SA: “Once we get this back to shore, we’ll eat like royalty!”
 
PC: “We are royalty.”

I’m just waiting for someone to post the original sharkjumping moment.

@Niggoslav_Krawczyk  
That’s a nice way of putting it, yeah: Shining Armor and Cadence as the fully matured versions of adventurous young pony heroes and heroines like the Mane Six.

@Lurks-no-More And glad we are! That’s like the greatest defense of Cady I’ve ever seen, kudos to you sir! Actually, the whole Power Couple thing…remember that we’re introduced to these two upon their wedding day. And yet they were moderately interesting, even if the episode itself was somewhat poor and offkilter. They weren’t like the stereotypical ‘couple being married the main character is going to see off’ but rather, felt more like characters already at the end of their own character development.
 
Rather, a better way to think of them is that they seem too ‘perfect’ because we’re meeting them at the end of their own development arc, which happened offstage. Twilight is a complete basketcase, who’s to say it doesn’t run in the family? That Shiny wasn’t say, crippled to the level of Rainbow’s insecurities while working his way up the ranks? But we get introduced to him quite a while after he got over his own hangups.  
I figure, no matter how bad the next season is, it’ll end in a way that Twilight has grown to his level, or perhaps that will be season 5.

Subtle.

@Amber
 
Well, taking them as a unit… Shining Armor and Cadence are devoted to one another, and work well together. They are both ponies with a strong sense of duty, and willing to put themselves at risk to protect those under their metaphorical wing. And they work well together - remember the whole wife-throwing scene!
 
He’s an officer and a gentlepony, a friendly jock who’s proud of and fond of his nerdy little sister, and clearly has a good sense of humor.
 
Cadence, in turn, is a loving and lovable pony, who practically defines altruism - in This Day Aria, her biggest worry is not that Chrysalis is stealing her husband-to-be, but that he will be deceived and used by someone loveless.
 
They’re both very noble characters, in the positive moral sense of the word. The fact that they don’t have any outstanding, clear character flaws like Rarity’s vanity, or Rainbow Dash’s hotheaded insecurity, makes them seem flatter than they actually are. But again, that’s fine, since they and their flaws don’t drive the show the same way as Mane Six’s strengths and weaknesses.

I like Flitter, Cloudchaser, Thunderlane, and Rumble more than I do Armor and Cadence.

@Lurks-no-More
 
Well,this is true.They are supporting characters.Putting them in the same level of the Main Six + Spike + CMC would be unfair.
 
Still,Luna,Celestia,Cheerilee and Big Mac are also supporting characters,yet they all have certain details in their personalities and their own quirks that add more in to their characters.
 
I have yet to find those in Shining Armor and Cadence.Canterlot Wedding can be excused because those were the episodes in which they were introduced but right now,they already have been used/have more sceentime than most supporting characters (and please,don’t use the comics.I love them,but I’m strictly talking about the show,you know,being the main media that present us these characters and the responsible to make us like the characters in the first place).
 
I always felt the Pony Games episode was a little bit wasted,even though it brought us nice minor characters like Harshwhiny and Peachbottom,Cadence and Shining remained pretty much static character wise.
 
And as @RainbowDashie41 said,the might have even more soon.

@Lurks-no-More  
they might have more soon

@Background Pony  
You can’t look at someones’s face and say that Shining and Cadence are on the same level as the Main Six and Spike in the show.
 
Well of course they aren’t, and that’s fine. They’re supporting characters, not the main characters! They have plenty of depth and character for what they are, and for how much appearances they have had so far.

@Lurks-no-More  
Outdated and very weak reason.
 
Granted,they jossed some few things,but the thing is that characters like them can work if the witers give them the chance to work them more.The show staff didn’t bother enough with them despite their screentime.You can’t look at someones’s face and say that Shining and Cadence are on the same level as the Main Six and Spike in the show.
 
Some people say that if Sunset and Flash were able to appear in the show,they would become amazing characters,but quite frankly,Shining and Cadence are the ones of the first important characters the writer staff have to handle by themselves without Faust and Renetti’s imput (well,Faust was responsible for setting the base for Shining Armor’s creation,but nothing more) and if this is the best the show writters can do with them,then I prefer Flash Sentry and Sunset Shimmer never appear in this or any future season (if there will ever be future seasons).
 
McCarthy’s decision to keep them both away from the regular show was a good one.

@Lurks-no-More  
Please don’t lump all the blame on fanon.
 
It’s a silly thing to do.

I’m convinced that the biggest reason people complain about Shining & Cadence is because they busted up a lot of folks’ fanon. That’s it. Because they don’t damage the show.

@Beau Skunky  
Most shows are not mainly character driving.So they don’t have any issues in pulling of relatives out of their asses to use them as mere plot devices.
 
Shining’s case wouldn’t be a problem if the show writers injected more “oomph” into him.I applaud the comic staff for taking care of that job,though.

@Background Pony >>rarity  

@RIG enjoy your crappy unintelligible non-canon Tim&Eric-level ref-fests then.

@Beau Skunky  
It’s true nothing said that Celestia and Luna were the only alicorns, but it was plain to see that they, the only alicorns we knew about, were very different from other characters (wings and horn, taller, apparently immortal). They were special.
 
When it does something like add another character with the different, extremely rare physiology, it would make sense to do something with it…but it does nothing.
 
For whatever other qualities it had, the third season finale did seem to kind of provide an answer for what an alicorn is…except that the writers have said things like Twilight isn’t immortal, or that Cadence was born that way, throwing things back into confusion.
 
Nobody writing this stuff seems to give a shit about keeping it straight. This isn’t asking for complex continuity like the show has never had, it’s asking for things which have always been presented as important (the rarity and specialness of alicorns) to make some sense.

@RIG
 
That’s why I said “In the show”.
 
The staff writers are supposed to be the responsibles to craft their whole personalities firstly.The comic staff is generally there to take and expand said personalities while taking care of not messing with the characerizations.Shining and Cady didn’t have enough of it in the show,so they ended crafting themselve their personalities in the comic,which led to create certain inconsistencies with their show personas,especially Shining.But is not really something to worry a lot…unless of course the show staff end up making personalities for them that conflict with their comic counterparts.
 
Believe it ot not,there are people who are not interested in rhe comics,not in spite or anything,just not into them.
 
And not every member of the target demographic read the comics.

@PonyPon  
The show’s only 3 seasons long, other shows have sprung up way more out of nowhere then what we have so far in MLP. Plus, part of the beauty of the series is they do leave some things vague, leaving the writers (and fans) some leeway for the show’s, and characters’ backgrounds.

@Beau Skunky  
They didn’t wait two seasons to clear up Sweetie, and Scoots is clearly a situation they don’t want to touch.
 
Another princess and sibling just seems like something you wouldn’t spring out of nowhere. Especially ones as important to the very setting as they are to the main character.

@Background Pony  
Well, it’s not like anything prior stated Celestia & Luna are the only alicorns in existence, or that Twilight never had a brother.
 
Heck, we didn’t even learn Sweetie Belle was Rarity’s sister ‘till nearly the end of Season 1, or see that she didn’t live with Rarity, and had parents until season 2. (Heck, we still haven’t seen Scootaloo’s parents.)  
Yet, everyone complaining about Twilight “suddenly having a brother, that doesn’t make sense at all” is fine with all of that?

@Background Pony  
>not seeing nor knowing much about them  
but there is the comic…

@Beau Skunky
 
I love Cady and Shiny,but I know some people that have valid reasons for not like them,like the one you yourself mentioned: not seeing nor knowing much about them (and I’m talking about “in show”).
 
Sure,believing the show jumped the shark because of them i’ts an exaggeration,,imo.

@Background Pony  
C’mon, like there weren’t any stinkers in season three.