> God, Sprout had a lot of potential for being a villain- and perhaps just someone that was misunderstood, and I'm kinda sad the execution on his character was mediocre at best.
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> Like the rest of Maretime Bay (excluding Sunny), Sprout… is scared of the other races, probably more scared than anyone else. Sure, ponies were exposed to Cloverleaf's promotional stunt of "to be scared is to be prepared!", but Sprout is her son. He was exposed to her ideas and lies about the other races nonstop, her fear tactics permanently burned into his brain until it was much too late to change his outlook. But he did have something… an idea that differed from his mother's. And it surfaced when he temporarily became sheriff.
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> "Now is not the time to be complacent! We should do something!"
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> With the power fueling his confidence, he approached the citizens of Maretime Bay with a new idea. A dastardly, awful idea in the end, but not completely unjustified. Sprout could tell the earth ponies were terrified after a unicorn visited them. What if there were more coming? What if the unicorns and pegasi were going to ambush them? This wasn't a time to sit around doing nothing, sucking their thumbs! They have to do something before they're blindly attacked! They had to stand up and fight to protect their home! No more just defensive measures (since that seemed to fail), they needed offensive measures too! They needed to be prepared for real! Sprout empathizing with the crowd's fears drew them to him to form an army, one that would do what he asked of them without any doubts. Sprout was a good guy! A hero! A brand new leader that was just and knew what he was doing! … Right…?