• Member Since 16th Feb, 2012
  • offline last seen Jun 7th, 2018

InsertAuthorHere


Give me an eternity, I'll give you an update!

More Blog Posts689

  • 303 weeks
    Season Eight Episode Reviews: Molt Down

    This week is a Spike episode? What a re-”molt”-ing development this is!

    Let's look at “Molt Down,” the episode that will surely be perfectly normal and have no long-lasting repercussions on a character's appearance.

    Read More

    2 comments · 2,370 views
  • 304 weeks
    Season Eight Episode Reviews: Break Up Break Down

    I dread going into this week's episode. For today, we discuss matters of the heart. Romance, love, heartbreak, and all that rot. Which means we run right into the most loathsome of all fandom constructs, the kind of thing that destroys friendships and leaves the most brilliant of minds curled up helplessly in a corner, foaming from the mouth:

    SHIPPING.

    Read More

    6 comments · 1,671 views
  • 305 weeks
    Season Eight Episode Reviews: Non-Compete Clause

    We've had a string of good episodes the last few weeks. Whether it be shapeshifting seaponies, an actual Celestia episode, or discovering Starlight's dark phase, we've had lots of fun and plenty of laughs.

    Today's episode is about Applejack and Rainbow Dash competing.

    The good times are over.

    Read More

    7 comments · 1,584 views
  • 306 weeks
    Season Eight Episode Reviews: The Parent Map

    Happy Cinco de Mayo, everyone who cares about that! What better way to spend the day than watching a cartoon about horses dealing with their mommy/daddy issues? Well, tough, because that's what we're doing. This is “The Parent Map.”

    Read More

    4 comments · 1,110 views
  • 307 weeks
    Season Eight Episode Reviews: Horse Play

    So hey, it's a new episode. Surely nothing to be excited about. Just another standard episode of a cartoon pony show.

    Only it's a CELESTIA EPISODE!

    Prepare for extra spicy biased scoring as we look at Best Princess' newest episode, “Horse Play!”

    Read More

    5 comments · 1,259 views
Apr
10th
2015

Season Five Episode Reviews: The Cutie Map (Parts 1 and 2) · 3:31am Apr 10th, 2015

It's been eleven months. Eleven months since new pony (not pony-people) had last graced our television screens. But the drought is over, and we at long last have a new episode to watch and enjoy! So let's sit back and take in “Cutie Markless.”

…I mean, “The Cutie Map.” Because clever titles are not for shows aimed at seven-year-olds.

Urge to kill, rising...


TECHNICAL SPECS:

Season: 5
Episode: 1 + 2
Written By: Meghan McCarthy (story), Scott Sonneborn and M. A. Larson (writing)
First Aired: 4/04/2015


SUMMARY:

Having vanquished the evil Tirek, gotten a castle, and made that trip to the world populated by mutant apes, the Mane 6 still have no idea what the deal with this castle is. That is, until they all sit on their thrones at the same time, which causes a map of Equestria to rise up before them and hover holographic projections of their Cutie Marks above a point at the far end of Equestria. With nothing else to do and a desire to learn more, they decide to go to that spot and find out what's there.

The train takes them all the way to the very end of the track, where there sits a tiny village. All of the buildings are shaped and colored exactly the same, all of the ponies are smiling the exact same way, and most baffling of all, they all have the same Cutie Marks: an equals sign. This sets off everypony's suspicions immediately, save for Fluttershy, who just finds them all very nice. This is made worse when they encounter the village's leader, Starlight Glimmer, who is overjoyed that a princess has decided to come join their little community. One musical moment later, she leaves them to go check out the town with her number two, Double Diamond, while she plots evil things.

It turns out that the Cutie Marks are not a coincidence. The ruling mantra of the town is that friendship is only found in conformity and sameness; striving to excel or be the best you can be means that you're hurting all of those that aren't as good at what you do, and that is what ruins friendship. So in other to be the best friends possible, nopony is allowed to excel at anything. The town's fashion designer creates cloaks made of burlap (something that, if the show had a slightly higher content rating, would end with Rarity breaking his legs) and the only baker, Sugar Belle, makes nothing but terrible muffins. The Mane 6 immediately start arguing in front of Sugar Belle over why they're in a town that seems so peaceful and perfect already, but to the mare's shock, it doesn't end their friendship; the idea that friends can disagree but still be friends is anathema to the philosophy her life has been based around. Still, Double Diamond is obviously spying on the Mane 6, so Sugar Belle invites them into her basement, where Party Favor and Night Glider join her in surrounding them...and basking in the glory of their Cutie Marks.

Turns out the three miss theirs a little, although they wouldn't dare think about trying to get them back; after all, having different talents will ruin their friendship. They do, however, tell the Mane 6 about the vault in the mountains where their Cutie Marks are kept after being removed. (Yes, you can remove magical butt tattoos. Lasers are involved.) The Mane 6 convince Starlight to show them this vault, as well as the Staff of Sameness, an artifact from an ancient pony sorcerer that is how she removes the Cutie Marks. Unfortunately, not only does Pinkie immediately spill the reason they know the vault when Starlight darkly asks, but it's a trap. The rest of the village begins to circle in, and when Twilight breaks from the group and prepares to blast their way out, Starlight easily zaps her with the staff and takes away her Cutie Mark before doing the same to the others.

The Mane 6 are imprisoned in one of the town houses, with nothing to do but read books about equals signs and listen to state propaganda. Even worse, removing their Cutie Marks also removes the talents and abilities that made them special: Rainbow Dash lost her speed and strength, Applejack her strength and folksiness, Pinkie Pie her gleeful personality, Rarity her fashion sense, Fluttershy her ability to understand animals, and Twilight her magic. Even in this situation, however, Twilight's mind keeps wandering back to the Staff of Sameness; most notably, that Starlight had said it was the night artifact said ancient pony had left, but she remembers reading that there were only eight.

A plan is hatched: when Starlight takes the ponies out the next day to see if they have been sufficiently broken, they all resist the call of the cult...except for Fluttershy, who had spent the entire trip talking about how awesome this place was. Starlight welcomes her conversion with open hooves, but with one caveat: she has to reveal who told them about the vault. Fluttershy almost shuts down, but Party Favor steps forward and takes full responsibility, and is thus sentenced to the isolation house with the rest of the Mane 6. Fluttershy gets to spend the night with Starlight until her own home is built, and tries to escape at night to retrieve the Cutie Marks, but being Fluttershy lets her fear overcome her...which is fortunate, because she then gets to spy two major shocks. First, Starlight has had Double Diamond bottle up the Mane 6's Cutie Marks so she can store them in her house, with particular attention paid to Twilight's. The second is when Starlight accidentally spills water on herself, revealing that her own equals sign is just paint over her real Cutie Mark!

The next day, the Mane 6 still refuse to break, although Party Favor is begging for forgiveness after endless lectures on friendship. Fluttershy offers to lock up the Mane 6, and returns soon after with Twilight, who is willing to join as long as Starlight confirms that everypony in the town has given up their Cutie Marks. The hypocrite does so, at which point Fluttershy tries to splash her...and fails. Fortunately, the universe remembers that water splashes, so enough got on her Cutie Mark to wash away a bit of the paint, and a quick wipe from Party Favor removes the rest. Exposed, Starlight states that she needed her Cutie Mark: the staff is a fake, and she's the only one that can use the Cutie Mark-removing spell. The rest of the town is righteously enraged that they lost what made them special for a liar, but before Twilight can make with the friendship speech, Starlight tells her to shut up and runs back into her house, escaping down a secret passage into the mountains with the Mane 6's marks.

Meanwhile, the rest of the town gets their Cutie Marks out of the vault via an Apple ad, and Double Diamond, Party Favor, Sugar Belle, and Night Glider pursue Starlight, while the still-powerless Mane 6 struggle to keep up. Each uses their special talents to keep up with and wear down the racing Starlight, until Double Diamond discovers his old skis and creates an avalanche that buries the mare. The bottles shatter against the ground, and the Mane 6 are fully restored. Unfortunately, Starlight is still up, and as mad as ever, but even her magic is not enough to overcome a restored Twilight's shield. Another friendship speech is offered, but the vile mare refuses their sentimentalism and winks away.

The restored townsfolk decide to stay in the village, which is still their home despite Starlight's actions, and begin to celebrate their talents for the first time in a long while. The Mane 6's Cutie Marks begin to beep, signaling new adventures, but they know that their duty is to spread friendship to the rest of Equestria, and they are ready to do their part.


REVIEW:

It's been a long time since we had new episodes. We had the Rainbow Rocks content to help fill the gap, and the comics as well (although last year was really bad for the main series), but it's been close to a year since Season Four burned down Twilight's library and gave her a new castle...which is why it's odd they're seemingly picking up immediately after “Twilight's Kingdom.” The exposition dump at the beginning feels quite forced, and each character is given an obviously mandatory line, but thankfully things begin to flow more smoothly once the map pops up.

Starlight Glimmer and her followers are modeled after the typical trademarks of a cult, including the surrendering of one's individual identity for the sake of the community, moving into an isolated area removed from corrupting influences and giving the leader more control, reverent worship of said leader, and the use of guilt tripping, shaming, and brainwashing to keep anyone from even wanting to leave. The idea of locking the Mane 6 into a small house and blasting blatant propaganda about the evils of ambition and talent seems ridiculous, but said techniques can be very effective, especially when combined with the magical nature of Cutie Marks and how they've been removed.

The first half of the two-parter is great. We open with some basic comedy and character bits to reintroduce us to the cast, followed by a quick herding to the town. Once they get to the Stepford Smilers, the pacing slows to a solid rate, allowing us to take in how wrong the whole situation is. This is exemplified in the episode's musical number, “In Our Town,” which starts out as a standard march but gradually shifts into something more disturbing and off-putting as it continues. The second episode isn't as solid, but it still makes good use of the time available, making this one of the few times a two-part episode didn't completely suffer because of pacing issues.

Starlight Glimmer ranks as one of the best villains FiM has produced so far, despite how low-key she is in the grand scheme of things. In fact, the entire adventure is much more low-key than most of the two-parters. Starlight isn't some apocalyptic threat like Nightmare Moon, Discord, or Tirek; if the Mane 6 had not intervened, she would have just had that one village at the edge of Equestria. She's managed to keep this position by careful manipulation and brainwashing of the townsfolk, coupled with presenting herself as a friendly and neighborly pony to any outsiders that happen to stumble onto them. In short, she's basically a normal pony, and the episode shows that even a non-demonic unicorn can be a problem.

Plus, she's the first villain to actually shut down Twilight's friendship speeches. Not just snidely comment on how sappy or stupid she sounds, but actually shut her up. That earns her a few points.

The rest of the ponies are more mixed. Double Diamond's name doesn't make sense until you see the skis (hooray for deus ex machinas), and he mostly serves as Starlight's second-in-command. Party Favor is mostly notable in being the only community member punished for their actions, and as we see, the very idea of being separated from the rest of the cult because of what you're told is a moment of weakness is soul-destroying for someone indoctrinated into such an environment. We never learn if his “I DIDN'T LISTEN!” was an act, or if his brainwashing was so effective that he shut out the Mane 6's attempts to convince him otherwise, but it ultimately doesn't matter thanks to Fluttershy's own actions. Night Glider is mostly just there to serve as another body.

By far the best of the bunch was Sugar Belle. When she is introduced, she takes a brief argument between the Mane 6 as a sign that their friendship is ending, and is likewise flabbergasted when they make up only seconds later. She's a baker, but she can only make terrible muffins because she gave up her Cutie Mark. (The cult appears to operate on the “Tall Poppy Syndrome,” reducing anyone with talent to the lowest possible level so that they don't outshine anyone else.) If anything, she's the best representation of the cult from the regular pony's level, and demonstrates the cracks in Starlight's supposed utopia when she realizes that maybe having special talents doesn't mean your relationships will turn sour. (Plus, she's adorable.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkLc8-8ZZtY

The episode handles Cutie Marks in a bit of an odd way. In the past, they were supposed to be a representation of what a pony's special talent was. As ponies grow up and experience new things, they eventually discover something they're good at and enjoy, have an epiphany, and then a magical butt tattoo appears. Here, though, the Cutie Marks seem to give the ponies their talent, and once they're removed, they're incapable of doing those things as well as before. The removal even overrides their personality, as seen when Pinkie becomes more Maud-like during their captivity. This becomes even odder when it's extended to Applejack's country-isms; apparently her real special talent isn't apple farming or going home to be a family mare, but dispensing folksy wisdom with as thick an accent as possible.

The reason for the change? So the episode can sideline the Mane 6 for the final act, making the newcomers into the actual heroes. I am of mixed opinions on this. On the one hand, the Mane 6 are essentially useless to the direct resolution of the episode until they get their marks back, and are shown to be so weak that they can't even muster past a sluggish trot. On the other hand, Starlight's real victims were the ponies she had brainwashed and betrayed, and they definitely deserved to be involved in taking her down. They sound genuinely hurt when they discover their leader had been lying to them the whole time. So in some ways, the episode tries to avert the “Mane 6 swoop in and save everyone” cliché...until Twilight swoops in and saves everyone right at the end.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

This was overall a solid start to the season, and the best opening two-parter since “Return of Harmony.” They manage to avoid many of the pitfalls of “The Crystal Empire” and “Princess Twilight Sparkle,” such as making the entire thing about Twilight's journey or constantly escalating the threats, and instead focus on telling a fairly dark (for this show, anyway) story about the dangers of cults and giving up your identity for the sake of friendship. If the rest of the season promises more such adventures, I'm all for it. And if Starlight Glimmer comes back for another round, I'll definitely be willing to give it a watch.

Also, Celestia episode. Please?

It's never gonna happen, is it?


Next time, Twilight gets sad about her old house. The one that Hasbro killed so they could give her a castle.

Report InsertAuthorHere · 1,960 views ·
Comments ( 12 )

Part of my thinking is that whatever Starlight did to remove the cutie mark did far more than remove the mark itself. It could have suppressed their talent, stripped away part of their innate magic, or in a far scarier way actually ripped out part of their soul (given what the staff looked like that is theory I subscribe to). No matter what, she pulled something pretty bad.

I'm all for the girls inspiring the town ponies to take action. It shows that they've really taken to heart the lessons they've learned and are able to effectively teach others. Given the premise of the Cutie Map, this will probably be a season long recurrence.

I agree, best season opener since Season 2. Very little to gripe about. Looking forward to what the rest of the season has for us.

We never learn if his “I DIDN'T LISTEN!” was an act, or if his brainwashing was so effective that he shut out the Mane 6's attempts to convince him otherwise,

Based on his facial expressions, most notably the eyes, I'm inclined to believe he was entirely sincere, or rather already too brainwashed to know the difference. Which kind of makes me wish they'd not wasted time on Twilight suggesting thy try anti-indoctrinating him, as that little bit of screen time could have maybe been used to further flesh out some of the weaker spots of the episode.

Likewise I have similar feelings towards the initial confrontation in Sugar Belles basement. It was kind of a pointless fake out to suggest that she and her friends were any kind of threat, especially when it's time that could have maybe been better spent making the actual showdown in vault cavern more than just a truncated curbstomp out of nowhere.

Here, though, the Cutie Marks seem to give the ponies their talent, and once they're removed, they're incapable of doing those things as well as before. The removal even overrides their personality, as seen when Pinkie becomes more Maud-like during their captivity.

I think that has less to do with the removal of the cutie marks and more to do with the second half of the spell that replaces them with an equals sign, seeing as how the brand would pulsate with darkness whenever one of the M6 started expressing their unique individuality. The affect is especially noticeable in how Pinkie would get moments of her usual energetic self only to trigger an immediate bland retraction.

Likewise I think AJ's country vernacular was suppressed not because it's her special talent, but because it's an unusual way of speaking, something entirely unacceptable in a communal cult founded entirely on uniform conformity, where even hairstyles are restricted.

So in some ways, the episode tries to avert the “Mane 6 swoop in and save everyone” cliché...until Twilight swoops in and saves everyone right at the end.

True, though by that point the villagers had already won where it mattered most. Since the goal was to prevent Glimmer from escaping with the M6's marks, it's good that the REAL heroes, still got to be important after that goal was achieved.

They manage to avoid many of the pitfalls of “The Crystal Empire” and “Princess Twilight Sparkle,” such as making the entire thing about Twilight's journey

Indeed, which is actually only all the more impressive when one considers that just like Sunset Shimmer, Starlight Glimmer is an obvious shadow archetype to Twilight Sparkle (theme naming) -- and likewise also seems a unicorn with a cutie mark in magic itself. Even more so as Glimmer actually shares a much more similar design aesthetic, with a flat mane that has a two-toned highlight streak.


Also, yes, Sugar Belle is beyond adorable. Though I also find her somewhat paradoxical in that for me at least she was more interesting character BEFORE getting her cutie mark back. As one of the cultists she had a dynamic blend of conformity and dissatisfaction, albeit watered down by sharing in it with two others and creating a sort of sub-group conformity. She simultaneous reflected both the superficially "good" aspects of Glimmer's supposed philosophy, while also clearly displaying just how flawed it was in practice .

Conversly, after getting her mark back, well... she just seems so unremarkably ordinary. I guess maybe it's more so that we just never get enough time to know the "real" Sugar Belle, and so she just comes off as rather mono-dimensionally generic -- also doesn't help that her visual design and vocal performance were so distinctly altered that of the four main villagers it took the longest to even recognize her again.

Side note, in addition to Sugar Belles delightfully choreographed facial expressions as the M6 argued being perhaps the high point of both episodes, I also very much enjoyed how passing parents in the crowd covered their foal's ears so as to spare their innocent little minds. It's no less disturbing consider that those children were pretty much the worst Glimmer's victims (even if they seemingly hadn't gone through the actual unmarking ritual yet) for never really having a say in their own indoctrination, but it's still a very effective and well played visual cue all the same.


Anyway, I'm definitely inclined to agree 100% that this is the best premier since Season-2. In fact, it might even arguably be better than Return of Harmony, at least on some points.

I'm surprised your review didn't touch on Fluttershy doing stuff; she was far less apprehensive about going off on her own to help her friends than she was in, say, "Magic Duel."

I am also of the opinion that the de-cutie mark spell did something more than just take away the butt tattoo, but actually had some real effect on the very being of the pony. It might have, to some greater or lesser extent, magically enforced the Tall Poppy Syndrome you mentioned.

Also, Celestia episode. Please?

Agreed. :fluttercry:

And I found your actual review really interesting as well; what struck me about this premiere was how different in tone it was from virtually every episode so far except for maybe Party of One in a lesser way. It was just disturbing. Those parts with the isolation room and propaganda siren were genuinely creepy.

I really love Starlight Glimmer. I'm looking forward to seeing her again. And thank god for some artifacts of great power that aren't connected to Starswirl the Bearded. I felt like they used him waay too much before when they could have just come up with a few variety of old fogey magic types.

The only parts of the premiere that truly stuck out to me as awkward was when the M6 were stuck trotting slowly up the mountain. I get thematically why they did it, to give the victims of the cult some well-deserved revenge on their leader, but they could have come up with some other way to slow them down. It was so silly watching them slowly trot along the mountain path when most of their talents didn't even correlate with their physical attributes like speed (AJ and RD excepted). Was it the equal marks forcing them all to the same level of physical fitness or something?

TL;DR: Great review, great episodes, Celestia episode when?

The rest of the village begins to circle in, and when Twilight breaks from the group and prepares to blast their way out, Starlight easily zaps her with the staff and takes away her Cutie Mark before doing the same to the others

Hey remember when we only had the trailers to make assumptions of what would happen in the episode and bronies were accusing Twilight of abandoning her friends because she was the only one teleporting away from the screen?

Ah good times.

Even in this situation, however, Twilight's mind keeps wandering back to the Staff of Sameness; most notably, that Starlight had said it was the night artifact said ancient pony had left, but she remembers reading that there were only eight.

You probably don't care, but ninth

Starlight Glimmer is actually a pretty scary villain. Magic that can override and remove who you are, even an alicorn, and adept at brainwashing. She's actually kind of dark, when you really look at her.

This becomes even odder when it's extended to Applejack's country-isms; apparently her real special talent isn't apple farming or going home to be a family mare, but dispensing folksy wisdom with as thick an accent as possible.

It seems that way, but there is a blog by Bookplayer which does a pretty good job of explaining why this might make sense. It also (potentially, in a fanon sense anyway) helps explain why removing the cutie marks functions the way it does here.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

It's never gonna happen, is it?

This is the first season premiere in which Celestia not only doesn't play a significant role, but doesn't appear at all. They're writing her out of the show. :(

2967334

Was it the equal marks forcing them all to the same level of physical fitness or something?

That would seem to be pretty obviously the case when one considers it more or less being specifically mentioned that nopony in the village is better at anything than anyone else. The brand enforces "equality", by reducing everyone's abilities to that of the lowest common denominator regardless of what is the actual focus of their special talent. After all, if it only affected their cutie mark related abilities than the villagers would just be able to fall back on secondary skills and thus still create the disparity that Glimmer was trying to eliminate.


2968008
I don't think that's really the case at all, in this episode at least. It's just that Celestia had no reason to be involved in an adventure that happens at the edges of civilization, nor in a situation where no nation wide disaster was imminent. Really, it's a much better change of pace than other two-parter slike A Canterlot Wedding and Princess Twilight Sparkle where she is Worfed just so the M6 can take center stage; or Crystal Empire and Twilight's Kingdom were it is Celesta's own action that remove herself from being able to have anything to do. Don't even get me started on singular episodes like Keep Calm and Flutter On, where she literally drops a giant task on the M6 shoulders out of nowhere only to just as quickly exit leaving them entirely on their own to figure out how to actually go about doing something so seemingly impossibly reckless as attempting to reform the ancient lord of absolute chaos.

I'd love to get an actually good episode focusing on Celestia, or at least one where she can be competently involved even if only in a peripheral capacity. Barring that, however, I think it's much better that the show just writes around Celestia with situations that aren't relevant to her in the first place, rather than further undermining her by having to contrive yet another example of her ineffectual lack of ability and/or seemingly negligent behavior.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

2968692
Luna got more screen time in season 4 than Celestia did. Much as I like Luna, there's something terribly, terribly wrong. Gone are the days of Swarm of the Century, when Celestia would show up to do shit or just visit with Twilight. Yes, Twilight's moved beyond being her student, but I miss that, and I'm very afraid that the writers have decided the other Princesses are no longer important to the show. It really feels that way.

2969023
I don't think that it's that the writers have intentionally decided that Celestia is no longer important, but rather more so that they just don't know what to do with her anymore outside of her original capacity as the wise all-knowing mentor figure she seemed to be back in Season-1. So like a lot of similar characters in other shows it's a struggle to keep her relevant now that her student has ostensibly graduated, if not seemingly surpassed her.

If Luna gets more screen time it's because as of Season-3 they gave her a role in which she can interact on characters on a more personal level as the Princess of Dreams. Likewise even the otherwise very shallow character of Cadance can at least always be relevant to Twilight as a *Cool Big Sis* archetype.

"Plus, she's the first villain to actually shut down Twilight's friendship speeches. Not just snidely comment on how sappy or stupid she sounds, but actually shut her up. That earns her a few points."

So I take it that means you're one of the many Bronies who at this point has gotten sick and tired of hearing Twilight constantly make a friendship speech?

Login or register to comment