Talk:Episodes, films, and shorts/@comment-26973802-20131022180514/@comment-26973802-20131023054530

To me it doesn't matter how easy the villains are to defeat as long as a.) they are defeated, and in a satisfying enough way, and b.) they have a long enough run as the villain (two episodes is enough in MLP's case).

I assume "Smokey" is King Sombra, but Chrysalis isn't much less darker than him. She is pretty creepy, malevolent, and menacing, even when she's disguised as Cadance the second verse of her song sounds particularly sinister, and darker than any of her predecessors in that she gets Twilight's friends, brother, and mentor to turn on her of their own accord, imprisons Twilight and Cadance intending them to die of starvation and even trying to trick Twilight into killing Cadance, where she would have succeeded were it not for their "sunshine sunshine ladybugs awake".

Also, while the actual defeat of Nightmare Moon, Discord, and Sombra was done quite easily, getting there was the challenge. Twilight had to discover exactly what it was that activates the Elements of Harmony, and the Mane 6 had to overcome Nightmare Moon's obstacles first. Discord was more of a challenge as he overcame the ponies by corrupting them, so the big challenge was decorrupting them first. And overcoming King Sombra's traps would have been impossible for Twilight if Spike wasn't there, Spike having to be the one to take the Crystal Heart to Cadance, which was only accomplished after Cadance saved Spike from being impaled and/or eaten by Sombra.