That Moment in Maud Pie... · 7:40pm Mar 15th, 2014
Oh god, my heart. Sad Pinkie Pie fuckin' hits me where I live.
SPOILERS AHEAD
This episode was pretty good. Pinkie Pie wasn't horribly written or turned into a running gag. Maud... was actually kind of awesome? Pinkie Pie's Insane Obstacle Course of Doom was definitely the best moment of the whole episode, when she's trying to explain the whole thing to the group. The critters playing poker? Awesome.
Maud's Rock Poetry was pretty funny. It was kind of that moment that made me realize that the character wasn't a massive gag, but she just had her interests and that was who she was. I literally expected the whole thing was going to end up with Maud having just been unenthusiastic and ultra-monotone as a massive prank that she's been playing, but in the end you totally see that Maud's just... really different from the Mane 6. She's her own character in her own right, and though the rock-related stuff may have been a tad overdone, she's actually a decently well-realized character concept. We actually learned a LOT about her character from all these little moments in the episode, that actually serve to create a strong overall picture of "Who Maud Pie Is".
"She's a Riddle wrapped in a Mystery wrapped in an Igneous." "Don't you mean Enigma?" "No, I mean Igneous. It's a type of rock. Guess how I know that?"
That exchange was beautiful. The first line could have been left as-is and it would have been funny, but getting that second line from Rainbow Dash with the "guess how I know that" bit was really worth pointing out the initial joke.
Hnnngg
She has at least four key indicators of legitimate, clinical autism or severe Asperger's Syndrome (related).
-That voice. That monotonous drone. Oh my.
-Fixation.
-Flat affect.
-Extreme literalism with figures of speech.
-Difficulty understanding body language.
And as a side note,
-Savant: ~10% of autistic persons are exceptionally skilled in a very narrow category. Maud's is rocks.
... I am so late to this party. But I love the presentation of a legitimately autistic character in such a positive way at the end.