The Mane 6 vs. The Gang of Five · 6:51pm Jun 5th, 2015
To clarify, the Mane 6 are the main characters of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, with Twilight as the central character, and the Gang of Five consist of the main characters from The Land Before Time series, Littlefoot being the central character. Both terms are actually fanon, but they describe the character groups well enough. So, I bet you're wondering what this blog is on. Well, as you probably know already, I despise the episode "A Canterlot Wedding" and I describe the episode as a huge letdown on the subject of friendship, so perhaps it's only fair that I compare the friendships of the Mane 6 and the Gang of Five to see which one holds out better. I know some of you may tend to think that the Mane 6 should take the gold, but let's be belligerently honest here. The series MLP:FiM has the word "Friendship" in it, meaning that we likely tend to think the show is supposed to be about friendship. Sadly, this is only what makes it suck even more when friendships don't hold out as expected. This is especially true in "A Canterlot Wedding" based on my point of view. I'm well aware that every friendship has its problems, but in a show that has "friendship" in its title? You think that with two seasons, the Mane 6 would be less likely to cause problems amongst themselves. In a series that doesn't have "friendship" in its title, we can expect pretty much anything to come out of it. With that said, let's compare and see which friendship group is more superior.
The two things I like to compare the most for this include the MLP:FiM episode "A Canterlot Wedding" and the movie The Land Before Time XI: Invasion of the Tinysauruses. From what I've gathered, by comparing these, I can instantly determine which friendship group holds out as the better one. So let's take a look at the friendship-breaking parts.
A Canterlot Wedding
1. Twilight surmises that her brother's wedding is a setup and that "Cadance" is scheming to harm her brother based on witnessing bad behavior. Her friends dismiss her as simply being jealous and choose to favor two total strangers over her. This makes no sense for two reasons. First, why would Twilight be jealous of her brother getting married at all? Is it because she doesn't even have a coltfriend? Is it because she's worried that he'll be less involved with her life than ever before? In fact, none of these reasons even make sense because "A Canterlot Wedding" is literally the first time Shining Armor has been mentioned. So having him blow his own sister off by disowning her and throwing her out of his wedding is like revealing his true colors and showing us possibly the kind of character he really is. A detestable jerk who cares nothing of his family and puts his own fiance ahead of everything else, including his own well-being. Oh, and stop with the excuse "He was brainwashed", because it's NOT AN EXCUSE. Worst brother in the history of brothers.
2. Twilight's friends showed little to no concern about her not being present in the wedding and seemed perfectly content without her, including Celestia. This is one of the few times I give Celestia the verbal bashing she deserves, the other real time being "Twilight's Kingdom", but other times, she's perfectly fine. If some of you think otherwise and that Tyrantlesia is headcanon, I say headcanon because you would like to think that and enforce it on others, then I'm very concerned for you. And to be belligerently honest, I want to know what you've been smoking. Because Tyrantlestia is not canon and never was. The only reason I despise Celestia more than any other character is because she's every definition of the word nice and it sucks big balls to have her make dreadful mistakes in "A Canterlot Wedding" and "Twilight's Kingdom". 'Nuff said.
3. When the truth is revealed and Queen Chrysalis is finally set packing due to sheer, dumb luck (c'mon, admit it, that was the real reason because the Mane 6 failed in their duties and deserved to), we add insult to injury. That is to say nothing is shown that hints that Twilight's friends were truly sorry or remorseful for their actions, especially having put two total strangers ahead of her. I get that some stuff is not meant to be shown on screen, possibly for time reasons, but not having at least one scene that consists of Twilight's friends and Shining Armor make amends to Twilight? That's just a bullet in the back and also the nail in the coffin that makes "A Canterlot Wedding" go down as one of the worst episodes in the series, if not in all of 2D cartoon history. Why? Nothing is resolved.
4. This may not have to do with friendship matters, but I just have to get this off my chest. Why in her right mind did Princess Celestia think she could go through with a royal wedding despite that threat that was made against Canterlot? And could she not have told the Mane 6 that too? Isn't that like trying to have a wedding in Boston while the city was in lock-down that one time after the marathon bombing? I mean, really. Think about it.
The Land Before Time XI: Invasion of the Tinysauruses
1. Cera pridefully thinks she should be the first dinosaur in the Great Valley to taste these tree-sweets at the right time because she claimed to have seen the tree first. But it was Littlefoot who technically saw the tree first and likely because of this, the other friends laugh at her ridicule. Cera takes this out by sneering at Littlefoot that he's too short to reach the tree. This understandably puts Littlefoot into a depression, so he attempts to reach one of the tree-sweets from a cliff, but in sheer irony, he misses and falls, somehow emptying the tree of the sweets. You might ask where the logic is, but that's not important. The tree-sweets are then gobbled up by a pack of Mussaurus and Littlefoot tells a half-lie, or rather half of the whole story, mainly because he's worried about all the trouble he could be in... because of what Cera said. Eventually, Littlefoot tells the whole story and three of his friends, Ducky, Petrie, and Spike, decide to dismiss him. Cera is not shown to do so and it's possible that she felt guilty for putting Littlefoot down in the first place and it might have irked him to try and reach the tree.
2. After dissing Littlefoot, the one thing happens with Ducky, Petrie, and Spike that we never see on screen in "A Canterlot Wedding" that had even the smallest chance of saving the episode.
Regret. The one thing that I consider the saving grace of the Gang of Five. Littlefoot's three friends regretted their actions. In fact, Cera even suggests that they should find Littlefoot and apologize to him. If anything, this shows that Cera, who's normally wild and tough and in the fourth movie wasn't exactly in favor of Littlefoot's new friend not warming up to her and the others, never held anything against Littlefoot for his misfortune. Not once. Ever. Now, did any of the Mane 6 regret their actions against Twilight? No. Did any of them question Shining Armor disowning her? No. Did they ever make amends in the end? No. Not unless I somehow missed it, which I'm pretty sure I didn't. Anything off screen doesn't count because what happened was that bad. Not even the kind Fluttershy stuck her neck up for Twilight. And that's saying a lot. They felt something so right doing the wrong thing.
I may not know much, but it's reasons like these alone that make it pretty clear which group of friends is superior, but just hear me out. Because Ducky, Petrie, and Spike regretted being mean to Littlefoot, it's like they're saying that no matter what happens, they'll always be friends. In the third movie, as bad as it might have been and I'm aware of that despite that I saw it loads of times as a kid, Cera says, "Littlefoot is my friend! He'll always be my friend!" That line sticks out in my memory because it comes from the character Cera, who used to start out bigoted and as much of a jerk as her father until she changed her ways. Looking back on that line, it has more meaning than I remember. As for the Mane 6, maybe there are a few points where they might have said to each other that no matter what happens, they'll always be friends. If by that, they mean no matter what happens, unless one of us is a jealous nag over a wedding and accuses the bride of being evil, then yeah, apart from that, we'll always be friends. So, guess who's taking the friendship crown in my book? The Gang of Five from The Land Before Time wins and will always be the superior group of friends.
~Black Kyurem
I was just re watching the Land Before Time films, love this post.
3125326 Thanks.
Well said. You know, that made me realize I haven't seen The Land Before Time since I was a kid. Almost brings a tear to my eye. Well, you're not the only one out there that dislikes the Canterlot wedding.
Technically, Applejack did apologize, but considering they essentially disowned her, and she was the ONLY one who did, it doesn't come even remotely close to making up for it. That's a bit of a flaw in Twilight isn't it? That she's a bit too nice. Yes, I think being too nice is a flaw. Littlefoot is a perfectly nice guy too, but he did get annoyed that his friends acted like that. Friends need to know when they push things a little too far, something I think Twilight wouldn't do.
Well said
3125848 A little regret goes a long way. Glad you like this blog of mine. And I am disappointed that this rift in the Mane 6's friendship was never brought up again, never addressed again, and just blew past like a minor setback. Looking back on it for the umpteenth time, now I find it sick and disgusting.
I rather agree there, some episodes like "Canterlot's wedding 1&2" and "Spike at your service" could have been better written, with more credible characters' feelings and actions.
3126820 Personally, I hated "Just For Sidekicks" way more than "Spike at Your Service". With "Spike at Your Service", we sort of get that Spike is trying his best at least, even if the episode is considered bad. In "Just For Sidekicks", I just hated that Spike was constantly being trolled and didn't deserve it. I don't care if it was done for comedic reasons. It was also insulting that Corey Ann Powell wrote the episode when she had previously done the script for "Sleepless in Ponyville", which I found to be a fantastic episode personally.
But yeah, the episodes you mention do lack credibility to say the least.
3126114 And that is the worst part, they will probably never get reminded for their disgraceful behavior in ACW.
3126911 I know. And that's too bad, really. It makes the episode removed from reality.
3126881
Well, in "Spike at your service", Spike's clumsiness is only a secondary error in my opinion. The main one is that, at the end, as the 3 timberwolves come out of the forest to attack, Pinkie, Twilight, Fluttershy, Rainbow and Rarity flee screaming, and don't bother to make sure AJ and Spike are running with them. Then the 5 mares just wait a bit further until the 2 others come to them. The fact that these 5 mares wouldn't even come back to help the farmer and the baby dragon, their best friends, when they notice they aren't with them, and especially Twilight not coming back for Spike, when he's supposed to be in her family and in her care, was a major flaw for me.
3127077 Ooh... I see. Can't believe I didn't even comprehend that even when I reviewed the episode.
3127077 I havent looked at it from that angle. I just looked at it from the character and counitity problems with Spike in general when i view Spike at your service. Oh and orginailly, that eposide was suppose to be an Sparity eposide but Rairity was WAY out of character, so they went with AJ and Spike.
3127615 Oddly, they could have just changed Rarity being out of character instead of the whole episode. If there's any character who can take advantage of a boy crushing on her, it's Wendy from Monster Buster Club. Trust me on this.
3127679 The question is, how bad could it had possibly been with Rarity and Spike?
3127825 I honestly don't know.
3127846 I guess we leave it to our personal headcannons then.
3128260 Too much of that can get to our heads. Believe me, I know.
3125848 I agree, Twilight really has to stop worrying about what her friends and family think, it pisses me off.
On a somewhat related note, another good example of loyal dinosaurs would be the raptor squad from Jurassic World.
*SPOILER WARNINGS*
After the Indominus Rex (a hybrid dinosaur created by combining the DNA of multiple dinosaurs and modern-animals to attract more visitors to Jurassic World) escapes its enclosure and wreaks havoc, Vic Hoskins (the head of private security) brings in a group of trained raptors to track the it down (much to the dismay of the raptor squad's two handlers, Owen and Barry). While the raptors do manage to track down the Indominus Rex, the hybrid is revealed to be part raptor and is able to communicate with and sway the raptors against the humans. The raptors make short work of Hoskin's mercenaries, but find themselves unable to kill either Owen or Barry after cornering them on three different occasions. In the film's climax, the raptors show that they are more willing to risk death at the claws and teeth of the Indominus Rex than harm the people who had raised them.
3517306 That's just loyalty in general.
4489023 I've never seen PAW Patrol, so I wouldn't know.
4489809 Good for my soul? Do you judge me to be bad like 90% of the other users here? Or are you just recommending the cartoon to me?
4489850 I see. Just had to check.
4489852
Tbh, I absolutely LOVE Paw Patrol.