MLP Episode review: Hearth's Warming Eve · 2:17pm Apr 13th, 2015
All right, class. Get your number-two pencils ready. Your history test is about to begin with...
Hearth's Warming Eve
It's snowing in Ponyville! After the February and March New England had I'm ready to dropkick Old Man Winter into an active volcano. :p We pan up and zoom in on the Friendship Express as it chugs along, leaving Thomas and Team Bullet Train in the dust. No, seriously. There really was a train combiner team for the Autobots in the 2000 RID anime. :D I own all three. They're all excited, and they just can't hide it! Fluttershy even shouts in her own, quiet way. Doc Brown in the engine looks back and nods. They're going to Canterlot, and Rarity has an insane hat. It's a Christmas tree. Is she going to the Royal Wedding? It's not Christmas, though. It's Hearth's Warming Eve, the Equestrian equivalent. Canterlot's all decked out for it. They play 'I Spy'. Sadly, neither Bill Cosby nor Robert Culp are available. Scootaloo's got her tongue stuck to a candy cane. I am so glad I never did that. Pinkie spies someone eating a gingerbread house... and she runs into a shop, buys one and scarfs it down. Okay, that was golden.
At Canterlot Castle, complete with epic theme! We cut to a stage, then backstage as the Mane Six are getting to put on a play, "the most important play of the season!" according to Twilight. Fluttershy has stage fright, natch. Rarity tries... but exacerbates things. Suddenly, a window blows open while Dash cheers herself on. Applejack exposits that the play's about the founding of Equestria, not the Rainbow Dash show. Good luck getting her to realize that. :p There's a bit of arguing and chaos, but curtain in two minutes!
The curtains go up, and Spike the narrator starts. Before the Princesses ruled and even before Equestria was discovered, ponies did not live in harmony. It was a dark time, the time of G3 and even... 3.5! *Scare chord* The ponies lived apart in the Three Tribes, split along earth, pegasus and unicorn lines. The pegasi controlled the weather and the unicorns controlled day and night, in exchange for food from the earth ponies. Like a protection racket. "You know, that's a nice field of pumpkins. It'd be a real shame if an errant rainstorm swept through and washed it all away." :p But one day, tensions came to a boil. What happened? A blizzard! Bah, come to New England. We'll show you how to deal with snow! :p
Anyway, we transition from the play to, "Way back in olden times!" The earth ponies couldn't farm. So the pegasi couldn't eat and the unicorns were freezing and hungry. They all blamed each other, and as their anger grew, so did the snow. The tribes called a summit, with Princess Platinum, played by Rarity, Commander Hurricane, played by Dash, and Chancellor Puddinghead, played by Pinkie and complete with kazoos for her entrance. And... it's a disaster. The pegasi accuse the earth ponies of hogging food. The earth ponies accuse the pegasi of making it snow like crazy, then the pegasi accuse the unicorns of using their 'freaky magic' to make it snow. Yeah, it's pretty pathetic. They even get into a fight over who leaves first. And right before the commercial we see ghost ponies!!!!
After a brief bit in the play, it's back to history. Hurricane flies home and we meet Private Pansy, played by Fluttershy. And we get the pegasi as 'mighty warriors!' and he decides they've got to leave. Back with the unicorns, we meet Clover the Clever, played by Twilight. She's the student of Star Swirl the Bearded, too! Same thing with Platinum. They're leaving. And the unicorns are noble and majestic. And with the earth ponies, was rinse and repeat. Smart Cookie, played by Applejack. We also learn Puddinghead can think inside the chimney. It makes just as much sense in context, folks. :p And to emphasize, all three declare with split-screen action, "We must find a new land!"
We see the three pairs moving out, Hurricane paranoid, Platinum fussy and Puddinghead nutsy. I'm kinda surprised at least Clover and Smart Cookie didn't kill their 'fearless leaders' and dig shallow graves out in the wilderness. Spike narrates that they found 'Paradise', as all three pairs arrive basically in the same general area at the same general time. And another split screen of the three leaders declaring, "We found our new home!" Then we pan back and they're all within spitting distance of each other. :p As they argue, a cold wind blows through. Their subordinates try for calm and the wind dies down, but a snowball fight breaks out. Wait, snow?! Yup, there's a blizzard moving in already. Puddinghead, in a moment of clarity, wonders where the snow came from. And more ghost ponies, too.
Back in the theater, a pony heckles Spike and I toss her out. :p They all seek shelter in a cave. Platinum asks for her 'royal space', and Hurricane has Pansy draw a line in the dirt. Platinum and Puddinghead follow suit. They then fight over a rock. And it's not even a big rock. The wind enters the cave and the ceiling and entrance ice over. Puddinghead, Hurricane and Platinum begin to friggin' ice over themselves. They can't even stop arguing, for Primus' sake! "Earth ponies are numbskulls!" "Pegasi are brutes!" "Unicorns are snobs!" And they're frozen with their hatred.
Clover, Smart Cookie and Pansy huddle in the center as the ghost ponies, recognized as 'windigos' by Clover, advance. We also learn Star Swirl taught her about them. More on that later. They feed on hatred and strife, and Smart Cookie realizes they brought this upon themselves. Pansy says she doesn't hate them, and hates Hurricane more than them. No, she just dislikes him. They reconcile and say they don't hate each other. They're all ponies, and just in the nick of time... Clover's horn lights up! and the windigos are burned away. Holy crap, I forgot that part! The magic forms a giant, flaming, pulsating heart. Nothing like this has happened before, but it wasn't just Clover! It was their friendship. Spike narrates that they stayed awake, singing songs. The leaders thawed out and so did the land. They agreed to share the land, and even planted a new flag. A flag with the alicorns on it. :p My view, it's from the play itself. They named it Equestria. The stars of the play come out and take their bows. There's singing, streamers and it's a good feeling I've got at the moment. :)
Later on, everyone's hugging backstage. Suddenly, the window flies open again. there's some arguing, then a possible roar. Dash flies up to shut it, and we pan back and see a giant flaming heart above the playhouse. The end.
Thoughts
I... really like this episode. It's their 'holiday' episode, basically. And Hearth's Warming is a good Equestrian equivalent, IMHO. It's festive, it's cheery, it's snowy.
Some people think this episode contradicted stuff from earlier. I... really don't see it. The only niggling thing might be the flag, but I see that as the flag used in the play itself. We saw it cutting back and forth between 'olden times' and the play. And to be honest I never took the play as 100% historically accurate anyway. Still don't. :p I've never read the 'Journal of the Two Sisters' and quite honestly don't plan to. I see it as two parts history, one part Aesop, one part narrative compression, one part historical drift and one part:
"Hey, Bob? What's this say?"
"Chancellor Pudding... Hide? Pudding Had? Pudding something like that."
"Eh, we'll just go with Puddinghead."
I also don't think the rest of the tribes froze, but were able to move to the new lands as well.
For the record, if you want a really good take on Equestrian history, I highly recommend A Brief History of Equestria, by K9 the First.
Headcanon:
Back when I first started 'The Elements of Harmony and the Savior of Worlds', I realized there weren't enough ponies to grow into Equestria. So I invented three other groups to aid in that. They were...
1. The Ponies of the Plains, semi-nomadic earth pony farmer2.
2. The Sky CLans of the Peak, pegasi warriors, and...
3. the Mages of the Rock. Unicorn wizards living... on a mountain.
Sound familiar? :D I fused the Three Tribes with these groups. In the Habsroverse, the Three Tribes are the largest remnants of the Ancient Kingdom of Ponyland, after Queen Majesty was deposed of by Tirac the Abomination. They made contact with the Dream Valley enclave and formed the basis of the 'Equestrian Alliance'. However, Hurricane, Platinum and Puddinghead were not thawed out, and remain frozen to this day. The Mages' home is Canterlot, while the pegasi under the leadership of Firefly and her husband Bloodwing would found Cloudsdale. The windigos were a problem during one bad winter, but were driven off. Maybe. :p
I do have an idea where the play is put on, showing what 'really' happened. Trixie would be the director, natch. ;) Her role in the Hasbroverse is a bit... different than in the show. Megan's daughter Michelle would play Megan herself during the events. Maybe some day.
Also, the lineage of magic teachers to students goes...
Beorht taught the Moochik.
the Moochik taught Star Swirl the Bearded and an Oc I created named Spellion the Powerful.
Star Swirl taught Clover.
Clover taught Twilight Wish.
It was the only thing I could think of to use, okay? :p :D
For some reason I can see the ponies bowing at his awesomeness.
I love that episode, partially because I felt that my headcanon was vindicated that the ponies of Equestria were exiles from a distant homeland. Then I expanded and took some liberties with what is pretty much a children's play. The Expedition and the Exodus, the Abomination and the Three Queens, and the Sejr and the Megaera.
Honestly? I figured the Hearth's Warming play was cobbled together after Discord's defeat, with half-remembered historical figures attached to a parable about the importance of intertribal cooperation that nopony remembered was fictional. It certainly explains the anachronisms like Spartans in the Middle Ages and the alicorn flag.
Whether or not it happened, I still loved the episode. 22 minutes of world-building!
And yeah, the Matrix of Leadership makes a very nice Fire of Friendship.
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It is a play for children so a lot of the info is not going to be included. Remember it ain't out world so the Pegasi might use "archaic" armor
Beorht? Isn't he that wizard from the one episode of the G1 Transformers where they go back in time and stuff? But isn't he from Britain? How did he end up in Ponyland?
So that's where the Moochick learned magic. Never suspected the Moochick himself teaching Star Swirl magic. I also believe Merlin taught Beorht.