YMMV / The Rise of Darth Vulcan

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Leo is polarizing out of universe to readers. Some see him as a genuinely good and noble man who helps the ponies and fights Vulcan because he feels it's the right thing to do. Others see him as an immature, self-righteous fanboy who sees the ponies around him as side characters in his own personal fanfiction, and who only helps ponies and acts like a noble knight of yore because he wants to be a "hero". His first person narration provides evidence for both interpretations.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • The title character is polarizing to say the least. Some love him and find him a threatening, competent, and sometimes funny villain and like how he tears the show's flaws apart; others loathe him for being too competent for what amounts to an edgy teenaged bully thrown into a world he barely knows, to the point it feels like the narrative is bending over backwards to allow it, and find said tearing apart of the show's flaws too mean-spirited and frequent to be enjoyable.
  • The Princesses, Celestia in particular, as they're presented in this fic are also this. Some agree with the writer that they're just having Plot Armor removed and having to face the consequences of their stupidity, while others feel they've been dumbed down to an astronomical degree solely to justify Ted being able to so easily outsmart them.
• Catharsis Factor: Seeing Leo give Vulcan a well-deserved beatdown is this... which is why some find Vulcan still winning in the end infuriating.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • In one of Ted's many criticisms of Celestia, he brings up the fact the Cerberus, her guard dog for Tartarus, was distracted from his duty by looking for someone to play with. In the season 4 finale, guess where Tirek escapes from?
  • The Alicorn Amulet giving Ted/Vulcan a potentially lethal Kryptonite Factor advantage against Discord. Come the Season 6 finale, Chrysalis is armed with a similar Power Nullifier (albeit without the "potentially lethal" factor) that likewise gives Discord a Drama-Preserving Handicap.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • The Cutie Mark Crusaders, Silver Spoon, Twist, and Babs rousing Diamond Tiara from her funk and proving that Darth Vulcan was lying to her. Especially because she's been nothing but horrid to four out of these six fillies.
  • Discord sending Leo Hart, who no longer fits in on his own world, to a world of superheroes, where he can use his new magically endowed strength and armor to make a difference.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: What About Discord? implies that there may be some truth to Zecora's deception...
• Jerkass Woobie: Diamond Tiara. Her bullying aside, the sheer torment she endured under Vulcan and being told nobody cared about her (which was a lie) will make you downcast.
  • By extension, Filthy Rich, who worries himself to financial ruin over her and then finds her unwelcoming when she returns.
  • To a lesser extent, Silver Spoon. In her fear and loneliness, she sees little choice but to accept the friendship of her old foes, the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
  • Darth Vulcan may qualify. Most of his early actions, nasty as they seem, amount to just trying to stay alive and sane. And he does want to get that amulet off.
• Misaimed Fandom: Ted/Darth Vulcan. Due to how he completely deconstructs the show by delivering incredibly satisfying breaking speeches to the Princesses for all of their stupid decisions and his false Noble Demon personality, people like him much more than the ponies. However, he isn't SUPPOSED to be completely in the right, shown when he nearly drowned Diamond Tiara. Even if it's Diamond Tiara, and she might have needed an attitude adjustment, this wasn't the way to do things, but it still wasn't completely absorbed by the readers because of how hated she is by the fandom. Back in the comments in Fimfiction before it was taken down, the moment the genuinely heroic and likeable Leo was brought in, they were disturbingly anticipating Ted tearing him, an innocent man who had done nothing wrong, to pieces as if that was a GOOD thing. The author has gone on record regarding how much this disturbs him, and this attitude from some readers has turned others off from the story by convincing them this was the author's intent.
• Moral Event Horizon: Ted arguably crosses it when he almost kills Artful Dodger in a fit of rage after mistakenly believing Dodger willingly sold him out. Though he is stopped, this is perhaps the clearest sign that there is something seriously wrong with him. At least he realizes it and feels ashamed.
• Nightmare Fuel: Leo's No-Holds-Barred Beatdown of Ted. He spends about three straight minutes pounding Ted in a bleeding, quivering mess... and then starts lecturing him for being a crying coward because he thinks Ted has the same Super-Toughness he does and can't see that under the armor Ted is on the brink of death.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Quite a few readers feel Tirek was a complete waste. Not only for being such a high profile villain put through a bad case of Adaptational Dumbass and given a brush-off death, but because his presence actually goes along with some of Vulcan's arguments and could've contributed to the plot quite a bit more if he'd been a major threat.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Some feel that Ted being in a deconstructed version of Equestria heavily undermines the fact he's intended to be an Unreliable Narrator, and that the character might have worked better in a Truer to the Text version where his POV is more clearly warped and flawed.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The story is at this point for some. Equestria is made into an awful place, characters are made either stupider or more villainous or both than in canon, the heroes get minor victories at best no matter what, and the main character is intended to be a completely unlikable jerk yet for some reason is always right and never suffers a meaningful loss.
• The Woobie: The Remedial Class pegasi. The sheer injustice they went through (based on a fanfic the author of this one hated) almost makes you ignore that they went to Vulcan to get payback.

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