User blog comment:RoyallyBella/Official Season 7 discussion blog/@comment-29197449-20160803053055/@comment-29197449-20160828230645

Yikes, sorry it took so long to get around to this. I was preoccupied with personal projects as trying to edit as many empty comics pages as possible. I also tried to reply to this a couple weeks earlier but something happened, like a time-out or something, and it didn't send.

 Yeah, I guess. I also found it a bit odd that he was suddenly a member of the Specialists when Season 6 started. Did he even  meet  with any of the other Specialists before becoming part of their group specifically? Or even enroll at Red Fountain?

As random as it all was, that's probably why I couldn't buy into them being an official couple. Their relationship was just so random and haphazardly put together, I just couldn't buy into it. Though, yeah, no one could have known that they were going to add in another love interest for Aisha in the form of Nex in the next season. If anything, I thought they'd make Roy and Aisha's sort of budding relationship develop or make it look less unnatural.

 Well, he isn't. As you said, he's a plot device. Any sort of "character traits" Roy showcased were just there to unintentionally push Aisha right into Nex's arms. Even though I'm obviously not a fan of Roy, it would've been kind of nice to see his reaction towards Aisha choosing Nex or, better yet, have him realize that he has been pushing her straight into Nex's arms and act on that. Maybe even see him give up once he sees Aisha being more comfortable around Nex than she has ever been with him. I mean, if I'm remembering this correctly, Aisha really didn't talk to Roy in Season 6. Usually when she was talking to Roy, she was also talking to Nex.

I'll admit it; I've had a really stigmatized look on creating characters solely to become the love interest of a pre-existing character, mainly because I've had really bad experiences with this sort of thing. Like, me and a group of my friends would write stories with each of our own characters, and it got to this really weird situation where one of my friends basically had us amass a "perfect harem" for his main character.

Whenever me or my other two friends would create another character who was basically going to be used to show one of the harem girls how bad their relationship really was, with the newly introduced character being almost like an escape from said relationship, that friend of mine who had his main character at the center of the harem would basically make up a character that would lock the newly introduced character into a toxic relationship, like having them be stuck with a suicidal partner who would kill themselves if they got their heart broken one more time or something -- it was just really bad. Sooner or later, we confronted him about it because human beings are incapable of having "perfect harems" and he stopped. Either way, it was just really bad.

That's the funny thing about the Specialists, they work as their own characters. Like, you could see it coming from a mile away that, say, Bloom and Sky were going to end up together. However, when I was first watching Winx Club in over ten years, it didn't bother me as much with how obvious it was because Bloom and Sky both work as their own functioning characters. They both have personalities, dreams, responsibilities and friends outside of their relationship. Sky isn't simply known as "the guy Bloom is dating" and he functions just fine on his own rather than being lost and unable to function as a human being without Bloom around(which would be odd since he's now king of the most influential realm in Magix). Even though, as you put it, they are just male versions of the Winx themselves at their core, the Specialists each have their differences that make them distinct from their girlfriends. Again with Bloom and Sky, they both may be determined, head-strong, natural-born leaders, but the way they go about it is much different. Especially with some instances in the comics, Sky seems more passive than Bloom. Even when he is passed what happened between him and Diaspro, he was willing to marry himself off to her when he thought that she was falling ill over her unrequited feelings. If it were Bloom, she would have tried to come up with a way to find a cure or something before throwing in the towel. Whereas Sky immediately thought that he was directly responsible and was ready to give up most of his desires if it meant that Diaspro wouldn't be sick. You could say that Sky is more sacrificial? than Bloom, sort of.

I actually didn't realize the similarities between Aisha and Nabu. If anything, I'll admit that I was distracted with how mysterious he initially was and I thought that the idea of having a male magical fighter as an ally for the Winx was a breath of fresh air. I actually didn't think Nabu and Aisha were going to hook up until after they started interacting. Though, I wonder why they don't show us male fairies in the first place. Maybe it's because they're so used to making female exclusive fairy outfits? I'm not so sure.

 Now that I look back on it, I guess you're right. I just really wasn't a fan of the Musa/Riven Season 4 conflict in general. It felt like a really grating B Plot to the season that should've ended earlier but didn't for the sake of drama.

Right? She mostly grew as a character thanks to the negative experiences she had with Riven. His actions in Season 1 sort of helped turn that "all girls love bad boys" trope on its head because she realizes for herself that she was crushing on the wrong guy. Sure she tries to get over it and realizes that she isn't over him completely, but she doesn't really go chasing after him right after. If anything, she also learns that she has to be a bit more careful with her emotions and waits it out, wanting to see if Riven is interested in her before she gets any ideas. I felt like she became a stronger person after what Riven personally put her through back when he was a jerk, but when they put that in what's supposed to be a functioning relationship, it suddenly morphs into Musa being in a situation where she needs to leave the guy but she doesn't want to because she loves him. It becomes uncomfortable to watch Musa go through it all.

If Riven ever does come back, I don't want him trying to hook up with Musa again. If anything, I want both of them to realize that their not being together is the best thing for both of them and they both come to agree that their lives will continue being better if they stay apart. That'll probably be the most mature lesson the show teaches: moving on from something that wasn't working.

Yikes. I know that it isn't the best thing when a love interest suddenly surpasses a major character in terms of importance; that's probably really bad storytelling. I'll admit that I thought this for a while, maybe like the beginning of Season 5 when we can clearly see that she still has Nabu's death on her mind. I also noticed that, during the fight scene where Trittanus almost kills Nereus and Aisha uses her Sirenix Wish to revive Nereus, comments sections would explode over her not using the wish to bring Nabu back.

C'mon now! She was thinking in the moment. They're in the middle of a battle and her cousin, crown prince of a kingdom that rules over basically 90% of Andros, was dying in front of her. She was about to lose someone else who was close to her. This is also after that weird daydream about Roy, so this is long after Aisha seemed to have moved on from Nabu. She had accepted his death. Not only was she thinking in the moment, but her act of using the Sirenix Wish on Nereus could also been seen as her accepting the fact that Nabu is gone and he won't be coming back. It's like they forget about the time when, also thinking in the moment, Aisha used the Black Gift to try and revive Nabu, only to have Ogron waste it on a flower. They also tend to forget Aisha being so blinded by rage that she joined the opposing side and was willing to fight her best friends if it meant that she could avenge Nabu. If she were constantly clinging to Nabu's death as if she couldn't be happy on her own, that'd be the absolute worst type of development Aisha could've gotten. No one should have control over one's own happiness. If someone ever feels like that, then it means that they aren't strong enough to be emotionally independent. If Aisha is independent enough to actively rebel against her parents, I'm pretty sure she's emotionally independent enough to move on after already accepting the death of a loved one.

That's the thing I love with how the comics handle Riven: you can see that he is trying. I've only read up to Issue 105 or 106 and, in every instance Riven hurts Musa, he isn't doing on purpose and, most importantly, he isn't being a jerk. Even when Musa is scared about how quick he is to snap at people, Riven explains his circumstances and promises to act less on how negative his past is. Afterwards, whenever there's a Musa/Riven-centric issue, we can see that he is trying. He's just as supportive as the rest of the Specialists, he treasures Musa and he doesn't wish to hurt her. When he does hurt her, it's not through being cold, heartless or outright mean, it's from him being distant. He doesn't immediately become jealous as soon as Musa interacts with another boy and he genuinely acts like a good boyfriend. Even with what goes on in Temptations, he avoids her but he doesn't act like the absolute ass he was in Season 6. He just tries not talking to her and when she confronts him, all he tells her are natural, normal responses for when you've run into someone you don't really have to time to be with: "I don't have time right now," "I'm busy right now, maybe later;" you get the point.

I don't know if it bothers me or if it should make me happy that the comics, a medium that isn't canon to the series, handles one of the major characters better than the canonical medium: the cartoon.

I don't really think that'd be iffy, since, as I was rambling about earlier, the comics tend to handle things better. I was especially a huge fan of that Neruman Arc they added in; that was really cool. Season 4 was already pretty good overall, but the comics just add a whole lot more with the Neruman Arc, the Jenny Carter fight, and even Roxy's experiences in Magix! While I thought that the comics were kind of boring during Season 3, they really pick up after that.

<p style="font-weight:normal;font-size:14px;line-height:22px;">I think the only time it gets really iffy is the whole Tecna being a princess thing. Since, in Adventures on Zenith, the king is Cryos again and Tecna is back to being the Guardian Fairy of Zenith, rather than being its princess as well.

<p style="font-weight:normal;font-size:14px;line-height:22px;">So that's why people accuse Nick of ruining the series! Oh man, I thought it was just people hating on the Nick dub, which has probably the best voice cast for the series to me, and it didn't help that they would never be specific with how Nick ruined Winx Club. It doesn't help either that my first run-in with such accusations were in YouTube comments sections, where a majority of the people who leave comments are little kids talking about how much they want to be a Winx or something. Oh man, it's nice to finally get an answer to that; I had no idea that Nick co-produced the series after Season 4. I just thought that RAI and Rainbow still had their partnership.

<p style="font-weight:normal;font-size:14px;line-height:22px;">Actually, now that I've read more of the comics compared to when this discussion started, I wouldn't mind a fellow aspiring musician to be with Musa. I can already imagine all of the duets happening and how the both of them could end up mirroring the relationship Musa's parents had themselves. I kind of didn't like how it was handled when she ran into Orlando. It came off as she found a cute guy who also happens to play music and was instantly sold. Then again, I was a bit abrasive to Season 7 as a whole in general with the fairy animals feeling like another pixie replacement in terms of just being annoying characters and I still can't get over the Butterflix look and powers. It felt like they recycled the Believix powers(connecting to the hearts and beliefs of people) and made them exclusive to fairy animals. While I wasn't a fan of the Tynix powers either, at least they began to have even more of a purpose towards the end of the season. That darned Butterflix dance just makes me hate the transformation all together; if it wasn't for the dance taking up so much time, possibly even push it to just being an ending sequence that they play over the ending theme only, I wouldn't harp on the Butterflix powers as much. That dance is just time-consuming.

<p style="font-weight:normal;font-size:14px;line-height:22px;">Anyway, with Musa and a fellow musician to be her love interest, you probably explained it best, the love story would write itself with how the both of them could romantically connect on a level closest to them: through music. Especially for Musa since, y'know, she comes from the realm of music.