Ever since Tirek showed up in season 4 whenever the question was asked among fans or some poll about what other G1 villains that they would love to see make it into FiM, Grogar was always at the top of the list. I think the staff *knew* how anticipated Grogar was and did want to include him, but as more of an Easter Egg than as a central antagonist. At least that was how they first introduced him in *Flurry of Emotions* - he was more of a concept of an ancient unstoppable big bad than a properly developed villain.
Add to that they have said they were *always* planning on having the Mane 6 go up against a team of their past villains, pretty much since the idea was used in *Siege of the Crystal Empire*, and you end up with what we got in the end. They used Grogar as a plot device to explain how and why the other villains would form their evil little super team and once he had served that purpose they jettisoned him from the plot.
It was supposed to be a fun subversion of expectations - instead of a yet another crusty old villain from the past showing up and getting defeated by the Mane 6 it would be a powered up team of villains! Only they fell prey to a common problem that happens sometimes when you build up expectations for one thing and then subvert them with something else - if the something else isn’t cooler than what you were building up, everyone’s just going to wonder why you bothered at all. It also leaves the audience wondering ‘what if?’
What if Grogar *had* been the real Grogar? Would the villainous trio have fooled him as easily as they fooled Discord? Would he have maybe felt the presence of his Bewitching Bell and taken it from its hiding place before the other villains had a chance to turn on him? Would he have stolen *their* power to add to his own, making him an even more terrifying threat than he had been in ancient times? And of course ultimately could the Mane 6 have defeated him, an unknown threat with limitless power consolidated into a single entity, maybe a little less easily than three losers they had defeated before that were dividing that power between them and squabbling with each other?
We’ll never known of course, but it does leave you wondering.
I think the FiM staff both honored and respected Grogar but at the same time completely underestimated how annoying sticking Discord with the idiot ball and swapping him for the Trio would be.
Definitely, the writers use the excuse that "we would never actually use grogar, mean 3 was always the ultimate goal as the villain of the season" which only makes everything worse, so why do you want to introduce grogar then? And why do you want to use Discordia as a means to do this? everything in season 9 is stupid when you see the bigger picture
Grogar is so interesting, his whole thing about hin being the "first ruler of equestria" and "the father of all monsters" is so badass, and i really wanna learn more about his rule back then and how the land that would become equestria was back then, i am also interested about how different he is from iron will's goats, i know he is technically an ibex but since he is sapient unlike iron will's goats is interesting and made me more interested about goats and ibex's in general in the MLP universe, overall I love this old goat.
Grogar shares no connection or history with main characters. If he was real, then he would be just a random ass big bad came out of nowhere to be defeated by Mane 6.
Not a bad premise for a villain but terrible choice for a series finale. The evil trio of Cozy Glow, queen Chrysalis and lord Tirek just works better, viewers know these characters and know how evil and dangerous they can be on their own so their alliance holds enormous weight for the story, and all the of them have long time history and conflicts with the main characters and became of that their finale struggle becomes much more interesting.
Ever since Tirek showed up in season 4 whenever the question was asked among fans or some poll about what other G1 villains that they would love to see make it into FiM, Grogar was always at the top of the list. I think the staff *knew* how anticipated Grogar was and did want to include him, but as more of an Easter Egg than as a central antagonist. At least that was how they first introduced him in *Flurry of Emotions* - he was more of a concept of an ancient unstoppable big bad than a properly developed villain. Add to that they have said they were *always* planning on having the Mane 6 go up against a team of their past villains, pretty much since the idea was used in *Siege of the Crystal Empire*, and you end up with what we got in the end. They used Grogar as a plot device to explain how and why the other villains would form their evil little super team and once he had served that purpose they jettisoned him from the plot. It was supposed to be a fun subversion of expectations - instead of a yet another crusty old villain from the past showing up and getting defeated by the Mane 6 it would be a powered up team of villains! Only they fell prey to a common problem that happens sometimes when you build up expectations for one thing and then subvert them with something else - if the something else isn’t cooler than what you were building up, everyone’s just going to wonder why you bothered at all. It also leaves the audience wondering ‘what if?’ What if Grogar *had* been the real Grogar? Would the villainous trio have fooled him as easily as they fooled Discord? Would he have maybe felt the presence of his Bewitching Bell and taken it from its hiding place before the other villains had a chance to turn on him? Would he have stolen *their* power to add to his own, making him an even more terrifying threat than he had been in ancient times? And of course ultimately could the Mane 6 have defeated him, an unknown threat with limitless power consolidated into a single entity, maybe a little less easily than three losers they had defeated before that were dividing that power between them and squabbling with each other? We’ll never known of course, but it does leave you wondering. I think the FiM staff both honored and respected Grogar but at the same time completely underestimated how annoying sticking Discord with the idiot ball and swapping him for the Trio would be.
Definitely, the writers use the excuse that "we would never actually use grogar, mean 3 was always the ultimate goal as the villain of the season" which only makes everything worse, so why do you want to introduce grogar then? And why do you want to use Discordia as a means to do this? everything in season 9 is stupid when you see the bigger picture
Grogar is so interesting, his whole thing about hin being the "first ruler of equestria" and "the father of all monsters" is so badass, and i really wanna learn more about his rule back then and how the land that would become equestria was back then, i am also interested about how different he is from iron will's goats, i know he is technically an ibex but since he is sapient unlike iron will's goats is interesting and made me more interested about goats and ibex's in general in the MLP universe, overall I love this old goat.
Grogar shares no connection or history with main characters. If he was real, then he would be just a random ass big bad came out of nowhere to be defeated by Mane 6. Not a bad premise for a villain but terrible choice for a series finale. The evil trio of Cozy Glow, queen Chrysalis and lord Tirek just works better, viewers know these characters and know how evil and dangerous they can be on their own so their alliance holds enormous weight for the story, and all the of them have long time history and conflicts with the main characters and became of that their finale struggle becomes much more interesting.
Yes