Episode Review: For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils · 2:13am Mar 28th, 2014
Notice I didn't misspell it this time. Review after the break.
So, this one marks the third 'sisters' episode in a row. First, we had Applejack and Applebloom in Somepony To Watch Over Me and last week we had Pinkie Pie introducing us to her sister Maude Pie. Do you think more of these thematic episode line-ups will be coming in season 5? We already have two Spike Episodes back-to-back coming up before the finale, if it's a two-parter. However, this week instead of coddling or getting siblings to interact and make friends with one siblings friends, we talk about a common sibling issue: One (often the elder) outshining the other and making them feel eclipsed and ignored. Hmm. I think we've heard this one before.... like, in the first episode of the series. Weird, huh?
Rarity uses her "Glasses of Cuteness" to add +15 to her charisma.
For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils begins with Rarity and Sweetie in Carousel Boutique where Rarity is busy getting an order done for Sapphire Shores. Hey! That's a name we haven't heard in a while! Sweetie is doing her best to help when, in typical kid fashion, she mentions she needs Rarity to help her finish some dresses for a play they are putting on the very next day. Rarity is understandably strained, but to her credit she does make her sister her top priority and opens the friend sweatshop again in order to finish her contract. At the performance, Sweetie mentions to the audience (us) that the play was written, directed, assembled and will star her in a role and her worry that her sister will not deliver the costumes in time. When Rarity DOES show up, she comes with dresses totally unlike the originals and so well done that, when the play is over, the audience is so taken by them that they forget the lackluster play all together.
This makes Sweetie Belle snap! While putting the finishing touches on her order, the door into Rarity's room flies open with an irate filly throwing down the dresses. Rarity asks how the play was, worried, only to get sassed about how the dresses stole the show. The other mane six smartly leave the room to let the siblings squabble. Though, Rarity misses the point and Sweetie is a little obtuse about it since the elder thinks the former is upset because the dresses were bad until Squeeky Belle makes it obvious that is not the case and that it is like her 5th birthday all over again. The younger goes to her room (in the boutique) and vents loudly about everything that pisses her off about Rarity, making the elder reconsider trying to talk her down. Then, after not being able to sleep, Sweetie decides that Rarity needs to PAY for upstaging her and pay DEARLY! While she is sleeping, Sweetie goes into Rarity's room and sabotages the order with much malicious glee before soundly going to sleep. That is supervillian material there.
But her dreams are not so peaceful. After nearly being murdered by a Raricloud at an outdoors awards ceremony, Sweetie is saved by Princess Luna, who tells her that she sympathizes with Sweetie in her plight... but that she must stop her dark urges before she brings ruin like she herself once had. We then get the A Christmas Carol treatment with Luna taking Sweetie back to her aforementioned fifth birthday party where she sees the event from both her own and Rarity's point of view and learns Rarity was just sparing her feelings from her douche-bag "friends". They then go to the present to see Rarity having a slight anxiety attack over her order not being absolutely perfect before Luna shows the future where Rarity becomes ruined and ridiculed by her once best client and descends into madness. The next morning, Sweetie wakes to find her sister has left for Canterlot, so she gets her friends together. They break into Sapphire Shore's place and steal the essential head dress. Luna encounters Sweetie Belle in person and helps her not only fix her error, but add some flare that sweeps the Pony of Pop off of her hooves and praise Rarity greatly. They talk over their feelings, there is no journal entry, the end.
ScootaNun. Now it's a Thing.
Princess Luna is a fan favourite character without a shadow of a doubt. Before season 2, she was only seen once and never heard from again, giving her a cult following either out of sympathy or for the 'cuteness' factor. We also learn, in this episode, that she helps ponies more from the shadows, but is a little more overt about it than her sister (from what we have seen). That said, in season 3's Sleepless In Ponyville, where she visited Scootalloo in her nightmares, she felt a little shoe-horned and very... fan service. That was remedied with this episode where, not only was she a plot device to help the character see the err of their ways, but was also instrumental to the solution of the conflict. That's more than old sun-butt has ever done, and I am very happy to see this. That said, I feel Celestia is becoming under-represented. She has either been Warfed, absent, the source of anxiety, quest giver or just a spectator in every episode she has ever appeared in. I want her to take on a more active role in Season 5, maybe with an episode just to establish the bond between her and Luna. Who's with me? Love for Celestia?
Sweetie is totally stealing Vinyl's 'swag' factor here.
First and foremost, I loved the design of the dream realm here. I like to imagine each of those little star-like objects are portals into ponies dreams that Luna can walk in and out of at will. There was also some nice, cryptic scenes and tidbits that tie in later, especially with the dolphins in both the dream and the flash of future events to justify the fix to the head dress. While I thought Rarity was a little hammy at first in the 'bad end' view, honestly, who thinks the resident drama queen of Ponyville would NOT go crazy like that with her career utterly destroyed? I mean, you remember season 1? She's risen a LOT since then in her career and the higher they are...
Now for the stuff I did not love so much. During the dream sequence, I did NOT like Sweetie narrating what we can plainly see happening. It's just lazy and makes me feel like the show thinks I am stupid or something and it just doesn't sit well with me. Also, why did they invent a brand-new filly when they could have just made it Diamond Tiara, but younger as well? I mean, it would make more sense that way. Wait a moment. How did three fillies get on a train WITHOUT an escort, when a previous episode made it quite clear that they could not board without one? Is it just because they're going to Canterlot opposed to the Crystal Empire?
The Face of (Adorable) Evil
Dave Polsky has done a consistently great job this season and this episode continues the trend. While it may suffer in a couple of places, they are more or less just nitpicks behind a solid story, memorable visuals and good humour. At the end of the day, if you were to trap me in the dream world forever, I would give this episode a completely arbitrary 82/100.
Next week, Granny Smith is ill and all seems lost when the Flim-Flam Brothers return to Ponyville and offer her an elixir that seems to have completely cured her! But Applejack is rightful perturbed by the pair of ponies, given that they tried to take over the farm and run them out of town. Are the twins up to their old tricks, or will Applejack have to take a Leap of Faith? Until then, this is Ciroton saying, "Serves Her Right! What? It's the name of one of her songs!"
Obligatory Best Princess Picture.
Obligatory reference, GO!
With that out of the way, I'm very surprised you didn't mention Luna's voice suddenly changing towards the end of the episode; something a lot of people picked up on.
Seriously, go back and watch it again if you don't believe me. It's very odd.
Otherwise, fantastic episode. Much better than Somepony To Watch Over Me.
Some head-scratching moments here or there but nothing I found that broke the episode for me. Squeeky Belle was adorable and Luna continues to petition for best princess.
Not that she ever lost that position.
Your point about Celestia now being the one overshadowed is pretty true. I guess that we now have a local princess and no letters to send, Sun Butt isn't needed. Aw well, at least she's great in the comics.
Next week, another villain(s) make their reappearance! I'm hoping for another catchy song.
If this sort of thing keeps up, we're probably going to end up asking ourselves "Why is that large off-white alicorn in the opening credits when everyone knows that Luna is calling the shots?" She's turning into Fonzie!!!
ironically i imagined that the dreamscape is kind like a stary nebula for a fanfic i am wariting............. damn i love this season.
good review, and a good episod.e............
be honest i have to agree. far too many people hate on the regal sisters, celestia. though in the deense of those situations where they actually got beat, those are some overwhelming forces. with chrysalis she had surprised and the love of a lovedrunk stallion to help her overpower celestia.
with the plunder vines, well they consumed the power of a god tree. a god treeh olding back a primeval forest too. i doubt even dsicord could have jsut eliminated the threat himself, as those vines likely became more powerful, as a whole, than himself.
anyway, the writes really really need a couple of episodes where they can show that yes, the regal sistes are powerful. hell it could even be twilight getting high on flashback potion and seeing them fighting bad guys. it is very easy to infer that celesita is powerful, competent, and wise, but a lot of people will need outright proof. like your comment that luna has done more than celestia has............ well has done more in the show than we have seen.......... seriousl,y we need some celestia lvoe here.
though maybe the comics are bieng used as the medium for that i guess. not quite as satisfying as an actual episode but so far, i like how they flesh them out. in a micro comic especially we see that celestia is protective of those she cares for personallly. in the newer micro series, we get her giong on a minor adventure with Spike to get special lesnes for a telescope. not only is spike not a butt monkey, but we get some itnerstign fleshing out for celestia. put simply they get caught, but celestia was in control and did not want to hurt the rather sutpid but otherwise harmless agressors. let spike help them get out.
we learn that while there aer many threats celestia could ahve defeated herself, some easily, she uses the emphasis Many in an itnersting way. there are opponents celestia either was not able to defeat or could not defeat without causing mayhem, opponents that twilight managed defeat with her friends. it was an itnersting way of having her admit she is very powerful, eyt admiting she has many limits as well.
best part of it all was that we have confirmation that, if anything had GONE wrong with twilight's adventures, celestia would hve intervened. celestia views herself as a teacher, but unlike a teacher if someone is struggling or in danger, she will nto hesitate to help them.
we do get a very, very beat up celestia in the latest chapter, but it seems to be implied that she fought to aggressors that were, invididually, equal to her powers.
1960705
Speaking to someone who has never read the comics, your point about her in the Comicverse means absolutely nothing to me. *Shrug*
1960627
Why not go deeper with that reference all the way to the source?
1962018
Agreed. There's far too much love for Luna, whose character flaws allowed her to be possessed by an entity that used her powers to nearly destroy all life on their little planet, per word of Faust. People (mostly NLR zealots) treat Celestia as if she's canonically some power-mad tyrant who was jealous of Luna and banished her for revenge or fun.
Too many people just don't like Celestia because she's the authority figure, even though she's loving and warm and motherly and quirky. Too many people also have this horrendous "anything dark is cool" that's borderline 'evil fanboy'-mode.
Where the fuck is the Celestia praise? She's the one who spent a thousand years being utterly alone in a world full of creatures, working 24/7, maintaining an entire kingdom and the balance of the whole world. A thousand years of ceaseless toil and nightly pain at having to lose her only beloved sister for the sake of all their subjects and the rest of the world. Do any of these people who trash on Celestia know what it's like to be in that sort of position? Endless toil, soul-breaking circumstances, knowing you can never quit or people will die? Being too kind-hearted to care for yourself when others are in need even if they care more about themselves or something petty than they do for you?
I want to know how many Celestia-haters know what that feels like. I want to know how many of them still say she's trash or secretly evil or how she sucks compared to Luna because she doesn't do anything fun. (I'm sorry, running a kingdom here. Making sure the entire world gets to live another day.)
We need more Celestia love. Enough pandering to the Luna fanatics. She's gotten her own episode and been centric to the resolution in two more since then, with quite a bit of screentime and dialogue between them. They Worf Celestia and treat her like a joke or questgiver, when she's obviously best pony. I can't imagine any other pony in the entire franchise has gone through what she has and yet she still hasn't fallen to any Nightmare-like entity or just flipped everyone off and walked. The scars on the soul of a character like that have to run all the way to the core (not a human ever born who could claim to have gone through just what we know she has alone and not have their mind break), and yet there is no recognition or love. Hell, even I love Luna, but the fact she completely occludes what a wonderful and plausibly deep character Celestia is for no reason other than fanatics, night-fans, and the fanon wankery of authority-haters burns me to no end.
Praise Her Divine Radiance Sol Invictus, and go with the Dawnmother's grace. Join the Solar Empire today.
1962331 I could've, but I opted for the awesomeness of metal. I needed to headbang at the time.
1963215
Sir/Madam, you are writing prompts and you don't even know it. Kindly refrain from teasing my inner muse.
Not everyone who loves Luna thinks this way. Our dear Princess of the Night deserves hugs and cuddles, but I have just as much love for Celestia.
We don't have Celestia's full history, mind. There may very well have been times she's done exactly the latter. Whether out of spite, anger, or an attitude of "the price of helping you is simply too high".
I realise you're not being entirely serious, but discussion is fun, no?
1963381
Not entirely serious. o/ Discussion is quite fun, though I'd be lying if I said I didn't identify with a lot of the issues the character's had to go through based on what we know.
Also, you have no idea how rare you are. I've been trading blows with NLR-folk since season 1 and I've almost NEVER seen an obvious Luna-fan who also adored Celestia. Maybe just the hundreds of people I've dealt with were the exception under this topic, but in my experience someone who loves both princesses is kind of rare! Many kudos to you!