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Welcome back to the Boogie Mansion. And, uh, the Monster High YouTube channel had some pretty cool stuff back in the day.
An analysis of why G1 Lagoona struggled as a character in Monster High, focusing on group dynamics and her personality.
Key Takeaways
- Lagoona's personality was too normal and stabilizing, limiting her role in group dynamics.
- Other characters had stronger, more conflict-driven personalities that made them more central.
- Lagoona was overshadowed by Frankie and Abby, who fulfilled and expanded the supportive friend role.
- Repetitive storylines about Lagoona's relationship with Gil weakened her character development.
- A character needs to challenge others to create engaging dynamics, which Lagoona lacked.
What the video covers
- The video explores how the Monster High G1 series featured best-of compilations for each main character, including Lagoona.
- Lagoona's stories often revolved around her relationship with Gil, leading to repetitive and limited character development.
- She started as a crucial member of the main group but gradually became a side character with fewer unique storylines.
- Lagoona's role as the grounded, supportive friend was overshadowed by other characters, especially Frankie, who took over the supportive role.
- The main cast had distinct, strong personalities that created dynamic conflicts and growth, whereas Lagoona's normal, mature personality stabilized rather than challenged others.
- Supportive characters can be interesting, but Lagoona lacked the personality push-pull that made other characters compelling.
- Abby Bominable's introduction brought a more emotionally reactive and conflict-driving character, which made her more central than Lagoona.
- Lagoona was not seen as protagonist material because she rarely drove stories and mostly supported others.
- Her character arc suffered from repetitive relationship drama with Gil, which failed to evolve meaningfully and lost audience trust.
- The video concludes that Lagoona's archetype as a stable, normal character limited her narrative potential in G1 Monster High.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Overview of G1 Ghouls
- 01:42Group Dynamics and Character Roles
- 03:41Lagoona's Supportive Role and Its Decline
- 05:34Lagoona's Personality Compared to Others
- 07:15Lagoona as a Non-Protagonist
- 09:10Repetitive Storylines and Relationship Drama
- 11:05Audience Trust and Character Development Issues
- 12:37Conclusion: Lagoona's Archetype and Narrative Limitations
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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While I was perusing for clips to use in my videos, I came across these best of compilations for the G1 Ghouls. Each of the main characters got one, including Abby. And we get to see some of their best hits. Frankie's got stuff like her
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Fear Squad mishaps [music] and that time she ran for student body president. Draculaura has that one short where she couldn't turn into a bat. [music] Claudine had that time she beat Heath in a race. And Laguna, she has a story
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with Gil, a story with Gil, a story with Gil, a story with Gil, a story with Gil, a story with—Hey, how often are Laguna's stories just doing something with Gil?
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When I think back to her most prominent stories, they usually involve her relationship drama with him. Why is that? When G1 began, Laguna felt like a crucial piece of the main group, but as it continued, she fell by the wayside
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more and more until she felt sort of like a side character. And when she did get storylines, they kept running in circles, repeating conflicts with Gil.
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When Laguna was finally emancipated into her own focus movie, she was drastically out [music] of character to the point where the movies panned her portrayal there. Why is it that G1 seemed to struggle so much with Laguna?
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Well, that's the question I aim to answer in today's video. After thinking it over for quite a while, I came to the conclusion that all of Laguna's problems [music] tie back to one simple thing.
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Laguna is too normal. I know that sounds a bit crazy, but what do I mean by that? Point number one, group dynamics.
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Being an ensemble series, Monster High's got to have a cast of striking personalities at the center to get the audience attached to the characters. G1 started with six main characters.
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Frankie, Draculaura, Claudine, [music] Cleo, Laguna, and sometimes Deuce and Ghoulia. To create a compelling group dynamic, each of these characters needed to bring something unique [music] to the table.
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Frankie is the fish out of water character who's a bit naive but has a strong heart that can see different points of view and bring everyone together. Draculaura is the cutesy one of the group and tends to have a flair for
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dramatics or occasional overemotion. Claudine is the fiercest of the group. She tells things how they are and is quick to confront situations and sort out problems. Cleo is the high-maintenance drama queen with a heart of gold. Her more abrasive personality
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creates fun interactions with the others based on how willing she is to push boundaries [music] and act a bit insensitively in the pursuit of her goals. It serves a function of comedy and conflict. Ghoulia is the techie of
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the group and can be the supporting figure to many characters, but also a loose cannon who will often split off with her own random inventions. Her speaking zombie naturally creates unique interactions with other characters due to it being such a contrast to the
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speech of the rest of the cast. Each character I've listed has a clear and irreplaceable [music] role within the group that couldn't be fulfilled by the others without forcing them to change or act out of character. This is where
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Laguna comes in. Laguna's role within the group is the grounded, supportive friend. She's there to give advice and keep everyone steering in the right direction. [music] However, I came to realize that both of Laguna's roles were eventually eclipsed
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by the others. At the start of the show with New Ghoul at School, I [music] know that isn't technically the start because volume one came first, but hey, Laguna was the angel on Frankie's shoulder trying to keep her from changing herself to fit
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in at Monster [music] High. Even though Frankie didn't exactly follow the advice, Laguna was ultimately successful in being that grounding presence for Frankie. She continued this throughout many other appearances, like in Why Do Ghouls Fall in Love? where she's trying
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to help Ghoulia out during her whole dating situation. In Ghoul's Rule, she helps Abby realize what's going on between her and Heath and why he's insecure about being saved by Abby.
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Supportive roles are what she was best at, and that's what she did for a majority of the show. However, as the series progressed, Frankie slowly became the supportive friend at other times.
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She was the one who cheered everyone on and welcomed people into Monster High, and the one who would stick by her friends no matter what. This clipped Laguna's role within the group because if there was someone with more screen
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presence who could also fulfill Laguna's role, then what does she do now? It didn't help that as the series progressed, the characters grew wiser.
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So, there was less of a need for a friend who was the voice of reason to guide them in the right direction. Even if there's a slight difference between what Frankie and Laguna did, what Laguna [music] contributed to the group's
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dynamic became less necessary over time. Let's talk about that screen presence point for a second. As I mentioned before, the other five main ghouls have strong personalities that play off of each other well, but in comparison, Laguna doesn't have the strongest
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personality. Okay, well, that's not to say she's without characterization. She's nice, friendly, kind, and supportive. But the thing is, that doesn't create much in terms of character friction. The qualities and characters that misalign or clash highlight their individualities [music]
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and cause them to push each other in unique ways. Iris's indecisiveness and more introverted nature, paired with Draculaura's experience and outgoing personality created a story where Draculaura pushed Iris out of her comfort zone and helped her get with
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Manny when she otherwise wouldn't have. Abby's blunt and cold nature led to a story where Frankie's capacity [music] for kindness was truly tested. Twi's more realistic and honest worldview combined with Howen's blind ambition led to the two balancing each other out with
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Twilight talking down Howen from acting recklessly [music] or falling into insecurity while Howen pushes Twilight out of her more introverted comfort zone. [music] The point I'm trying to make here is that it's not necessarily arguing or bickering that makes for
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interesting character dynamics, but rather the ways the characters challenge each other's beliefs and worldviews.
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This leads to Laguna, who is often one of the more emotionally well-adjusted and mature members of the group. There's nothing wrong with that, but this type of personality is the type to stabilize characters rather than create an active
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push or pull. This is sort of where I want to correct a point that it might have seemed like I was making, which is the idea that supportive characters are inherently bad. No, I believe that's perfectly fine, but many characters can
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be supportive while also creating that personality tug-of-war. [music] This is why I find Frankie's role as a supportive friend more interesting. She really tends to push people and has a great drive to create change. Frankie supports others but also brings about
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change in them. While Laguna is the type to get a character to stick to their guns. Not that that's a bad thing, but it explains why her personality isn't as attention-grabbing as the rest of the cast. There's another interesting thing
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that happened with Laguna. Coinciding with her recession was the introduction of Abby Bominable into the main cast.
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As I mentioned before, Abby has a harsh and blunt personality. This leads to many situations where she accidentally stirs emotions in other characters, gets them to see things from a different point of view, or reacts to situations in ways others wouldn't expect. I
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believe this is likely what led Abby to being in the group more than Laguna.
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She's able to create more scenarios for stories and bring out sides of characters that wouldn't show otherwise.
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You might think her honesty
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couldn't be overshadowed, like what happened with Lagona. But okay, if Laguna's role in the group dynamic fell by the wayside, the obvious solution is to give her something to do on her own.
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However, that leads into my next point. Point two, Lagona is not protagonist material. This might sound like one of the harshest points I've made yet, but trust me, this isn't a slight against Lagona. As I mentioned before, the
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archetype she fulfills is that of the supportive friend. Lagona is the one to guide others, keep them on track, and be a helping hand. However, oftent times to be that supportive guide character, you have to be more mature and level-headed
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than those around you. This unfortunately leads to these characters having less to work towards or against.
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When a character is more mature and has things figured out, it's harder to put them in situations that would naturally challenge them in a meaningful way. For example, someone who's hotheaded might bug out while in traffic and do
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something stupid. This could lead to a great deal of stories. Maybe when they cut through the traffic, they clip someone's car and end up in a grand chase. Maybe they collide with another person who was trying to cut past
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traffic, too, and they play a game of rock paper scissors to decide who would take responsibility. Maybe they get caught cutting past traffic and the cop who pulls them over turns out to be their old friend from high school. There
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are countless possibilities that could arise from this person's impatience. Meanwhile, a level-headed person who gets stuck in traffic would just sit and wait. There's nothing wrong with this response, but what happens next? The traffic lets up and the character
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arrives at their destination. There's a lot less to extract from a scenario where a character arrives at the correct response right off the bat. Stories are built around characters having to solve problems. [music] And a character that usually makes the
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right choices will often cut off small conflicts before they have the chance to fester. This leaves them with less individual story potential, which explains why they're often used to aid the stories of others and help them grow. Okay, but you might be thinking,
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uh, Lagona still gets focus stories. What about them? Well, I found that in most stories focusing on Lagona, she's usually not the one pushing the story forward. Actually, no, that's not entirely true. In volume 1, she's the one who gets the stuff going in all of
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her episodes. Laguna sets the frogs free with Frankie's help and takes care of her egg with Gil. However, in episodes like Parent Creature Conference and Blue Lagoona, it's largely the rest of the cast pushing things forward rather than
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Laguna herself. I have no problem with this. The I I think the episodes are funny. For the rest of the show though, Lagona's plots are mainly up to the whims of another character, but I won't get ahead of myself. Now that I'm
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looking at it, she really doesn't have a lot of focus episodes. And for the movies, she's largely in the same supporting role. Then there's Great Scary Reef. And um, let me not get ahead of myself. That's for later in the
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video. Considering all of what we just went over, why does Lagona have a shockingly low amount of focus stories?
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Well, a character with the room to always be supporting others likely has few problems they need to worry about to the point of warranting a story. Lagouna might have issues with the swim team or her grades occasionally, but they're
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likely things she can work through and overcome without massive turmoil. Many writing advice videos or form posts say how crucial it is to give characters flaws. This is true, but it's often not explained very well. This can lead
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people to think that as long as they give a character a random negative trait, then they're good to go. Looking at you, Crystal Winter. The best way to think about it is that character flaws aid in justifying a story's existence.
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[music] Or rather, what makes the story's conflict something the protagonist can't solve as they are currently? Someone afraid of dogs would struggle in a story where they have to rescue their sister from an evil dog [music] park. Someone who avoids
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difficult conversations and emotions would struggle with being the one to break the news of the death of a friend or a family member. Someone who is absurdly impatient might become increasingly erratic in a story where their package keeps getting delayed.
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These are negative traits, yes, but the important thing is that they explain why the story's problem can't be brushed aside. They create reasons as to why a conflict becomes story spanning rather than something the characters could handle in 5 minutes. To give a Monster
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High related example, Aby's introduction in volume two of the web series had her come into conflict with Frankie. [music] Tori threw a snowball at Frankie to make it seem like Abby threw it, which caused the ghouls to fight and end up getting
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in trouble with head mistress Bloodgood. And their punishment is a bonding exercise. They're given a pair of magical bracelets and must stay within 3 ft of each other until 3 p.m. Otherwise, they'll get super duper detention. Even though it's a punishment, for some
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people, this wouldn't be too bad. They just stay next to each other and chill out to the best of their abilities until the clock struck three. However, that scenario by itself isn't the most compelling to follow and could likely
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pass in a montage or be skipped altogether if nothing major comes of that event. The same way you usually don't see characters in a school setting actually attending class. It's something important for them, but not for the audience. So, what prevents Abby and
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Frankie from just chilling and letting the time pass no problem? This is where their respective character flaws come in. Abby is a very brief and blunt person. She grew up in a place where small talk wasn't common, and
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conversation was utilitarian rather than something done casually. Frankie's attempts to talk with Abby and reconcile their beef fall on deaf ears, as interpersonal communication skills weren't something [music] Abby was made to learn. Even though Frankie is the nicer one in this scenario, she's flawed
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here, too. As after the first attempt or so, she gives up on trying to understand Abby, and her kindness largely becomes surface level. This justifies the story's existence as there is now a problem that activates both characters.
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Frankie doesn't want to be around Abby as she views her as rude and unfriendly and Frankie loves making friends.
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Meanwhile, Abby didn't realize she came off that way and wants to prove to Frankie that she can be nice. Their respective character flaws gave them reasons to become active rather than passively accepting the punishment.
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Creating a story where Frankie learned to be kinder to others and Abby learned to make friends. This is largely what character flaws are for. as they're able to jumpstart a story's narrative engine.
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Now that I've described all of that, what does Lagona have? Fundamentally, most of Monster High never gave Lagona's character an explicit deficit. As I said before, she was the advice giving character and rarely drove stories, which meant her character wasn't
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required to be the source of or contribute to conflict. This unfortunately made it so stories that could properly pressure Lagona were hard to come by. What's the angle of attack?
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What's Lagona's ultimate weakness? uh we don't really know uh racist parents. It was never really established and as such it remained easier for her to chill in the supporting role until uh they tried to fix it later. But once again,
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let me not get ahead of myself because Lagona didn't have an inherent source of conflict. Writers needed outside stimuli to kick her character into action. So, the solution to this is to give Lagona a problem she can't easily fix. And the
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writers did this through Okay, you know what I'm about to talk about. Let's Let's not point three. Gillington Weber.
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So Gil, we had to talk about him eventually, right? Gil was introduced as Lagona's crush and eventual boyfriend.
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Since Gil's parents are freshwater monsters and Laguna's a saltwater monster, Gil's parents disapprove of their relationship. This is a good problem for Lagona as it's not one her maturity or grounded nature could solve, as you've got another person in the mix
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at hindering things. So, how do they go about solving it? Well, they don't. You know, I feel like Gil gets a lot of hate, and I don't hate him, but he is the epicenter of this problem. Even though this is the main plot thread
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Lagona gets, her involvement in it is minimal. Let's take a look at volume two. This is the first place where the conflict with Gil's parents is established, and it plays out through the entire season. Gil tells Lagona that
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his parents disapprove of their relationship. Lagona cries and ignores him until he stands up for her. So Gil lies about his parents accepting her, which makes things hunky dory. But then Tori snaps a photo of the two of them
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holding hands and puts it in the yearbook or the fear book. Gil doesn't want to be seen with her because his parents might disapprove. The lie is revealed and Lagona is upset again.
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Later on, Gil calls his parents and tells them about Lagona. They're still bigoted, but Lagona's happy Gil was finally honest. It's now summer and Gil's not answering Lagona's text, and she's sad. We find out that Gil's parents sent him to another school
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because of their relationship and Lagona's upset again. And then uh oh, that's it for volume two. So throughout all of what I just described to you, did you pick up on anything? Throughout the entirety of that plotline, Lagona had
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little to no influence on the outcome. The cycle was Gil's parents disapproved, Lagona's upset, slight fix, Gil's parents disapprove, Lagona's upset, and so on and so on. Lagona has no agency within this plotline as the ability to solve the conflict with Gil's parents
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isn't in her hands. She's not the one being asked to change or having to make the hard choices or see things from a different perspective. That's Gil. It's Gil's story with Lagona stuck along for the ride, constantly being disappointed
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and treated poorly. Lagona's lack of agency in this plotline stems from a fundamental problem with the story. A conflict of this type is not built for the kind of show that Monster High is.
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An easy fix for Lagona's lack of agency in this plotline could be to have her go to Gil's new school and confront him there or arrange a surprise meeting between her, Gil, and his parents to rip the band-aid off. But this is a doll
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show. Gil's parents aren't going to get dolls, so why go through the effort of designing and creating rigs for them?
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There's a reason why Iris's model got updated once she got a doll. The story serves the merchandise, not the other way around. As a result, Lagona's ability to influence this conflict is minimal. She can tell Gil to buck up and
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stand up to his parents, but that still leaves the ball in his court. Gil's the driver, Lagona's the passenger. Compare this to the other plot lines involving the main ghouls. Frankie stories mostly involve her interacting with the community of Monster High. Claudine's
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most relevant family members, Claude and Howen, attend Monster High. Cleo's most relevant characters are within the side cast with Deuce, Nefra, and Ramsy's. and Gulia does whatever the story calls for because she's awesome. All of these story elements are within the
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character's reach. Meanwhile, two major players in Lagona and Gil's plotline are characters that never enter that circle.
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So, while the writers created a problem that Lagona couldn't solve with the skills she already had, they accidentally made one that she couldn't solve at all. Man, the odds were really stacked against Lagona, huh? Okay, but I've only covered volume two so far.
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What about the rest of G1? Well, it doesn't get much better. In volume 3, there's an episode where Gil speaks to his parents. Yeah, they're on screen.
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Warbling tentacles, but they're on screen. Anyway, he's about to go on a date with Lagona, but they pop in like, "No saltwater monsters." We then get a highlight reel of moments where Lagona disproves the idea that saltwater monsters are evil. The episode ends with
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Gil going on the date, but his parents are still mad. Cool. We got Gil defending Lagona again, but have his parents' minds been changed? No. Hey, uh, edit editing me here. I wanted to clarify that. I guess instead of them
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changing their beliefs or like growing to accept Lagona, I meant have things progressed at all in a sense cuz Gills reaffirmed his love for Lagona, but has anything progressed with his parents?
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have. It's not really a substantial change in any form. And I well, I already clarify this later in the in this section, but I know some of y'all don't be watching the videos fully when you comment. All right. All right. No,
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no shade, but I just had to get it out of the way first. In Escape from Skull Shores, the ghouls are headed to the Great Barrier Reef. Yeah, it's not the Great Scarier Reef yet. And Gil is going
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to meet Lagona's parents. He doesn't want to, of course, as he thinks they'll hate him because he's a freshwater monster. Lagona is very annoyed by this.
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But once she gets captured by the antagonist, Gil bucks up and meets with Lagona's parents offcreen and realizes the error of his ways. I guess this worked as a plot line. Gil made a step forward with his beliefs, but it
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happened offcreen and Lagona still had little involvement. And despite making that change in Gil's beliefs, the status quo hasn't really changed at all because Gil's parents were the problem, not Lagona's. Okay. Uh, what's up next?
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Let's see. Oh god. In this movie, Gil's parents don't want him and Lagona to date or hang out at all. Lagona's upset, but Howen is here to save the day. With the help of Gigi Grant, Howen wishes that Gil's parents would like Laguna,
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which turns her into a freshwater monster. It seems to have worked as Gil's parents happily have Lagona over for dinner and she becomes closer to Gil, a a little too close. She starts feeding him, spending every second of
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the day with him, obsessively chugging fresh water, and hating on all things seawater. However, once the film's antagonist, Wisp, is defeated, Lagona turns back to normal, and Gil realizes he likes Lagona just the way she is.
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Once again, it's Gil coming to the realization, and Lagona's along for the ride. The status quo hasn't shifted in any major way. Gil likes Lagona. His parents are still prejudiced, but they're going to date anyway. This is where we've been before. Every story
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with this conflict routes back to the beginning. Nothing is actually progressing, and the [music] things that change don't actually matter. It's constantly stalling, and Lagona is never the one to make things happen. [music] Her role in this conflict is to be sad
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while Gil makes the change. Don't worry, though, we're not done yet. We've got one last stop on this train wreck. In volume five, we're introduced to Lorna Mcnessie, the daughter of the Lochness Monster. She and Gil become friends, and
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Laguna gets jealous because Lorna is a freshwater monster whom Gil's parents would rather him date. Fearing that he's cheating on her, Laguna and Sireina Goat spy on the two and over hear Lorna saying, "We belong together." Uh, it
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turns out Lorna was talking to her saltwater boyfriend Finn and Gil was trying to help her navigate that situation. This is eh. I mean, Sirene is always funny, but it feels like they realized the parent thing was getting a
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bit stale and went, "Oh crap, what do we do now?" Uh, what's the next best easy relationship conflict? Cheating? That's genius. Not that this couldn't have worked, but it still didn't [music] change anything about their relationship. Gil's cheating on me. Oh,
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wait. No, he isn't. Okay. But guess what happens next? In the Bloom and Gloom dance special, Lorna's boyfriend breaks up with her. Since Lagona is studying abroad, Gil decides to take Lorna to the dance. But guess who arrives in time to
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see them dancing together? Lagona? Oh no. She gets upset, but Gil explains the situation to her and she's like, "Oh, okay. Enough. Enough." I hope this section has made it clear why I take issue with this plotline. The Gil
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relationship drama was designed to give Lagona a thing, something that her stories could revolve around and sprout from. However, the writers weren't able to create a situation where Lagona could effectively influence the plot. The prejudice from Gil's parents was up to
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Gil to confront. Lagona could only push him towards that. As a result, we got a cycle of Gil's parents being stupid.
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Lagona gets hurt. Gil stands up to them and their minds don't change. Then repeat. Lagona doesn't get a say in what happens or the ability to make a great change. She's only there to be hurt over and over. They couldn't naturally
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extract the source of conflict from her character being as well-rounded as she was. So, they force these situations onto Lagona to ring conflict out of her at the cost of zero progression. I'm imagining some might say that it's
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unrealistic for Gil's parents to stop being bigoted overnight. And I agree with you. Lots of people take a great deal of time to overcome those beliefs or never change at all. Unfortunately, the issue I take with this rebuttal,
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though, is that realism doesn't equal good storytelling. Stories need to progress and problems need to be solved to create progression. It does even require Gil's parents to change or stop being bigoted. They just needed to do something new. If previously a story
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resolved its central question only to immediately invalidate that resolution with following plot lines, then it feels like why is this question being asked if no progress is going to be made? It feels like the narrative is purposefully stalling in order to ring out the same
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conflict over and over again. There's audience trust that's lost in that process cuz if you keep failing to deliver on a promise, you come in with the expectation of, "Oh, this is about to go nowhere." is in it. Gil's parents
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are still going to disapprove. Laguna's going to be sad. Gil's going to be like, "You know what, Lagouna? I stood up to my parents." And it's like, "Oh, cool.
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Uh, same time next week." So, we're at an impass now. Lagona works fine as a supporting character, but not much else.
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And when they tried to give her a source of conflict, the problem was never hers to solve. So, what's the solution? Well, you know what I'm about to talk about.
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Point four, Great Scaria Reef. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, Great Scarier Reef was Lagona's solo movie. They created a line where everyone turned into mermaids, so the story had to focus on Lagona. But with all the problems we've gone through
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in this video, what story are they going to do? How will they create a conflict with Lagona's character? Well, the solution was just to change her character. In Great Scarier Reef, Tori hosts a dance recital that Claudine, Draculaura, and Frankie join in for
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extra detit. Lagona sees this and is like, "Nah, I'm good." But once they leave, she performs a wonderful, I guess, dance. Gil thinks she's great, but once Lagona sees him, she locks up.
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Yep, Lagona [music] has stage fright, and that's what she has to conquer in this movie. From a writer's perspective, I get why they did this. Lagona lacked problems that gave way to interesting stories. So, giving her stage fright
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gave them something that Laguna could work through and overcome. The problem with this is that the change feels very noticeable and it has ripple effects throughout her character. Great Scarier Reef's depiction of Lagona is a lot less confident and self- assured. This makes
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sense given that they want her to overcome her stage fright and her being less confident gives more potential for growth. But we've gotten to know Lagona over the years, so any changes made to her personality will be noticeable. If
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there were a catalyst for this change, it'd be okay. But Lagona is just like that without explanation. there's nothing to ease the audience into this change. So, for me personally, it stood out like a sore thumb, and I feel like
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that happened with many other people. It could be argued that her stage fright was something that we simply didn't know about before. But unfortunately, the show itself laid this idea to waste 3 years prior with the volume 3 episode,
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Fright Dance. Here we see Operetta, Rochelle, Howen, Rebecca, and Lagona trying out for dance auditions. And Lagouna performs on stage in front of multiple people. Lagona stage fright already felt weird being an entirely out of nowhere trait. But the fact that
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there's direct evidence against it within cannon can break audience immersion. It's like if you had a chair in your house that you usually sat in.
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If one day you took a seat and it collapsed beneath you, you'd be like, "What? What happened?" It's a sharp change. But let's say the chair had a wobbly leg. Then if you sat on it and it gave out, you'd think, "Oh man, that leg
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finally gave out." I guess Laguna's personality shift occurred without any hints beforehand that she was like this.
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In an attempt to fix Laguna's lack of internal conflict, the writers created a flaw for her that contradicted her previous characterization, which opened up a whole new box of problems that weakened Great Scarator Reef as a film.
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It's also very boring, but this isn't a Great Scarator Reef review. I think the previous two points go to show how limited Laguna's story potential was.
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Her nature of being the down-to-earth, grounded supporting figure left her without inherent problems to tackle or room to grow. Any plotline she got involved in kept up this issue where the other person was the one doing all the
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changing and driving the action while Lagona was along for the ride. The problem was so deeply embedded that they had to tear out parts of her character, but by that point, we knew Laguna too well for that to work. Ultimately, it
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seemed like Lagona, as a character, wasn't able to stand on her own like the other mains and was only fit for tagging along in other stories. Does this mean that Lagona's archetype was fundamentally flawed? Are the more well-rounded types of characters not
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capable of being main character material? Well, that actually takes me to my next point. Point five. Why is Applejack in the thumbnail? Okay, when you first clicked on the video, you might have been confused as to why Applejack was pictured in the thumbnail.
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Besides me finding it funny, the reason for that is that both Applejack and Lagona occupy the same space within their main cast of being the most well-rounded. In My Little Pony, the rest of the main six all have wild
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personalities or goals to strive for. Twilight is learning about friendship and how to get along with others, so she lacks some social skills and can get a bit obsessive with her studies. Also, she became an alicorn princess and that
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opens many plot lines to her. Rarity is extravagant and can be a drama queen, but she also owns a boutique and seeks to open up more fashion businesses.
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Rainbow Dash is hotheaded, competitive, and incredibly passionate, often to a fault. She also wants to join the Wonderbolts, the best flying team in Equestria. Pinkie Pie is Okay, we all know how Pinkie Pie is. Do I do I really
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got to describe? And Fluttershy is the shy and anxious type, which gives her the chance to grow more confident as the show progresses. She also likes animals and eventually opens up an animal sanctuary. Then there's Applejack. She's pretty chill. She works on a farm with
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her family and is kind and honest with a grounded perspective. Applejack doesn't actively strive for much within the show as the farm is where she wants to be.
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You can see how different this is compared to the rest of the main six who have more exaggerated personalities or long-term goals to achieve. Despite that, I've never thought Applejack was a wasted character compared to Lagona. But why? The reason I think Applejack works
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compared to Lagona is that despite not being as extravagant as the rest of the main six, the writers gave her sources of conflict outside of herself that stories could be built off of. Having a big family creates natural opportunities
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for character conflict between her siblings, Big Mac and Apple Bloom, and her grandma, Granny Smith. Alongside that, working on a farm presents many opportunities for things going ary, like bats eating the crops, being behind on work, and financial competition. But I
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think what really works about Applejack is that her more grounded perspective can occasionally be a detriment. The writers did something clever with Applejack where because she's already where she wants to be in life, she tends to think she knows best and is resistant
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to change. This allows Applejack to be the grounded one while also having friction with other characters, which leads to interesting character dynamics like her and Rarity or her and Rainbow Dash. Despite saying all of this, Applejack isn't perfect either.
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Sometimes her stubbornness feels forced, and episodes will exist where, while still enjoyable, they feel like the writers are cranking Applejack's hard-headedness up for the sake of conflict. This isn't unique to her, though, the rest of the main six have
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had this happen to them throughout the show. It's the natural result of a show being written by a rotating cast of writers who understand characters to different degrees. Despite this, these random shifts in Apple Jack's character are rooted in something rather than
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newly invented, like Laguna stage fright. Having these things set up from the beginning allowed Applejack to retain story potential despite being the least exaggerated of the group. Although the advertising still neglected her.
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Now, I hope it doesn't come off like I believe that grounded characters are inherently less interesting. You simply need to give them something to chew on.
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Natural sources of conflict that can bring them into action and give them problems to solve. Based on all of this, how would I go about giving Lagona more story potential? Since Lagona is the supportive friend, we can keep that
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angle, but add a little something to it. Perhaps she feels the need to be the mediator in situations between others and take on other people's problems due to an unstable upbringing causing her to grow up too fast and have to play
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problem solver in the house. For this version of Laguna, if other people have problems going on, it makes her incredibly anxious. Oh, wait. This is kind of like G3 Lagona, isn't it? Point 6. G3 Lagona. It's kind of crazy how
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when I was writing that last bit up, it was mainly me pulling from how I write Lagona in my own stories. But then I thought about it and realized how G3 Lagona fixed G1 Lagona's protagonist problem. She grew up in a home where her
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family would argue a lot and they eventually split. Because of this, Lagona interpreted disagreement as a sign of collapse or danger and became a people pleaser as a result. This works better for a protagonist role as Laguna's peopleleasing nature gives her
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easier buttons to press as her beliefs lead to situations she won't always know how to handle compared to G1 Lagona who is pretty competent most of the time.
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However, while I praise G3 Lagona, I'll acknowledge that she was designed for an entirely different role than OG Lagona.
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Laguna was still part of the main cast, but she was a support character from the start. While G3 Lagona was meant to carry her own stories from the jump. So, while G3 Lagona is an improved protagonist, G1 Lagona still does her
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job as a supporting figure. She was made with a specific role in mind that unfortunately didn't lead to the best individualized stories. They didn't have the benefit of starting from the ground up like they did in G3, so they were
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stuck with what they had. But I guess this brings up another question. Did Lagouna need to be different at all?
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Point seven, is this fine? All video I've talked about how Lagona wasn't the greatest protagonist and how often the writers failed to make good stories for her. But does that mean her character sucks? No, not at all. Lagouna was
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perfectly fine in her role as the supportive friend. The problems only came when they tried to give her more focus stories. She simply wasn't built for that type of role. And depending on the situation, that's not necessarily a
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problem. You wouldn't rag on a carpenter for not knowing how to build a rocket.
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That's just not what they do. And that's fine. That's why I still like Lagona despite putting her at the bottom of my main cast ranking YouTube short. She's a great friend to everyone and she's the exact type of character monster I
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needed. That's why I titled this video how G1 fumbled Lagona instead of Lagona sucks. Anyway, that's everything I have to say about Lagona. Let's wrap things up, shall we?
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Man, I did not plan for this video to be this long. [music] I expected this to be a few pages at most, but I'm ending up with 18. Crazy how that goes, isn't it?
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If you made it this far, I hope you enjoyed the video. From the gate, this might have seemed like a Lagouna hate video, and people might have thought that I hated Lagona based on my previous videos, but I hope I've expressed my
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feelings on her character and how weirdly she was handled throughout [music] G1. If you enjoyed the video, make sure to like, subscribe, and hit the bell to be notified of future uploads. Thank you for watching, and stay spooky.
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BRB. [laughter]
Topics:Monster HighG1 Lagoonacharacter analysisgroup dynamicsFrankie SteinAbby BominableGilsupportive charactercharacter developmentTheBoogeyMansion
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