@Anonymous #BFA0
Never said Sprout was blameless, merely that his mother’s involvement with turning him into what he became was severely downplayed and she was let off too easily. “You’re going a bit far, honey!” and smiling with the other ponies when the day is saved is not a substitute for actual characterisation and redemption arc.
As for “throwing his mother’s opinion aside”, only in the sense that he didn’t care that he was causing inconvenience to her business, in all other senses he was still very much a product of his mother’s teaching and eternal codling. It’s just that by then, he suddenly had another method for gaining respect and appreciation, which incidentally required playing into the tribalist fears that his own mother adamantly drilled into the whole town. Yet another way in which she’s culpable.
Which incidentally, I consider to be further proof of my original point that Hitch could have prevented this by taking him on as a spiritual/adoptive little brother and being a role model to him instead of a perpetually frustrated frenemy/rival. The speed with which he was willing to ignore his mother as soon as another source of admiration was provided leads me to believe that if Hitch had actually pushed him to be a proper, respectable stallion and shown appreciation for his efforts-and even more so for his successes-Sprout could have become a respectable figure in Maritime Bay, leaving him no longer dependent on his mother’s approval for his own self worth.
As for that last part, that’s entirely a meta reason and you know it. Sure, pony fans can be really creepy, what else is new? Hate them if you like, it certainly doesn’t bother me that you do.
I simply don’t think that’s really a point against the idea that Sprout is more sympathetic that a first appraisal might seem, and if nothing else that his mother eludes far too much responsibility when she is at
least 50% to blame for that whole fiasco.
I don’t think it’s fair to say he’s “power hungry to his core”, he clearly didn’t care about power until his mother put the idea in his head and didn’t care for trying to keep it after everypony lost respect for him. I think it’s yet another expression of his need for appreciation, which again he wasn’t being shown
until he took power. I still believe it’s fair to say he is a people-pleaser at his core, taking his sense of self worth from how much respect others have for him. He never developed any kind of healthy mindset for earning it, so he latched onto a destructive way of doing it the moment it presented itself.