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Description
There’s this outrage that seems to be going around about the character of Ditzy Hooves, referred to by fans as ‘Derpy’ (which may or may not be a canon name now). This is, so to speak, my opinion on the whole affair. Now, please keep in mind two things while reading this - I am very inactive in the fandom, for starters. It’s a bit too big and aggressive for me. I prefer to share my pony squee with a couple of friends and my brother, who is quite the brony. Second, I don’t have any knowledge of what the fandom decided ‘Derpy’ was like. All I knew about her until I saw her in the Winter Wrap-up episode and the Round-up episode is that she was some kind of gray animation glitch people had fallen in love with (which is cute).

When I heard Derpy had spoken in the round up episode, I got very curious. This was a character that fans had fallen in love with and I was wondering how the creation team was going to handle her to make the fans happy. When I saw her scene, i’m not going to lie… I though all the fans were going to be hurt by the portrayal. Now, this has nothing to do with the fact that the portrayal may or may not be offensive (though like many, I do think it might have been). To me, ‘Derpy’ sounded just like we do when we imitate someone we dislike in a conversation. You know… This sort of thing : ‘God my boss is so evil. I tried to do what she asked and then she was all like Durrrr no I dunno’.

So… Yeah. I pretty much froze and though to myself ‘man, the fans are going to be mad about this’. I was surprised when I saw that not only a lot of fans were happy with the potrayal, but actually trashed people that questionned it’s validity as a representation of the disabled. Okay. Let’s pause for a second.

I love this show because the ponies have personalities that don’t fit in a stereotypical little mold. You THINK the ponies all represent a ‘type’ of person, and then you learn that they don’t. Just like people, they are multi-faceted. And I found that this wasn’t done with ‘Derpy’. Let’s forget for a second that she may represent a disabled character, as many fans believe. Even without that, she was the ‘Ditzy’ one and was given a voice that fits this negative idea that silly people are annoying and are clumsy because they don’t especially care. Why? Why give her a voice that is so stereotype-ish? In fact, why not break our expectations like they did with Luna by having her voice have a strong and interesting dissonance with her actions? Everyone expected Luna to be meek. She totally wasn’t. Why not give ‘Derpy’ a classy and eloquent voice. Maybe there’s a scientific reason she’s so (please excuse the expression) ‘Derpy’. Like, she brought the birds back from the wrong cardical direction because of science. SCIENCE.

Heck, why even give her a voice at all? One cannot forget the power of the pantomime, especially in such a well-animated show. People feel in love with a silent character, and I actually liked her as a silent character. She was adroable in the winter wrap-up, flying around. A couple of days ago, on the subway platform, I saw a girl dancing. Dancing like a kid. She was twirling a little gracefully, a little clumsily and very, very close to the edge of the platform (I worried about her safety). I didnt know this girl, but I knew right away that she was eccentric, in a good mood and adorable. And she didn’t say a word or even hum. Pantomime. It’s powerful. It can create a full personality without words.

So generally, my opinion is that the portrayal was weak. Animators were too motivated to please the fans (bless them for that though) and didn’t really think on how they could push the character. They just adopted this common potrayal that was lying around the internet. I do hope the animators still lisend to the fans in the future, but do it carefully. Because not all the fans are experts in storytelling. And honestly, stuff that achieves internet meme status is rarely intelligent enough to be classified as compelling storytelling. So yes. Be attentive.

Generally, i’d like to conclude that i’m glad they changed her voice. Because they first was a weak character portrayal. And maybe even potentially offensive to many. MLP : FIM promotes difference, tolerance and originality. So we should have characters that reflect this. I still think they should have left her silent and avoided all this. Kept her as a fun little silent background easter egg, but what are you going to do? Such is life. And the internet is prone to exploding.

Oh, also, a lot of people are giving a certain webcomic artist trash because she would have apparently caused the downfall of the first, odd ‘Derpy’ portrayal. Please stop, guys. First, because telling someone to die over an animated show is really not the message of love and tolerance Pincess Celestia wants you to learn.

Second, really? Really? Guys. Webcomic artists don’t have that much power. If we did, i’d already be crowned queen of a small country. Yamino is aimed and fired at because she’s big in the fandom and known on the internet. But in the Hasbro offices, outside of the internet, I don’t think she has enough power to, as you seem to say, ‘ruin the show’. She just voiced an opinion, as I did now.

Description
There’s this outrage that seems to be going around about the character of Ditzy Hooves, referred to by fans as ‘Derpy’ (which may or may not be a canon name now). This is, so to speak, my opinion on the whole affair. Now, please keep in mind two things while reading this - I am very inactive in the fandom, for starters. It’s a bit too big and aggressive for me. I prefer to share my pony squee with a couple of friends and my brother, who is quite the brony. Second, I don’t have any knowledge of what the fandom decided ‘Derpy’ was like. All I knew about her until I saw her in the Winter Wrap-up episode and the Round-up episode is that she was some kind of gray animation glitch people had fallen in love with (which is cute).

When I heard Derpy had spoken in the round up episode, I got very curious. This was a character that fans had fallen in love with and I was wondering how the creation team was going to handle her to make the fans happy. When I saw her scene, i’m not going to lie… I though all the fans were going to be hurt by the portrayal. Now, this has nothing to do with the fact that the portrayal may or may not be offensive (though like many, I do think it might have been). To me, ‘Derpy’ sounded just like we do when we imitate someone we dislike in a conversation. You know… This sort of thing : ‘God my boss is so evil. I tried to do what she asked and then she was all like Durrrr no I dunno’.

So… Yeah. I pretty much froze and though to myself ‘man, the fans are going to be mad about this’. I was surprised when I saw that not only a lot of fans were happy with the potrayal, but actually trashed people that questionned it’s validity as a representation of the disabled. Okay. Let’s pause for a second.

I love this show because the ponies have personalities that don’t fit in a stereotypical little mold. You THINK the ponies all represent a ‘type’ of person, and then you learn that they don’t. Just like people, they are multi-faceted. And I found that this wasn’t done with ‘Derpy’. Let’s forget for a second that she may represent a disabled character, as many fans believe. Even without that, she was the ‘Ditzy’ one and was given a voice that fits this negative idea that silly people are annoying and are clumsy because they don’t especially care. Why? Why give her a voice that is so stereotype-ish? In fact, why not break our expectations like they did with Luna by having her voice have a strong and interesting dissonance with her actions? Everyone expected Luna to be meek. She totally wasn’t. Why not give ‘Derpy’ a classy and eloquent voice. Maybe there’s a scientific reason she’s so (please excuse the expression) ‘Derpy’. Like, she brought the birds back from the wrong cardical direction because of science. SCIENCE.

Heck, why even give her a voice at all? One cannot forget the power of the pantomime, especially in such a well-animated show. People feel in love with a silent character, and I actually liked her as a silent character. She was adroable in the winter wrap-up, flying around. A couple of days ago, on the subway platform, I saw a girl dancing. Dancing like a kid. She was twirling a little gracefully, a little clumsily and very, very close to the edge of the platform (I worried about her safety). I didnt know this girl, but I knew right away that she was eccentric, in a good mood and adorable. And she didn’t say a word or even hum. Pantomime. It’s powerful. It can create a full personality without words.

So generally, my opinion is that the portrayal was weak. Animators were too motivated to please the fans (bless them for that though) and didn’t really think on how they could push the character. They just adopted this common potrayal that was lying around the internet. I do hope the animators still lisend to the fans in the future, but do it carefully. Because not all the fans are experts in storytelling. And honestly, stuff that achieves internet meme status is rarely intelligent enough to be classified as compelling storytelling. So yes. Be attentive.

Generally, i’d like to conclude that i’m glad they changed her voice. Because they first was a weak character portrayal. And maybe even potentially offensive to many. MLP : FIM promotes difference, tolerance and originality. So we should have characters that reflect this. I still think they should have left her silent and avoided all this. Kept her as a fun little silent background easter egg, but what are you going to do? Such is life. And the internet is prone to exploding.

Oh, also, a lot of people are giving a certain webcomic artist trash because she would have apparently caused the downfall of the first, odd ‘Derpy’ portrayal. Please stop, guys. First, because telling someone to die over an animated show is really not the message of love and tolerance Pincess Celestia wants you to learn.

Second, really? Really? Guys. Webcomic artists don’t have that much power. If we did, i’d already be crowned queen of a small country. Yamino is aimed and fired at because she’s big in the fandom and known on the internet. But in the Hasbro offices, outside of the internet, I don’t think she has enough power to, as you seem to say, ‘ruin the show’. She just voiced an opinion, as I did now.