Everyone else is doing it, so here I go! Season finale thoughts and spoilers! · 9:31pm May 10th, 2014
I know what you're all thinking.
"We've seen 7852748268 blogs about today's episodes...BUT WE MUST HEAR WHAT TWINKLE THINKS OR OUR LIVES ARE INCOMPLETE!"
Thank you for your very loud praise. It is greatly appreciated.
So! Here goes! As a spoiler buffer, here is what I'm eating for lunch.
-Turkey and ham sandwich
-Cheese balls (please don't misinterpret this if you're reading, Weird Al)
-Wild Cherry Pepsi
ARE WE GOOD? OKAY!
So. Throughout the season, as well as in previous seasons, I like to think that I've been quite the Positive Pete. I can only name one episode that I've absolutely panned in the entire run (I'm looking at you, Spike At Your Service...though not literally since I don't feel like watching you). Barring that one, I've mostly rated episodes from okay to fantastic. I also realize that doing this has put me in plenty of positions (~) where I have gone against the popular opinion.
For instance, I liked Bats!
(The episode, not the author. Though I like the author too! But I don't think I'm in the minority there, considering his follower count)
As such, at least from what I've seen so far, I once again find myself on the opposite side of the spectrum from many of those who've voiced their opinions.
I...did not really like these episodes.
I didn't hate them! Though in the interest of full disclosure, I did tell a friend at one point that I did, indeed, use the dreaded h-word for what was going on. But I rescinded that, and went back to a simple opinion of:
It wasn't that I thought it was a bad finale. In fact. I wouldn't call them bad episodes at all. This is absolutely, positively, 100% based on a biased view that I have of the series as a whole.
Here's another bombshell that explains my thoughts on these episodes: I don't like big bads in my poni.
Nightmare Moon, I was kinda eh on. Storyline-wise, sure, but the series premiere wasn't what got me into the show.
Discord, I did love. Because he was evil, but dammit, he was so likable.
Chrysalis...I know a lot of people absolutely love her and the changelings, but I, again, am rather meh on her.
Sombra...didn't care for him. Didn't give me much to care about.
The evil vines in the S4 opener...well, they had better personification than Sombra. But they don't quite count here.
I am very much a fan of just keeping the show as a slice of life deal, and while I do certainly want conflict, I'm not interested in having it on a global scale. For example, I would have been fine with Equestria Games having been the season finale if they altered it. If it was more focused on the games themselves, it could have easily been a story of conflict between the teams, along with Twilight's little conflict of her princessly duties separating her from her friends and the like. Granted, I dunno how they would have tied the keys and the box into that, but I'm just saying that when it comes to conflict in my poni, I prefer "The ponies have to work together to win the day in a low-stakes, yet still entertaining situation" to "THIS BIG OL' BADDIE IS STEALING ALL THE MAGIC AND HAPPINESS AND SUDDENLY WE BECOME DBZ PONY EDITION TOWARDS THE END."
Though it admittedly was a cool fight scene between Giga-Tirek and Ascended Princess of the World Twilight. One Skype convo I'm in likened it to the kind of fight they'd see in Avatar.
But that's just the thing. This isn't Avatar. This is My Little Pony.
Yes, a change of pace from the usual slice-of-life can be seen as good. Yes, it's interesting to see that kind of thing in MLP, of all places. I'm not at all saying that it was BAD. I'm simply expressing that it didn't mesh with my personal tastes.
Maybe I'm a little too sensitive. This is entirely possible. But just seeing all those poor, adorable ponies have every bit of magic in their bodies sucked out of them by Tirek was painful to me. Even the little clip that they showed early in the week, the first appearance of Tirek where he drained Random Brown Unicorn of his magic and cutie mark, made me feel pretty awful. Add to that the helplessness of the Princesses, the disappointment at Discord's return to the evil side, and the destruction of poor Twilight and Spike's home (thank Celestia they showed her holding Owloysius as she flew out or that would have upset me even more, despite knowing they wouldn't kill the bird), and it just hurt to watch. Again, I completely acknowledge that I'm a bit sensitive when it comes to stuff like this, but it's just the way I feel about it.
So yeah. I didn't like the episodes very much. Now, does that mean they were bad? Absolutely not. If I didn't have these hangups, I'm pretty sure I would have enjoyed them. They did a bunch of things that were nice. The songs were great. The battle scene was intense. Discord's re-reformation was nice and touching. And RAINBOW POWER IS NOT A PERMANENT THING. Through the whole season, I was worried about it, but was relatively positive that it would be a one-time use thing against the big bad, and then the ponies would go back to normal.
The one thing that I thought they did fantastically was that they really left you wondering if Twilight would even win out in the end; a task that's difficult to accomplish with a fan base who's pretty damn genre-savvy and accustomed to the heroes winning the day at the end. But when I looked at my clock, saw it was 10:53, and Twilight had been drained, I was left legitimately wondering if the S5 opener would be the defeat of Tirek. I absolutely give them credit where credit is due for managing that.
I know I'm shooting back and forth with this, being negative and then positive. But that's because I think that it WAS both negative and positive, and honestly, the negativity is mainly due to my own views. So as my final verdict for these episodes, I will say that for the typical viewer, they were good. For me, not so much, but that's just my bias talking.
Hell, even as I talk about how much I didn't like seeing Tirek being Mr. Evilpants, I kinda wanna watch the episodes again, and probably will when I get home from work. So yeah, I do give my approval overall of the episodes. If you're a sensitive butt like me, though, tread lightly. Your favorite ponies are gonna be miserable for a bit.
As two final points that must be made:
1) Rainbow Rainbow Dash looks absolutely badass
2) When Fluttershy was crushed by Discord's betrayal, whose forelegs did she find comfort in?
THEY LOVE EACH OTHER, THAT IS ALL
Thanks for reading all this if you did! I promise I'll get back to writing stories now!
One of my favorite things about this episode is that they included Discord, which many fan fics don't while they should. Discord is arguable the single most powerful being in that world, as we know it(I'd tell you why, but it's very lengthy). If something like this is going on, he'll not be just staying out of sight watching TV. He might be in sight while watching TV, but he won't be just be doing something else without explanation. I get some fanfic writers don't want to include Discord because it'll mess up everything they'd planned, but a simple sentence saying he was deep in the Zebrican jungle exploring for lost types of coaco beans is all it takes. And Discord was absolutely hilarious also.
AppleShy is best ship
Going back through the season, Fluttershy has been taking refuge in Applejack's hooves a lot lately. I smell shipping fuel.