IDW Comic Issue #40 rambles. · 9:00pm Mar 20th, 2016
...Oh boy. I remember hearing this, getting really excited, and then getting really worried that it wouldn’t be handled well. I worried Twilight or Spike would be handled poorly, or the relationship wouldn’t be treated warmly enough.
And lo and behold, my fears were unwarranted! They found another way to mess this issue up! This comic made me want to retroactively blame Celestia for what’s wrong with Twilight: her OCD, and her friendless background. So I’m afraid this issue ranks as bad to me.
Okay, review: Twilight’s looking through a photo album when Rainbow Dash comes by. They start reminiscing, and they flashback to Twilight’s first day. Common fanon that Trixie attended the school is ascended, and Celestia introduces Twilight to baby dragon, because nopony bothered to name him, at all.
Celestia explains that she is too busy to care for Spike herself, and as such will be delegating the task to Twilight, which she promises to be a part time thing. This isn’t the issue. It was my headcanon that Celestia assigned this task to Twilight. With Twilight’s raw power and Celestia’s failure with Sunset, of course she’d want her to learn responsibility and compassion.
The next page is where things get sketchy. Twilight goes to class... with Spike. There are no servants that can baby sit while she’s in class. Inkwell does more to prove she’s too senile to teach then the Celestia Micro-Series did, since she apparently doesn’t notice Twilight has a baby. And the baby seems to disgust the other students, leading everypony to not like Twilight.
So, Celestia apparently lied and Twilight is taking care of Spike full time. This causes her to fail Inkwell’s test. Inkwell has a talk after class that is supposed to be supportive, but it seems she’s completely clueless as to what the issue is.
Then the Royal High Tea comes. Short version: Twilight is friendless, can’t recite her lessons, she has a breakdown, and Spike wrecks the event.
Back in the dorm, Twilight has another breakdown until Spike tries to cheer her up. Twilight sees Spike isn’t a doll. She concludes Celestia gave her Spike to give her a friend. A friend which stopped her from connecting with any of her peers, and of which she can't be a best friend to since she's raising him and she needs to be an authority figure. Yeah, ever see that South Park episode where Cartman was tamed by the Dog Whisperer, and they said the reason Cartman was so rotten was because his mother wanted a friend more than a son? That rings true in real life.
Twilight decides he needs a name... finally. It only took what has to be at least a month. He calls him Spike. And the comic ends with no resolution on how Twilight learned to balance her school work with raising Spike, leading me to believe she had to develop her OCD habits to keep up.
So, in short, Celestia dumped too big of a responsibility on Twilight and nearly caused her to fail and alienated her from her classmates. All those times I wrote them as a mother/daughter pairing seems hard now that I know Celestia’s methods. This is making it seem more likely that Celestia just wanted Twilight as a weapon and didn’t care about her personally.
The Lyra and Bon Bon book will be reviewed next week.
Remember: comics =/= canon to the show.
...huh.
It makes me wonder what Celestia and Luna's parents were like. Maybe Celestia came by her bad 'parenting' skills honestly. You think maybe Celestia raised Luna the way she gave Spike to Twilight to raise?
3817692 It's possible. We're not really sure when the loneliness and jealousy actually started for Luna since in the beginning things seemed to have gone well for her and she clearly had friends such as that Manticore, Marty I think and I think some zebra friends since they discovered them deep in the Everfree I think before they discovered the Tree of Harmony and Elements. Celestia raising her makes sense since we've heard nothing about their parents, whether they just came into existence one day and never had parents to losing them in someway at a very young age. And if that's so it might've had an effect on them as well as Luna in being raised. Coupled with whenever Tirek stormed in against his father's orders, Discord appearing and making a mess and lastly Sombra turning evil and embracing his destiny when he could've fought it, all that could've effected Luna leading to the loneliness and jealousy.
I've never thought especially highly of Celestia, and Trixie going to Celestia's School was confirmed ages ago.
This is one of those moments where the comics completely miss the point, and where I choose to disregard them. Or at least relegate them to an alternate universe. Perhaps one where Celestia didn't risk the integrity of space-time in the name of love.
Just remember, there is what they wrote and what you know in your heart is right. There is what they (A comic mind you that doesn't always stick to cannon mind you and is usually only trying to stick to the show.) write, and how you feel the characters SHOULD act. That is what fanfics are for, You can write it better than cannon and write it the way you want it.
Crap, so, skip it?
Yeah, this one wasn't so great.
I rather enjoyed the Shining & Blueblood issue that came out early last week, though.
Hmmm. You've got a point about Celestia wanting Twilight as a weapon. I think Celestia learned her lesson from Sunset Shimmer, that her personal student needs to have empathy for others, or she'll never be fit to be the Element of Magic. She took an extreme action in giving an 11 year old a child to raise, but in terms of brute-forcing empathy onto someone, making them raise a helpless infant seems to be pretty effective. Is that action justified in saving the planet from future eternal night? I would say so.
But it is only justified if Celestia felt this was necessary to save the world, not just to teach an awkward teen how to get along with others. That in turn means Celestia saw Twilight as primarily a tool to fight her enemies with, rather than as a child to raise, unfortunately. I mean, you could say Twilight was well-compensated in the end, with the wings and the title, but Celestia was definitely pretty ruthless about it.
The only quibble I would have with your analysis is the idea that Spike is what prevented Twilight from making friends. We saw how Twilight used to value friendship in flashbacks in Amending Fences, she was never going to make those friends on her own.
Honestly, this issue's biggest problem is that it should've been a two parter, because the ending feels really abrupt and leaves us wondering what happened. But I think I have a headcanon that can justify what happens, we've already seen that Twilight puts Celestia on a huge pedestal, and that whenever something involves the princess or the possibility of letting her down, Twilight begins to panic. She likely saw taking care of Spike as her responsibility, and her chance to prove to Princess Celestia that she deserved to her student, thus she kept quiet about her struggles and rejected help from anyone that might have been willing to help her.
3817720 That's not even considering the implications that Luna's transformation into Nightmare Moon was not entirely her own doing, and that she may have been tricked by outside forces.
3817998 That too.
Eh, its mixed honeslty. On the one hand, I see that makes caring for Spike being full time is a shitty thing to do. On the other hand, I don't think Twilight would accept things just as part-time, I can easily see her getting rather carried away with things.
Not naming the dragon earlier is bad through.
Issues like these are part of the reason why I don't consider IDW comics canon.
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Absolutely correct, Pink. Celestia tells Twilight three times that she only wants her help. Twilight takes on the responsibility and over-inflates the situation, just like she does in the early episodes of the show.
3818715 That's probably the biggest thing wrong. Spike is not some kind of pet, he should've been given a name much sooner.
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Yeah, I agree.
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Like I said, Inkwell seems to be pretty clueless of the problem, even though Twilight bringing a baby to class. You'd think Celestia would notice Twilight was failing, find out the problem, and step in.
Well, this sounds horrible and reinforce my hands-off stance concerning the comic. Thanks for taking one for the team, Link!
Yeah... one of my biggest complaints about this issue is that that it paints Celestia as either clueless, or ruthless and uncaring. The other is that the idea is wonderful and could have been done well, but failed in the execution. And worst of all, because this flawed issue exists, we'll never get a really good version of how Twilight and Spike bonded.
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Which is a perfect example of why "show, don't tell" became a writing rule. Celestia "telling" is completely overwhelmed by every panel "showing" the opposite.
3817869 We do have to remember though, that Celestia is far from perfect. I think Celestia cares for Twilight as an individual, far more than she cares about her being a weapon. I think that, if anything, Celestia was afraid. Think about it: Celestia lost her first student to corruption, as well as her own sister. I think Celestia cares for Twilight as a pony a great deal, but her fear leads her to make some very bad choices. I think she dumped so much on Twilight, because she was terrified that she'd fail Twilight, just as she feels she failed both Luna and Sunset. On the outside, Celestia may seem calm and serene, but inside, I don't think she could have emotionally handled another of her loved ones going down the wrong path. Especially, since she would have to forever live with that guilt. That's just my own thoughts on the subject, however.
4178991 I think you have a good point. Celestia was definitely a little gun-shy and scared after her experiences with Luna and Sunset. I suspect it caused her to be more formal and aloof with Twilight than she was with Sunset for Celestia's own emotional peace, with the unfortunate consequence that Twilight always felt a little insecure in her position as student.
4179141 Exactly. Both afraid to let Twilight possibly fail, yet at the same time, afraid to get too emotionally attached.