The Great Switcheroo · 4:03pm Jun 10th, 2017
I have been dreading this day for a long time. It’s time to take a look at the long awaited episode involving the Royal Sisters, Celestia and Luna. A Royal Problem being hinted at, and later confirmed to be the first episode staring the Royal Sisters was a long time coming for these two. Sure, we’ve had our share of Luna episodes and, to an extent, a Celestia episode earlier in the season, but none staring the two together.
To begin with, I did like the idea of these two finally having a team up episode. Celestia and Luna have always either be captured by the villain of the season opener or finale, or contribute next to no help at all. I’m not really counting the comics since I don’t really consider them canon to the show at all, but that doesn’t change how overdue the Royal Sisters needed an episode. This was something they both needed to show how good they truly are.
Now you would think that a Celestia and Luna episode sounds awesome right? After six seasons without a single episode involving the two Royal Sisters, you would think it would be really hyped up right? Not so much once we learned more about the episode.
For reasons known only to the creative team, they thought that Royal Sisters alone wouldn’t be enough to carry this episode. Which makes no sense considering people have been waiting years for some episode involving these two. So they decided to add an additional character to pair up with them. A character that many found to be so out of left field, that it came from a different field altogether. That character you ask?
Starlight Glimmer
Yeah, the moment it was announced she would be in this episode, the red flags started popping up. Considering this was the first episode we had involving Celestia and Luna, people were naturally skeptical or immediately dismissed the episode. I was really torn when I heard about this episode. Mostly because of the fact of Starlight’ inclusion feeling unnecessary when Celestia and Luna alone could carry this episode. Yet at the end of it all, what we get is something of an “interesting” experience. I should warn you all ahead though that this review is pretty long as I cover a lot of stuff in the episode.
Starlight Glimmer finds herself being called by the Cutie Map to Canterlot, in particular the Royal Palace. When she goes there, she finds out that Celestia and Luna are not seeing eye to eye and don’t appreciate each other. It soon reaches a point where Starlight accidentally swaps the cutie marks of both Celestia and Luna. Now stuck with their own sister’s talents, they both must walk a mile in the other’s shoes for a full day before they get their cutie marks back.
If you’re like me, you’ve already pointed out the major flaw in this episode’s premise. Starlight’s inclusion, while it did bother me, was not the biggest issue above all. Let’s ignore how Starlight is involved, and let’s ignore how she uses her magic like this for a second. Instead, we’ll focus on the major flaw here:
The sister’s not appreciating each other.
In case you all forgot or are late to the show, Celestia and Luna were separated for 1,000 years after Luna became Nightmare Moon. After they were reunited, they seemed to appreciate each other. Apprently in the time since then, they’ve seemed to have grown distant again. The thing that bothers me is that after 1,000 years of being unable to see each other, you would think that Celestia and Luna would have grown closer to each other after the Nightmare Moon ordeal, but that’s not the case.
What bothers me about this is that it feels like it just feels out of character for both sisters. To be away from one another for over 1,000 years and then being reunited should have been a way to bring them much closer than before. Instead, they’ve become distant again in the time following that. Now I understand siblings do fight and have disagreements, but it’s an odd thing to see them be this way after they nearly lost each other forever. In a way, it feels like they’re repeating almost the same exact events that lead up to Luna’s banishment. After all, them not seeing eye to eye was what lead to that.
Now, to be fair, the main issue between them is their line of work. Both of them having major different jobs that one sees easier than their current one. Celestia is more outgoing and social in her duties. Luna works alone and keeps an eye on the dream realm and prevent any major nightmares. This kind of a grudge between them isn’t a bad idea in general. If anything, it gives us some insight into their duties and what they do in Equestria. It’s the most plausible kind of scenario for a story like this in regards to appreciating each other.
For the first time ever, we do get to see what Celestia and Luna do in their daily lives. Celestia ends up doing a lot of public relations type of stuff such as store openings, going to see kids at school, and dealing with issues between political leaders. Luna, we already know she looks over the dream realm while ponies sleep, but we do learn she enjoys changing the pots of flowers with lavender flowers to help others sleep at night.
As I mentioned before, the main conflict between Celestia and Luna is that they don’t seem to appreciate each other because they think their sister’s job is better than their current one. As such, the Cutie Mark Map sends Starlight Glimmer alone to deal with the problem. The Cutie Map calling Starlight may be strange, but I’m guessing because she took part in helping to reactivate it, some of her magic DNA or some of her trace was in the map and registered her. I don’t really know how she was called and they never explain how the map could call somepony who wasn’t an Element of Harmony. Though, this revelation does open the door for other ponies that aren’t the Mane 7 to be called by the map.
A major problem with the episode’s synopsis was that Starlight was the one sent alone. I admit that I found it to be forced in a way to have Starlight be part of it. One of my initial problems with the episode was the unneccesary inclusion of Starlight. After watching this episode though and giving it some thought, I understood why Starlight was chosen after all. It wasn’t because of being forced in for no reason:
It’s because she was the best choice for this.
If you think about it, when it comes to the Mane 7, they are very loyal to the princesses. As shown by Twilight in the episode, they wouldn’t think they were fighting and were growing distant again. They’d think it was something else like one of the guards or advisers, and would never believe the princesses were fighting each other.
Starlight’s inclusion here makes a lot of sense since she is a neutral party. She has no real close ties to the princesses other than meeting them a few times. There’s no internal conflict from her about addressing the two sisters’ problems with each other and how distant they’ve gotten. When she found out about how Celestia and Luna felt about each other, she didn’t just deny it and pretend it wasn’t happening, she wanted to address it them immediately. Her being the one sent alone is the most logical choice of them.
What’s not so bright about Starlight though is that, yet again, her idea of solving the problem is just using magic. When the Royal Sisters start bickering again, Starlight panics and lets out a magical aura that changes the cutie marks between Celestia and Luna. Let’s ignore for a fact that Starlight was somehow able to do this to two alicorns with no problems at all. Let’s even ignore how something like this magical outburst could have gone badly for the sisters. Let’s instead focus on the elephant in the room the show has continued to ignore: the constant use of magic to solve everything.
For the third time now, Starlight has relied on magic to solve her problems. All her previous times of using magic have always blown up in her face. The first time being in Every Little Thing She Does with using mind control on her friends and leaving horrible implications about Starlight. Then earlier this season in All Bottled Up, Starlight’s magic to suppress her anger lead to Trixie nearly being beaten up. Now we have this episode and Starlight using magic again and forget again about how the last two times magic has failed her. Five if you really want to count her plan to take everypony’s cutie marks and the time travel plot against Twilight and her friends. She’s worse than Rainbow Dash having to constantly learn about loyalty.
I’ve heard arguments that this kind of thing is a character trait for Starlight, and we shouldn’t mind it. I got to say though, this is a bad character trait to have. Starlight’s constant use of magic is not something I find endearing or entertaining. If anything, it could lead to more consequences down the road for her. It’s a gimmick that’s overstayed its welcome and something that continues to hurt Starlight in the long run and one of the reasons I can’t fully embrace the character.
In the interest of fairness, she was not helped by how Twilight was constantly putting her under pressure and it may have contributed to this. However, this is something tiring and overdone at this point. It’s not like Starlight hasn’t been seen using her brain before to figure out a problem. Admittedly, the magical use does end up being useful in the long run, but come on already; three times she’s used magic to solve her problems.
Tiresome plot element aside, the story itself follows the usual Freaky Friday kind of scenario. Celestia and Luna each think their sister has an easier job than theirs, and then when the switch happens, they learn it’s not as easy. Really, if you’ve seen any of the Freaky Friday movies or episodes based on it, you should really know what to expect. However, despite how predictable this episode sounds it does manage to hit a lot of high notes.
One of the things that’s in this episode’s favor is the character development for Celestia and Luna. Not only do we get to see what they do in their own lives, but we get a look into some of their own feelings as well. While I am iffy on the fact that both Celestia and Luna are both seemingly distant after what happened 1,000 years ago, it’s clear there are still some things haven’t been said or ignored and they’ve been keeping it bottled up until this point.
Something I do admire is that despite their differences, Celestia and Luna do seem to be envious about their own jobs. Celestia has been doing almost everything since Luna’s banishment, and while her sister’s return took some of those duties off her shoulders, it’s obvious Celestia is still feeling unsatisfied and overworked. The same could be said for Luna who spends night after night tirelessly going around the dream realm and protecting it, and wanting to interact with ponies who aren’t asleep.
You do feel for them as they just want variety in their lives. They’ve been doing this for a long time and, again, probably have kept their feelings from each other about this. When they do switch, their forced into elements that they are not comfortable. Luna messing up a photo with some school kids and seeing her feel bad about it, but forced to move past it with other duties. Celestia has to deal with nightmares and stuff she isn’t sure what to do. It’s some solid character development for them as they see the world from their own sister’s eyes.
While this episode does involve Starlight and the princesses, the episode does a good job giving all the characters screen time. No character feels like they’re hogging the spotlight for too long, and they all get nearly equal amounts of screen time. When it came to the sisters switching cutie marks though, we didn’t really get to see much of Celesita doing a whole lot of her sister’s duties. We do see her go into the dream realm and help Starlight, but that was really it. I was kind of hoping we’d get to see a bit more of what Luna does at night, but since all ponies go to sleep, I guess they couldn’t think of anything else.
The major turning point in this episode is when Celestia goes into the dream realm. Something to note about is that in Do Princesses Dream of Magical Sheep, Luna said Celestia can’t do anything in the dream realm, so her raising the moon and thinking it’s easy to do Luna’s duties may come off as a plot hole. Since Celestia never had Luna’s abilities though, she couldn’t enter the dream realm and only raise the moon. This does explain why Celestia is so confused about the dream realm and only knows a little bit about it.
This does lead to the episode’s best scenes as we see Starlight is having a nightmare about her impulsiveness in using magic. It gives us a good look into Starlight’s internal struggle as she wonders if she made the right decision, and is letting her fear get the best of her. I still think Starlight using her magic like that was still a bad idea and she should have thought this through more. Still, credit be where credit is due, this episode does make us sympathize with Starlight to an extent. She just wanted to make the sisters happy again instead of dividing them further and is obviously in despair about how things have gone.
Eventually, this nightmare leads not only to Luna thinking Nightmare Moon will return, but we see the revelation of Celestia’s evil self; Daybreaker. The design for Daybreaker is excellent. It really is a good representation of Celestia’s evil self and how she would look. Her firey mane reminds me of Twilight going Rapidash. The armor she’s wearing is excellent and look like flames. Her eyes are dark and yet sinister looking with how small they are. It’s a damn good design that I love. I dare say this could top Nightmare Moon’s design.
I do wish they chose a better name though. Daybreaker doesn’t really come off as the name of an evil solar tryant. It sounds more like the name of a pony who loves to get up at the crack of dawn. Why not something like Solar Flare or Sinister Sun? Daybreaker just doesn’t really sound that evil of a name and not what I was expecting from Celestia’s “nightmare” version of herself. It doesn’t ruin her at all, but I just think the name could have been better.
There is an amusing fight scene between the two evil monarchs with some fun banter. Daybreaker in particular gets some really good and funny lines. The two duke it out and use all their powers against one another. Both end up being evenly matched despite all the tricks and efforts they use to overpower one another. It’s a very exciting fight scene for the most part. Having Starlight also be in the middle of it all as she falls into despair about everything going wrong is a nice touch too. It makes us see that she is that afraid of how bad things could go and everything would be her fault alone.
With some help from Luna and encouragement about what to do, Celestia does eventually stop Daybreaker and Nightmare in a pretty epic way and save Starlight at the end. She does say tell Daybreaker she will never return, but part of me can’t help but feel this is foreshadowing. I doubt this is the last we will see of Daybreaker in the show. Something this big and revealing isn’t going to be a one time deal only. They’re most likely saving her for something in the future like the season finale.
All three ponies eventually wake up and reconcile with one another. Starlight is congratulated for her methods in helping the sisters appreciate one another and that nopony else would have done what she did. While that is true, I was hoping for a minor thing about the princesses warning Starlight to control her magic better and to not use it some carelessly as it could lead to serious consequences. It would have been even better if Starlight herself said that she needs to do a better job at controlling her magic and start vowing to not rely on it so much. At least Starlight’s magical use this time didn’t lead to terrible implications like mind control like a certain other episode involving Starlight.
In the beginning, I mentioned that A Royal Problem was an interesting experience. It had a lot going for itself and this was the first episode involving the Royal Sisters being the focus. Its story wasn’t really what I was hoping for these two teaming up. Not only is Starlight part of the focus, but the story itself follows what you would expect from a Freaky Friday type of story for half the episode.
There was a lot they could have done with Celestia and Luna’s first episode. An episode about them having some sibling issues, while not bad, was something I don’t think we needed yet. The comics already covered some of these stories about their sibling differences. But, you know what the weirdest part about this episode is? This could probably be the best episode of the season yet.
I’m not kidding. Despite my issues with it such as Starlight’s recklessness with magic and some other minor gripes, this episode is superb in many ways. It exceeded my expectations much like in Parental Glideance with its execution. There’s really not a lot wrong at all with this episode. Considering all the things that could have gone wrong with this kind of setup and how Starlight was put into this episode, they managed to put out a fantastic episode.
There’s solid characterization for everyone involved and they all have character development. The princesses are given a look into their personal lives and what they do. While I found the idea of them not appreciating each other to be a stretch, it is done in a believable way. The conflict works well overall and surprisingly has a lot of depth to it for what it is.
Celestia and Luna are clearly at their best in this episode, though that’s not hard considering this is their first episode together. The idea of Celestia fearing she may fall to the dark side much like Luna did was handled very well. Luna’s own nightmare about how her public relations thing being a disaster was a nice touch too. The two of them even end up saving the day together; although it’s mostly Celestia since she has the dream powers. I was worried that Starlight would have been the one saving the day again and the princesses be sidelined.
Starlight herself in this episode hasn’t changed much of my views in this episode. She moved somewhat in the right direction because she did end up feeling remorseful for using magic carelessly again and she was the overall best choice for this mission. She didn’t even beat around the bush when she confronted the sisters and just pointed out the flaws with each other. Mix that in with her nightmare and how she feels she failed and messed up and it’s some good character development for her.
I argue though that this episode continues to show one of Starlight’s major problems; her magical use. This time it did work to her favor, but out of five magical uses to solve her issues, this is the first and only time it worked to her favor. The fact that she really didn’t get lectured or even have her realize that using magic all the time is a bad idea just encourages Starlight to continue to do this and not face any major consequences. I’m really hoping this does eventually lead to some character arc for Starlight to control her magic better and not use it so much. How many more times are we going to have to see her do this before she finally learns this lesson?
The comedic bits from Twilight are amusing, but other than that she really was around only to put pressure on Starlight. There are also some other funny bits such as Luna trying to interact with the public and some of Starlight’s initial antics.
The second act is really where the episode picks up with the look into Luna and Celestia and the dream realm bits. It gets somewhat dark at points too with the nightmares of both Starlight and Luna; especially Luna with those kids. However, the episode does suffer from some pacing issues. In a way, most of the stuff in this episode is happening pretty fast. This is especially noticeable in the first act and how one event is quickly followed by another. It feels like they were quickly putting the story together and dumped a lot of stuff to get it out of the way.
But even with all my issues in this episode, I can’t say this was a bad episode at all. Every character has a good chance to shine and play a good role overall. The story itself is solid, albeit a bit predictable at times, and hits a lot of high notes. For Celestia and Luna’s first outing, this was well done and they both have some good character development and end up saving the day together.
It’s hard to say where in the ranking list this episode does stand. By no means is this episode awful at all and it’s not even middle of the road. I would say it’s at the top, but I am very torn by the current best episode in my eyes, Parental Glideance. Everything about this episode was fantastic and was put together nicely. It’s not a perfect episode at all, but it managed to exceed my expectations again and I always appreciate the show managing to take what could be a disaster of an episode and making it into something fantastic.
For the second time this season, I’ve been forced to eat crow again in regards to how an episode would play out. I’m not complaining since this episode, much like Parental Glideance, surprised me in a good way. After six seasons without them getting an episode, the first Celestia and Luna episode is a royal treat and a very pleasant surprise. If you’re willing to look over some of the issues such as Starlight’s impulsiveness, you will have no problem then enjoying A Royal Problem.
FINAL SCORE: 9 out of 10 (A-)
Season seven episode ranking list from best to worst:
Parental Glideance/ A Royal Problem (NEW AND TIED)
Rock Solid Friendship
Flurry of Emotions
Celestial Advice
Forever Filly
All Bottled Up
Hard to Say Anything
Fluttershy Leans In
Honest Apple
Oh this was the best episode so far. Now to begin.
And thus this is where sibling are born. Most of the time those things will happen in a family. . .most of the time.
They will be a lot of family members not seeing eye to eye, lets look at the sons of Sparda from DMC Dante want despite his lifestyle want to protect the the humans from the demons while Vergil want to be like his dad and is willing to discard his humanity to gain more power.
Fan of the show already know they duties. . .look at some of the fanfics.
I know you cover this but in this episode it actually help to see things in they eyes.
True not everything can be solved with magic.
Hold on. . .If I remember they a plot hole in there. She can enter an accented plain at will season three finale and I forgot the story but it cover Cadance's back story of how she became an alicorn But is confused about the dream realm?
BREAK THE DAY!!!