The Issue With Megan

[Al-1701]

One thing the show did that I liked was there was apparently a friendship between Megan and Wind Whistler.  Wind Whistler was the pegasus pony she most often rode (she even photobombs Megan and Sundance in the second U.K. release).  Since WW is the designated heroine of Dream Valley (especially in my imagination), her and Megan being close makes sense.

Unfortunately Sundance was literally just an extension of Megan in their backcard, and we know what happened in Escape from Catrina.  Though, I like this idea that they had a falling out because Sundance treated Megan like a pet and loved putting her in dresses that matched her favorite cloaks.  Buttons thanked whatever deity the ponies worshiped when Megan finally said enough and spent more time with Wind Whistler.

[daffodil101]

I mostly liked her in the cartoon series, though we didn't have the full range, just a couple of video tapes from the local video shop.  Our favourites were the Magic Coins and the Quest of the princess ponies, and Return of Tambelon.  (Trying to remember if she even appeared in the Quest episode!)  But I loved her in Magic Coins.  I guess it depends on the episodes-- there were some where she did seem to be there for no particular reason, getting in the way of the plot rather than adding anything to it.  To me though, it's sort of like the Neverending Story.  You know-- how it was completely magical in your memory, and then you re-watch it as an adult and just can't quite believe how awful it is!  and yet the memories are that it was the best thing ever.  Even if it the cartoons were terrible, I'd still love them because of the childhood memories.

But if anything bothered me in particular, it was how tall she was drawn in the cartoons!  I felt she'd be too heavy to ride a pony that only came up to her elbow.  But I was never particularly anti-Megan.  In fact I think there's something kinda sweet and innocent about having a bland, perfect-ish character, something nostalgic.  I mean ponies were originally aimed at preschoolers and probably younger kids than some other toy lines.  I also loved the voice actor,and that she was also Rainbow Brite :

I've never liked the doll of her though (though her outfits are adorable), her face is really weird to me.  One day I'll try to find a Lady Lovely-locks doll as a stand-in!

[bright rabbit 1]

I didn't have either Magen or Molly dolls, when I was little and I'm not going to be buying them from eBay.uk because they're expensive (on buy it now or auction).

I had a little rag doll that I called Megan, but now that I'm collecting ponies again I'm just gonna use Barbie sisters as the characters. As they fit on the ponies.

[Mana Minori]

i was just wondering the other day why they decided not to include humans in regular ponyville g4, and if anybody missed megan. i sort of mulled it over and decided that Why would Anybody miss megan, she was so darn boring; and they decided not to put humans in g4 so they could get more money by doing equestria girls.
though its not really the same thing, since theyre like, purple and stuff. i think they could still squeeze in megan if they wanted to. but i doubt they want to.

we already have Cadance, who is just as vanilla

[bright rabbit 1]

i was just wondering the other day why they decided not to include humans in regular ponyville g4, and if anybody missed megan. i sort of mulled it over and decided that Why would Anybody miss megan, she was so darn boring; and they decided not to put humans in g4 so they could get more money by doing equestria girls.
though its not really the same thing, since theyre like, purple and stuff. i think they could still squeeze in megan if they wanted to. but i doubt they want to.

we already have Cadance, who is just as vanilla

Too true, I hate Cadance more than Megan.

[Al-1701]

I would have to say Cadence is worse than Megan.  Megan is a girl from Somewhere, USA.  Cadence is the princess of the Crystal Empire?  What's her excuse for being as bland as she is?

[Baby Sugarberry]

I would have to say Cadence is worse than Megan.  Megan is a girl from Somewhere, USA.  Cadence is the princess of the Crystal Empire?  What's her excuse for being as bland as she is?

Probably a bunch of old guys sitting around a board room table going "Little girls need a perfect princess otherwise they won't be interested!"

[LadyMoondancer]

Cadence wasn't even supposed to be an alicorn originally (just a unicorn), but gotta sell those pink alicorn toys!  I actually think Hasbro decided to alicorn her up after changing the Pepto-Bismo Celestia toys to white.

Cadence is kind of blah, but she's better than Megan because:

- she's not in most of the episodes, whereas Megan was in nearly every episode.
- no one immediately says "Quick, we have to get Princess Cadence!!" every time a crisis happens.

Like, I find Cadence completely contrived and unnecessary, but she's also pretty much a background pony, so I'm okay with her.

[kissthethunder]

-sheepishly raises hand- I like them both. Funny thing is, my daughter who's their target audience loves them both too and went through a phase of stealing my Megan dolls to use with her ponies. Cadence is her favorite Princess. So while it's cool you don't like them, there's many people, especially children, who do. I myself have to remind myself that the toy brand is not catered to adults or collectors who will speculate on things being well designed and well written, but for little girls.

While it's amazing that the love of ponies has spread as far as it has, beyond gender and ages, I still think it's important to recall who it's meant for.

[Al-1701]

My ire with Megan mostly comes from the viewpoint of a storyteller.  The ponies have spent their entire lives living in their world.  Why should they need a thirteen year old girl to tell them what to do?  On top of that, there is nothing to her character beyond being nice.  You essentially need to start from scratch with her even write something in canon with the series.

[lostpony]

Because she's the viewer-insert character, for at least viewers who want to be with ponies but not Be ponies.

Besides, how is it a problem for writing? You can write anything you want n its congruent. Or, write nothing at all about her and just write about ponies.

Who wants to write about a bland character anyway. Wait, shes not just nice, others have said she's bossy so she does have flaws. As to the ponies' reliance on her, that's wide open: you can give any answer you like, and you are automatically right.

Seems more like a problem we want to have.

[Al-1701]

Perhaps.

Something I had thought is to end the story with the grundles running out of the castle and handing the ponies the keys and would give them their last months rent if they were paying rent.  The ponies go in and find Majesty lounging on her throne and she says, "Ponies, you're rightful queen and mistress has returned."

[Carrehz]

I'm pretty sure all of the trips to Ponyland took place when the parents were away or somehow time in Ponyland isn't the same as our time. After all Megan, Molly and Danny spend several days at a time in Ponyland how come no one ever notices they're missing?

In Rescue at Midnight Castle when Firefly is brining Megan home it doesn't look like any time has passed from when she left. It is still dark and TJ is still in the stable.


Ponyfan

This has always been my headcanon (or whatever you'd like to call it), too. I always figured time ran differently in Ponyland, similar to Narnia - it just makes the most sense to me.

I like Megan, personally; I can totally see why others wouldn't though. (Heck, I didn't think I'd like her until I actually saw RaMC )

In terms of Danny, I actually quite like him, most of all because of the crossover into Jem. Basically there's a character called Danny in an episode of Jem who is a teenage runaway. He has very similar features to the MLP Danny, and so my headcanon is that (bearing in mind we see no parents for these guys) that Megan, Molly and Danny ended up in care and Danny thus ran away and turned into a troubled teen for Jem and friends to help.  In this episode of Jem, Danny runs away from an abusive father and ends up getting some of Jem's orphans into trouble with him, also running away. But at the end he helps save the day by interfering with Techrat's technology to allow JATH to play. You mentioned his technology interest, and that is hinted at here too. I absolutely am sure, considering that Jem and MLP writers and voice artists crossed over, that there was an inside joke here that this was the same character. Danny never had a doll, so there would have been a lot of carte blanche to do something like this.

Screencapture of Danny from Jem (The Music Awards) with MLP capture for comparison:

Spoiler

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That headcanoning through Hasbro's own products gives Danny depth for me that would otherwise be lacking.

Ooooh, this is interesting :O I agree, that's definitely got to be intentional on *someone's* part - they're way too similar for it to be just a total coincedence Did they both have the same VA?

[lostpony]

Perhaps.

Something I had thought is to end the story with the grundles running out of the castle and handing the ponies the keys and would give them their last months rent if they were paying rent.  The ponies go in and find Majesty lounging on her throne and she says, "Ponies, you're rightful queen and mistress has returned."

Hm, ok then but to keep this on topic, Majesty gestures and some other UK pony steps forward and hands an envelope to Megan. She opens the envelope and the letter inside begins something like:  "Thanks for your services but they are no longer required. Please return the rainbow of light and clean out your desk forthwith." Two more UK ponies step forward and walk Megan out of the castle and out of Ponyland.

(Sorry i dont know the names well enough to know which ones would be right)

[Firehooves]

Perhaps.

Something I had thought is to end the story with the grundles running out of the castle and handing the ponies the keys and would give them their last months rent if they were paying rent.  The ponies go in and find Majesty lounging on her throne and she says, "Ponies, you're rightful queen and mistress has returned."

You do remember, I already did just that in my stories, right? And made the whole thing a conspiracy by Truly? Boy, how fast people have forgotten my work!

Anyway, Megan is an interesting problem for G1; she really does seem to lack any kind of defining personality trait. And having them solve ALLLL the ponies problems, as well as having her be the ponies go-to problem solver, didn't exactly endear Megan to the MLP fans back then. It's funny she is accused of dominating the show, while the ponies actually had more personality than she did.

My idea for exploring Megan is; how did a preteen girl react to being dragged into a fantasy world, and having her life put in jeopardy time and time again?  Did she experience any kind of emotional trauma because of it? And one thing I explored, why would she want to go back to a 'normal' life, once she had been and heroine in another world, and made all those friends? So I had her settle in Ponyland.

I'm interested in what others would do with her! ^^