I’ll be honest, my favourite characters on My Little Pony have to be the Cutie Mark Crusaders. The primary reason for this is their potential. Like every other member of the main cast, they are extremely well-developed as characters. But they’ve gotten so little screen time, that the directions they can be taken haven’t been fully utilized yet. So many potential stories here. Plus, they’re young, so they still have much to learn, and much to develop.

The same goes with Spike, one of my other favourite characters. But I’m not talking about him, today.

And the directions these characters have gone in already show great potential. We’ve explored the relationship Sweetie Belle has with her sister, we’ve explored Apple Bloom’s personal insecurities, we’ve also explored the tenacity and terrible priorities of these characters. But the one character that has gotten virtually no exposure, is Scootaloo. We’ve never met her family, and we’ve never seen her personal life away from the Crusaders. Which is probably why the fans have assumed she’s an orphan.

Last season, we got close. An episode devoted to Scootaloo’s relationship with Rainbow Dash, and her own insecurities. But it didn’t really go very far, and she ended up being overshadowed by Princess Dom Cobb there. So that was underwhelming.

And one thing they seem to avoid during the episode was the issue of Scootaloo’s wings. So far, the fact that Scootaloo can’t fly has become more of a running gag than anything.

Why haven’t they dealt with this yet? Why can’t Scootaloo fly? We know it’s not because of her age, because Rumble, who appeared to be around the same age as her, could fly. Would she ever be able to fly?

If not, it would be an interesting topic to address. Not only to deal with the how and why, but the emotional consequences of learning that the one thing that defines a pegasus, is the one thing she can’t do. It’s like being an Asian who sucks at math, or an Irish bloke who can’t hold his liquor, or another racist joke.

Thankfully it seem as if the writers were at least trying to deal with this in a recent episode. Too bad it was completely half-assed. Continue reading →