Quote Originally Posted by Tiki Snakes View Post
The problem with this is twofold. Firstly, there is the risk that by scrutinizing things to such a level you miss what is actually there in favour of your own ideas and interpretations (which also risks making you sound a little pretentious, speaking in general). Secondly, as I mentioned before, all too often the end result is that you enjoy things less than you previously and otherwise would have. You gain nothing meaningful but lose out on what the things you are analyzing had to offer, be that simple fun or a sense of wonder or whatever else.
You enjoy them less because you now have higher standards. You're arguing that it's better to never eat a really good pizza because that way you will never realize that Domino's is terrible.

I repeat, Fan Fiction isn't a medium, a genre, a style or anything else. It's just literature that is, by definition, both derivative and amateur. If you're getting it published as a legitimate work in it's own right, then it's not really fan fiction anymore, it's a parody, an homage, remix, collaboration or who knows what.
You are under the mistaken impression that the publishing industry (for any medium) knows anything about art. Or cares for artistic merit.

A story of the same length and written to the same degree of competence and with the same amount of flair, except with original characters in a distinct and original setting is of innately greater value.
Only if those characters and setting are any good.

But it's not like Shakespear is re-using anyone elses characters in a meaningful way, so I'll admit that basically I think you've lost me there, on this one?
Ahahahaha

I'm not even talking just about the historicals. Pretty much all of his plays are cribbed from other stuff, with an amount of originality equivalent to your average Hollywood genre movie.

Quote Originally Posted by erikun View Post
As for people critiquing, say, Daring Don't for not being as good as The Sisters Doo... well, that's just silly.
That's not the actual critique, the critique would be something like "Daring Don't presents a concept that it has neither the interest or time to really examine, resulting in a plot that is shallow and artificial." And that fact is made more noticeable by the fact that I have read a story that had a similar concept but took the time and made the effort to flesh out that concept and work out all the jagged edges of trying to put together two worlds that don't really fit.

The show just went all LEEEEEEROY JEEEEEENKINS on the idea and never stopped to ask if any of this makes sense or if some work had to be done to get it to make sense.

Furthermore, I think it illustrates some other short-comings.

1) The writers do not have a unified idea of what Equestria is as a setting. Is it modern? Medieval? Is it a country? A continent? Is it an RPG fantasy world were you can walk a day out of town and fight monsters?

2) They don't understand how to do continuity. A perfect example is how Rarity and Fluttershy are just there in Castle Mania for the most contrived of reasons. It would literally take a single line to establish why Rarity has decided to do this now of all times, like that putting the Elements back in the tree has made the trip safer or that Twilight mentioned seeing the tapestry's in her vision thing. And not only would that make that episode less contrived, but it would create a feeling of continuity which in turns makes the world feel more alive.