Mixed feelings about the finale · 2:55am May 11th, 2014
There's a lot I liked about the Season 4 finale and there were some things that left me feeling kind of jaded.. not necessarily things I disliked... it wasn't like that.. it was more so that I wonder whether this show is going to suffer from being damn repetitive and riddled with callbacks from "better times".
One of my favorite scenes in this episode had to be the battle between Twilight and Tirek. That was epic to the extreme.
Tirek, with the exception of Discord, is definitely my favorite villain of the series. Sombra and Nightmare Moon were bores and Queen Chyrsallis had potential but was underdeveloped in my opinion. It wasn't like: "Oh, Twilight is so powerful that she can beat Tirek with ease and it was because of the magic of friendship yadda yadda."
By MLP standards, Tirek was truly evil. All he sought was power and nothing else. He didn't care about anyone. He was just a bad guy who wanted as much power for himself as possible and to enslave the ponies... he wasn't that bad of a guy since he wasn't going around killing ponies. He was letting them live as he conquered the world. He was the kind of villain that many, including myself, wished that Sombra was.
I get that this is supposed to be a soft show. You're not going to get scenarios where a character's life is really in danger. You kind of go in knowing that the good guys are going to win.. without any long-term sacrifices or particularly interesting twists... and no, Twilight's library turning into a castle is not something I'd call an interesting twist. If I was writing a fanfic about this, Tirek would have caused a lot more damage than sucking up the magic of ponies around him.. he would have went in and slaughtered ponies. However, like I said, this is a "soft show".
When looking at Season 4 as a whole, it's hard for me to determine how much I liked this episode relative to others. There's nothing I outright disliked. There's a lot I liked, but there were a few things which kind of leave me feeling pessimistic about the show.
With that said, this episode brought Twilight back up for me. She is competent, extremely intelligent, and adorkable even as an alicorn princess. I think the show has finally figured out how they can keep Twilight's well-developed personality and still make her a princess. Let's hope they can keep it that way.
Please do.... Twilight Sparkle is one of the reasons why the fandom among bronies grew like it did. Don't change her character - rather have her character in this form as an alicorn princess.
I'm not super gung-ho on the other princesses to be honest (except Luna) and they were pretty much useless as far as I was concerned. The aspect I like about Luna is her ability to go into other ponies' dreams and offer reasonable guidance ["Sleepless in Ponyville" and "For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils"). Celestia, despite being the supreme sun princess, seems a tad useless - but hey, she's the boss.. so what she says goes. How easy Celestia got her flank handed to her by Chrysallis is pretty much what we have seen of Celestia and her fighting abilities. Cadence is meh, waiting to see her character get more developed or at least do something awesome like Luna... even Luna, the show is wasting opportunities to really make her character deeper. She's usually just on the sidelines with Celestia. It's only when Luna is out on her own that she's an interesting character.
I guess I (and many others) were terrified that Twilight was going to become like one of them... moreso Celestia/Cadence than Luna. There were moments which either brought fear or consisted of Twilight whining about how she isn't comfortable being a princess.. but I think this nicely completes this story arc for Twilight. I liked her this episode. I liked Discord. I liked Tirek.
It was a little disappointing that the Mane Five didn't really get much screen time, but this was a Twilight episode and if any writer can write Twilight well (besides M.A. Larson), it's Meghan McCarthy.
I just wish she would write Pinkie Pie better (she wrote "Party of One", right? That's why I say "would" and not "could").. the one or two lines out of Pinkie's mouth were stupid and meaningless lines. I'm not going to make the leap that Pinkie knew that throwing Boneless at the chest would create a key... there was nothing that indicated she knew that was going to happen.
Fluttershy had some presence through her friendship with Discord.
Applejack, Rainbow, and Rarity were alright but didn't have any memorable moments.. at least they didn't do anything that suggested they were brain-dead.
Discord's motivations are properly confusing in my opinion. We don't really know what he truly wants. He gave up his friends so quickly to work with Tirek and only switched sides when Tirek took away Discord's magic. However, he seems legitimately affectionate towards Fluttershy.
Could Discord someday challenge Celestia's rule again? He might. As far as I am concerned, Discord is a lot smarter than Celestia and probably could.. but you have Twilight, who is just as smart as Discord and would never take Discord's side over Celestia's side. Like what Fluttershy told Discord at the end, he's got a way to go before he gets "his own throne". He needs to earn the trust of those around him again.. it wasn't like any of the others in the Mane Six trusted Discord ever.
I am most curious about what they are going to do with Discord out of all the characters for Season 5. Will he go through with the reformation process? Or will he become a villain? Or will he simply be a chaotic, selfish, and diabolical anti-hero?
I guess I just wonder whether this show can avoid going into a slump.
At times, I feel I'm more into the MLP fan-art rather than the show itself.
Despite that, I can't wait for Season 5 and I have high hopes it's going to be a great season.
Season 4 was a mixed bag with some greats and some bads.
One big piece of advice for the show would be to explore new worlds.. e.g., Saddle Arabia. I want to see more of that for Season 5. Take some risks. Or even take some risks in Ponyville with interesting characters.. we got Maud Pie and Cheese Sandwich from Season 4, both are incredible characters I'd love to see again.
At the same time, don't bore me like with the breezies. Read the script beforehand. If you get sleepy reading your script, chances are high you have a boring episode..
Also no "out-of-character" ponies or motivations... what really sticks out here is Rarity in "Simple Ways". She is passionate about fashion. She is passionate about her creative works. She was willing to give all of that up for some hipster douche. I know a lot of people loved that episode, but I had my fair share of problems with it despite the good humor and the entertaining conflict between Applejewel and Simple Ways Rarity. Rarity is fantastic, not some goofy teenage filly who has no business running a business.
Many of the episodes in Season 4 (and also many previous episodes) seem to have the same formula.
-Pony has problem.
-Pony solves problem upon realization that friendship is paramount to all.
THE END
Yea, that's it. I understand friendship is important to the show but we can't let stuff repeat itself up to the point that the episodes start becoming second-rate versions of what was a better time. Just because something worked phenomenally in the past doesn't mean it would work well in the future...not because it's a bad episode, not because the writing is bad, but because we've seen it before.
I heard we have to wait until 2015 for Season 5.. wow.. long time, but EQG: Rainbow Rocks looks like it could be really good. Better than Equestria Girls.
I am of the opinion that there won't/may not be a season five, probably just a pony movie to wrap up the Friendship Is Magic generation of MLP, hence the 2015 date.
I hope I'm wrong though.
2099304 I know you're wrong. They announced Season 5, and confirmed it will have 26 episodes.
Though whether or not we'll get a sixith season, that's a question we won't know the answer to for a while.
2099322 Was the '" know your wrong" condescending or a 'don't worry I know your wrong'...
Either way, I realise this, and lets just pretend that five is a six, we're from the future, and the 2015 is actually 2016...