Bloom & Gloom was a terrific episode, and I did not enjoy it · 7:13am Apr 20th, 2015
Bloom & Gloom was a terrific episode. It had a lot of things going well for it, between the characterization, themes addressed, production elements, and on and on. I’m glad this was made, I can objectively see the strong elements, and perhaps in time I can grow to appreciate the episode.
I didn’t really enjoy watching Bloom & Gloom. Personally, I felt like the strengths I mentioned were ultimately to the detriment of the episode. The delivery of its message was successful and impactful, but not necessarily enjoyable, and for me at least, I watch MLP for that last part.
There’s a joke in here, about one deer who gives the episode kudos, and another deer who takes those kudos away.
But only like four of you would get that joke.
I’ll start with the end. The villain, the mysterious voice in the woods, was not some mystic force of evil. It was self-doubt. For some of us, perhaps even most of us, this is painfully relatable. In a universe where [facetious]you have to be friends with each other, or else windigoes will literally freeze you to death[/facetious], and while I do normally enjoy these mythical elements, it was somewhat a refreshing change of pace to not see a malevolent spirit as the cause of this. It was all her. Her fears, her insecurities. And this is an important point, but let’s stick a pin in it for now.
The ending ended up being a bit muddled though, because cutie marks. This exchange with Luna:
Apple Bloom: Yeah... I guess I've been pretty worried about gettin' my cutie mark.
Princess Luna: Well, that is the same as worrying about who you are. That is all a cutie mark is.
And then later on, in the “Dear Princess Celestia Luna” moment at the end:
Apple Bloom: And even though we're all a little scared, a cutie mark won't change who we are or how everypony feels about us!
Like, hey. That’s great and all. It’s definitely what’s been told to us, again and again, especially in CMC episodes. A cutie mark is just a manifestation of who you are on the inside, and what your special talents are. But the sentiment seems strongly to be that the pony defines the cutie mark, not the other way around. With the S5 opener fresh in mind, and with the S3 ending not that long ago, it calls into question if the interaction is really that straightforward. If the cutie mark doesn’t define the pony, why did Applejack cause Carousel Boutique to foreclose, or Pinkie Pie to assert that laughter does not come in barrels? It’s a topic for another blogpost, but it doesn't feel like cutie marks are as straightforward as Luna claimed.
Next was the cool addressment of the theme “what happens to a pony who gets a cutie mark that they don’t enjoy.” In online arguments with grown up men on the internet about the nature of cutie marks, this often is raised as an argumentative point, i.e. is this even possible? And we see that yes, Apple Bloom has legitimate fear over this situation, and we even see it play out in her first dream.
And by the nature of being in a dream, absolutely nothing was answered. She’s afraid of it, yes. Is her fear legitimate, or is she being a silly little filly? Applejack almost starts to answer her.
Apple Bloom: What if I finally get my cutie mark and I don't like it? What if I get my cutie mark and nopony likes me?
Applejack: Well, that's just ridicu—
Apple Bloom: What if the Crusaders drift apart? I mean, we won't really be the Cutie Mark Crusaders anymore! [gasps] What if it's not an apple?! Will I have to move out?! Where will I live?!
Applejack: All right, that's enough, sugarcube. Those are way too many questions to answer all in one night.
Uh, which is it? First you make it sound like she’s being ridiculous. Okay, phew, crisis averted. Then, “too many questions to answer?” Maybe I’m reading too much into one line, but when one of my friends is panicked and irrational, I don’t try to lend any legitimacy of their fears. Applejack implied the need to answer these questions, and that a conversation would be needed. If the answer was “no, that doesn’t happen, we live in Celestia’s blessed utopia,” that would not be too long of an answer for one night. So… maybe it's a legitimate fear, just not one to fret over tonight. Sweet dreams, AB. 
Continuing the list of popular themes to ponder in fan works, this episode also addressed what would happen if the CMC don’t get their cutie marks all at once… thrice! We first see (offscreen) Babs getting her cutie mark. (Tangent: the bit about her tic with blowing her hair… ingenious foreshadowing, or ass-pull? I’m still undecided. 
) Then it happens again in AB’s second dream, with her getting her cutie mark before Scoots and Sweetie, and then a third time when the tables were reversed. Great, isn’t it?
Well… sorta. The Babs part served as bookends for the episode. But, while she’s become the beloved “fourth CMC” to some regards, at this point I really can’t see her being brought back in any future episodes (and I believe there were some rumors to that effect from the production staff as well). Her arc is effectively “complete”, so outside of fan service, there’s not a great reason to bring her back. But, fine, what about the main CMC? We got to see them getting their cutie marks at different times, didn’t we? Except it wasn’t Scoots and Sweetie, but rather demonspawn wearing their flesh. Okay okay, yes, I understand. The point of that scene was to feed into Apple Bloom’s irrational fears, and making Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle acting horrifically OOC was a manifestation of that fear. But the two of them would never act so spiteful, let alone to Apple Bloom, so there was nothing realistic about that confrontation. And since the idea has been “spent” in the dream, it probably won’t happen for real. By which I mean, since we had a 5-minute scene devoted to this “what if” scenario, would DHX really create an entire episode devoted to it happening again, but for realzies? No, that would be a rehash. So, forming a rift between the real CMC is pretty much guaranteed to be reserved for fanfic.
I could make a similar argument about AB’s potion-making cutie mark. It seemed implied to be… Correct. Inevitable. AB made a quip about it Twilight’s lessons paying off. But would AB really get the exact mark that she dreamed up? Either from a DHX standpoint of undercutting the excitement of the reveal—”oh, the same mark from S5E4. Neat I guess…”—or from the in-universe standpoint of “if AB is so self-aware of her potion-making prowess, wouldn’t she have already earned her cutie mark in it?" In some regards, this seems like confirmation that either her cutie mark is not-at-all to do with potionmaking, or that there’s some niche of potionmaking that she’s not quite aware of.
By contrast, look at her pest control cutie mark. Sure, there was some foreshadowing that things were not what they seemed, like that she got the cutie mark anticlimactically overnight, or that an (awesome) pest control pony with near identical cutie mark arrived to infodump at her, then promptly disappear. But, rewatch that scene where she takes care of the twittermites. One minute she didn’t know what they were, the next minute she wrangled them like a pro. She was a natural, just as much as Pinkie Pie coming up with this neat idea called a “party” and making her Amish family smile for the first time in who-knows-how-long. To use a D&D term, she rolled a natural 20. In many ways, it seems like that’s what cutie marks are supposed to be. Struggling with potionmaking under the tutelage of Twilight Sparkle until eventually earning mastery over it… yes, that’s more realistic in the context of our world, to be sure, but is that accurate of the pony world? If AB was really meant to be a potionmaker, wouldn’t she have some form of critical success, like her dream of wrangling twittermites?
But I’m just not getting it, aren’t I? Of course Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and the Apples were all horribly out-of-character. They were dream characters, manifestations of Apple Bloom’s fears and insecurities. They were playing out impossible worst-case scenarios about cutie mark failures that could never ever happen, because Apple Bloom feared that the impossible might happen to her… Most everyone here can identify with having had an irrational fear, at one time or another! And the framing context of the dream had to build up that uncertainty. As we’re presented with Apple Bloom getting a pest control cutie mark, and the uncanniness of the pest control pony, it has all the makings of a dream. But, this runs for several minutes, and doubts start to creep into mind… Is this really a dream, or am I being too meta, and Apple Bloom really did get a cutie mark for being a successful pest control pony? Wait no, she woke up, so it was a dream. But wait, she’s still dreaming… Much moreso than the Luna/Scoots episode or the Luna/Sweetie episode, this episode leveraged that uncertainty and unsettling nature of dreams. It did so very effectively, and I really appreciate the episode from a technical level.
And that’s exactly why I did not enjoy it. Because of how the episode was written, I emphasized strongly with Apple Bloom. That’s normally a good thing. But when the episode is all about confusion and uncertainty and crippling insecurities… Lemme put it this way. My good friend GaPJaxie has written stories that were darker or more introspective, and I’ve loved those to bits. But every now and again, I’ve seen a comment or two on his fics, tantamount to “I really appreciate this on a technical level, but I did not enjoy reading this.” And that’s my vibe upon watching Bloom & Gloom. Because in both cases, myself and those commenters went into this, expecting light-heartedness and cheer and friendship, because that's what we expect MLP to deliver, and instead getting confusing and insecurity. And don’t get me wrong, if this had been a non-pony episode, or heck, even a properly-tagged fanfic, maybe I would have been able to appreciate it for what it was… but from a proper episode…
Chocolate chip cookies are delicious. Oatmeal raisin cookies are delicious. But when you bite into a cookie expecting chocolate chips, and you get raisins instead, it’s hard to appreciate what a tasty cookie it is.
I dunno. I'm effectively saying here that I can't enjoy canon going too dark, because of my preconceived notions of what it ought to be. Is that fair? Did anyone else get a similar vibe from the episode? Or do I just have my panties in a bunch?
I actually did get this sort of vibe from the episode. But it wasn't because it was uncomfortable for it be canon or anything like that. It was because it hit a little too close to home.
I read fanfics, write fanfics, and even watch MLP to escape reality. So when an episode or story chapter feels a little too real, I'm left with uncertainty and doubt. The line between innocent pleasure and philosophical questioning blurs, and you aren't sure where you stand.
It's not a lack of comfort with the material, or even not being comfortable with canon going that route. It's...how do I put this?
I imagine if you watched the episode a second time, you'd enjoy watching it far more. It's not knowing what you were getting into that did it the most. Whether episodes or fanfics, the dissonance between "what we expect" and "what we get" can be very disconcerting, on top of it being an episode designed to disconcert. But knowing what you're in for can make it much easier to take in and enjoy.
Edit: Also, any progress on MLCT?
Fear not, Pav, for there is enough evidence, circumstantial though it may be, to show that a pony's special talent is more than what they are good at, but what makes them happy with their lives. In that sense, a cutie mark is not so much an outward manifestation of a pony's particular destiny as it is an outward indication that the pony in question has discovered the path towards self-actualization.
Therefore, it is impossible to get a cutie mark in something you hate, because being forced to practice something you derive no enjoyment from, and in fact, derive displeasure and depression from, would inhibit your happiness and prevent you from self-actualizing. I don't know what mad genius came up with the cutie mark, but they created a system that self-corrects to maximize personal happiness and all but ensures that everyone (who is a pony, at least) is all but guaranteed to achieve self-actualization before they are ready to become contributing members of society.
That is about as far from reality as you can get, so to me, it still feels like a valid escape.
Forgive me for saying so, because I know this will sound a bit rude, but you're looking at it arse-backwards.
Things that the show has established in the past: the cutie mark is symbolic. It is representative of some aspect of a pony's innate nature, and appears when they become consciously aware of that aspect of their nature. It's a sign indicating that nature, but it is not in itself the cause of that nature.
The issue here is that you're reversing cause and effect, and in the process confusing the nature of the thing and the abstract representation of the thing. You see a cutie mark switched from one pony to another in MMC and you assume - wrongly - that the cutie mark is what the magic acted upon, when in actual fact the cutie mark's transference was the resultant effect of the magic operating elsewhere. The incomplete spell partially transferred the nature of the ponies - not completely, partially - which led to a situation in which they believed their destiny was one thing despite the fact that they were only superficially aligned with that destiny. The cutie mark represented their belief - Pinkie Pie believed she had Applejack's destiny, Applejack believed she had Rarity's and so on. Some superficial element of their innate nature was transferred - enough to believe that they were destined to be one thing despite not having that talent - and the cutie mark as a symbolic expression of that belief came right along with it.
The statement "that's what my cutie mark is telling me" isn't a statement of fact, but a conscious idiomatic expression of an unconscious knowledge that the cutie mark represents.
This is illustrated quite nicely in the S5 opener, when we see another example of magic appearing to act on the cutie mark. In actual fact, the magic acted on the pony's innate nature - Starlight's magic took away their unique abilities. It did not take the cutie mark and then pull out their nature along with it, which is why Applejack lost her countryisms despite them having nothing to do with her mark. Instead, she lost them because they made her different, and Starlight's magic was about taking away the elements of a pony that made them different in order to make everyone equal. When those unique elements were removed, the cutie mark was symbolically removed along with them.
It's a good simple rule to bear in mind: whenever you see magic that appears to be acting on a cutie mark, remember that the cutie mark is only a sign, not the material reality. The magic is acting on something innate to the pony and the mark, being symbolic of that nature, is reflecting the action of that magic.
I can understand what you mean about the moral hitting too close to home. I have a similar problem with high school comedy films -- it may be well made, but I can't enjoy it because every time the geeky character gets picked on or isolated, it's like a punch to my own gut.
I think archonix is pretty much on the mark (heh) about cause and effect with cutie marks. I personally tend to dismiss any weirdness with the Magical Mystery Cure because the Elements of Harmony are so deeply linked to each bearer's fundamental nature. To use a computer analogy, each Element has root access to its bearer's soul. That means that Twilight's spell, bouncing from Twilight to her Element to the other Elements to the other Bearers, could affect them far more deeply than it would any random bystander.
Personally, I enjoyed the episode quite alot, but that's because I'm a fan of all the feels.
You talked alot of Apple Bloom and stuff, but honestly my favourite part of the episode (and possibly the most heartbreaking thing to date in MLP, even moreso than Celestia's "You have alot to think about" in S2E25), was that literally the instant Scootaloo realized that she was in a dream, she started flying around. Scootaloo's continued struggles to fly (we've seen a few examples in both S3 and S4) and failure to do so, compounded with that instant reaction to start flying around was what brought the whole thing down to me hard.
Personally, I think that the ponies have a very simplistic view of what their cutie mark actually is. Alot of them think it's their profession, or their destiny, or so on. But people are rarely so simple and one-sided. Is Applejack's cutie mark really about running Sweet Apple Acres, or is it about family, or even moreso: is it partially symbolic of her rejection of the perceived deceitful and haughty lifestyle in Manehatten, and her subsequent return to the farm and a more "honest" way of living? Are the Cutie Marks and the Special Talents as closely related as ponies think?
I mean, here's a question: What is Rarity's Special Talent? Is it tailoring? Is it finding gemstones? Is it helping other people "shine"? Her cutie mark story begs alot of questions, and isn't nearly as straightforward as it initially seems, and that type of analysis could be applied to the other Mane 6 as well. Is Pinkie Pie's Special Talent throwing parties? Is it making others happy? Is it being happy, despite the dreary circumstances of her childhood?
My favourite example of this comes from Fallout Equestria (and the following paragraph will contain spoilers for that story). In the fallout shelters, ponies are assigned their lifelong jobs based on their cutie mark. Early in the story, we find out that one of the main characters, Velvet Remedy, left the shelter because she wanted to be a doctor, but her cutie mark was a nightingale - a songbird. So her job was to be a performer, an artist. Later, we hear the full version of her cutie mark story, in that she earned it while singing to an injured patient, in order to make them feel better. So... what is her special talent? Is it singing, or is it healing? Why not, as they say, both? The fact that she has access to both musical magic and healing magic seems to support my thesis.
What I'm trying to say is that the canon has offered us one explanation for cutie marks, but it's entirely possible that the ponies in canon do not fully understand them themselves, and rationalize them based on their own biases.
Sorry for getting so off-topic!