/pony/ - Pony

Gen 5 appears to be on its way out.  Maybe this is a good time to talk about what made Gen 4 so hugely better than the other generations of MLP, with an eye toward helping to bring an equally great G6 into being.  Here are two major factors:

1. Poetic but hard-nosed and consistent world-building for a world of horses from Faust and the other early showrunners.  No sticky hooves.  No electricity.  No motors.  Trains pulled by ponies.  Mouthtools.  Typewriters with only two keys.  A richly fantastic world, but one that incorporates madness, disease, war, blood, bodily functions, birth, and death.  The pure initial world picture tended to get messed up as the show wore on and things like go-carts and pianos crept in, but it started out clean and beautiful.

2. Archetypes.  Two semi-divine beings, larger than other ponies: a goddess of sunlight and a goddess of darkness and dreams.  Three races, corresponding to the three castes of Indian society and Indo-European myth: magical shamans, warriors, peasants.  Archetypal characters representing the shy willowy female, the bold androgyne, the mad trickster god, the amorous, male-manipulating vamp, and so on.  Extensive and explicit incorporation of mythologies from all over the world.

What else?