A Hearth's Warming Tail S6E8 Recap · 4:23pm May 14th, 2016
A christmas episode in May? Okey dokey.
For the record, I know A Christmas Carol is a very tired story that everyone has done their spin on. But, when they're done well, I like it. A Christmas Carol is not really about Christmas when you examine it closer. It's a story of rekindling childhood joy and wonder, coming to terms with difficult events in your past, recognizing that your actions will have consequences, and getting some perspective on your life and the kind of person you want to be. These are themes and morals that are universal. The major failing with many Christmas Carol knock-offs is that they fail to realize these themes and think "yeah, person is grouchy at Christmas, toss in three ghosts to exposit why, and now he's over it. The end."
This episode thankfully avoids that common error and is pretty good. The framing device of Starlight not caring about Christmas (I'm not saying "Hearth's Warming," Christmas is easier to type and we all know that's what the holiday really is anyway) is rather tacked on, but I appreciate that they don't make her outright hateful of Christmas, just dismissive of it since she doesn't see the value in it. Twilight reads her a story about a powerful unicorn, Snowfall Frost, who doesn't see the point of wasting a day a year to party and celebrate when ponies should be spending their time doing more useful things, and decides to concoct a spell to literally erase Hearth's Warming from the calendar. To stop her, three spirits appear to her and talk her out of it.
What I like about this episode is that Snowfall is much more malicious than Scrooge. I mean, in the original Christmas Carol, you have to wonder what makes Scrooge so special that he gets these visits, is he really the only guy in town who dislikes Christmas? Here, Snowfall is less Scrooge and more Grinch, plotting to get rid of the holiday for good, so it makes sense why she would go through this experience to reform her. And it wasn't Scoorge or Grinch-like with her hate of the holiday, she's a workaholic who thinks it's a waste of valuable time to devote a whole day to celebrating and partying while she's busy studying powerful magic. This makes Snowfall more complex and interesting than your usual Scrooge stand-ins. She isn't merely a grouch, she has perfectly reasonable and pragmatic reason to dislike Hearth's Warming. Which makes it all the more satisfying to see her talked into recognizing its value and get over her flaws.
That aside, the episode overall really works. The choices for ghosts is good, though I'd have gone with Fluttershy instead of Applejack for Ghost of Christmas Past, seeing as Fluttershy works the childhood trauma angle well). The songs are great, and Snowfall's villain song is simply glorious. The cameos are good, the humor is good, there's some cool new animation effects, and the story puts a couple more twists on the Christmas Carol story to keep it a bit more fresh than some others.
Not a fantastic episode, but very solid and enjoyable.
I really liked heading into the third act and thinking, "Okay, what is Twilight Reaper going to show Starlight Scrooge instead of her own grave?" That final sequence was epic. :D
3943996 Yeah, I was expecting Twilight to be the ghost of Christmas Future, but Luna works too. And was it just me, or did whoever was singing for Luna sound a bit off? I'm not sure if it's just Kazumi Evans not really having to sing for Luna much before, or someone else being Luna's singing double.
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I dunno, I thought she was great. :O
I really liked this episode, but I really wish the components of this story could have been used at the end of Season 5 for Starlight’s background and motive.
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Second best song in the episode imo. I was actually rather impressed with how well Kazumi carried the tune without any rhyming, the music itself was pretty amazing and really helped how bleak the future was sink in (without resorting to long sequences of low, heavy notes as is usually the case with these scenarios).
3944938 Actually, it turns out that Kazumi Evans didn't provide Luna's singing voice in this episode. Not exactly sure why she was replaced, as she's still Rarity's singing voice as far as I know.
4098746 huh, who sang then?
4099929 I don't remember the name, but she offered the chance for a collab on Equestria Daily.