy might as well stuff the Mane Five into the refrigerator for the benefit of Twilight's story-arc!

"On topic?" Dude, what you said there had nothing to do with the topic. What you just said was "people here are saying the Breezies are useless, and I think the mane give were useless too!" And then you start going on about the mane five being useless instead of the breezies, which is the topic of this thread. Nice try.

Sorry if that came off as a bit rude, but you get my point

[CommanderPonyShep]

"On topic?" Dude, what you said there had nothing to do with the topic. What you just said was "people here are saying the Breezies are useless, and I think the mane give were useless too!" And then you start going on about the mane five being useless instead of the breezies, which is the topic of this thread. Nice try.

Sorry if that came off as a bit rude, but you get my point

Well, it's true. Four times in a row the Mane Five could've helped Twilight. And four times in a row they couldn't because they were more disposable than even the breezies. So instead, it had to be Cadence and Shining Armor, Spike, and the Human Five who had to save the day in the first three instances, and then in the fourth instance where Twilight couldn't even explain to her friends that she was hiding alicorn magic without "putting them in danger", let alone get their help.

[smileyface1010]

That's not my point. This topic isn't about the mane five, it's about the Breezy episode. If you want to talk about the mane five, save it for another thread. I don't want this topic to be locked because of you.

[SteelEagle]

Shep, we aren't asking you anymore. We're telling you. Stop. This topic is not the place for your inane arguments. Get and remain on topic or leave the thread. Only options available.

On topic: The biggest issue with Breezies is mostly it being a wasted opportunity. The breezies were a boring addition to the show's canon and the plot felt manufactured from the get go to produce the drama of the show. Most of the episodic conflicts found in the show at least had the appearance of being natural. This one felt contrived.