Luna Reviews FIM S3: 06. Sleepless in Ponyville · 2:40am Dec 16th, 2014
Dreams are a mirror to one’s soul, reflecting your problems back to you in a distorted form. Scootaloo’s dreams were a reflection of her insecurity, of her fear that she would never have a place of safety, a friend or relative who could be counted on to protect her from harm. With the advice of a guardian of dreams, Scootaloo summoned the courage to face her fear, and in so doing, found out that reality was a good deal less terrifying than her fantasies.
Note: For those who have wondered at the feats demonstrated by the Princess Luna of this episode, who wonder if such powers are fantastic or real, know this: I stand to protect the Equestrian ponies living on Earth against anything that might face them in their dreams. Simply call my name, and I will be there to stand beside you. For I am the Princess of the Night, and no nocturnal terror can stand against my might.
Hope, I would really prefer if you didn’t post the notes for this episode, but I will not stand against you if you persist in making them public. But if those notes are visible below these words, then I ask my readers to not judge me too strongly for a moment unworthy of the title of Princess.
Notes
00:11: Ah, Scootaloo. Off to a good start already.
00:32: Scootaloo stops to hear Rainbow Dash’s compliment, and falls into a hay bale at Sweet Apple Acres. This is some nice background art that I happened to pause at. We can see the Apple family farmhouse, what I think is the Carrot house next door, and a little ways off, some sort of clubhouse.
00:47: Hey, that train has a stowaway! And something’s...off, about her eyes…
(Hope: Ah... yes. That’ll be a bit of controversy there.)
(Luna: If you say so. I’ll wait until this character gets her own featured episode to ask anything more.)
01:30: Scootaloo starts spinning the story like mad: Yeah, that’s kind of funny, but also kind of sad. I mean, look at Apple Bloom—she knows.
01:44: “But all that stuff I said could happen, right?”: At this point, I’m paying close attention to the soundtrack. As long as it sounds light, we’re OK.
(Hope: They do keep up a very good soundtrack, and it’s a good way to keep track of the required mood.)
02:09: “And I’ll get Rarity to come, too!” says Sweetie Belle. I’m about to remark about how cute this all is, and then I see the expression. Hmm…
02:24: “But...if you don’t want to spend time with me…” By the gods, she’s almost as good at raw emotional manipulation of an elder sibling as I am! ...Not that I’m bragging or anything.
(Hope: I think you are allowed to brag about that. It’s a claim not many could make.)
02:54: Rarity walks aside to reveal that Sweetie Belle is pulling the Immense Cart of Fabulosity: I imagine some fans might be complaining at this point, but I’m not. All’s fair in the Sister Game, I say. If Sweetie Belle talked her sister into something she clearly doesn’t want to go on, then she’ll have to expect some sort of payback. It’s how real families work.
03:25: “Oh, are we there yet?” Rarity whines, while behind her is the sister who’s actually suffering: Oh, I love this! I can tell you of just as many incidents where I got the upper hoof over Tia as vice versa. I was kind of expecting a romantic comedy, from the title, but if we’re going to focus on sibling and quasi-sibling rivalries instead, I’m all in!
(Hope: I only pray you don’t regret those words.)
03:55: Scootaloo utterly fails to impress Rainbow Dash: Ouch.
04:24: Rainbow Dash: Sure you can share my tent. Just so long as you don’t snore. That expression on Scootaloo’s face! She looks like she’s going to faint from happiness at any second.
04:49: Rarity drops a vase down for Sweetie Belle to fetch some flowers for: Now note how Sweetie Belle takes this irksome task with a happy smile on her face. This pony is a mistress of the Sister Game. I can’t wait to see her next move.
04:58: Rainbow Dash uses her Rarity impression to ask for some firewood, then actually asks Scootaloo to get the wood. Okay, I don’t know if they’re going to address this, but Rainbow Dash is kind of a jerk here. She seems to know that Scootaloo idolizes her, and is willing to use that to get free labor. Now, I know that she did exert herself setting up the campsite, but if that were the case, it would make sense to send one adult, or two fillies, out for that task. You’ll note that Apple Bloom is right there, but she wasn’t asked—because that would mean getting Applejack’s permission. Being a mountain of laziness, though, RD instead went with the one pony she could most easily push around. This should not end well.
(Hope: I think that there’s some more insight to be had, Rainbow sees her own demands as reasonable, because it is her making them. Rarity making demands is annoying because of who she is seen as, but Rainbow isn’t typically one to complain when assigned a task. She is used to being told bluntly what to do, and so is blunt when assigning duties to others.)
05:19: Scootaloo references a tale of Rarity plunging to her doom: OK, I’m pretty sure I know which story this is, but for all I know, that could have happened more than once. In any case, that is almost certainly a call out to an episode. This is a slightly risky tactic to use if the series wants to continue to gain new viewers—see my review of the Doctor Who serial Survival, where precisely this tactic had disastrous consequences.
05:48: “Who’s got my rusty horseshoe?” No way! They’re still telling the Olden Pony story? That’s like, the best ghost story ever!
(Hope: I’ll have to ask you to tell it sometime—old stories like that fascinate me.)
06:10: At the end of the story, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle leap out of frame, leaving Scootaloo to feign fearlessness. Oh, oh this is good. They didn’t even have to show it—Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle have somebody to turn to when they are scared, but who does Scootaloo have? Rainbow Dash, who is completely clueless when it comes to being a caring big sister.
(Hope: Unfortunately...)
06:18: Oh, they did show it. They just took a few extra seconds. Still pretty clever.
06:22: Applejack: “There’s no olden pony in our tent.” And Scootaloo sits there, alone and terrified.
06:47: Ooh, this is starting to get dark. Unlike last time, I’m not that OK with it. No breaking the spirits of fillies, MLP Animation. You hear me?
07:01: And...Rainbow Dash snores. Perrrrfect.
07:14: Scootaloo steps out into a strange forest. Oh. Oh dear.
(Hope: Oh dear indeed)
07:30: The olden pony stalks her prey. Oh, this is horrible. I...I wish…
07:57: Oh this is just wrong!
07:59: WHAT?
(Hope: Luna... It’s just a cameo...)
08:13: Oh, that poor, poor filly. I just feel awful seeing her suffer. And worst of all is knowing that her so-called protectress is absolutely worthless under the circumstances.
(Hope: Are you talking about Rainbow?)
(Luna: Yes.)
08:46: Yes, she is doomed.
08:58: Rarity thinks she’s sweating, then looks over at Sweetie Belle. Yes, that’s right, Sweetie Belle. Just keep smiling. Just push her a little bit more...before the guilt starts to eat her alive!
09:48: Scootaloo falls asleep on her scooter and nearly goes off a ravine. Hey! This one looks much deadlier than the one Babs Seed didn’t fall in. What gives?
09:52: Sleeping Scootaloo bounces off of a deadly alligator. Heh.
10:20: Scootaloo wakes up at the last moment next to the others, and tells them not to take her path. Huh, I thought that whole sequence was going somewhere. Oh well.
10:25: Scootaloo jumps so high she ends up holding onto a cloud: That’s another laugh out of me. Good old pegasus humor.
10:41: Applejack tries to get to the bottom of what’s up with Scootaloo: Methinks she’s trying to make up for being a clueless monster two episodes ago…
11:01: “Do you need a little help?” No, Scootaloo! Never get in the middle of a Sister Game. That way only leads to pain.
(Hope: Sounds like you have experience with such things. How often have well-meaning nobles and friends got between you and your sister?)
(Luna: I am speaking of our good-natured games, not the more well-known clash between us. Ponies interfered in the Sister Game to their peril...and occasional broken bones that we’d then have to cast healing spells on.)
11:19: “All we need is a campfire, and we’re good to go. (Hint, hint.)” Rainbow Dash, you monster.
12:25: “It’s all I could find, because, you know, there aren’t that many trees around here.” Zoom out to: ha-ha-ha-ha!
13:03: Scootaloo Story Time. The poor dear. She’s trying, she’s really trying, but she’s doomed.
13:15: The Headless Horse. The what? I happen to be very familiar with pony folklore and ghost stories, and there never was any story about a headless horse. It doesn’t make any sense! How does a horse lose its head? Have you studied equine anatomy? It’s not medically possible! In fact, it’s so impossible that it’s not even nightmare fuel for ponies. So was this story just adopted by the human animators from their own nightmares? Because I am aware of just how scared humans are of losing their heads.
(Hope: Very much so, it’s a play on the idea in multiple ways because the original myth from our culture was the headless horseman. A rider who themselves has no head, their horse is intact. In some myths he carries his own head aloft. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is another adaptation of it where the head was destroyed and he rises to search for it.)
13:25: “It’s headless, not brainless!” Oh, oh Rainbow Dash! I had to stop the video for a minute straight to stop laughing from that one!
13:32: “So, where is its brain?” Ha-ha-ha-ha!
13:37: “Fear was dripping from the air…” HOW?
14:06: Scootaloo: “But we haven’t sung any campfire tales yet!” Sweetie Belle: “You don’t have to ask me twice!” Rainbow Dash: (would have said something, only to be pile-drived by Sweetie Belle). HA-HA-HA-HA-HA! And the laughing continues all through her song!
15:37: “I’m falling asleep…” And I’m over here whimpering…
15:55: Scootaloo starts running in her dream. Oh, Scootaloo...that never works.
(Hope: I have to admit I’m exactly the sort to try and run in my bad dreams.)
16:03: “If the Headless Horse catches me, I’ll never be heard from again. And I want to be heard from!” This is her whole life speaking at this point, isn’t it? How many ponies have ever actually noticed her, instead of just lumping her into a convenient category? Most of all, what is she to her idol? If she moved out of town one day without explanation, and another pony declared herself RD’s greatest fan, would she even spend one moment asking what happened to Scootaloo? Would she?
(Hope: That is probably the saddest thing I’ve ever heard about the series.)
16:20: Fade to black. What? What? You can’t end there!
16:23: Fade back to the headless horse. Oh, OK. Carry on torturing me, then.
16:25: No, no-no-no. Don’t do this. Don’t do this! I beg of you!!
16:35: I can’t. I can’t keep watching this, because my life...is officially over. Why? Why did you do it? Why couldn’t you leave well enough alone! I’m perfectly happy with this life! Please, leave well enough alone before...
Chat with Hope
Luna: Hope! Hope, I need to speak with you immediately. Something awful has just happened.
Hope: I am here, and prepared.
Luna: Have you seen the latest episode? Have you seen what they’ve done with me?
Hope: I saw a regal princess—a bit off on your voice, but such is life—comforting a frantic filly, with no sinister undertones or ulterior motives, yes.
Luna: Yes, but in a dream. In a dream, Hope. The animators, those poor deluded fools! They know not what they have done. To me, to the diarchy, to the well-being of fillies everywhere!
Hope: Oh. I thought it was a storytelling device. You can actually walk into dreams? That is fascinating, and sort of cute in a way.
Luna: No, not it is not like that at all. It is monstrous, simply monstrous. Worse, it is illegal.
Hope: And?
Luna: Laws exist for a reason, child. Once...once I used my dream powers freely. And, I hope, for good. But there were always going to be fears that I could not dispel. And so the title of “Nightmare Moon” came to stick to me, long before the Nightmare came to corrupt me. And when I returned to myself, and my powers started to return, that was the condition I had to accept, the one that my sister agreed had to be met. Nopony must know that I could visit the dreams of foals. The consequences...
Hope: Well, this animated episode certainly seems to have been a guess. But I have to ask, have you used that power maliciously since your return?
Luna: No, never! Not even before! Because it’s so horrible—that’s the whole point! If I can enter the mind of a foal, then I can change the mind of a foal. If I can do that, then I can break any sleeping being’s mind to my will, to crush that will altogether. It’s a fate so much worse than death—to be trapped in your own body, watching it commit unspeakable acts to your friends and loved ones. Even as I went mad, even as I allowed her to plot...and to kill...I never, never allowed her to do that. To kill them, to kill them all! But to leave their minds, their innocent little minds...
Hope: Luna—even at your darkest, when you yourself were suffering from this...most horrifying fate, you did not use this power for evil. I think that speaks to two things. Your right to be honest with what you are capable, and your truly good intentions, even in the face of overwhelming corruption. I’m in awe, to be truthful. I’ve spent a lot of my free time since meeting you, trying to imagine what it would be like to be under the sway of another, but add to that an ability that could have instantly and permanently gotten you what you desired most, and you still came back from it. There are mountains weaker than you, Luna.
Luna: Waste not your praise on me, for I do not deserve it. The law makes that abundantly clear. The parliament that drafted the statute restricting me in closed session thought it best, and so did the sister who signed it into law with no witnesses. I was once again a ruling princess, a princess “worthy” of respect. I’d walk down the streets of Canterlot, greeting my subjects, subjects who shied away from me, who muttered behind my back that I was faking it, that I was going to get my revenge when their backs were turned. Only the colts and fillies believed in me. And yet to see, in their eyes, the pain that I knew I could soothe, if only their parents didn’t all hate me. It’s why I had to leave. I said it was to earn forgiveness, and that was a large part of it, but mostly, I couldn’t stand to look those young ponies in the eye, and know I was powerless to do for them what the fictional Luna is doing for Scootaloo.
Hope: But here, you are in another world, a world where we look on such a power with awe and sympathy. Can’t it be known? They guessed at it without knowing, after all. The princess of the night. As surely as the day brings wakefulness and work, the night brings contemplative thought and dreams. It’s not a secret that can be kept without neutering the very essence of who you are. I am sure that, given time, your sister and your subjects will understand this. That their very lives are due to your self-control when it comes to this, and you don’t begrudge them for it, or hold it over their heads, but only want...to be their princess again.
Luna: I...want this to be true. I dearly, dearly wish it. But I still fear for the consequences when word of this episode reaches Equestria.
Hope: Maybe it would be prudent to send word ahead? Warn Celestia of the chance collision of guesswork and reality so that she can decide on a proper plan of action? But most of all, Luna, you must remember that in this case, in regards to this incident, you have done nothing wrong. Because it feels like you are blaming yourself for the animator’s guesswork hitting home.
Luna: Yes...yes, I guess you’re right. Perhaps I have been the victim of lynch mobs so many times I see them everywhere I look. But I’ll trust that wiser heads will prevail. I’ll write to my sister, and...I’ll finish watching the episode and write my review. Who knows? They might even portray me somewhere close to reality.
Hope: Oh, Narcie wants to say something, can Narcie say something?
Luna: If...if she’s been witness to this conversation, then she is free to say anything she wishes to.
Narcie: Heya Luna! Was watching the episode and saw lots of typing happening, got bored and took a peek. Hope you don’t take offense. Anyway, if the knowledge of the power was outlawed, does that mean the usage of it on this planet would also be outlawed? Because the idea of a helpful princess dropping by during a bad dream is the coolest thing I’ve heard of since water-powered jet-packs.
Luna: Really? You really think so? I mean...no offense to you, Hope, but my power only affects my kind, so if you have bad dreams, you have to resort to the traditional method of cuddling afterwards, but for you, Narcie...I would be able to help you. I think. For understandable reasons, I had no desire to examine that law in any detail after it was passed. But I do believe you have identified a loophole!
Narcie: Sweeeet, well, if I see you suddenly show up then that would be awesome. Back to the episode for me!
Hope: Thanks, Narcie.
Luna: And a profound “thank you” to both of you.
So...where was I?
16:34: Oh look—it’s me!
16:41: “I thought you were the Headless Horse.” “You were mistaken.” Because there’s no such thing!
16:45: “...but, I hope, not disappointed.” Squee! I need to hire this writer.
(Hope: Heh, I hope that you’re not going to replace me.)
(Luna: Political speechwriting, dear Hope. Nothing I would ever subject you to.)
16:54: “I am the Princess of the Night. Thus, it is my duty to come into your dreams.” My duty. My duty. Squee again!
17:00: “This is just a dream? But it feels so real!” Yes, sadly they do. Oh, and let me stop a minute to praise the soundtrack here, because it is just...luscious!
(Hope: And now I know what to get you for Hearth’s Warming!)
17:09: Me: “But when you wake, the thing that frightens you most will still exist.” Yes! Let’s tackle this.
(Hope: In a roundabout way, hehe)
17:33: “But they must be faced, or the nightmares will continue.” So true, so true.
17:59: “It was a dream, but the Headless Horse isn’t! Rainbow Dash said that it lives here, in these very woods.” Rainbow Dash, you fool! What have you done?
18:14: “The wicked whinny of the Headless Horse” AKA, Rainbow Dash. Sigh.
18:38: Scootaloo’s rematch against the Gor...Very Dangerous Pit. Yes.
(Hope: What?)
Luna: Monty Python and the Holy Grail. They all become the Gorge of Eternal Peril after awhile.
18:59: Scootaloo drifts backwards towards her plunge into doom. You’re not actually going to do this, episode, are you? She only just met me—don’t do this to Fictional Luna, show!
(Hope: This might be a delicate subject, but why could she not glide down the waterfall?)
(Luna: Glide? Do waterfalls operate differently on Earth than they do in Equus? I mean, there’s that sheer sharp drop...and then lots of pointy rocks on the bottom. That is my experience. You can teleport away, or fly away...and that’s basically it for ways to survive falling off one.)
(Hope: I... um... I’ve never seen one, per se. Great, Narcie’s laughing now. I’m not very adventurous!)
19:03: Yes! Rainbow Dash to the rescue! Woot, woot!
19:14: And then Rainbow Dash confronts Scootaloo and makes her cry! What the Tartarus, show?!
19:23: Oh. Yes, Scootaloo, listen to Fictional Me—she knows what she’s talking about!
20:06: Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo bond over being afraid of spooky stories: Awww, this is so touching!
20:14: “I got over it, because I soon figured out that if there was such a thing as a Headless Horse, I could totally take it on!” Is it wrong that I want to punch that still-frame Rainbow Dash in the eye? Because she would look so much better right now with a black eye.
(Hope: That is the normal reaction to braggarts, I think. So no, not wrong.)
20:31: “It’s a deal!” Oh, such mixed emotions right now! On the one hoof, yay for Scootaloo! And on the other...this is going to end up hurting both of them so much down the road. I can only hope that the good times make Scootaloo stronger, and that Rainbow Dash very quickly grows herself a sense of how to be a decent role model, because right now...she’s faking it.
20:48: Rarity and Sweetie Belle race to the falls: My sisterly senses are telling me that they’ve already emerged from the other end of their inevitable shouting match. It’s OK. This was Scootaloo’s episode. Let Sweetie Belle have her moment to shine in a future episode...or perhaps a past one. After all, I haven’t seen that many episodes.
20:59: Rainbow Dash holding Scootaloo aloft: So awesome.
21:21: Scootaloo vs. the Olden Pony in Dreamland, and how it works out: I was so ready for the episode to end with that last scene, and I was fine with that, and then you add this! Bravo, animators. Bravo!
21:32: Do I get the final wink? I do! Huzzah!
(Hope: A great ending to a great episode. I’d say it does you justice.)
(Narcie: I've been watching extra scary movies just to see if I'd get a bad dream! Can't wait! So excited! Though honestly it's counter-productive because instead I dream about chilling and having tea with you and my imaginary friend Fluffy.)
Aww Princess Luna approves of the episode!
That's great!
I wish they would revist Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo's relationship, feels a bit underdevelopped :/