5 Favorite MLP: FIM Characters

Regular visitors of this blog (hopefully, I have a few of those), may recall that I have on occasion, mentioned my deep fondness for My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. It's hands down, one of my favorite cartoons and, in my opinion, a perfect example of the saying that "concept is nothing, execution is everything". As with many of my favorite works of fiction, the one thing in particular that made me a fan of this show (I do not, however, consider myself a brony, mostly because I do not like to define myself based on the shows I watch) was the characters. The characters of Friendship Is Magic are, as a rule, enormously entertaining to watch, surprisingly well-rounded, with dynamic personalities and are brought to life wonderfully by their voice-actors. As such, I thought I'd make a list of what I consider to be my five favorite characters in the show. I should point out that, with the exception of my number one, whose place at the top is set in stone, the position a character occupy on the list is mostly random and may change, depending on how well an episode portrays them and how I feel at the moment. Basically, as with pretty much any top list, the order isn't really that important. After all, each one of these characters made it into my top 5, so obviously I really like all of them. Anyway, without further ado; these are my 5 Favorite MLP: FIM Characters:

5. Starlight Glimmer

"I may have been a tiny bit completely and utterly evil."

As the newest character on this list, Starlight is also the most divisive. Fans seem to either love her or hate her. Me? As you can tell, I'm firmly in the former camp. As George R.R. Martin once said: "There's nothing like a good villain" and Starlight was an excellent villain, arguably the best the show's had so far and definitely the most interesting, chiefly because how different she was from all the villains that came before her: Rather than being some ancient evil, a chaos spirit or a parasitic shape-shifter, Starlight was a seemingly regular unicorn, who also happened to be the leader of a cult. Starlight's brand of evil was also something new to the show; she was a self-righteous fanatic, who believed that her actions and warped ideology were for the greater good and not based on her own experiences in the past. This, to me, made her more compelling than a more stereotypical villain like Tirek. In fact, Starlight was so good in the role of the villain, that after she was redeemed in the season finale, I was a bit concerned that Starlight would lose what made her so interesting. I need not have worried, as season six have handled the character very well. Basically, Starlight is a great addition to the cast and I'm looking forward to see what the show will do with her in the future.

4. Twilight Sparkle

"I'm beginning to think that after friendship, the greatest magic of all, is proper silverware placement!"

Being the main character of a cartoon is not a guarantee that you're going to make it on to my list of favorites. Take Avatar: The Last Airbender, for example; I love that show, but Aang was rather overshadowed by a large part of his supporting cast, including some of the villains. So the fact that I have Twilight on this list should tell you something about how much I enjoy her as a main character. As a matter of fact, there was a time when Twilight was my favorite character in the show. Her smarts and love of reading just made her into an extremely appealing character. in my experience, its rare to have a lead in a cartoon aimed at kids, as brainy as Twilight. I also like the fact that even now, after she has gone from student and protege to a princess with a pupil of her own, Twilight is not presented as infallible; she still has moments where she lets her priorities be skewed or is just plain in the wrong, something that adds to her character. At the end of the day, I don't think Friendship Is Magic could ask for a better protagonist.

3. Maude Pie

"I like that fissure in the sidewalk. Its an elegant example of thermal expansion and soil settlement."

At first, I considered having the two most prominent Pie-sisters share a spot on this list. After all, a lot of Maude's appeal stems from how her stoic, deadpan personality, serves as contrast to Pinkie's exuberance However, I ultimately decided against it. You see, the thing about Pinkie is that I find her a very hit-and-miss character. When in the hands of a writer who gets her, she's great, when not, she can easily come off as grating and obnoxious (granted, this can be true for any of the main six, but I feel its especially notable with Pinkie). Maude, on the other hand, is consistently great, she's one of those characters who makes an episode a bit better, simply by being in it. Definitely my favorite supporting character (by which I mean that she's not one of the main six, a princess, or a villain) in the series. Of course, the fact that the episode she's introduced in is a strong contender for my favorite episode doesn't hurt things either.

2. Princess Celestia

"Now that you have so foolishly revealed your true self, I can protect my subjects from you!"

Praise the sun!

Admittedly, Celestia is one of those characters that I like mostly for aesthetic reasons. Her design, voice and demeanor are simply incredibly appealing to me. She has an undeniable presence, being one of those characters who dominates every scene she's in. Of course, I relish all the little moments where we see the more human side of her, whether its sadness over having been forced to banish her sister (though to be fair, Luna only had herself to blame for that) or the sheer joy on her face, when she tells Twilight that "this has been the most fun gala in years". I should point out, that despite her having the least amount of development out of any character on this list (save for Maude, who doesn't need any), I do find Celestia to be a compelling character: She's a great ruler who puts the well-being of her subjects above all else, but at the same time, she also possesses a mischievous streak and has a bit of the trickster in her. To put it simply, I feel that Celestia is a deeply underappreciated character and an episode that focuses on her is what I want the most from the show at this point.

1. Rarity

"Why, look! There's our friend Rarity, going down in flames! Isn't friendship magic?!"

Unlike Twilight, Rarity wasn't a character that I took an immediate liking towards. However, the more I saw of her, the more I enjoyed her until she eventually became my favorite. Certainly, Rarity has plenty of flaws; she's vain, fussy and a bit narcissistic, the kind of character that could easily (as has been pointed out elsewhere) have been reduced to the role of a minor villain, or antagonist; a nuisance whose only purpose would be to make life difficult for Twilight and her friends on a day-to-day basis. However, Rarity is one of the show's main characters and her flaws are balanced by her many virtues. Time and time again, she has proven herself to be smart, resourceful and deeply caring towards others. At the beginning of this list, I mentioned that the characters in Friendship  Is Magic are surprisingly well-rounded. Well, no character in the show demonstrates this more than Rarity and that is why she's my favorite.

Favorite Movie Villains

Alfred Hitchcock once said that the more successful the villain is, the more successful is the movie (or something like that) and while a movie doesn't necessarily require a villain in order to be a great, its true that the presence of a great villain can take an already good movie to new heights. With that in mind, here are some of my favorite cinematic bad guys (and girls) presented in no particular order. I hope you enjoy this list and that it will make you curious to check out the movies these evil-doers hail from, unless you haven't already.
Oh, yes, there will be some spoilers here. Although to be fair, some of these movies are so old that the spoilers are pretty much public knowledge and the movies presented here are good enough that knowing some plot-points really shouldn't take away from the enjoyment of the movie in question.


Frank (Once Upon A Time in the West)

My favorite Sergio Leone villain and my favorite villain in a Spaghetti-Western. It was a true stroke of genius on Leone's part to cast Henry Fonda, an actor mostly know for playing morally upright heroes, as the arch-villain of this movie. I can only imagine the surprise of the audience at the time when they witnessed Frank and his henchmen murdering an entire family in cold blood (including shooting a kid in the back) only for the camera to reveal that the man behind this mayhem is none other than Juror #8 himself. Has there ever been a better example of casting against type?

Lady Kaede (Ran)

I've written about her before. Akira Kurosawa's Ran may have been based on King Lear, but Kaede, the wife of Taro, eldest son of Lord Hidetora, leader of clan Ichimonji, doesn't really have a counterpart among Lear's rogues-gallery. After Hidetora relinquishes power to his three sons, Kaede wastes no time convincing Taro to claim sole leadership of the clan plunging the region into civil war. So, she's a Lady MacBeth character, then? Not really, because unlike the Thane of Cawdor's wife, Kaede is motivated not by power (or what she believes is best for her husband), but by a thirst for vengeance: Her family having been killed during Hidetora's conquests, Kaede seeks the complete annihilation of clan Ichimonji. The fact that this would also mean the deaths of hundreds of innocent lives is not something that bothers her very much. Manipulative, cold-hearted and bloodthirsty, Lady Kaede is one of cinema's great villains.

Harry Lime (The Third Man)

Sometimes, a villain can dominate the plot of a movie without appearing that much in it. Case in point; Harry Lime in The Third Man. Lime doesn't get many scenes, but every scene he's in is memorable, from his entrance to his dialogue with former childhood friend Holly Martins aboard the Ferris-wheel, they all count among some of the finest moments in cinema. Personality-wise, Lime is a trickster-character. He's so affable and fascinating that its quite easy to forget that underneath the charm, Lime is utter scum; A racketeer who cares for no-one but himself and the profits he can make. The radio-drama, The Lives of Harry Lime, softened the character somewhat, making him into more of an anti-hero, but its as the villain of The Third Man that Lime will always be remembered.

Phyllis Dietrichson (Double Indemnity)

Well, what can one say? Pretty much the archetypical film-noir femme fatale.

Dr. Mabuse (Dr. Mabuse the Gambler and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse)

I admit that I have a soft spot for the criminal mastermind type of villain and in that category, you can't do much better than Dr. Mabuse. Mabuse wants world-domination (it comes with the job), but unlike most villains of his type, watching him you can't help but feel a bit worried that he might actually achieve it.  In the second movie, Mabuse has spent ten years in a mental hospital following his breakdown at the end of the first, but that doesn't stop the good doctor from sowing more chaos. Yeah, this guy is pretty much my favorite cinematic super-villain.

Hans Beckert (M)

Right below Mabuse, we have another villain from a Fritz Lang movie; Hans Beckert, the first, but certainly not last villain-protagonist to appear on this list. Hans is not the most formidable villain, in fact, he's pretty pathetic. However, he makes up for this being a genuinely interesting character, one that evokes both disgust and pity at the same time. One of the best examples of a tragic monster in film.

Lope de Aguirre (Aguirre: The Wrath of God)

Klaus Kinski was an actor who was pretty much born to play villains and I had a hard time choosing between his role as the eponymous character in Aguirre and that of Tigrero/Loco in The Great Silence. As you can see, the former won out in the end. Aguirre is a terrifying character,whose thirst for gold and power causes him to slip further and further into insanity. At the end of the movie, he keeps ranting about the dynasty he's going to form (by marrying his own daughter nonethless). Unfortunately for Aguirre, the only ones who can still hear him are the monkeys.

Louis Cypher (Angel Heart)

The Devil as played by Robert De Niro. Never has the simple act of eating a boiled egg come across as more sinister.

Antonio Salieri (Amadeus)

By all accounts, the real-life Salieri was not that bad a guy, he thought several young singers and compositors (one of his more famous pupils was Ludwig van Beethoven) and all but his wealthiest students received their education for free. The Salieri seen in Amadeus on the other hand, is a petty and murderous schemer, motivated chiefly by envy. However, what makes Salieri such a great villain is his complexity; while he despises Mozart, he clearly recognizes the latter's brilliance and acknowledges his genius. Which of course only furthers Salieri's resentment and underlying self-loathing, knowing that he's doomed to forever live in the shadow of his younger, more talented rival. Odd as it may seem, there were times in watching the movie when I felt for the guy.

Colonel Hans Landa (Inglorious Basterds)

Quentin Tarantino's filmography contains its fair share of memorable villains. My personal favorite is Hans Landa, the Nazi-villain of Inglorious Basterds. Easily the best character in the movie, Landa is quirky and affable, while also being ruthlessly effective at carrying out his task of hunting down escaped Jews. What's interesting about Landa is that he doesn't care about the Third Reich or Hitler, having no problem in selling them out when opportunity presents itself. This begs the question: What's more horrible? To fully believe in a system or ideology that commits numerous atrocities, including genocide, or to use said system to sate your own greed and opportunism?

Harry Powell (The Night of the Hunter)

Or "Preacher Harry Powell" as he insists upon calling himself (wonder if that's where the makers of Pirates of the Caribbean got the idea of Jack referring to himself as "Captain Jack Sparrow" from?). The handsome (Robert Mitchum, natch) but incredibly sinister Powell hunts his two step-children (after disposing of their mother) in the hopes of getting the money that the kids' biological father, Harry's cellmate, hid inside his daughter's doll. The Night of the Hunter is a movie that at times has a strange, dreamlike quality to it. However, this self-proclaimed preacher doesn't waste time turning the dream into a nightmare.

Michael Corleone (The Godfather Trilogy)

What's there to say about Michael Corleone? When we first meet him, he's the white sheep of the Corleone family; a war-hero who wants nothing to do with the family business. Unfortunately for Michael, events conspires against him and he's eventually forced to become the next Don, gradually transforming into a ruthless villain. Has there ever been a better portrayal of a man's fall from grace in cinema?

Ryonosuke Tsukue (Sword of Doom)

Out of the evil leads on this list, Ryonosuke is arguably the most evil (though Aguirre comes close). A master-swordsman, Ryonosuke travels the Japanese countryside, using his talents with the blade to indulge in various villainous deeds, mostly for his own amusement. Cruel, violent and ultimately self-destructive, this is one man for whom the term Bushido, simply doesn't exist.

So, there you have it: These were some of my favorite movie-villains. I hope that I succeeded in making you interested in checking out some of the movies these horrible, yet fascinating men and women appear in. Below are a list of honorable mentions; villains that I like, but I didn't write about in detail, because I felt the list was long enough already:

Roy Batty (Blade Runner) - Only not on the list because I'm not sure if he's a villain, as opposed to being "merely" an antagonist.
Daniel Plainview (There Will Be Blood)
Anton Chigurh (No Country For Old Men)
Capitan Vidal (Pan's Labyrinth)
Archibald Cunningham (Rob Roy)
Noah Cross (Chinatown)
Pretty much everyone except Alais (The Lion in Winter)
Claudandus (Felidae)
Dudley Smith (L.A. Confidential) - Better in the books, but still a good villain.
Col. Kurtz (Apocalypse Now)
Oh, and the following Disney-villains: Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty), Prof. Ratigan (The Great Mouse Detective) and Judge Claude Frollo (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)
And many more.