Woot Woot and Gat-Dang! [possible spoilers] · 2:23am Nov 26th, 2013
Welllllll. Well well well. WELL well WELL. Rather a lot of new building blocks they just tossed out onto the play-mat, now isn't it? Somewhat expected, a couple of them were, perhaps -- at least two scenes there that we already pretty much knew the shape of (and which, let's be frank, at least a few of us here have already written better), but it's nice to see how they look in actual show format -- and they've dropped some intriguing new shapes as well. Not even counting the really obvious bait at the end there.
Anyway, the whole time I was loving it, so that's my capsule review: YES THE SHOW PEOPLE KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING, SIT DOWN SHUT UP AND WATCH MAYBE YOU'LL LEARN SOMETHING 8/10 will, with inescapable certainty, watch again
That said, I did have a bit of a GAT-DANGIT there -- not about anything wrong with the episode/s, just the arrgh of a slow and frustrated writer.
A little background here: as of the start of Season 2 I had the first chapter of My Little Pony's Little Ponies published on here, and was wrestling with the rest of it, a little wrestling match which ended up lasting through the whole season. The original plan for the story was shorter and simpler, and it hinged in part on Spike being a bit of a jerk -- taking a fairly snotty stance toward Pinkie and Twilight "playing dolls", and messing up the game with his "action figures".
Then aired A Canterlot Wedding, and of all the things I might have expected the season finale to do, touching on the subject of whether Spike likes to play with dolls was really not one of them.
It wasn't that I felt my story would no longer be "canon". Even then I had the same stance that I've gotten a lot firmer and more crabby about over time: that every fanfic writer has the right to declare what is and is not true within the bounds of the story at hand, and that if people are going to twist their tails about "canon" then HOORAY FOR HERESY*. But it did create an abrupt and irreversible change in my mental image of Spike, and although it still took a long while, the result was eventually the remainder of MLPLP as it came out -- hinging, at the start of Chapter 2, not on Spike coming to spoil things, but on his eagerly joining the game with his own collection of dolls.
So, relevance. As of this season's premiere I've got two chapters of Nuthin' Gold up, and... well. Without giving too much away, suffice to say that this two-parter has dropped a bundle of bombs on the planned draft for N'G. Trivial surface facts I could just brush away, but no amount of disregard for "canon" can change the fact that some of my key scenes are really damn similar to scenes from this episode (and I'm not talking about the flashbacks either. If I'd written a version of Luna's rebellion that uncannily matched the show, I'd just be smug about it). The emotional resolution to this episode, and the way that it relates to the Elements of Harmony, cuts too close to some similar aspects of the story draft (including some specific lines of dialogue) to just ignore.
Put it this way: even if I brush aside everything else from this episode that impinges on my story, I still have to re-write the upcoming scene in which Twilight summons Discord because I have to take out the "shower" joke!
Oh, yes, and about the obvious bait: OMC WHAT'S IN THE BOX WHAT'S IN THE BOOOOOX???
* Twilight's butt is equipped with seatbelts. Either work that into your Serious Story About Serious Ponies In A Serious World, or shut the fuck up about "canon".
What's in the box? Pshhhaa. We'll find that out soon enough.
The real question is: How the hell do those seatbelts work?! It's critical to the understanding of the meaning of ponies! I MUST KNOW!!!!!
Anyway, glad you enjoyed the premiere. It was everything I was hoping it would be.
1541936
Oh yes, enjoyed it very much. It was actually more than I hoped for -- at first glance it seems like they're just filling in bits of history that we already knew, but there are so many little details and implications in those flashback scenes and I can't wait to see the fandom tease them out into stories!
THAT FUCKING BOX
1541969
Hehehe! It's such an obvious and hokey plot device, such a pure McGuffin, that I can't help but grin at the sheer audacity of it. It's like watching a really talented comedian deliver a tired old joke.
And even for all its cheapness as tactic, it still works -- I'll be right along with everyone else climbing up the walls waiting to see what's up with the stupid box!
It's like watching certain seasons of LOST again, except this time I believe that the writers do already know what's in the damn thing.
1541982
I think it was the setup. We were given enough clues that there was more to the tree than meets the eye that you'd spot them during a re-watch, but it still came totally by surprise. And, more importantly, it was an immediate payoff for the mane 6 giving up their elements, hinting that the show's dynamic is going to change rather than just go away.
The box will be like the book from the premiere of season 3 and everyone will be clamoring to guess wtf is in the stupid thing.
So the mane six will probably go through hell to get the keys and get loads of character development all for something like a piece of paper with the words.
"peace on earth"
1542740
Well obviously it contains Marcellus Wallace's soul.