Everybody has been saying how Twilight becoming an alicorn won't change anything, and that's bullshit. She's a princess now, with a big ceremonial coronation and everything. She's not going to be living in the Ponyville library anymore. Nopony is going to treat her like some random mare anymore. She most likely has some minor royal responsibilities now and must live in Canterlot Castle. Unless they change the theme of the show to how difficult but worthwhile it is to find time to spend with your friends, they won't have much material for new episodes unless Twilight only makes occasional guest appearances.

Not to mention the fact that Twilight will now be forced to watch as all of her friends die of old age. And Celestia never really warned Twilight what she was doing to her.

I'm very sad.

Not to undercut Norse's work, but writing better finales than the actual crew isn't all that hard. The execution of this particular finale was seriously atrocious. I mean, I have to question whether the people doing it have the right to call themselves 'writers': apes smearing feces on paper might be a more accurate description, as long as you're not wearing your 'MLP blinders'.

That said, i think Norse's rendition is excellent, and conceptually similar to my own assumptions about how this would pan out. The most important feature by far is that it actually empowers Twilight as a successful character rather than utterly dissolving her successes by making it a destiny (the absolutely worst way to evolve a character ever conceived my a human's diseased mind).

Now that it's over, i can safely say that season three has almost completely cured my of my pony interests. I can barely care anymore since it was so extraordinarily dire. I restrained myself previously on the assumption that my feelings on the writers was just knee-jerk hyperbole, but now I honestly don't think they have a clue what they're doing.

-M

838347 Season 3 was poorly-written almost to an episode. I tend to think it was because Hasbro was getting ready to cancel the show, and just wanted to get that extra half-season out so it could be syndicated, so they underfunded it, which meant the studio had to cut corners. However it happened, the writing staff was not up to the standard of the first two seasons, that's for sure.

But with Amy Keating Rogers returning to the show for S4, as well as full funding, I remain optimistic about the possibilities for the show in the next season. Only time will tell.

838361 As a footnote, any episode that actually bothered to do a Luna–Celestia follow up (especially one including make-up nuzzles) would actually make me have a nerd-gasm. It's hard to accept the cried of 'they had to change something' when there is so much good stuff they haven't even touched on yet.

Am I the only one that thought the premise of being able to achieve a destiny beyond what society/upbringing marks you by as being a rather clever and endearing part of that first half?

And downplaying the closeness of Celestia and Luna's relationship like that... sorry you lost me on that one. You *did* see the second part of the pilot episodes right? Nightmare Moon, Luna's return, that teary omg I got my sister back after so long from that monster that took over her heart and body? The bits and pieces of Lauren's lore for Celestia that she tried not to fully explain probably for legal reasons case they wanted to take the show another direction down the road, i.e. not turn her into GOD but basically saying she had the ability to see possible futures, and in one saw a young filly Twilight and the fateful return of her sister Luna?

To have orchestrated, waited a thousand years, not just waited, meticulously planned such an intricate web of fate that she practically shaped all of Equestria to what it is today just for the sole purpose of bringing LUNA back, freeing her of Nightmare Moon once and for all, and at the cost of knowing if her plan failed she'd a doomed all the ponies for not getting rid of Nightmare Moon the chance she had- forever trapped within her sun as Nightmare Moon plunges her world to darkness and snuffing out the lives of all Celestia's ponies?!

*gasp* *wheeze*

Yeah, not close my ass, that's even worst than what you claim the s3 finale to be! HASBRO put the ban on Luna, because she was too dark and made the shit claim that she wouldn't sell. She's too scary they say. Why do you think we only got to see her ONCE in s2 during a Holloween episode? Doesn't help that at the time, even when they did get more freedom, Thiessan seemed to not even REMEMBER Celestia having a sister for all he was doing busy going over stuff with Lauren and other things.

I'm still bummed Luna got thrown in after the Royal Wedding was completed... That is why everyone treats her like a ghost and she got stuck with bit roles... "Changeling invasion? Royal Wedding? Screw that I had conventions to attend!"

*sigh*

The episode was great the first 11 minutes. It's a musical. Think Cats, or OZ. Dialogue is all done in song.Fastest way to tell a story in a short amount of time. The episode did try to distract you with the whole song and dance with smoke and wall eyed mirrors to downplay the morbid scenes we'd overlook and the "Because she IS a princess" hurr moments.

After Twilight died, "yay girls we're back together again!" zapped by her 'true, true friends' straight into the afterlife. QUEUE HYSTERIA FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL HOURS WHILE TWILIGHT GETS TO RELIVE HER LIFE THROUGH A MONTAGE LEAD BY CELESTIA GOD OF EQUESTRIA'S CELESTIAL PLANES! (heaven) Now let us recreate her very soul and body. Celestia's daughter now? Seems technically legit!

Several Hours of Mourning Twilight's Death....

The mares exit the tree house, knowing it's time to head on home as it's well deep into the night... all hope is lost. They will never see Twi-

And here comes the SECOND COMING OF JES- I mean TWILIGHT SPARKLE! TIS A MIRACLE!

"Oh shit, Twi, that you?!"

"Bitch gots WINGS! oh fuck yeah, suck it you flightless losers!"

"Oh my, she's a Princess now!"

"Because sh- yeah, pretty much. It's like plastic surgery... If you want to get ahead in life you gotta look the part first!"

"Bitch please, I'm fabulous! Twilight commands you all NOT TO BOW BEFORE HER!"

*all bows*

"SON OF- fine whatever... I'll go pickup those princess books from the kiddy section I guess..."

Ok, well... yeah... that happened... Nothing to say really.

Shit was so forced down out throats I could almost see Hasbro shoving that spoon in my mouth just as a Derpy or new song popped up.
We'll never know what toys they got hidden currently, aside from those Equestria Girls, but I know they have Discord and Tartaurus for a reason. Villains and Discord are wild cards. They can hard reset if the formula ever gets so funked that sales on Hasbro's side starts sinking so low they revoke Twilight's demi-god status.

Your version wasn't all bad, but your alternative would of left just as many a bad taste in one's mouth as the last 9 minutes (excluding Celestia's song of distraction, and a powerful one at that, to dwell on the other 5's wrecked emotions down below lols) would be. Close, but just missed it. Also, the flash freezing over the sun burn was so Rarity.

And the transitions to return the girls to their destinies was good, they all took something from that, and I doubt they'll ever look at the other friend's jobs the same, especially Fluttershy who gave that "No one gives a flying feather about your" and AJ from Look Before You Sleep knowing *exactly* the woes of how hard it is to work on dresses.

I'll have to say, the musical was great. If you see it for what it was... a *MUSICAL* and those aren't supposed to have more than a few lines of dialogue for the most part. It's, I forgot the word, but it's all about your ability to absorb the context of the songs, because all the emotion and the story bits are squeezed into them. Still, lots of unanswered questions, but we'll see those in the other 2 episodes of this proposed 3 parter.

TL;DR: Diamond Dazzler Tiara is best pony, your argument is invalid!

Not bad. Does seem weightier than 22 minutes can handle. I think the important change is that she fixes far more than just her friends; that lends weight to the whole ascension doodle.

BUT YOU CUT OUT THE SINGING INTRO THAT IS A SIN >:|

You should be a show writer by now.

I will not call you 'student' anymore, but 'my friend.'

This line.

dl.dropbox.com/u/5331373/memes/Clap-Clap-Clap.gif

I didn't read his whole response, but what I did see from Telaros was that yes, this finale was most definitely a musical. Aside from that point I like your re-write here, but I did like the musical numbers. I hate to admit it, but for some reason True, True Friend actually made me cry.

Hm.... interesting take, Norse (he said in the comments, because the aforesaid Norse was not on Skype at the time). I agree with you that the finale is a complete mess and that no amount of "we had to handle this, that, and the other thing" really justifies it. It forgot to have a conflict for the entire second half, for Pete's sake. That's a huge fucking misstep. I don't really need to see Twi get patted on the back for 10 minutes, thanks.

Honestly, that's the thing I most dislike about every time Twi comes up in this season... I already like her, show. She's the best pony. Stop trying to sell me on it and just let her, like, "be." Man.

(But seriously where were the episodes in which Twilight was actually a flawed character, you know, like how Faust created all the characters in the show to be?)

*Ahem* Anyway, your take is a very clever adaptation of the story already in place. I think making Twilight's ascension a side-effect rather than a reward fixes the single biggest problem I have with the whole thing, and, frankly, was what I expected in the first place.

That being said, I think you're also tipping your hand slightly as someone who doesn't have as much experience writing for television here. You mention deliberately making things that could be handled in quick cuts for time, but that ultimately means you're having your characters employ the same tactics repeatedly, and conveying them in a similar way. Mind you, the episode does this anyway. But what you're talking about most resembles Twilight un-Discording her friends, which you'll notice in that episode, has one instance where it is clearly shown (Applejack), three rapid-fire repetitions, and it then immediately ceases to be a valid tactic (well, that is, catching Rainbow Dash in order to use the spell on her becomes something that requires a different approach). You might be able to get away with "[line about a past event] cut [another memory] cut [another memory]" type deal once or twice but if you started going through it a lot, without any real escalation, I think it would lead to a somewhat boring episode, even though you've done a nice job of keeping the stakes high.

It's also a very talk-y cure. The reason the memory spell is a spell and not Twilight just talking to her friends is to get that visual component in place where scenes of their friendship play out on-screen.

However, I like the way you found the character arc that the episode should have had, even if I think Luna not considering Celestia a friend is something that would never happen in the show. It's a nice piece of headcanon, and I'm all for a Celestia who is more flawed than the show makes her out to be, but I don't think the show would ever touch on the idea of "a relationship that should be close but isn't."

Also your final moment is worth a thousand coronation scenes, but I think Hasbro mandated that it end in an actual coronation scene, to judge by the marketing. Which is a shame, because, you know, if you're not a reluctant princess, a coronation scene is inherently not very fucking dramatic.

Anyway, my two cents on your two cents. This would have made a much better story, and probably a better episode but I think you would need to mix some things up to really make use of the format and for variety's sake.

P. S. You are also 100% correct that revealing that Twilight was responsible for the whole Cutie Mark snafu in flashback was INCREDIBLY FUCKING DUMB. Finding out that you are retroactively responsible for something bad CAN be an interesting reveal but in this case it was only there to justify the first song, and it really ruined any tension. And basically made it seem like Twi -hadn't- even screwed up. Which is a motif in this season... (have I mentioned that I am annoyed with how much S3 tries to smooth over Twilight's character flaws?)

840194 I like all the songs as songs. They're very nice pieces of music that I enjoyed and am looking forward to remixes of. My beef with them was in how they were used in the episode - I feel that most of them took up time without establishing characterization or advancing the plot, which caused a lot of the plotless feel of the episode. They were too busy cramming songs in to write the episode, in my opinion.

842141 You're quite right about the repetition. The hypothetical second draft of this would be workshopped to change things up some.

The talkyness of the cure is something I stand by. The theme of the show is "friendship," and the cause of Twilight's alicornization is "friendship," and so friendship has to be front and center in the final episode of the series (which is what the actual episode was written to be, and that is something I kept in mind while doing this rewrite). I felt that we had already seen magic restore friendship with the memory spell, and so this time it had to be restored through being a friend.

And the show did touch on relationships which should be close but aren't. That's specifically why it was Rarity who urged Twilight on and why the flashback was to Sisterhooves Social. Plus, I stand by it as an age-appropriate thing, because many kids are not particularly close with their siblings, and so Luna and Celestia having that same problem would resonate.

842175 Well, the challenge in making a non-talky friendship-based cure is finding a way of showing friendship that isn't all talk, right? Not easy, but important for a cartoon, I think.

For instance, when Fluttershy remembers that Rainbow Dash is "a loyal friend" in this ep, she glances at the box containing the Elements of Harmony. It's not a GREAT use of visual or anything and it still relies on the dialogue but you can see the impulse towards keeping a visual component to something as abstract as memory.

Obviously a memory spell is something we've seen before, though. I might suggest... hm. Helping them straighten out what they were doing/failing at, sort of using teamwork to substitute for talent, and having it line up with some event from the past that sparks the relevant memory. So, for Applejack, say, it would be as simple as Twilight insisting that she needs help--and Applejack refusing--and FLASH we're back at Applebuck Season, and suddenly AJ remembers everything. It's dialogue-driven, but I think it's stronger than "remember when" and keeps a focus on some activity (i.e. AJ's dressmaking). Rarity controlling the weather could have a callback to the storm in Look Before You Sleep, and so on. You can probably do a relevant episode for everyone, though I'd have to think about which ones.

Note: Doing that does lose you some of the "remember our friendship!" theme, I suppose, but it gives you the equivalent of the ep's "a real friend always helps their friends out" with a stronger tie to the past history rather than to destiny. Not sure if I'd consider that a problem. (Plus, sentimental callbacks to old episodes would be cool in a finale)

Hmm... you may have a point with Rarity and Sweetiebelle, but I feel like the idea there is that they always loved each other but had to figure out how to respect each other's needs. Regardless, I suppose that the real issue with having that in the show would be the implication that Celestia is not a font of wisdom and kindness at all times, friend to all living things, etc. Which the show could do! It would be nice. But I feel like there's been a conscious decision to avoid that. And if you really wanted to get into why Luna and Celestia didn't get along that would be an episode unto itself, and it would either have to be a series of rather petty things or a series of rather dramatic things, and yeah. But perhaps that is all implication and not necessarily prohibitive to having that moment. Certainly the idea that Twilight has "passed the buck" to her other friends to cure everyone else, but has to cure Celestia personally is a good one, and you do need a reason why it isn't Luna.

842198 My feeling regarding familial relationships is that love and friendship are two different, and separable, things. Saying that Luna and Celestia were never close enough to be friends does not also say that they do not love each other. They obviously love each other; just look at episode 2 when Luna is returned to being herself. But they could love each other while not being close on a personal level. Which ties in neatly to the flashback to Sisterhooves Social, because Rarity's and Sweetie Belle's relationship can be read that way at the start of the episode.

And yeah, Celestia has been intentionally kept distant and inscrutable. But this was written as the final episode of the series, so some rule-breaking on that front was fine, I felt.

I originally considered just leaving Luna out of the script entirely, as the writers are wont to do. But I decided that it would be stronger, and would justify Twilight's alicornization more effectively, if she not only demonstrated a mastery of mundane friendship but also of godly friendship. (Also in that same vein, Twilight consciously moving from thinking of herself as merely Celestia's student to allowing herself to consider the idea of being friends with Celestia was important, if subtle.)

842230

Actually that wouldn't fit, as once Celestia and Luna wielded the Elements of Harmony meaning yes they had actually been close friends. So in this case having Luna say she and her sister had never been close does not work and what would be stronger wis showing how that just because to sisters were close at one point does not mean their friendship cannot be threatened.

Friendship is needed to use the Elements of Harmony, and as such it can reasonablly be said that if the royal sisters once wielded the Elements then they clearly had a strong friendship. It was the fact that this friendship fell apart, Luna doubting herself and her sister, that would lead to the coming of Nightmare Moon and Celestia being forced to banish her sister to save Equestria from harm.

850006 The link between friendship and the Elements wasn't known until Twilight discovered it. From the transcript of the second episode:

Twilight Sparkle: Oh. There are six Elements of Harmony, but only five are known: Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, Honesty and Loyalty. The sixth is a complete mystery. It is said, the last known location of the five elements was in the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters.

So it's not far-fetched to say that when the princesses wielded them, they didn't need to be friends, but only sufficiently harmonious.

850106

Keep in mind though that Twilight herself did not know much about the Elements of Harmony, heck before reading the book talking about them (possibly given to her by her mentor Celestia) she didn't even know they existed.
One thousand years had passed since the Elements of Harmony had last been used, and more than likely knowledge of the Elements of Harmony grew scarce. Sure Celestia could have kept the knowledge of the elements known to her subjects, but such would have been painful... reminding her and Equestria of her failure to protect her sister and keep her friendship with Luna strong.

Evidence from the show proves time and again that you NEED friendship to use the Elements of Harmony correctly, that only through the close bond that friendship brings can one be connected to the Elements. When Celestia's bond to her sister, her friendship with Luna, was broken so was their connection with the Elements of Harmony broken.
Through this it is impressive that Celestia was able to use the Elements at all against Nightmare Moon, but personally I feel it is because of her love for her sister and the friendship they had once shared that she was able to call upon its power to bind the evil that had transformed Luna into what she had become... until such a time that others could wield the Elements of Harmony, and show a connection to what the Elements represented.

850106

No wait I take part of that back, Twilight did read about the Elements of Harmony before but it would seem she didn't think much of them. I apoligize for the mistake, but still very little was know about them and the rest of my point stands.

850204 Oh yeah, and I agree with that headcanon as something that could be the case. It's plausible, certainly. But I'm explicitly rejecting it for this purpose, because it doesn't fit what I'm doing here. : D

851505

Well that is fair, all that matters to me is that you admit such headcanon is reasonable, I am not asking you to change your story.