The Chrystaling: Thoughts · 1:23pm Mar 28th, 2016
So, I watched the season 6 premiere, and I'm going to talk about it.
The first thing I liked was the whole ceremony of the chrystalling. It actually is very creative and for once I feel that the writers actually took some time to develop some solid and believable world building. Not that it matters anymore, as the world is already broken beyond repair, however this is a critique of this episode, not past episodes, so I would say this is a plus.
The second thing I really enjoyed was surprisingly Spike. He actually acts like he should in this two parter. He's cheeky and has the heart of a child, but has the brain of an adult. He's loyal, supportive, witty, sarcastic, a little bit arrogant, and it's just fun whenever he's around. It's how Spike should be written. I especially like his interactions with Starlight, not because of her, but because of him. He's definitely the best written character in this two parter and the closest to his Faustian self than anyone else.
This actually was a great idea for an episode. The whole idea of becoming a parent has the potential to be a really good lesson and moral. The problem is however, is that the focus isn't really on that, but instead this stupid plot which is totally boring and stupid.
It's said numerous times that Twilight has become an aunt, which she has, but it's never really explored. How does she react to this new responsibility? How do Shining Armor and Cadance cope with this new heap on their shoulders? With the latter, it's explored a little bit but not enough, and the former gets hardly any development.
The plot this time, that the baby destroys the heart, is utterly pointless, and the conflict in this two parter is the cold weather which is coming in because the baby destroyed the Crystal Heart. It's so boring, I just wanted it to end because I was so uninterested. The baby is really annoying, she causes a problem, and then everyone else has to sort it out, yes, that's our season premiere.
Why couldn't this have just been a slice of life two parter or something? Without having this stupid crystal heart breaking thing and instead focusing on the characters? It would have been much better that way. The main plot is really boring, so that in turn makes the two parter really boring. I have to say, that even though the quality has varied, I have enjoyed watching every two parter up until now, this however, is the exception. I was begging for it to end, and it took two days for me to finish it, because the plot is so pointless.
I suppose I need to talk about Starlight Glimmer next. Yeah, nothing like the original character at all. She seems to be a character constructed to appease the fans. A total retcon of the original villain, and instead a character which is made to be marketable. We're going to have a list which makes a character popular with the fandom, and see if this "New" Starlight Glimmer fits each one.
1. Has funny gags and quirks - check
2. Acts cute - check
She's basically a mixture between Sunset Shimmer and Sonata Dusk. They have raped and tortured a fantastic MLP villain. You know how I said Discord has been permanently ruined into a gag character in the episode What About Discord, well reformed Starlight Glimmer makes reformed Discord look like "The Master of Chaos and Disharmony," like he should and would and could ever be. She is basically Sunset Shimmer for the show, the difference being here is that I actually liked the original character as a villain.
I do however like Sunburst. He's a cool character and I'm interested to see how his relationship with Cadance and Shining Armor develops, as well as with Starlight. He is an awesome wizard character and I hope he gets more development. However, it's really stupid how a simple unimportant wizard knows a spell that Celestia doesn't. It acts as a shoehorned in plot device to bring the character into the main story without thinking things through.
Oh, and Celestia. I didn't think it was possible that they could make her any worse, but they did. For some reason, the royal sisters, who have the power to move two celestial bodies, can't keep out COLD WEATHER or stop a CLOUD. They never explain what this cloud is, I get that the weather in the Frozen North has a mind of it's own, but that still doesn't excuse Celestia and Luna, the powerful goddesses who have power second only to Discord, not being able to keep out some chilly winds. It's not like it's a highly powerful evil force, the mane six managed to get through it easily in The Crystal Empire. No, I think it's just cold weather that they can't keep out for some strange reason.
In addition to that, she has to ask this low end wizard to help her fix the Crystal Heart, and in addition to that, it is retconed so she was not born an alicorn. Which goes directly against what Lauren Faust said, as she said that they were born alicorns.
The image of the powerful mystical goddess, who was a representation of the sun, and had an intelligent mind and a kind soul, is completely ruined. No, Celestia is stupid, selfish, powerless, useless, and might as well just not be in the show. She does NOTHING. In fact, she didn't need to be in this episode. It could have just have easily been Rainbow Dash holding back the cloud and that would have made much more sense that she couldn't stop it, because she's just a normal pegasus trying to stop extremely powerful weather, so the fact that she is finding it hard would make sense, instead of two goddesses not being able to keep out the weather. I just hate the character so goddamn much now, she has no purpose in the show anymore. The friendship letters are gone, she can't stop any threat even if it's just the weather. the ponies almost seem to think of Twilight as their leader instead of Celestia now..... Why is she still in the show?
Also Twilight in this episode, very similar to season 5, completely flanderized. It makes season 4 Princess Twilicorn look like the definitive Twilight Sparkle. Her only personality trait at this point is that she loves books, gets anxious, and she has these crazy nerdy moments. Gone is the sweetness, the tenderness, the desire to do well, the determination, the compassion, her love of teaching kids and her goodness with kids, and her helpfulness, which in season 1 and 2, hell, even in season 4 when she was a princess, were major aspects of her character. That's all completely gone now.
The other members of the mane six contribute absolutely nothing to the story except for a few gags and helping people evacuate. It's clear that the writers just don't care about Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash anymore. No, it's just Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer, and they are the stars.
So yeah it wasn't good, even though it was slightly better than I expected and had some good stuff in it, the Crystaling gets an....
E+
With Starlight getting shoved in this season I'm afraid that the rest of the Mane 5 will get less and less attention. In fact, this episode confirms my fears.
The only good thing I can appreciate of this two-parter is that at least Spike was in character and I hope the writer will not turn him into a parody of himself in the next episodes.