Recurring Characterisations - Tumblr Posts
These illustrate the points me & a few others have stated for a while. Both of the above characters (along with Cadence) suffer from what my editor would call the Wally Problem. For those unfamiliar, Wally from the RSE/Hoenn story was kinda neat as a character, but you don’t really hear from him as he’s abandoned for 90% of the games (although he was elaborated upon in ORAS along with the other Gen 3 characters). Shining & Maud are nice, decent, & even likable, but suffer from the above issues.
Interestingly, all 3 ponies are more fleshed out in the comics than in the show, especially in Shining Armour’s case. To sum it up, neither sibling are bad characters, they just didn’t have much done with them in-show (including in EqG), although Maud has made not an insignificant splash in EqG (the shorts, mostly). I personally would’ve liked to find a prequel story showing how & why Shining became captain of the Royal Guard (in literature or otherwise) despite a military draft (even willing to write such myself if needed), but something on Maud’s backstory would be appreciated to flesh her out also.
why do you think there was such a hypocritical split between the fandom's first reactions regarding Shining Armor and Maud Pie's introduction? Like with Shining most claimed he was "sooo forced/out of nowhere" for a brother of Twilight when "she never ONCE mentioned him before"... and yet those same fans *adored* Maud in her debut... even though there was literally NO mention/sign of a third Pie sister before that random photo in "Pinkie Pride"...?
The answer to that question becomes clear once you read your question to yourself out loud. The introduction of a previously unmentioned family member was a problem with Shining, but not with Maud, so this discrepancy most likely means one of two things:
1. Their dislike of Shining has nothing to do with his “sudden” introduction, but they don’t know how to articulate their grievances with his character, so they just cling onto something that’s easy to criticize, even if it doesn’t make any actual sense.
2. They genuinely think the introduction of Shining was sudden and out of nowhere and simply don’t notice or don’t care about the dissonance, or they think that briefly showing Maud in a picture in Pinkie Pride counts as sufficient establishment of her existence even though she was nowhere to be seen in previous depictions of the Pie family.