My Little Breakdown: Epona's Hatred.

[Nurse Redheart]

So if you were listening to My Little Breakdown on Tuesday(8-28-2012) you might have heard that I'm not fond of Fluttershy (the pony not the user, sageshy is awesome). She is my least favorite pony, and I really really really really dislike her (some would say hate her). Anyways I have decided to give everypony a chance to convince me not to dislike(hate) Fluttershy.
Reasons I dislike her:
Can't even really type them out but I'll try.
Too shy, even to her closest friends.
Too scared, I mean come-on she is afraid of her shadow.
Pretty in consistent.
She has a lot of strength in her but she doesn't believe in herself.
Writing this, she reminded me of Shinji from Evangellion. Though not as bad... obviously...

[chimicherry]

Meh I'm not a big Fluttershy fan. I know Cherrychonga likes Fluttershy. Maybe this will change your mind. BUT I'M WARNING THOSE WHO ARE SENSITIVE TO SOCKS THIS HAS SOCKS.

Spoiler: some random thing 

[Nurse Redheart]

Dose Pics

[Santiago]

So if you were listening to My Little Breakdown on Tuesday(8-28-2012) you might have heard that I'm not fond of Fluttershy (the pony not the user, sageshy is awesome). She is my least favorite pony, and I really really really really dislike her (some would say hate her). Anyways I have decided to give everypony a chance to convince me not to dislike(hate) Fluttershy.
Reasons I dislike her:
Can't even really type them out but I'll try.
Too shy, even to her closest friends.
Too scared, I mean come-on she is afraid of her shadow.
Pretty in consistent.
She has a lot of strength in her but she doesn't believe in herself.
Writing this, she reminded me of Shinji from Evangellion. Though not as bad... obviously...

>Too shy
It HAS to be exaggerated how shy she is for 2 reasons:
1. So even the actual designated audience (Little girls) can determine on their own that she is shy.
2. Every dominant trait for the mane 6 has to be blatantly obvious, meaning that they have to exaggerate it.

>Too scared
If she wasn't scared of anything, there would be no conflict now, would there? Also, her being shy kind of falls into being scared. Shy people are stereotyped in shows as: They don't talk much, overly nice, afraid of many things (But can overcome them), low self esteem, and lastly, become superhuman when they are pushed hard enough.

>Inconsistent
How? She is CONSISTENTLY shy, CONSISTENTLY kind, CONSISTENTLY nervous, CONSISTENTLY randomly becoming superhuman at stuff. Explain.

>Doesn't believe in herself
That's because shy people are generally associated to having low self esteem. She most likely feels being proud of her strengths will make her appear as obnoxious to everyone, which she doesn't want to be.

[Nurse Redheart]

Rarity balances her generosity and 'greed' very well with out having to exaggerate or embellish it. As for having to have it for the children I don't think so. They don't have to hide her shyness, but to have her shy to everything, even her acting timid to her animal friends is just too much.

You can have plenty of conflict without having people be scared(the way FS is scared). She is scared of her own shadow(which probably says something about her intelligence), but she can easily handle snakes.

As for inconsistency, she is not consistently kind when she learns to assert herself she goes in the complete extreme and becomes a (donkey). She can stare down a Dragon, and Cockatrice, but she can't look her very VERY BEST friends in the eyes? Doesn't even try.

Just because some one is shy, or closed off doesn't mean they have low self esteem(I know generally was used). The problem is, she doesn't acknowledge or know her strengths at all. Even when ALL of her friends are saying you can do it, she still doesn't believe in herself.

[Santiago]

Fluttershy can't balance between being kind and being mean, for her entire character revolves around her innocence, meaning she NORMALLY has to be full on 100% kind, because seeing her be even slightly rude would take away from her innocence. It's okay when she becomes full blown mean in ” Putting Your Hoof Down” because it was like she was a completely different chatacter in that episode, meaning it was alright for her to not be innocent. (As long as when she returns to her normal self, she is innocent again.)

That is because she is in a position where she is being FORCED to stand up, because her friends need her to, and she can't bare to see her friends in need. She stood up to the dragon in Dragonshy because she HAD, for the sake of her friends.

Read paragraph #2.

She doesn't acknowledge her strengths because she doubts herself. It does't matter how many times her friends tell her her strengths, she doesn't listen because she underestimates her strengths.

[Nurse Redheart]

Fluttershy's main trait isn't innocence, it's shyness. Shyness=\= innocence. So she doesn't have to even become a little mean. She just needs to learn how to relax. And the fact that she doubts herself so much, even with all the support she is getting is one part that annoys me about her. If the writers just gave her some kind of growth instead of making her afraid of her own shadow, then I would like her more.

You brought up another point, she stands up for her friends when she HAS to. That is admirable, but a true friend would also stand up for there friends when they asked. In the Dragon Migration episode, Rainbow Dash tries to get FS to go to the migration and she is unwilling to. Even though her friends really want her to be there, and even though RD calls in the favor saying she went to something that she didn't want to. FS still selfishly said no defiantly, when she should have said yes (consistency) being the nice pony she is.

[Vegeta]

Because if you don't like Fluttershy, this little girl will have things to say...

[Oborawatabinost]

Fluttershy's main trait isn't innocence, it's shyness. Shyness=\= innocence. So she doesn't have to even become a little mean. She just needs to learn how to relax. And the fact that she doubts herself so much, even with all the support she is getting is one part that annoys me about her. If the writers just gave her some kind of growth instead of making her afraid of her own shadow, then I would like her more.

You brought up another point, she stands up for her friends when she HAS to. That is admirable, but a true friend would also stand up for there friends when they asked. In the Dragon Migration episode, Rainbow Dash tries to get FS to go to the migration and she is unwilling to. Even though her friends really want her to be there, and even though RD calls in the favor saying she went to something that she didn't want to. FS still selfishly said no defiantly, when she should have said yes (consistency) being the nice pony she is.

As far as growth is concerned, none of the ponies aside from Rarity and Twilight really show growth throughout the series. The majority of them learn some sort of lesson and then continue to do those things from which they learned said lesson later on in the series. At least in Dragon Quest, Fluttershy was following up on learning to speak up for herself. You're basically contradicting yourself by saying that she should've gone with them because originally you said she was too shy and scared, implying that she couldn't stand up for herself if she wanted to.

Moreover on that point, I could turn the tide and say that a good friend is someone who understands when their friends are uninterested or scared about doing something, as Fluttershy was about the dragon migration. Perhaps Rainbow Dash was actually the one who was being the bad friend in that situation. Haven't you ever been asked by a friend to do something you didn't want to? Did they try and guilt trip you into doing it because of something that they did for you previously? That seems rather low.

[Nurse Redheart]

You're basically contradicting yourself by saying that she should've gone with them because originally you said she was too shy and scared, implying that she couldn't stand up for herself if she wanted to.

Moreover on that point, I could turn the tide and say that a good friend is someone who understands when their friends are uninterested or scared about doing something, as Fluttershy was about the dragon migration. Perhaps Rainbow Dash was actually the one who was being the bad friend in that situation. Haven't you ever been asked by a friend to do something you didn't want to? Did they try and guilt trip you into doing it because of something that they did for you previously? That seems rather low.

I understand that no pony actually really 'grows' in the story, but that being said most of the other ponies aren't in such an extreme as I think FS is.

As for the contradiction, I realized that when writing it. The point of sharing that contradiction was for me to point out that she has the ability to stand up for herself, when she has to. But she can't gather up that strength for her friends willingly. I'm not even sure if she can apply herself when she wants to, because I would venture out so far as to say she felt like she HAD to stop her friends from taking her to see the dragons. It also further shows the inconsistency of her character to me.

As for the last argument, I'm sure FS convinced RD to go to the butterfly migration even though she didn't want to. I'm sure if word got out that RD went to a butterfly migration then it would be like the Gabby Gums Salon scandal. Furthermore, Fluttershy already proved that she could handle dragons as well as any other animal so there was no reason for her to be scared. So I think a friend would try and help her realize that, to help them grow.

Lastly, I think everyone has been put into a position where they didn't want to do something because they were afraid, or not into it. But their friends actually pushed them enough to where they did it (guilt trip or however) and sometimes it's a mistake, but sometimes it was the best damned thing to ever happen to you. Example: Stage fright, and friends pressuring them to give it a try. Peer pressure isn't always bad the way I see it. And in the end RD didn't hit up side of the head and kidnapped her, she respected her decision.