Squirrel Goes Nuts About Shadow Play, Or: The One Where the Princesses are Bumped Off · 8:44am Dec 14th, 2017
I was pleasantly surprised by most of season 7. It had some lows, but I came away with a more positive impression by far than season six, which I consider the absolute nadir of pony. But overall, I don't have a lot to say about season 7, which had so many episodes that felt either self-contained or inconsistent with the rest of the show I would have to go in and speak about each in on particular. I don't have the time to do that, so I'll focus on what I found the most interesting part of the season: the finale.
It wasn't a bad finale by any means; in fact, it's one of the only episodes featuring Starlight Glimmer as the hero that didn't make me roll my eyes. They finally figured out how to use her right as her own character instead of as a bludgeon for whatever lesson of the week needed doling out! Hooray!
Except we get a trade-off: the finale completes the slow, steady stake-through-the-heart treatment the other Princesses have been getting. Cadance is still fun... kinda... when she bothers to show up. Her presence hasn't been established as much, so she can afford to pop in and pretend she isn't stealing the spotlight, and it's extremely criminal she doesn't use her amazing singing voice more often.
But Celestia and Luna? They haven't been actually relevant since somewhere around season three. Without Celestia's mentorship role to Twilight, she is pretty much a sideshow now. Starlight getting to be Twilight's student means old Sunbutt has ceased to be an influence in Twilight's life as far as the overall story is concerned. And I don't mean in the way that Twilight and Celestia's relationship had a proper send-off; I mean the show just dropped Celestia's development like a rock. We never truly saw Celestia in a position that wasn't as a recipient of Twilight's letters and journals or as a dispenser of random historical villains, but we did catch glimpses like in Lesson Zero or Magical Mystery Cure. Celestial Advice wasn't about Twilight and Celestia, it was Twilight fretting about Starlight, and in a way, validation for the way Twilight and Celestia barely interact at all anymore. Celestia tells Twilight she's all right with her student being gone from her life now. Heck, we see that later on in Royal Problem, where Twilight bows out of the chance to help the pony who was basically her second mother through an emotional trial. In that episode, she puts the Princesses up on a pedestal and Starlight blatantly tells her "you're biased." It pushes the idea that Twilight respects the Princesses too much to get into their personal problems, and is in fact afraid of even suggesting that they have problems.
"I'm sorry, you just said 'Princesses' and 'not the best' in the same sentence and it's freaking me out!" she says.
Yet we see clearly that Twilight gets right in the nitty-gritty of royal problems in previous seasons when she witnesses the battle between Celestia and Nightmare Moon. She was the first one to go to Luna in Luna Eclipsed, the one who united Ponyville to calm Luna down during Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?. In a small way, she explored Celestia and Luna's childhoods in Castle Mane-ia. On top of all that, she became the Princess of Friendship. Far from backing down from a closer bond with her fellow Princesses, doesn't it make sense she'd actually get closer to them? After all this time, wouldn't Twilight be the first to know the Princesses are fallible and can make mistakes?
I guess not.
Doubly so with Moonbutt. Princess Luna's main shtick was being insecure and uncertain about her role in the new Equestria, rather like Twilight's. We got confirmation she guards dreams and calms nightmares, but ultimately her mythology was what really drew us into her character. She was a demigod who went mad, a pony of vast power barely containing a violent alter-ego. She was the little sister discarded and ignored to the point she lost her mind with grief, a living fable who embodies the magic of old places and old stories. A lost, lonely goddess trapped in a moon, adrift and alone in a world she feels has passed her by. Nightmare Moon and the legend surrounding her made Princess Luna as popular as she is today.
And then the finale one-ups Nightmare Moon from the very first seconds.
What's really interesting about the opening to this episode is that it's not just a callback, it's essentially a replacement. They cleave so close to the pilot's story it's almost the same thing. The Elements of Harmony are now personified by the Legends, Stygian is the new Luna/Nightmare Moon, and even Starswirl the Bearded becomes the new Princess Celestia as the mysterious, powerful figure Twilight adores. The only real difference is Starswirl disrespects Twilight at first, but we all know that won't last very long.
So first off, it's immediately revealed that Celestia and Luna, despite being alicorns and future rulers of Equestria, knew absolutely nothing about Starswirl or where he went or this conflict he had with Stygian. Yet Starswirl went after Stygian knowing he wouldn't come back. So why didn't he leave any kind of sign for Celestia and Luna to find? Is he really that much of an asshole he couldn't slap a post-it note on the fridge saying "Hey, gone to banish a great evil, probably gonna die, here's some cookies and a manual on ruling Equestria. Also here's where I'm hiding the Elements of Harmony, you just might need those."
Yes, I know Celestia and Luna say they were "too young" to know what was going on, but if that's the case, how did Starswirl manage to teach them long enough to be considered their most important teacher? Who raised them afterward? They presumably had legions of caretakers until they came into their power, but the guy who was around the least was the most important?
Well, none of this is really addressed. Because if Starswirl told Celestia and Luna what was going on, they would just immediately tell Twilight everything. Their only possible role in this story is to give exposition, but they can't do that or there would be no story. So they must be rendered irrelevant. Starswirl must be staggeringly inept and cruel as to never tell them where he went, because Celestia and Luna must be ignorant of any and all circumstances surrounding his disappearance. Right from the get-go, the two ponies who should be important, even vital to the story, are simply written off with a "I dunno lol."
It just hit me that happened in The Crystalling too. "Hey Luna and Celestia, you're alicorns, how was this baby born an alicorn?" "I dunno lol"
So now we watch not only Celestia and Luna, but the Elements of Harmony themselves be written out of canon. Turns out the Elements are just the crystallized remains of these Pillar guys? And that a banishing spell would mean they have to... "sacrifice" the Elements. Whatever that means. Except that's impossible because the Elements did disappear after Luna was banished the first time, but then re-materialized when Twilight and her friends faced Nightmare Moon. They weren't sacrificed then. In fact, we don't know what happened to them at all after Luna was banished, which I suppose is the tiny bit of leeway writers have in saying they must be "sacrificed" to do a banishing spell, but I highly doubt they even noticed Season 1 exists.
Except then we saw that the Tree of Harmony actually holds the Elements... except when the Tree of Harmony took them away and gave them Rainbow Power instead... because we're told they don't need the Elements because Twilight and her friends are their living manifestations... which I guess is represented by their Rainbow Power which doesn't use the Elements at all, so why not just use that instead of the Elements to defeat Stygian... and why is the Tree important anyway? If the Elements are always there in spirit, what's the point of planting it or being worried about saving it?
My head hurts.
And by the end, we have the conflict between Stygian and the other Elements. It's essentially saving Luna, but with a bit more nuance. In fact, it's... a little better, at least in terms of the concept itself. Imagine if during the pilot Twilight flung herself into the darkness of Luna through a gap opened by the Elements, and physically dragged her out too. It's a powerful image, and one I'm glad they used.
Except, well. Wouldn't Luna be kind of an expert on darkness and shadows and junk? But, well, then we wouldn't have Starlight's moment of glory, which wasn't bad... the curse of a crowded cast is now compounded by all of the Pillars now being part of modern Equestria. So now we have to split heroics down even further between thirteen potentially heroic ponies instead of just seven. And that's not even counting Starlight's new cadre of super-friends. So now at the end, it turns out the Elements of Harmony are present three times over. Once for the mane six, once for the physical crystals, and once for the Pillars apparently having the magic within them as well because they planted the "seed" of the Tree.
I don't see them even bothering to explain any of this down the road, either. Probably just ignore most of it, like they did Celestia and Luna, who we see at the very end once again just long enough for them to go "Hooray! This Starswirl pony is definitely important because we say so."
You see what I mean? The show doesn't really have a true overarching story anymore. It has... well, it has roadblocks. Obstacles that it needs to twist the new stories around. It ignores, puts aside, changes, or flat-out deletes whatever is inconvenient when it comes to truly nailing down exactly how this world works. It's been doing that for seven years now, and it's really just made me lose hope that the show will actually build up from what it had before. Instead it just has little mini-arcs for every season, and what we see about the characters, their development, and the world in general is purely contained within that season and whatever writers are working on the show.
On top of that, the cast is crowded beyond belief, we have about a billion different avenues for ponies to instantly solve any friendship problem that comes along, and there's so much power in the main cast that that power will have to be again conveniently ignored in order for there to be a story. I'd like to say more characters means more development and more story, but I think we've all seen that a continuous story is the last thing the show is interested in. As we go further down the road, that doesn't make me optimistic.
Which brings me to my final point. Yes, the lessons within the stories are still fine. Yes, they are important. The lessons are what the show is trying to teach young children. But if we're here for just the lessons, why not just make every episode a thirty second advertisement for toys that comes with a free moral at the end? Imagine if Friendship is Magic was just that: a pony shows up on screen and recites a script, saying things like "Remember children, it's better to speak to your friends and work out your problems instead of bottling up emotions! By the way, I'm Pinkie Pie, and this is my favorite toy line in Hasbro!" Cut to credits. There, you have a great lesson. No character, no story, just the lessons, just like people seem to want.
Except it was never the lessons we were really here for. It's the stories the lessons are couched in. It's the characters that live and breathe them. The world that is informed by them. Without all these elements coming together in harmony, what good is a rote list of commands? And if the show doesn't care about those stories and about that world and about those characters, why should we?
But at least we have the new best ship ever.
Also, final thoughts: Who the hell names their kid Stygian before he even does something evil? Great name, awful character I gotta say.
Oh my CELESTIA I also just realized something.
If the comics are canon... and it's also canon that Starswirl disappeared when Celestia and Luna were very young... how the hell is that comic where Starswirl and a fully-grown Celestia find the good version of Sombra through the mirror supposed to have happened?
Yeah... the continuity hasn't been the best since Season 6.
Edit: But I'll do say that in A Royal Problem, a very big part that Twilight was acting that way was that Celestia was involved, since Twilight was completely biased towards her.
Which was why she did so well with Luna in Luna Eclipsed and Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep? in contrast, since she was completely neutral towards her.
Can't disagree with much, though I have to ask, you think season 6 is worse than 3? That's surprising...
I'm not going to say it's my least favorite episode, but it *is* the episode that convinced me that "secrets and pies" was the last episode of the entire show. I could complain about the blatantly ignored lessons of the past, the grotesque amounts of free-floating "good guy power" or the bizarre out-of-character moments in the episode, but the tl;dr is that it made me retroactively hate the entire lore arc of s7, any and every magical macguffin in the show, and all of the named characters that featured in that episode except for Starlight Glimmer
and Spike, although I'd argue that he isn't a character in that episode so much as an object that's relevant for a scene.Technically speaking, I would have stopped caring about MLP years ago if it wasn't for the fandom and fan works; this was just the episode that convinced me to stick solely to fan material from here on out.
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People remember season 3 for the Spike episodes, and Magical Mystery Cure. Both of those were pretty lame. But I'd say the spectacle of Celestia's song kinda made up for it? The rest of the episodes were actually pretty fine in my book. None of them were particularly boring or bad. The important thing is I still felt like I was watching a show that was trying to, you know, go somewhere.
Season 6 was where I started really drawing the line. The Crystalling was absolute bunkum, with not even a shred of effort involved. Not only on the lore side of things either, but in the writing department. Nothing anyone says is engaging or makes any sense, and come on. Fighting the weather and keeping a stupid god-baby that causes all the problems from having a tantrum until Sunburst just pulls the solution out of his ass? Really? How is any of that relevant to the phrase "Friendship is Magic?"
Newbie Dash holds the title for absolute worst episode of the entire series, and not just because of the hazing. It has zero redeeming qualities.
Every episode with Thorax and the changelings is nonsensical claptrap. Thorax, man. Way to make changelings the least interesting part of an already inconsistent series.
Applejack's Day Off struggled to even reach the finish line it was so boring.
Ever since the Cutie Mark Crusaders got their marks, the only episode about them that really engaged me was Marks and Recreation. I could make an entire other blog post on why I think the CMC are one of the least interesting parts of the show now. Cart Before the Ponies was abysmal. On Your Marks can be summed up as "the episode where they almost aren't the CMC anymore but then they are again." Fault in Our Cutie Marks was pretty okay? But what's the lesson here? You have a purpose outside of worrying about cutie marks? Uh, didn't we have like five episodes on that already?
Every single episode with Starlight ever: "Ugh, I can't believe I am so EVIIIIILLLL, please Twilight, teach me to be GOOOOOOD." But then she turns out to be really good, and in fact better than most ponies anyway, so her complaining is pointless and stupid. Also when did Trixie become a Valley Girl?
I could go on. And on and on and on and on. But season 3 had three really bad episodes, several okay ones, and a general sense that it was building on what we had before. Season 6 was just consistently bad, except for Top Bolt and PPOV and absolutely did not care about the overall state of the show, just pushing out that horrendous Starlight-centered arc.
So... The Force Awakens.
This is how people make movies and TV shows now. I can't help but wonder if this is in part because literary theory (eg Barthes' "The Death of the Author") now teaches that there are no new stories, just rewritings of old stories.
Yes. It's too much now. We're in Marvel or DC territory. I personally plan to entirely ignore the existence of all these new Elements, unless I need them. I can't be held to a level of consistency that the show's writers make impossible.
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I mean, yeah, 6 was no good, but I've always put 3 on the bottom because it just felt like they weren't trying at all. The same can be said for 6, but at least it was a full season, y'know?
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That's... a really depressing, but accurate statement to make. People don't seem afraid to go outside the established zone of Permitted Story Ideas, they seem to have forgotten that a place outside that zone even exists. But storytelling suffers and continues to suffer as a result. It's ironic that I see so many stories about "passing on the mantle," but ultimately the shadow of what came before is still considered so huge it's not passing on so much as turning around and retreading the path we just came from.
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Even though the season was longer, it just left more room for bad episodes for me.
Thinking back, it kind of makes sense. Say Celestia and Luna were found, or some of the last few Alicorns seen in Equestria, and they haven't seen any other natural Alicorns, so its possible they wouldn't know how an Alicorn is born.