Who is Best Pony?

Ramsus wrote:Hypnotoad is best pony!

That is true.

Z2 wrote:Kamina, eh? I can see that... Memorable, meant to inspire, actually kind of terrible outside a very specific context, most valuable dead... yep, sounds right.

I kind of meant more in that she possesses an indomitable spirit, calm confidence, boisterous yet eloquent hamminess, and is impulsive, yet competent.

AProcrastinatingWriter wrote:Why do you keep insulting their favorite ponies?

I was kind of wondering this myself. I seem to detect a hint of malice in his posts, first toward G1 ponies, then toward Gurren Lagann. I'm not gonna say you have to like the same things as me, but there's no call for the degree of spite in your posts.

RavenscroftRaven wrote:You can go through every pony in the series, literature, and fandom, and say why they're best pony if you want. Everypony has a reason to be best pony.

This is one reason I think "best pony" is a bit of a misnomer. Usually, I interpret it as referring to a person's favorite pony, which is subjective and all up to personal preference, rather than the actual "best pony", which is both objective in that it is determined by set qualities and yet vague in that no one seems to agree or even know what those qualities are.

Part of my logic in choosing Firefly for "best pony" is that, not only does she have a lot of positive qualities, but because she's a G1 pony who starred in the first ever pony animation, she gets to set an example for all ponies thereafter. This is still pretty subjective, for example, I don't really see Pinkie Pie holding Firefly as a role model, but she still stood out from her peers, and, in a sort of literal way (she is Lauren Faust's favorite pony, after all), inspired a new, better generation of ponies. And I still think she's better than Rainbow Dash, which shows that Firefly is still able to stand up to G4 ponies.

Discorded turquoise bicycle shoe fins actualize radishes greenly.

Dilapidated yells appling granary blues kickingly.

Glory to the Hypnotoad!

I might have been a bit snippy, but I actually did mean that as a compliment. I loved Gurrenn Lagann, largely because of Kamina's beautifully horrible hamminess, and appropriately subsequent death. Heck, I was rather impressed when I realized the parallel between "Kamina REALLY CAN'T 'cut it' and dies, inspiring Simon to become awesome" and "Firefly does some 'cool' stuff and fades away, inspiring Lauren Faust to make an awesome pony show."

Maybe I do feel the need to argue a LITTLE when I hear a character dubbed 'Best Pony' rather than just 'My Favorite Pony', but I am by no means insulting your opinions.

But the whole topic is called "Best Pony" and you haven't felt the need to argue with anyone else?????????

I literally only realized that this thread existed yesterday, when I was already conducting 2 other arguments elsewhere.

Z2 wrote:I might have been a bit snippy, but I actually did mean that as a compliment.

Unless a character has supernatural ghost powers, saying that they're more effective when dead is about as backhanded a compliment as you can give. That said, your views on Gurren Lagann have an angle to them I hadn't considered. That Kamina's death was unavoidable because he really wasn't the great hero he thought he was, but through his death he left a legacy that inspired Simon to be greater than Kamina ever could have been. It's an interesting, darker, and more cynical perspective. More often than not, this is probably how it works out with heroes: they're not really that great, but somehow their legacy gets inflated to the point that they're paragons of virtue. In a way, it provides a role model for people to look up to (as Kamina did), but on the other hand there's a nagging doubt that the hero in question never lived up to his own standards, and was really just an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances.

But we're here to talk about ponies, not wax philosophical about the nature of heroes.