Has anyone anywhere realized the reality of Canterlot Wedding/The Maud Couple? · 2:11am Feb 8th, 2019
Has anyone anywhere realized the reality of Canterlot Wedding/The Maud Couple?
How The Maud Couple taught the lesson that Canterlot Wedding SHOULD HAVE TAUGHT?! (Never mind how I felt Maud was a mare who didn't need a boyfriend.) Teaching 'if your loved ones fall in love with someone you don't personally like, but makes your loved ones happy, you should accept that and be happy for them.'?
Twilight and Pinkie Pie both saw the other half of their sibling as someone they personally disliked, and became increasingly paranoid about. And both end taking things too far.
ONLY! With a shocking swerve, Twilight turns out to be completely right, and the real Cadence is someone that Twilight totally gets along with!
And Pinkie Pie? No Dues Ex Machina comes to her rescue because she's lower on the narrative totem pole. She has to accept MudBriar rubs her and many others the wrong way, but he genuinely makes Maud Pie happy and Pinkie Pie needs to accept that!
The narratives of these two episodes could be totally switched around! Cadence could have REALLY just been suffering pre-wedding nerves, having to handle a wedding all by herself, and reconciled with Twilight at the end. And Mudbriar could have been just the evil shapeshifting love parasite who was mind controlling Maud! And PINKIE PIE would have been the ones with the lesson about 'trusting your instincts even when everyone else around you thinks you're wrong!'
I was waiting for the writers to lampshade this somehow, maybe Pinkie Pie thinking Mudbriar MUST BE Chrysalis in disguise, or some other things, lamp shading how absurd the original plot twist was, but television writers aren't known for admitting to such things.
Has anyone else, ANYWHERE in this whole fandom, realized how easily the morals of these two episodes could be switched around?!
Well it could be argued that 'evil shapeshifter queen' makes for a better season finale than pre wedding jitters. It fits with the 'big premier and finale' thing they tend to go with.
Besides, why would Chrysalis be mind controlling Maud of all ponies as opposed to, say, Twilight? It doesn't really make sense for her character since she has nothing against Maud, and honestly Pinkie is kind of peripheral to the likes of Twilight, Cadance, or Starlight, whom she's kind of obsessed with.
How much of this are you sure isn't just a dislike for mudbriar, which I totally understand. Dude's annoying as can be.
The devil's in the details. There are some broad-strokes narrative similarities, yes, but Twilight actually knew her sibling's suitor prior to their relationship. Her paranoia was inspired at least in part by the stark contrast between the Cadence of her memories and the Cadence she was seeing before her, which then grew given that time the deceptive Cadence made Shining's eyes go all
.
Meanwhile, Mudbriar's just this nice (from Maud's perspective, anyway) stallion Maud met at Petricon who popped into Pinkie's life as abruptly as... well, Cadence and Shining Armor.
Pinkie doesn't have any inconsistencies to pick at or suspicious behavior to investigate; she just doesn't like the guy, and her actions are reasonably framed as being a lot more in the wrong than the social awkwardness of Bowlcut McPhloem, as opposed to Twilight taking her investigation too far despite her reasonable grounds for suspicion. Even for Pinkie, there's no reason to assume Chrysalis would pose as someone so dull and obtuse to target someone she's likely never met.
Plus, there's the whole "increased security" subplot that wouldn't go anywhere in "A Canterlot Wedding," the Doylist fact that season finales demand some major conflict or other great feat to end on, and so on and so forth. Sure, the lessons could be swapped, but that doesn't necessarily mean they would or should.
No, Chrysalis was toxic, even when everyone thought she was Cadance. She was clearly hurting Shining, and the happiness was forced. Twilight was right to suspect her. Maybe it wasn't strategic to react as she did, but she was right in saying that she was evil.
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Another lesson that could have been taught: people change, and you aren't always going to be there when they change.
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It depends on how long since you've seen them because people don't ususally have such a drastic shift in personality from the Cadence we saw in Twilight memories to what she met at the castle unless there is some major tramatic event that forces the change.
Also note Twilight didnt like her brothers suiter because she wa a mega bitch and extremely toxic. if some one you care about is in a toxic relationshp and you actualy give a damn about them you dont just let them sit in a relationship that is hurting them. Especially when that relationship is shown to be abusive (mindrape anyone?)
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I'm saying, what if it turned out Cadenza really was helping Shining Armor with headaches and Twilight Sparkle jumped to conclusions?
My own issues with Canterlot wedding notwithstanding...
Twilight's actions were not driven by her dislike of Cadence, they were driven by her being scared for her brothers well being and frustration at the fact she had no one in her corner that she could talk to and be taken seriously.
She had no one to talk her down or reassure her, or even just listen to her concerns and talk them out with her.
The girls didn't take Twilight's concerns seriously, much like they didn't in Lesson Zero, except worse, because Spike didn't intervene or try to talk Twilight down like he did then.
Pinkie on the other hoof, was driven more by a sense of jealousy in my opinion. She saw Mudbriar as competition for her sister's attention and affection, something Pinkie obviously holds very dearly, and when she tried to get to know him after her initial bad first impression, found that she just didn't gel with the guy, which only served to confuse and frustrate her more.
Both Twilight and Pinkie have displayed similar reactions to similar situations in prior episodes, most notably, Lesson Zero and Wonderbolt Academy.
In Lesson Zero, Twilight went out of her way to solve a problem that only she could see, resulting in a massive incident due in no small part to her friends dismissing her concerns outright, without trying to calm her down or understand her concerns, much as they did in Canterlot wedding.
In Wonderbolt Academy, Pinkie was shown to be absolutely terrified that Dash would make new friends at the academy and forget about her and the others in favour of her new trainee friends, which is much the core of the issue in Maud Couple as without the uncertainty of the issue, she actually goes so far as to accuse Maud of choosing Mudbriar over her.
With how many people end up in abusive or even deadly relationships, we really need to be teaching kids to at least listen if a good friend or loved one is raising red flags about someone you're interested in. People need to learn to inject a bit of discernment and logic into their relationships, not just emotion. Doesn't always mean the friend or relation is right, as those can be abusive too. But the opinion and observations of those who you should know from experience have you best interests at heart shouldn't just be dismissed out of hand. And if you have a friend heading down a dangerous path, you should try to warn them. It's tricky, and you have to be sure your motivations are truly in your friend's interests and not just your own.
There's a trade-off. You're right that Cadance actually being just a freaked-mare would have been a better lesson. But remember what a crazy twist it was back in 2012 when Cadance turned out to be replaced by an evil shape-shifter. Instead of the coherent moral, we got the surprise and then the crazy action sequence.
Sorry, Alex, but I think you're wrong on this one.
One: That wasn't the lesson in a Canterlot Wedding It had do with it was her instincts or something.
Two: Twilight had no problem with Cadance, with her at first when she heard her brother was marrying her. Because she knew her from when she was a foal. It when she met up with fake Cadance that everything went downhill, Mubriar was someone Pinkie never met, and at most wasn't mean to her friend. He mostly annoyed Pinkie,
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This time? 'You're wrong' is the story of my life.
It might have been a better lesson, yeah. Though honestly, that would have made for a pretty boring finale compared to the one we actually got, and, you know, to me, that's a fair trade. Especially considering how much of the rest of the series owes itself to this episode.