badassfreakingoverlord: (adrift in a sea of nothing)
Badass Freaking Overlord Zetta ([personal profile] badassfreakingoverlord) wrote in [community profile] mylittleooc 2015-04-13 08:15 pm (UTC)

I'm honestly sorry Rainbow ever developed that tendency, because even back when I first expressed it, people seemed to take it personally. I'm going to say this bluntly now: Rainbow Dash's opinion is not my own.

Her opinion came from spending a year offworld being put through a rigorous academic program in Balamb Garden in Witches' Reign. In that respect, her opinion has an unfair quality of entitlement to it, yes, but not for the power so much as the effort it takes to acquire and learn the power. That is built on her own history as an athlete in canon, where she works and trains hard to perfect her routines and improve her skills to be the best flyer in Equestria. Except now, instead of collapsing from stage fright when someone (Rarity) is handed skill that seems to match hers or put it to shame, she gets angry because she thinks it's undeserved. At her core, Rainbow Dash has what I think is a legitimate point about responsibility and some sensible concerns behind it, but if she managed to communicate a complicated and nuanced point coherently when she's angry, I don't think I'd be playing the character right.

That said, I honestly do not understand where some of your criticism is coming from. Morgan and Dust have been sitting out most plotlines or doing very little, despite them being my most martially-oriented characters in general; they haven't ever saved the day. Rainbow Dash, I can understand your criticism there, but the last thing she ever did was that Nightmare Night plot -- which, as noted was planned by Riki and I ahead of time. Since then she's participated in some of the other plots, but never in a front-and-center capacity. Zecora is, well, Zecora.

So that leaves Zetta, and I want to provide some counter-examples, plotlines where violence wasn't the answer. Zetta kidnapped Rarity; the kidnapping was spoiled by Pinkie Pie and Honeycomb tagging along and making him look ridicolous. Zetta challenged ponies to a roleplaying game, no violence was involved. Zetta dropped the Trueberry Bomb on Ponyville, forcing everyone to tell the truth for a week. Zetta fakes the whole Frozen Flame of Friendship thing; while one third of the log was a battle, there were two other options for exploring and tricking Zetta's minions. Nemesis/Antithesis, which was entirely about Zetta completely failing to solve the problem by being powerful, and his actual participation in the battle at the end was dropping like a sack of potatoes before it even properly started. And then the Tirek plotline had to end as it did because it was his alicorn plotline so ending it in some other way just didn't make sense, but even that was Zetta doing absolutely nothing to fight Tirek and instead giving his power away.

I would go so far to say that Zetta's entire character arc has been people solving the problem of the Overlord precisely by being different, sensible, and nice. His entire point is learning that power isn't everything; it is, in fact, downright nothing compared to the people you care about. In that respect, if you look at the long game, it's been two years of Equestria trying to redeem a villain and succeeding.

All that being said, I have no more plotlines in mind in the near future, but with Zetta's new position it's unlikely that there will be more fighting against him even when I come up with more.

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