Is Chancellor Neighsay the Ideological Villain the Fandom has been Craving?
I know, I know. Chancellor Neighsay is a bully and a bigot, and where does he get off telling Princesses how to conduct their affairs, but is he perhaps a truly ideological villain? The type a large part of the fandom said they wished Starlight had remained?
On the surface Neighsay is absolutely designed to rub you the wrong way. Judgemental, disdainful, and condescending, he seems to look down not just on Twilight and her school, but on the other races in general. At best he sees them as dangerous, at worst and outright threat to ponykind.
But if we can look past the bad attitude and the seemingly 'put on airs' it's very clear that Chancellor Neighsay does not share the world view of Twilight and her friends, nor even that of Princess Celestia.
From the outset he misunderstood what Twilight was attempting to teach and to who. When he mused that the school would be meant to teach ponies how to defend themselves from their enemies, that should have raised a red Grogar, and Twilight should have further explained what she was trying to accomplish and her methods before pushing her proposal through the EEA. Even if the student 6 hadn't skipped school or destroyed part of the facility, Twilight's school would still have been shut down thanks to this fundamental misunderstanding.
But where-from comes this dramatically different perspective on what a school is even for?
You have to remember that with the MLP movie made canon, Equestria has just suffered a nationwide invasion from outside forces. Yes one of their leaders was a pony, but the vast majority of the armed forces and the Storm King himself were 'other creatures'. In a post-war scenario where the country and its leaders had been completely routed and temporarily enslaved, it's not a surprise someponies might be distrustful and outright hostile to other creatures...especially those who has warred with poniesninthe past, like Changelings, dragons, griffins, and yaks. Even sour sentiment towards the hippogriffs might be unavoidable if Queen Novo's refusal to aid Twilight were common knowledge.
The fact of the matter is that Equestria is a dangerous world of monsters, and a world that has very recently known war. It makes sense to prepare ponies for the struggles that they may have to endure. This is ultimately what chancellor Neighsay wants to do, and the purpose towards which he thinks education could be best put to use.
While it's obvious that his views are an allegory for racism (which has always been a part of Equestria, way back to its founding) but his point of view isn't actually all that extreme. He's just kind of a jackass about it.
So we are faced with two competing ideologies. Both want to make Equestria safer. Twilight and her friends believe in the power of friendship and think the best way to protect ponies is to extend their friendship to other creatures. Neighsay (and assumedly the rest of the EEA) seem to think the best way to protect ponies is to expand their knowledge and power, and jealously guard these things from the other races.
While it's obvious who we are meant to root for and Neighsay may have an ugly personality, but he's not necissarily outright evil. It remains to be seen if he will truly be the ideological villain some have hoped for, or if he'll just end up being an intolerant pony-supremacist.
Submitted March 29, 2018 at 08:03AM by TheKnackerman
via reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/mylittlepony/comments/881hvx/is_chancellor_neighsay_the_ideological_villain/?utm_source=ifttt
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