You know it (๑・ω-)～♥”

Well… In all honesty I’m probably not the best person to ask about this. I’m no expert on Bronies, I am simply a young woman who enjoys children’s cartoons and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic happens to be one of them.

I do think it is a well made show with funny writing, bright colors, and endearing characters which help give it appeal to multiple audiences. I think it satisfies a lot of audience “wants” that haven’t been delivered all in one package until now.

But, again, I’m not the best person to ask about this. I might recommend you to these videos for a perspective on this show’s general appeal to men. There are also several articles written on the just what makes this show engaging, many of which can be read at The Round Stables Editorial.

To any rate, sorry I can’t give you a more through answer. It’s a good show, it’s a cute show. It’s a show about small colorful horses and their fun, engaging lives. It’s a show about… Buying the playsets and toys. But it’s about a little more, and I think that’s what counts.

Mostly, I’m in it for the cool remixes of the music

To be perfectly honest, I lean towards the “he was a complete waste camp”.  That being said, I can respect fans that liked him, and I understand the concept they were going for.

His design is also kind of bleh, but that’s a horse of a different color.

King Sombra’s failure for me is his utter lack of personality and character.  He is literally a black shroud of hate and malice personified with no discernible motives beyond doing evil for the sake of evil.

And I understand that this was the point of him.  I get the fact that they were trying to play him up as a generalized force, rather than a singular entity.  Sombra merely a placeholder for the concept of “the collapse of a nation”.  His whole villainous shtick is that he makes the Crystal Ponies his slaves through fear and mental suppression rather than applied harm.

He’s a society killer. The Ponies become listless, ignorant of their own names or jobs, and apathetic to their own freedom because they’ve been so utterly subjected to the slave mentality.  In the end, the Mane Six do not heal them with magic berries or a spell; they have to return them to mental health through grand displays of culture.  And I do find that concept very interesting.

In spite of all that, I still can’t forgive Sombra for being so much of a bore. A lot of this has to do with historically expectations.  MLP: FiM has had a great roster of villains like Nightmare Moon, Discord, and Queen Chrysalis. Those guys were positively brimming with personality, energy, and delightful villainy. You got a real sense of them as people, and it made watching them do such insane acts of evil all the more entertaining. Sombra just can’t measure up to the likes of a sunglasses sporting Q sipping chocolate milk, or a shape-shifting temptress belting out an aria.

This is a matter of personal opinion on my part, but when it comes to children’s media, I always say: Go Big on Your Villains. The Bad Guys are often what people remember most vividly about a cartoon or movie.  They are allowed to do things the protagonist can’t do, and the writer’s can use them to explore concepts/motives/worldviews that audiences find both scary but also a little intriguing. People like to see characters step outside the comfort zone of civil society. They like to see characters act out against the world, or not let laws constrain them, because these are often things we ourselves would like to do. Plus, bad guys always get the coolest song.

My point is, if you’re going to go through the trouble of having a villain, you might as well make him or her the biggest, coolest, most interesting mother in the place. Because they’re the character where you have a large amount of freedom to play around with acceptability.

Sombra doesn’t do this, because he’s a concept rather than a character.  And even though this was probably a deliberate choice, it still isn’t one I particularly like. If you set out to make a broccoli pie, and you bake a broccoli pie…  Well, I can’t fault you for completing what you set out to do, but I’m still not touching that damned pie.

Anyways, that’s just my take on it though. I do feel The Crystal Empire was the weakest of the three season openers we’ve had thus far for MLP, and that’s not just to do with Sombra.  There were issues with pacing, an overly long focus on Twilight’s obsession with passing Celestia’s test when we really needed to get to the empire quickly, and some pretty bad jokes. Again, a matter of past history.  How do you top Royal Wedding? I just don’t think it can be done…

Thank you very much for your question, let me know if you’d like me to expand on anything, or if there’s a sub-point you’d like to discuss further.