"Baby Steps" · 7:29am Feb 17th, 2014
Those two words in yesterday's episode managed to completely redefine the episode, and possibly the character of Fluttershy, for me. I think they might be the two most important words she's ever spoken. Here's why.
Also hi, I started to write a comment on Knighty's official episode discussion thread, but it got too big (LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE I'VE EVER WRITTEN) so I made it a blog post. Mostly because the ending to the episode really struck a chord with me, in a way that no previous Fluttershy story had managed to do.
Plus, the episode is named in honor of Princess Peach's favorite pop artists. She hasn't been the same since the truth came out about them.
So here's the thing about Filli Vanilli: I really didn't like it at first. It seemed to be hitting all the standard Fluttershy episode beats without offering anything new: Hey look, she likes animals. Hey look, she's scared of something. Hey look, events are probably going to conspire to force her to do something that makes her uncomfortable (AKA anything.) Also, Rarity is suddenly the frontman for the Be Sharps. Which should go great until she decides that pony a capella is in danger of growing stale, and she needs to take it to strange new places.
"Number eight. *WAHAHA!* Number eight. *WAHAHA!* Number eight."
Anyway, the first half of the episode goes predictably, with the only surprise being the sexy return of Flutterguy (and arguably Pinkie being a jerk, though she's a lot nicer here than Flutters was to her in Putting Your Hoof Down. Payback's a pink, hyperactive bitch, Butterfly Butt.)
The episode started to win me over a bit in its second half, thanks to Fluttershy's infectiously joyful (and increasingly ad-libbed) vocal performances with the group. But it still felt a bit too familiar, a bit more like confirmation that Fluttershy episodes had descended into formula. It seems to be the common fan complaint with Fluttershy: she keeps re-learning the same lesson over and over again. Even the strongest moments felt like retreads: the metaphor for stage fright, with the giant pony spotlight eyes, was the best visual shorthand for social anxiety I've seen....since the very similar scene in Hurricane Fluttershy two years earlier. It kind of encapsulated the issue I had with this episode: it was fun, jolly, and cute, and very well made, but we've kind of seen it all before.
But then, this scene changed everything:
Moments like these are why I love this sort of character-driven writing. With two little words, Amy Keating Rogers managed to underscore a major part of Fluttershy's development so perfectly that it forced me to reevaluate everything she's done in all her previous episodes.
In fiction, we're a bit too used to epiphany-based development: the idea that a character can quickly work through a flaw or personal limitation as a result to a major event in his/her life. It's happened on MLP numerous times. Dash learned to embrace her love of reading after being "driven to petty theft" by her Daring Do obsession. Rarity learned not to get carried away with self-promotion after almost dying at the Best Young Flyer Competition. And Applejack didn't learn anything.
The original draft of her letter just read, "Suck it, your majesty! Love, Applejack."
Epiphanies like these can certainly happen in real life. In extraordinary circumstances, a person can radically and permanently change their behavior in a very short time, but it usually takes some pretty unprecedented circumstances. But characters in fiction encounter unprecedented circumstances all the time. Their lives tend to be very eventful, so these sort of big epiphanies can happen to them on a regular basis.
And that's all well and good, but...it's not how life usually works. People can and do change, but it's usually a gradual, incremental process, and it comes from countless small experiences, not just one big one. Sometimes there is no driving event at all, aside from the most important one possible: making the personal choice to start a change in your own life.
And even when people have big, extraordinary experiences, those might just kick off a long, slow journey of personal growth and change. This is a theme I find myself exploring a lot in my writing (people who've read all of Tarnished Silver know what I'm talking about, he said, tooting his own horn nonsexually) because I see it happen so rarely in fiction. I think there's something beautiful and hopeful about saying, "this is just the start for me, but one day I'll be the person I want to become. And it all starts here."
And that's essentially what Fluttershy said at the end of today's episode. She wants to be more confident, but she recognizes that it's not going to happen as quickly as she would like. And the "baby steps" line almost feels like her asking us all to be patient with her, and to recognize that this sort of change doesn't happen overnight.
Fluttershy is a pony who suffers from some fairly serious confidence and anxiety issues. She's someone who grew up with very little confidence in herself, a weak flyer in a culture which values flight ability as paramount. She was a victim of bullying. There's a lot of baggage for her to deal with, and it's perhaps a bit presumptuous of her friends (and her viewers) to think that one or two wacky adventures are going to fix all that. It's going to take a long time, but the biggest, most important step has already been taken. As of this episode, she recognizes that she's on that path, and that it will a long one. And that's the most important lesson she could learn.
This forced me to go back and rewatch the whole episode a second time, and it held up much better with that fresh bit of insight into Fluttershy's character. In fact, my one gripe is that her journal entry didn't highlight this theme, instead returning to the usual "face your fears" moral she normally gives us.
Seen in that light, previous episodes like Dragonshy and Hurricane Fluttershy feel less like examples of a character "re-learning a lesson," and more like steps along Fluttershy's journey. We're not going to get to see every step she takes, and, thanks to the caprices of television, it's more likely that we'll see less of her progress and more of the times when she slips and falls, because that makes for better viewing than a small, quiet step forward.
But those small victories ("Today I went out and mingled in a crowd without getting nervous!") are still going to happen, one by one. This week we learned that Fluttershy has a name for them. She calls them baby steps.
So kudos to Amy Keating Rogers for shedding profound new light on the way Fluttershy is written with just one line of dialogue. She could have gone for the easy, perfect ending and had Flutters completely get over her stage fright, but she pulled back and gave us a terrific character moment instead. That takes some serious skill.
....or maybe I'm reading way too much into one sentence written for a cartoon based on a line of dolls?
Nah, that's ridiculous. Every word uttered on MLP has more subtext than EIGHT POUNDS OF SHAKESPEARE.
It's how we know that these two randomly chosen background Flash assets are in fact MADLY IN LOVE.
OVERALL EPISODE GRADE: I don't know. Twelve potatoes out of five hamsters. I'm not going to come up with a system that makes sense because that would imply that I intend to do this analysis bullshit more than once. No way am I falling into that trap! See you next week for 80,000 words about the profound thematic meaning behind Hayseed Turniptruck.
He represents mankind's hubris.
... I'm still stuck on how Pinkie has been getting the shaft this season. I ... I'm not going to clutter this with my own thoughts but I can only see the corruption of pink lately. In regards to your actual blog,-post, I feel ya man. And actually, I might have seen this too but given it less weight because of my distaste for that one issue I mentioned previously.
A bit of a one-trick-pony ya know?
Also, Ham you might want to give this blog an actual name because it's a pain to get into without one.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who was touched by those two words. When I watched the episode for the first time, I was just about to call it out for having a weak resolution, when they suddenly showed that Fluttershy's concert was just for her friends and animals. Once she uttered the words "baby steps", it completely redeemed the episode for me. Though this episode's not one of my favourites this season, it's definitely one worth watching.
It really caught my attention when Fluttershy said, "baby steps everypony, baby steps," but for the life of me I could not figure out why. I want to say subconsciously I probably came to a similar conclusion, but I'm not sure.
Still, thanks for posting this. It helped clear that question out of my head.
Agreed. That one line about "baby steps" is what makes this fantastic as a Fluttershy episode, and it really should have been added to her diary entry. Especially since the first half of the episode looks sort of like a repeat of Hurricane Fluttershy. And looking back at a lot of the Fluttershy episodes in the series, I can see why people might call they same-y, but at the same time I think they're missing a lot of the context and grossly oversimplifying the lessons in them.
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I've read some brilliant blog posts, and some idiotic ones.
I have ready some things that are some of the funniest things in the world, and some that are simply upsetting and cringe-worthy.
I have seen things that make you want to be ashamed of something, and others that make you proud of who you are.
You, sir or madam, have knocked this one completely out of the part with this, and like you said, it's all from just a few simple words. Godspeed to you, Fluttershy. We were a little worried about you, but now we know that you are gonna be all right.
Again, congratulations.
See I hadn't really given this any thought, but you certainly make some good points here. Nice one Ham.
It's good to see you're still about!
I quite liked Pinkie Pie in this one, if a kid watching didn't know why someone would be afraid of performing I guess they do now