How would Hasbro handle Queens?

[Mana Minori]

I vaguely recall that at some point, Queen Majesty was referred to as male (maybe it was an AU on Tumblr?) I don't have the greatest memory, but it was brought to mind after watching a "queen" on So You Think You Can Dance pull off a rather some rather fabulous choreography. Do you guys think Hasbro would be willing- and able- to pull off having a "Queen" as its focus in a new royalty-centric lineup, whether in g4 or the next generation's toyline or animated series?

[Khoufu]

I hope so. It's kind of hard to be a prince or princess if there is no king or queen.

[LadyMoondancer]

You might be thinking of Re Unicorno, who was basically an Italian-made version of Majesty (except with Twilight's star symbols, so I guess it could be argued he is a Twilight / Majesty cross rather than being a straight-out Majesty . . . But I mean, same colors and he came with Dream Castle sooo . . .)  Re Unicorno translates simply to "King Unicorn."  In other countries Majesty was female . . . Italy gender-flipped a LOT of ponies (and named some of them things like "Timmy", "David" etc, lol.)

I read somewhere that Hasbro is reluctant to introduce ponies as queens anymore because Disney has made princesses more marketable / popular than queens.

I'd love to see the term 'queen' used again . . . Maybe we will in the future?  Queen Novo, the sea pony / hippogriff, seems like a hopeful sign.

[Khoufu]

Not to mention Queen Crysalis, which rolls off the tongue.

[Mewtwofan1]

     I don’t really know how hasbro would handle having a queen pony. In the original concept, princess celestia was actually “queen celestia”, But hasbro decided to make her princess as most queens in children’s stories are (usually) the “evil queen” figure. Had celestia been a queen, it might have been difficult (according to hasbro) to sell toys. I don’t know about you, but most young girls in early 2010 liked the Disney Princesses. So I think that was at play there. Young girls dreamt of being princesses, not queens for the most part. At least that’s what I’ve heard and determined was my answer.
    But having queen novo makes it seem like there might be a queen pony after all. We can hope!

[Leave a Whisper]

They handle them as they always have. As a once in a while thing. Majesty, Rosedust, Chrysalis and Novo. I wish Hasbroken would put Novo out singularly.

[LadyMoondancer]

Oh yeah, I forgot about Chrysalis.  Although she is an 'evil queen', hmm.

I do wish they had made Celestia and Luna queens (no reason they couldn't have two queens, it worked for Narnia ), and still had Cadence and Twilight Sparkle as princesses.  I definitely do not see Cadence and Twilight as being equals to Luna and Celestia in terms of ruling.  (As friends, sure.  But not in terms of their respective jobs.)

[DreamvalleyMLP]

I read somewhere that Hasbro is reluctant to introduce ponies as queens anymore because Disney has made princesses more marketable / popular than queens.

I remember that as well. Wasn't it Lauren Faust who mentioned this? Queens have a negative connotation in fantasy stories (most famous one is of course the Evil Queen), so Faust had to change her Queen Celestia to Princess Celestia.

[reddsetgogirl]

How would Hasbro handle queens?  As is the true and pony way, in song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvUX2NbsLxE

By right, I should be queeeeeen!  Look what I can dooooooo!

[Leave a Whisper]

How would Hasbro handle queens?  As is the true and pony way, in song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvUX2NbsLxE

By right, I should be queeeeeen!  Look what I can dooooooo!

This too.

Post Merge: July 04, 2018, 06:05:02 AM

I read somewhere that Hasbro is reluctant to introduce ponies as queens anymore because Disney has made princesses more marketable / popular than queens.

I remember that as well. Wasn't it Lauren Faust who mentioned this? Queens have a negative connotation in fantasy stories (most famous one is of course the Evil Queen), so Faust had to change her Queen Celestia to Princess Celestia.

Lauren Faust or Hasbro was full of the proverbial then. Given MLP has only had 1 evil pony queen and 3 good ones. Not to mention that's a straight up lie about all Disney Queens. Since there are good ones there as well.

[Ponyfan]

I wish we'd had the comics in the US. I think they would have really helped expand the US pony folklore.  But I wonder if they thought Queen Majesty wouldn't resonate as well for a US audience. She was in a couple of story books and mentioned briefly in a few backcard stories (and Ember's Dream cassette story)  but doesn't have nearly as much presence in the US as she does in the comics.  A

I haven't read every story featuring Majesty yet but she seems like a mostly benovlent queen but she's not above devisng clever ways to make sure her subjects remember a lesson they need to be taught (replacing the apple's on Applejack's favorite tree with crabs because Applejack was eating too many, sending Lickety Split on a long journey to make her thinner etc..)  I like to think that she allowed the bad man from New York to think that he was in charge but it was really her plan all along to teach the rainbow ponies not to be so vain. She's also ready to get rid of anyone that mgiht threaten her or her pony subjects.


Queen Rosedust and Queen Novo are also protective of their subjects and I think both share similar qualities. Queen Novo is wary of strangers since one betrayed her kidness and trust. I have to admit I've always been a little put out with Rosedust for immediately turning Megan and the ponies away but I feel she like Queen Novo was just trying to protect her subjects from possible harm.


Ponyfan

 

[LadyMoondancer]

I meeeeean, yeah there've been a couple good Disney queens, but the ones who are actual 'characters' (like, not bit parts like "Princess Aurora's mom") are mostly evil.  Even Elsa was originally intended to "turn evil", until they reworked the script.

And I think that's part of it:  "princess" is also just more marketable.  "Queen" still means "political ruler" most of the time (unless we are talking about drama queens or drag queens, LOL), but "princess" has become shorthand for "pure-hearted, kind, beautiful, generous girl."  That's why there are shirts for little girls that read "I'm a PRINCESS!" or "Daddy's little princess."  There are no shirts that say "Daddy's little queen."

I think part of the appeal of "princess" to little girls is it sort of suggests you get all the leisure of royal life, all the positive attention, you can help your subjects by being good and gracious . . . but you don't have a lot of the responsibilities.  (Although in MLP, both past and present, being a princess DOES carry responsibility . . . It's definitely is a political position, which I like.  Ain't nothing wrong with responsibility!)

In G3 "Every pony becomes a princess" with the Crystal Princess line . . . They didn't try for "Every pony becomes a queen." And even though G1 had Majesty, her toy was only sold for about three years.  After which Hasbro sold at least 20 princess ponies.

But like I said, I totally support more "queen" ponies.  To be honest the whole "princess equals good-hearted girl <3" thing kind of annoys me.

It would be cool if a future generation had multiple pony-run countries, each with its own king or queen.

[Taffeta]

The ratio of queen to princess in the UK was slightly less, which is interesting considering the rest of the discussion. Depending on whether Princess Brush & Grows count as princesses of course.

I think in the UK at least Majesty was made into a more relatable authority figure character (as Ponyfan said, with her wicked moments too, but she was essentially the protector of her ponies) than Megan. Megan had very limited appearances in stories here, rather like Majesty in the US. But that might relate to the fact that the balance of magical fantasy seems different between a lot of US stories to UK (for example, mentioning a real world location like NY suggests ponyland is a country in our world, as does Glory's bemoaning it's lack of magic).

Princess can also be used to mean spoiled brat and was used that way in Quest of the PP - it was never used that way in the UK stories.

I think if the Disney Princesses were such an influence, it is interesting that the princess theme has been largely avoided with EQG, where Celestia and Luna are teachers not royalty. Also in Disney etc, good Queens tend to be very much in the background, ie Rapunzel's mother, Elsa and Ana's mother - passive or tragic/victim individuals in a backstory rather than key operatives in the plot. There are probably as many good Queens mentioned/referenced/alluded to as bad but mostly it's the bad ones that get the screen-time, basically so that the good guy princess, child of good victimised Queen, has someone to fight again to regain her true throne. In a lot of these cases the princess ultimately becomes Queen - but the story of her attaining that goal is the thing designed to attract kids' imaginations. Princess is a process which tells lots of stories. Queen is the finale, and sort of a fait accompli.

I do think maybe the concept of princesses is different now to what it was in the eighties, as well. There are other kids shows now (the example that springs to mind is Nella the Princess Knight) where they try to combine something stereotypically feminine with something stereotypically masculine, perhaps as an attempt at gender empowerment. I do wonder how much gender politics plays into all of these decisions these days - BUT.

In the UK comics there are quite a few King and Queen characters. They're just not ponies. Why? Well, they don't need to be ponies because ponyland already has a Queen. And the whole thing about Queens is that there is generally only one of them at a time in each country. At least if stuff is going well. So it made sense to have one Queen and lots of Princesses. Majesty being Re Unicorno also indicates the character is meant to be the royal leader (albeit King not Queen here). So why would anyone else be a Queen?

How that works in the US canon I am unsure. The US canon is not particularly cohesive. BUT from a toy point of view, it seems to me like Majesty was released with the castle to imply she was some kind of Queen figure, and thus any other royalty were princesses instead.

Rosedust was an exception because she and her companions came from another place, "Flutter Valley", which I guess we can assume was outside of Ponyland jurisdiction.

[Sunset]

Queen Rosedust and Queen Novo are also protective of their subjects and I think both share similar qualities. Queen Novo is wary of strangers since one betrayed her kidness and trust. I have to admit I've always been a little put out with Rosedust for immediately turning Megan and the ponies away but I feel she like Queen Novo was just trying to protect her subjects from possible harm.


Ponyfan

 

That's because they are both actually the same character.  This may be slightly of topic but has anyone else noticed just how similar the movies are?

Ponies are about to throw a party.  Bad guys decide to take over.  Bad guys are mostly successful.  Small group of good guys go off to find help from some mystical race that they have been told can help them.  They run into various troubles.  They manage to make friends along the way who have had previous dealings with  the bad guys.  Ponies find mystical race who's queen immediately refuses to help.  Queen's mind is changed do to the pleading of a subject who has been helped out by the ponies.  Ultimately, the good guys defeat the bad guy with the help of new friends.

[Al-1701]

The thing is, as much as Disney has a reputation for evil queens, there are only two in the canon, both based on their source material.  One of them wasn't so much evil as insane.  However, because the other was the first Disney cinematic villain ever, it's what everyone thinks of.  There are have been at least as many pirates with prosthetic limbs that have served as canon Disney villains.

And it does not that good queens don't seem to do much.  Elsa is our first ruling queen who is a main character.

I chalk it up to the same thing that has colored William Shatner's career.  Yes, he can be a ham, but he's not half the ham pop culture would have you believe.  Likewise, Disney has a couple evil queens, but it's not crawling with them like pop culture would have you believe.