OccupyEquestria

I have read several while I was studying psych, but that was long ago and probably couldn't find them if I tried.

If I recall correctly, false bravado is just bravado that can't be backed up when challenged. The confidence and courage is still there though. And when it is knocked down, that confidence tends to return unchanged. This suggests that there is nothing false about it, but rather lends to it being unjustifiable. However if a person is unjustifiably confident or brave, does that make those qualities fake?

I'm working off memory, so I'll search and see what I come up with as time permits. If you wish to do the research for me it would be appreciated. I could be misremembering or I could have misunderstood in the first place.

I tend to liken false bravado to the false happiness that I've experienced working with depressed teens. Some teens have a habit of manifesting their depression in extreme happiness with very bubbly, smiling, and extraverted personalities. Such actions make them appear to be the center of attention and living a happy life when in fact they feel none of their "friends" cares about them and that they are unhappy both with their situation and their need to appear happy for every else. While I cannot speak from knowing anyone personally who manifests this in an athletic composure, I am sure that there are those who do.

One of my problems with psych students is that they land on these studies and think they lead towards fact and rely too much on generalization without looking at context or specification. There are always outliers and falling into the trap "because these studies say this leads to..." Such actions often end up with someone arriving at an erroneous assumptions.

While I am certainly no fan of psychology as a "science" when it does not take a biological look, if I have time I shall find some journal articles which better get across the idea that correleation and causation in these sorts of insecurity studies is not so black and white as Ginger has been making it.

For me, MLP:FiM was just a bunch of memes during Season 1. The episodes really did not catch me or draw me in to watching the whole season. It was not until Season 2 that I found myself falling in love with the series. I watched all the S2 episodes (that were out at the time) before watching half of Season 1. Most of S1 was good, but there are more episodes that were just "meh" to me in S1 than S2. For me, I really see S2 as the superior season. As such I am in no way feeling that the peak of the series has been reached and that S3 could very well be much better than S2.

I actually really hated BBBFF. Probably the worst song of the season.

Blasphemy! As a big brother, I thought it downright tearful.

Rarity is practical though? I guess sometimes, but not usually... Rarity can be just as petty and self-concerned as Dash sometimes (Sisterhooves Social and Sonic Rainboom come to mind), even if both will come around to support their friends at the end. They both like to be at the center of attention, they both have ambitions that extend beyond where they are now (something the other four lack), and they're both just very aggressive, upfront, proud and strong personalities. That's a number of similarities I can point out.

And yet on the surface, they're completely opposites. It makes for an interesting dichotomy which makes the pairing really work in my opinion.

Also, they just look cute together.

I didn't get to address this yesterday Phil as I had to go so sorry for bringing it up a day later, but you're looking too much at the "surface pony" here. Two people can do the same thing for absolutely different reasons and so not really have anything in common. This is found in the differences as to why Rainbow Dash and Rarity tend towards the center of attention.

Rainbow Dash is an insecure character prone to over compensation and bravado. Rainbow Dash does not tend towards the center of attention purely for the attention, but instead does so to invalidate her lack of belief in herself. She wants everypony to call her number one and make her feel better about herseslf. Such insecurities is exactly why the FlutterDash relationship has such a realistic tone to it because Fluttershy's weak-on-the-outside and strong-on-the-inside forms a perfect duality with Dash's strong-on-the-outside and weak-on-the-inside to where they are mutually supportive.

As to Rarity and why Rarity does not act at all like Dash is again her being at the center of attention you brought up. Rarity has self-confidence in abundance and when she looks to put herseslf forward it is not to cover up any of her weakness, but instead in the desire for other ponies to acknowledge her accomplishments. What Rarity graves is admiration and attention towards her own talents. The flaw in this is not insecurity as Dash has, but arrogance. As for the petty and self-initerest there are major differences. Take a look at Sisterhooves Social, Rarity is a practical businesspony who is being forced to do more work to compensate for the damages that her sister's thoughtlessness is causing to her. Any business owner would feel similarly afronted even by a sister, but in the end her love for her sister reminds her that she should not be focused on business alone to the point of neglecting her family. Many of the messages in the Rarity episodes are focused on balancing a desire to be a success in life while being faithful to your friends and family.

I believe some think he had a 'Duuddde' type party/surfer accent. I just took it as a friendly and outgoing type of voice.

As someone who lives in Southern California where I frequently am surrounded by real valley girls, frat boys, and surfer dudes then I am forced to say the conceptions of Shining Armor's voice are grossly misinterpreted.

Twilight clearly has an emotionally dependent personality built around Celestia. Considering Celestia's wisdom and foresight, I feel that the construction of such a relationship was entirely purposeful. As such, the opinions of Twilight towards Celestia are skewed. At the same time while what Celestia says may not be a lie, it does not have to be the whole truth.

I've personally never bought into the successor stories unless it is the "Twilight is Celestia's illegitimate daughter." Equestria is after all a monarchy with multiple princes and princesses and so naturally one of them would assume the throne or else it simply wouldn't be a monarchy.

But there is certainly some growing evidence now that Twilight was being watched by the royal family from being a filly. I'm unsure how much of this was accidental though. Twilight is noted as having called Cadence a unicorn, which makes it seem that the art department might have messed up and then they were stuck playing off of it and dealing with the canonical changes in the future (if at all).

Dash is doing something so entirely un-Dash like as modeling clothes for Rarity...

Also, a lot of it is just how I interpret the characters. On the surface, Rarity and Dash have nothing in common, but looking at them deeper, they are very similar at their core. I think they could relate to each other wonderfully.

Dash also did un-Dash like things such as spending a day with Fluttershy watching butterflies. That seems far less Dashesque, but at the same time totally within her character. She is after all the element of LOYALTY and loyalty manifests itself in doing things which she might not like to please her friends as part of the tradeoff of her often being selfish.

And, I really cannot see similarities between Dash and Rarity. One of the things I like about the character design in MLP:FiM is that each character is a very unique personality with fully fleshed out positives and negatives. Dash for all her loyalty can be very selfish in the things she wants while also being a pony who leaps before she looks. Rarity on the other hand is a business savvy and very practical pony who concenctrates on work first and also friends first. Of all the characters this polar opposite dichotomy seems as apparent as Appple Jack's outdoors nature compared to Twilight Sparkle's introvertedness.

So if Princess Celestia is in charge of the Day...

And Princess Luna is in charge of the Night...

Does that mean Princess Cadence was left with being in charge of Twilight?

I suppose with me, I'm always going for the shy girls. At the same time, I simply don't see any of the other characters having the personality that clicks with Fluttershy besides Rainbowdash. It just seems that the aggressive, but loyal nature of Rainbowdash works out so well with the loving and needing to be protected nature of Fluttershy.

Also, Brace yourself.

The Chrysalis x Discord shipping is coming.

Even though Chrysalis was by far the most evil thus far, Discord will always be the best in my opinion. She can be second.

I'm not really sure why the Flim Flam brothers were on here as they were neither villainious nor evil.

Also to expand on the FlutterDash topic: even if they did kiss, would it matter?

Yes. I am not someone for shipping, but a FlutterDash relationship is just too emotionally beautiful for me.

Also I strongly agree with the sentiments on Chrysalis being the best and most "evil" antagonist we have had. Discord was more a force of nature and Luna was a jaded and resentful sister, but Chrysalis and the Changlings embody a predator and that makes them so much more than anything shown previous.

I am having a hard time figuring out whether Dash+Flutter kissing, the "Deceptive Cadence" joke within the musical score, or the "This Day" song was the highlight for me. The first episode was ok, but the second episode was pure epicness. Of all the best things that could happen this is the best possible thing..

They're a sort of "wizard did" trope. The Elements are there merely to serve as a plot device to facilitate the conclussion of a conflict whose story only utilizes them in a thematic sense. If you flesh the EoH out then you can be critical of them and also changes their purpose in the show which would skew any future use.

This is excellent work. I want to comment more, but have not completed reading this full thesis yet.

It was not Princess Celestia. Future Twilight messed up her spell. She was trying to write the Mayor to tell her she would need extra time for the money, but alas the letter never reached the Mayor! Now Princess Twilight has a big legal case on her hooves.

An agreement with you Ginger would require that we suscribe to a concept of meta-ethics, that there is a moral universalism such as Kant's idea of universal justice. However, I do not subscribe to this. I subscribe to moral relativism and moral relativism refuses to apply a blanket perception upon actions that are not taken into context. In the context which it was used, I do not see Discord's actions as being evil or unjustifiable. From the current pony perspective his actions were highly negative and damaging. From the Discord or even Pre-Celestia rule period perspective his actions can very easily be seen as good and protective of the status quo.

Meta-ethics falls on its face when you apply it to direct situations. Celestia's actions to destroy the old world and inprison Discord are no less evil under meta ethics than Discord's attempt to destroy the current world and neutralize the mane 6.

None of the mane six had latent bad personality traits that could be manipulated. Pinkie Pie doesn't have latent anti-social abilities. Yes, she became anti-social once in the show, when she believed that she didn't have her friends anymore, but as you know, Pinkie's whole life is making people happy and being a good friend.

So, my argument is that the ponies never had those personality traits to begin with and that they were manipulated into their minds by Discord.

No. First off, to say that they lacked those traits is to make the characters one dimension and without any proper psychology. Discord simply brought out the parts of them that were unharmonious. Pinkie Pie does have anti-social issues. She has a fear of rejection. If you have ever met a person who suffers from depression and manifests it through having an extremely happy and very social character then you would better understand Pinkie Pie. For Pinkie Pie she tries, she tries really hard to get people to like her even when what she is doing is the exact oppostie (as with Doodle) because she fears rejection and loneliness. Every pony in the series has a strong character development because they have real psychologies with real positive and negative traits. This is what makes them who they are.

Prior to his imprisonment, Discord had filled the world with chaos (relatively speaking as even chaos has order). What we can surmize from the canon is that Celestia did not like the world as it was and trapped Discord so that she could cease the chaos of the world and create the world in her desired image. It is not possible that during the Discord years no one enjoyed the world. Whether most enjoyed the world is up for debate; whether more or less of ponies or non-ponies enjoyed the world is up for debate. What cannot be debated is that whether there were some ponies and non-ponies who enjoyed the world the way it was. To Discord and the (let us call them) Discordians this was an evil act and destroyed their world.

Discord's actions in bringing out the disharmony of the mane 6 are not so blankly evil. "I could kill them or I could allow them to live while neutralizing their threat to this world." It is something along the lines of imprisoning someone as opposed to killing them, though I would say there was a fair degree more freedom within Discord's mental imprisonment and Celestia's physical imprisonment. There is a reason to every action. Discord's actions to the mane 6 were not of tantamount difference to Celestia's action against him. Both actions were a way in which to maintain their version of the world.

Evil is an attribute that should really only be made towards choice. You do not call a wolf evil because it kills and eats a cute bunny. The wolf by the wolf's nature needed to eat this bunny to survive. Evil characters are truly those characters who do not need to act the way they act and yet make a conscious choice to do so. Voldemort was a person who could have been anything and yet became a power hungry wizard. Discord is not something that gets to make conscious choices. Discord is an embodiment of disharmony and through the fact that Discord is an embodiment of this then Discord cannot act otherwise.

Something cannot be evil inherently because evil is a perspective drive, moral label given to personal choice.

Being a sociopath is a job requirement for higher officer or being a corporate officer. Whether we want to consider them evil even though they do careless things that harm people is another question.

Ahhh, get out of my head!

Sadly this sort of thing happens in real life all the time. Entire ecosystems have been decimated because an invasive species moves in, with no counter-predation to deal with it.

I know! All those pesky humans with their lack of counter-predation.

One of the things that should be considered when thinking of Discord as not a malicious creature, but simply the embodiment of a natural state, is that he allowed things to fall as they would. For a creature the power of Discord he could have easily done much worse things. He could have had any of the mane 6 killed or never allowed them to collect the Elements of Harmony. Everything that Discord did to the mane 6 had a way out and they eventually got out and had the weapons at their disposal. At that point Discord did not even fight back, it was obvious from before they even activated the EoH that his influence over them had been lost. Discord may have been angry at Celestia for what was certainly in his opinion an unjust imprisonment, but he allowed himself to play out his part to see where the nature of the ponies would lead them.

He tried to influence them, sure, but this is no different then the idea of an angel and devil on your shoulder influencing you towards two different choices. People who agree with the angel think the devil evil, but you forget the opposite of the coin that people who agree with the devil think the angel evil.

Dessa brings up a wonderful point.

We consider Satan evil because:

From a purely biblical standpoint, I find Lucifer to be far more good of a character than God. God epitomizes all that is Orwellian with a need to control so high that he must harm his most faithful subjects for fear that they do not love him as much as they profess to. On the other hand the evil of Lucifer is biblically only depicted as disobeying god and removing man from the "utopia" of perpetually praising god's existence.

So once again I smash the morality of the moral-sayers! Your evil is my good! Your good is my evil!