The Magical Mercenary

The Magical Mercenary is a head-ware item that was released for the video game Team Fortress 2. The hat has caused some controversy over its relation to the series of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and some retaliation of Valve being supported toward Bronies within their video games.

Origin

The Magical Mercenary was released as a workshop item within steam by >>--The Heartsman--→ and Fudgie Wudgie as the same name where little negativity was mentioned about the hat. The hat ended up being released within the Scream Fortress 2013 update as a 'Halloween Restricted hat' with voicelines by the Team Fortress 2 characters; majority of them being related to My Little Pony with the main quote of "Friendship is Magic" – http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=181220079

The popular MLP website Equestira Daily had mentioned the hat with the title 'Unicorn Hat Added to TF2 for Halloween, Pony Lines Included' – http://www.equestriadaily.com/2013/10/unicorn-hat-added-to-tf2-for-halloween.html

Controversy

Due to a major misinterpretation of the use of humor within the voice-lines, majority of anti-bronies had extremely expressed their hatred towards the hat within forums, the steam workshop page for the hat and along many other videos, starting polls and votes to get the hat removed from the game ; related to a possible action of Valve Software to try to either make a supreme amount of money from players (due for the item to be one of the top 10 ingame purchases within the TF2's Mann-Co Store while supposedly pushing their limits of "my little pony references within their games" – https://www.change.org/petitions/valve-corporation-remove-the-magical-mercenary-item-from-team-fortress-2

Bronies have decided to debate with them creating their own poll of trying to get the hat to become available to wear without the Halloween restriction. Some may have been affected by 'Troll Bait' due to some simple accusations of others to troll certain bronies very easily of their fandom and certain particular items related to the franchise.

People within the neutral view of the brony views have tried to protect Valve stating that "it is the type of humor that Valve always tries to imply within their games; those who do not see this will view these voicelines and items in a complete wrong way"

A skin added upon the popular website Gamebanana had allowed the player to replace the hat with a "Ghastly Gibus and removes the unicorn related lines said by the mercenaries" – http://tf2.gamebanana.com/skins/129918

Notable Media Related References