The Crystalling

At first I thought the title was a reference to Kubrick's The Shining. I have yet to see The Shining, so I'm unsure of the references. However, I do have several thoughts about the newest episode. Spoilers below, if you haven't seen the episode yet.

First off, let's get the baby alicorn stuff out of the way. I'm impressed Cadance is able to stand, for one thing, considering the size of Flurry Heart's horn and wings. Flurry Heart is incredibly powerful, and according to Celestia has significantly more power than a newborn unicorn. It's entirely possible that natural born alicorns come from both natural and ascended alicorns. If this is the case, then if Twilight were to have a foal, that foal would also be a natural alicorn.

Princess Celestia said that Equestria had never seen the birth of an alicorn, and also said that neither she nor Luna knew much about them. As is the case most of the time, Celestia doesn't say much but says it eloquently (the Crystal Empire, Twilight's ascension, the journal that led to Twilight's ascension in the S3 premiere, Sunset Shimmer, etc.). This can mean a few things. First, it could mean that Celestia and Luna were not born as alicorns. This would argue with many headcanons, including my own, which I'll eventually write in future chapters of The Princess That Equestria Always Had. However, what I believe to be more likely (and hopefully what the show is referring to) is the possibility that it's only part of the truth: Celestia and Luna were born as alicorns, but born many years before Equestria was founded. This seems to be the story held by Amy Keating Rogers, as described in The Journal of the Two Sisters.

I'd really been hoping for something more than what we already guessed, but it's only the season premiere, and I have a feeling alicorn history is going to be an overarching theme this season the way cutie marks and background characters were in season 5.

Next up: Starlight Glimmer. I love that they chose to begin with her having trouble finding her way around the castle. From this, I gathered two things. First, the throne room is in direct line with the castle's door. Makes sense from an architectural perspective, and it fits with how she was able to find the throne room so easily in "The Re-marking" but had trouble in this episode. Continuity: when arriving at the library, she came from the right of the throne room, and in Rainbow Rocks Twilight (while in the throne room) told the delivery pony that the library was the first door on the left.

I don't think it was out of character for Starlight to be resistant to meeting with Sunburst. We've seen Twilight be eager to rekindle a friendship with Moondancer, but with Starlight's visit back to Our Town in "The Re-marking", we saw Starlight wasn't too excited or expectant to meet up again with the ponies she'd wronged. How would you feel if you were about to meet the former friend who was directly responsible for your villainy? Starlight cries when she admits to Sunburst what she had done because of what had happened between the two of them.

Sunburst himself was well-written. A unicorn whose special talent is not performing magic (notice in the flashbacks that Starlight's magic was always stronger than his after he showed her what to do) but an encyclopedic catalog of many kinds of spells and how to use them, as well as the creativity to figure out how certain spells can augment other spells. Remember how Starlight rewrote Star Swirl's spell, making it more powerful? Imagine what could happen if Sunburst used his knowledge and Starlight's power to rewrite Star Swirl's spell.

I'm cautious of his characteristics, though. Being called a powerful wizard, glasses, a beard, a cloak, and (if we're including the roof of his house) floppy hat. Aside from the color scheme, this is very similar to a design the young Star Swirl might have. This is a notion I first heard from DRWolf, but I really hope this is just coincidence and not what DHX plans for his future. For one thing, it doesn't line up with what the show has already established for Star Swirl in terms of personality, appearance, and abilities. Personal preference aside, however, this would be an interesting path for his character. Perhaps he'd get stuck in the past and become known as the most powerful wizard in Equestria while trying to get back to the future. Being the canon-compliant obsessive that I am, I'd have to deal with it and mark Always Had as an alternate universe.

The royal couple next? Sure. Shining Armor was great as the father of a newborn alicorn: worried, disorganized, tired (he slept standing up! Probably one of those horse things they wanted to get in at least once, like when Trixie actually neighed when she said "naysayers" in "Boast Busters"), and very unprepared. For a character with a history of subverting stereotypically strong male tropes, this is a trope that's perfect for him. Cadance, on the other hand... also fit a trope perfectly. She has the reputation of being a Mary Sue character, partially because people throw that term around a lot, and partially because not a lot bothers her all that much. In this episode, however, not being bothered by much played well with the idea that mothers are very attuned to their children. She didn't immediately know where Flurry Heart had disappeared to; she had to listen, and we can see her ears actually moving toward the sounds. She was worried when she thought Shining Armor had been unable to keep up with their filly ("I'm trying!"). I would like to see her without answers in this coming season to discourage the Mary Sue reputation.

Teacher-student dynamics: there was some speculation after "The Re-marking" about whether Starlight would become Twilight's student or if she'd be left out of this season. Well, it's a logical next step for Twilight to take on a student. Not only does she realize at the end of this episode that she herself still has a lot to learn about friendship, she also knows that she knows enough to start teaching. Not every teacher, after all, knows everything in their field of study. Celestia herself hasn't known much on some things that she wanted Twilight to fix (*cough* Crystal Empire *cough*). This certainly means that we'll be seeing a lot of Starlight Glimmer this season.

As for the season finale, this isn't like seasons 3 and 5 where the premiere hints at something in the finale (Star Swirl's book, Starlight Glimmer). This feels more like seasons 1 and 4, in which the next episode introduced the finale arc (Grand Galloping Gala, Pony of Shadows/Tirek). Actually, if I put the point of season 4 as "Twilight's role as a princess", it also fits in the first category when I put it like that. Season 2 didn't have much in the way of a finale arc.

I look forward to season 6.