Fiendship is Magic #3 (The Ballad of Spoilers)

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The Sirens want to be famous. So they make new music. But Starswirl fears their control, so he makes new music. They fight. He loses. So he banishes them.

That summary still feels longer than the actual comic.  

What a rushed pace. I feel like we barely got to meet the Sirens as a group before they were set to their Rainbow Rocks versions.

The plot is very straightforward. Though the Sirens do spread disharmony and feast, their real goal is fame. Which they think they can acquire in Canterlot, which looks much more Roman in its design. However, Canterlot snobbery is much more powerful in this era, as it allows the citizens to diss the Sirens American Idol-style.  

Broken-hearted, the Sirens (with two “s”s) decide to invent an entirely new genre. This makes them famous and sets the stage for their showdown with Starswirl.

Now the Sirens have always sought to make the world love them. That was their goal in Rainbow Rocks as well. Yet in the movie they were more cunning and acting with intent. This comic presents them as oblivious to the disharmony they cause, or sometimes it seems the audience is too enamored to even care about arguing.

It is Starswirl that both saves the day and the comic. Much like Leslie Nielsen, he plays the role entirely straight-faced despite the absurdity. Rapping Starswirl is funnier than any representation in the Reflections arc. The battle builds in intensity and absurdity, offering some funny visuals.  

But what’s missing is a sense of connection with the Sirens. Though Sonata remains the goof, there’s not even the internal tension we saw in Rainbow Rocks. The Sirens are even shallower here, seeking only fame. So it seems almost overkill when Starswirl admits he can’t best them musically and decides to dump his problems on another world.  

Did anyone call foul on him doing so? He just banished several living creatures without even royal decree.  

And while Starswirl berates himself for his failure, I’d say the real victim is the comic’s potential. Having read this, I don’t view the Sirens any differently. They’re just wannabe pop idols who got turned dark after they were kicked out of Equestria. We’ve gone from the tragedy of Sombra’s fall to Tirek’s rebelliousness and now the Sirens’ vanity. It feels like Fiendship is Magic is losing some of its intensity.

C’mon, Nightmare Moon! Show us what bitterness can do!  

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Gungelion's avatar
There is almost kind of a commentary on this on how Starswirl created villains by not understanding his opponents. When you consider Celestia saying how he didn't understand friendship by twilight did it makes you wonder, was he starting to go down to dark path without realizing it? In his desperation to stop monsters, he ended up creating them instead.