Season Nine (Spoilers, etc.) · 7:45pm May 29th, 2019
Just a few thoughts on a couple of recent episodes (you can probably guess at least two). Spoilers incoming, obviously.
First off, I have discovered the secret to making my predictions come true: I can't tell anyone about them.
Seriously, all those posts I've made, and not a single thing I've predicted or speculated about has come anywhere close to being correct. I had a big post ready to go before season nine—two actually, though I cannibalized one to make the second after a bunch of news came out and made a bunch of the first one out of date. I have issues with taking too long by rewriting and adding and removing things from these posts, and it often means they become pointless pretty fast, unless I rewrite them, and so on and so on.
Just as an example, I wrote this the week the episode premiered, at least mostly, and now it's a month and a half later somehow. Another fun fact: I was going to post this, and then realized, oh crap, Frenemies is this week, and a lot of what I write deals with that. Guess I'm delaying again!
But I didn't post either of those blogs, and you know what? A bunch of what I predicted came true. I predicted the Princesses leaving a few months ago—admittedly, I based that off one stupid toy, and everything I based it off of was incorrect anyway (though I'm still wondering who the hell that random pony included in a boxed set with the Mane Six and all the Princesses is). And I predicted that the premiere wouldn't end with Twilight taking over—though that was pretty obvious, especially with the episode summaries that had come out. And I predicted that Sombra would get super dead at the end of the premiere—though, that one was 50-50. It was more that I said “wow, it looks like he dies hard in that trailer, I wonder how they're going to bring him back to be part of Grogar's legion of doom” ('shotgun of harmony to the face' was the exact phrase I used).
Although, I was wrong about the Tree of Harmony being permanently dead. Which is kind of disappointing, though I suppose also inevitable now that it's officially a character.
Obviously, the lesson here is that by saying something I collapse the waveform and make it not happen. So, to be safe, I won't predict anything anymore.
On to the premiere!
First, the only real problem with it: the pacing.
It was a huge mess. Everything started off okay, right up to the point where Sombra conquers the Crystal Empire in, what, under two minutes? I mean, I get it, he did things quick and sloppy because the whole point was to draw out the Elements, but even knowing that it still feels rushed.
The biggest problem, I think, is that there's no sense of time passing during the episode. At one point when fighting back the Everfree Twilight says “We've been at this for hours!” but that's the only hint we get. Something more, like seeing the sun move across the sky or the time of day change at any point would have been nice. Honestly, I'm not even sure what the time frame was here. Did all this happen on the same day the Princesses announced their retirement? Or did a day or two pass in between?
What ends up happening is that as soon as Sombra leaves to attack alone (or gets sent, at least), the episode starts bouncing from scene to scene with drastic changes. It goes from Sombra attacking the Empire, to him destroying the Tree of Harmony, to him attacking Canterlot with no pause.
In any case, the pacing was an issue. There was never any time for rest once things got going, and there was no real indication of the passage of time. Even the sky didn't change, because it was always that orange and brown hue it gets when Sombra is around.
Part of that is probably on, I want to say, the editors? I think it's their job to deal with issues like this. Even a few more comments like Twilight's about how long they've been doing something would have helped, instead of making it feel like everything happened in real time.
The other side of the problem, which I can't really fault them for, is that they keep trying to do things bigger than what they have room for. It's been a consistent issue, from Twilight getting wings to the season seven finale to the movie (and yes, I realize some of that was out of their control). It sucks because what was there was really good, it just always seems like they needed 10-15 more minutes to make it smooth, and the end result feels rushed and messy.
In any case, I still really liked the episode. In no particular order, I'll go through some highlights.
Sombra was an interesting choice as the big villain, given that he was declared in-canon dead to the point where the comics were allowed to bring him back and reform him. “We have no further plans for Sombra on the show” was, I believe, the phrase used.
I can absolutely see why they used him, though. It's because they had no further plans for him.
He probably came up when they were planning to destroy the Tree of Harmony—literally the worst act any villain on the show has committed, and arguably the worst act any villain could possibly commit (even if it did come back). Obviously they couldn't have Cozy, Tirek or Chrysalis do it, since they are destined to be reformed. Having them blow up Harmony itself would make that hard to pull off. And Grogar can't go off and do it alone either, since his whole plan is about them not doing things alone.
So they brought in a sacrificial pawn. They brought back a villain who was 100% dead to do the deed (and who, let's be honest, no one was really impressed by or cared about) and then killed him to 1000% dead as punishment.
And he is dead permanently now. I mean, they disintegrated him. They fucking “Perfect Cell”-ed him. You don't come back from that (no one cares about GT and it's not canon anyway, don't even try to bring that up).
I mean, holy shit, I didn't realize this until I read the EQD followup, but, again, holy shit, that was brutal. In one of those unposted posts I called the Storm King's death brutal, but that's nothing compared to what happened to Sombra. As the follow up said, “I'm pretty sure you can see bone”. Here, look, I took the gif they put up and slowed it down:
In case you were wondering, yes, you did just watch the flesh peel off his muzzle. The eye roll at the end is pretty gruesome too. Like, I thought it was kind of lame when they censored the Mean Six melting but sort of understood it, so how the hell did this get the okay? Forget what I said about Perfect Cell, this looks like that guy from the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, except Sombra melts upwards.
The most telling thing is, Grogar wanted all four of them for his team and made Sombra agree that he would come back and work for him if he failed again. The fact that Grogar didn't—or couldn't—bring him back should tell you all you need to know about Sombra's current status. Just look at Grogar's comment on what happened: “I'd say he gambled—and lost”. And in the third episode we have Spike dropping the confirmation: “Sombra won't be coming back”. I think that's about as close as they can get to saying he's dead for good.
(Also, “I'll return you to the darkness from which I summoned you” is probably the most metal line on the show so far. At the same time, and I apologize, I don't usually talk like this, but fucking LOL at “I thought the Crystal Heart dispelled him into the aether”. I mean, why not just say he got sent to the Shadow Realm.)
In any case, everything about Sombra was brilliant in this episode. They finally made him into a real threat—that thing where he walked up stairs of crystals that burst from the ground was intimidating as hell, along with the evil shadow hands, and how he outplayed the heroes in every way possible. And they also made him into a real shitbag who deserved what he got—not only enslaving the Crystal Empire again and destroying the Tree of Harmony and the Elements, but holding a baby hostage in front of her parents. And for added effect, that's also the first time we've heard Flurry Heart speak.
I didn't even mind his new voice that much, though I would have liked it more had it been even a bit lower and more growly. I found the level of camp to be perfect though.
Twilight's whole advance on him at the end was amazingly badass, too. Taking his hits, barely managing to counter them, and just continuing on, getting more and more confident as she went. Super awesome scene.
Also, Discord. Just, like, fuck you Discord. That's all I can say while laughing and shaking my head. Everything he did was perfect. Like he's just standing there snapping away Sombra's magic, but the moment it goes for Fluttershy he has to dive in front of it? I was even thinking “that makes no sense” and then he jumps up complaining about how they wasted all his fake injuries and his big heroic speech. Someone even pointed out that he purposefully baited Sombra into targeting Fluttershy. Again, just amazing. He's the kind of jerkass I'd want Chrysalis to be after she reforms.
I will say I felt that the episode got a little too meta. From the whole “Twilighting” thing to “When you think about it the Princesses never really help”. Although, honestly, it's the last season. If there's any time to poke fun at all the repeating plot points, tropes and cliches and go meta, it's now.
Also, nice to see we got our obligatory Nightmare Moon appearance out of the way for this season. I believe she's popped up in every season except three.
Now onto the villains. The surviving ones, at least.
I'm really liking Grogar so far. He's got a nice bit of low-key intimidation going on, just from simply the fact that he talks to all these villains like they're nothing to him.
His displays of power have also been immense but subtle. He simply teleported Cozy and Tirek out of Tartarus, the most secure prison in Equestria, like it was nothing. He also didn't seem to have any problems bringing Sombra back from the dead (sorry, “back from the aether”).
In a way, giving Tirek that magic was the most impressive thing he did. The level Tirek grew to is where he was at after Discord helped him drain that theater full of ponies. (Also, Tirek kissing his guns? Loved it.) And Grogar gave him that magic as a demonstration. So he casually gave away the magical power of several dozen ponies just to prove how much power he has. That's super terrifying, and speaks volumes about how powerful he is.
If I had to make a prediction, it would be that Tirek never grows beyond this level. In a way, the whole thing is brilliance. It demonstrates how much power Grogar has and gives Tirek a power boost so that he isn't just a frail old centaur, and does it in a way that is guilt free, i.e. he didn't steal the magic from a bunch of ponies.
On the other hand, while Grogar's actions may be intimidating, his appearance sure isn't. I mean, it's not bad, but it's not “ultimate villain of the entire show”-level either. I really hope he gets a fuck off big demon-goat form for the finale.
Not really much else to say about Tirek, he didn't do much. Other than get annoyed by Cozy, that is.
And Cozy is a bit weird to me. She's acting nice, but she's clearly just doing exactly what she did at the friendship school and trying to make friends to get power. I don't know, seems kind of suspicious to me, especially since we don't know anything about her origins yet. I mean, she just spent weeks in Tartarus, apparently without any family members coming along and saying anything? But with how she was pure evil at the end of season eight, and has now flipped back to 'super nice innocent little girl', I'm getting some weird vibes. Of course, it could just be that she momentarily lost her cool after being defeated and is back in control now.
(One little thing I noticed: she didn't seem to recognize Grogar's name, calling him “Grofar”. But, remember that she did the same thing in the season eight finale, pretending not to know Tirek's name to bait the Mane Six into going to check on him. Not really proof of anything, but a bit suspicious.)
And now, of course, we're on to Queen Chrysalis.
And, of course, I loved absolutely everything about her in this episode.
Hell, I even like her in the Everfree, going crazy. I mean, that laugh with the eyes going in opposite directions is pure Twilight, it was great.
The whole scene just furthers my idea that she's going to be sympathetic in the end. She even kind of is now. I mean, she's practically crying about her lost kingdom and carving images of her former subjects. And it's not like she's setting them up to create some kind of fake kingdom where they all have to bow to her or whatever. They're just portrait-style pictures. They're art. She just seems to be carving images of them because, well, she misses them. The best comment I saw on the animatic of that scene was just “wow, Chrysalis is really lonely”. That's not exactly 'super irredeemable villain' behavior.
(Okay, and this is a bit nitpicky even for me, but what's up with her goals? In The Mean Six she's all about building a pony hive, but now she's determined to be Queen of the Changelings again? I mean, it's not a huge deal, but a little consistency would be nice.)
She also wins my award for “Best lines in the episode”.
That part where she makes fun of Grogar for being overthrown is hilarious. The pure snark in her voice is incredible. Equally amusing, of course, is her completely missing the irony of mocking Grogar for that.
Even better, or at least equal, is her panicked “NOPE!” after Grogar shows them that clip from earlier in the episode of Sombra dissolving. I'm not really sure which of those lines made me laugh more.
Now onto Frenemies, aka the best episode in the entire show.
Fun fact, I'm actually writing most of this three days before it airs here, because it was broadcast early in Italy. So I actually have no idea what anyone was saying. But hey, Italian is a Romance language, which means it's close to Latin, which I don't speak at all either. I feel confident I understood about 5% of it, though. Obviously some of this I updated after watching it in English.
Still though, really great episode even if I couldn't understand the dialogue. I mean, let's be honest, it was just 22 minutes of Chrysalis kicking ass and then making a heroic sacrifice at the end. Of course I liked it. Also, that song is stuck in my head a bit in the Italian version, I'm scared to see what happens with the English one (Update: yes, it's worse now that I can sing the lyrics in my head). I think it's the best song the show has had in quite a while (Okay, I just remembered the kirin one, so not that long. Still been a bit since a really good song, though. The movie, of course, is largely to blame for that.).
I gotta say, this episode completely blew my expectations away.
Were you expecting a villain-only episode to be identical to a normal episode? It hits all the beats of the typical 'learning to work together' episode. The even did the classic “We'll all try to handle this alone, but in the end we can only solve this problem with all of our talents together” bit. It took all three of them to cross that gap. Then it took Chrysalis giving up her magic, Tirek using that magic to open a small hole in the shield, and Cozy to fit through the hole, to get the bell.
And let's talk music. Tirek and Cozy Glow are being menaced by a monster, and there's tension music. We're supposed to be worried that two of the show's biggest villains are about to be attacked by a monster. The same applies at the end—these villains are making their way past obstacles to get to a powerful magical artifact that will aid them in their eventual attack on Equestria, and the music is heroic and triumphant.
I mean, I don't really know what else you could do with the music, but it still kind of felt odd. Did Sombra get any heroic music while he was invading the Crystal Empire?
Also, this is the first, and probably only, episode that did not feature the Mane Six at all. The closest we got was Chrysalis transforming into Twilight to mock her, and even then she didn't have Twilight's voice. Which was weird, but the reason for it is probably just that they didn't want to have to pay another voice actor for the episode. Which is kind of lame, and makes the joke about half as funny as it could be. “I made a detailed list of all the ways I'm a failure,” is a still pretty great way to mock Twilight, though.
In any case, I think that's what I like most about it: it's a completely ordinary episode where the villains just happen to be the protagonists. They're villains, doing villainous things, and we're rooting for them. It's great.
What really makes it work is this felt exactly like a season one episode. The show's no longer really about learning about friendship, it's about friends putting everything they've learned to use. But this episode was a return to the classic form.
It didn't have friends, it had a group of people who don't really know each other trying to learn to work together. So it played out like one of the early episodes, where the characters don't quite fully trust or know anything about each other. There's this slow buildup of trust, of not really being sure of one another, until finally they're willing to put their lives in the hands/hooves of each other.
Seriously, Chrysalis letting Tirek take her magic, Cozy trusting Tirek to keep that hole in the shield open, Tirek putting everything into keeping it open until Cozy got out, and Tirek actually giving Chrysalis back her magic was kind of stunning to see. It was pretty obviously from the synopsis that they would form a bit of a bond, but I didn't think it would go to that level.
Also, the outcome of that is identical to one of my favorite moments from Venture Brothers.
Obviously at the end they all had to go “HAHAHA, JUST KIDDING,WE HATE FRIENDSHIP”, but, I mean, come on. They're friends now even if they refuse to admit it. Hell, the only reason they aren't openly friendly is because the plot demands they not reform until the final episode.
Anyway, it's pretty obvious that the entire point of this episode was to produce a montage of adorable Chrysalis faces. Just look:
On that subject, Chrysalis clearly stole the entire episode, right? Between her awesome transformations (I think that's the widest variety of transformations we've seen from a single changeling), saving Tirek and Cozy from that snake-bull-thing, providing entertainment by imitating Twilight, turning into the snake-thing again to bury the guard pony in snow (them laughing merrily and practically skipping away from him was amazing), saving Cozy Glow from falling (love that Cozy grabbed her through a hole in her hoof, and Chrysalis actually looked strangely concerned for her), and then being the one to make a potentially fatal sacrifice due to there being no real assurance she'd get her magic back from Tirek, she is by far the MVP of this episode. And that's not even mentioning the “I'm the baddest bitch in this forest” scene.
I guess really all it does it emphasize what I've said before: shapeshifting is just plain overpowered.
The whole episode really made me like all three of these villains, though. Before I didn't really care for Tirek or Cozy, but they've grown on me now. If the point of this episode is to lead to their eventual reformation, then this was a great job.
Couple other random things.
Tirek staying behind to learn from the other's failures seemed more scheming that I would have expected out of him. But then I realized he's doing exactly what he always does: taking other's powers (or in this case experiences) for himself, without earning them.
Chrysalis being tempted into the meeting due to cupcakes is great, because it fits into what I said in CCR: she didn't throw away Applejack's fritters because she's a monster or hates sweet foods, she just isn't a fan of apples. If those had been cupcakes she'd have been all over them. Which not only would have been hilarious, it would have made the whole deception work better. There should have been at least one interaction that made Cadance-Chrysalis seem nice, just to throw everyone off (yelling at Fluttershy's bird doesn't count, even if he was off key).
(Also, loving cupcakes—setting up for inevitable reformation via Pinkie?)
I also really love about the fact that Chrysalis was apparently a fan of Discord, at least until “friendship ruined him”.
Honestly though, after that episode, how can anyone hate Chrysalis? That moment at the end: “I haven't felt like this since I lost my hive.” Frigging heartbreaking. It also says something that a taste of friendship reminds her of when she was leading the hive, even when they were evil.
Okay, but on the other hand, when she calls Starlight a “sow”? Just... oof. I don't like Starlight that much either, but that felt... a little much. I suppose it was a bit jarring because, for one, it's not really a common insult, two, because of that it feels like she's saying something extremely inappropriate when she really isn't, and three, that's the most direct insult anyone's ever given on the show. Usually it's all just “You fools!” and so on. There have been characters who argued and mocked each other before, but this was just such a moment of pure hate that it felt out of place, even in an episode about villains.
Really though, I suppose I just need to give it up for her voice actress. The utter venom in that comment seemed so authentic that it made me uncomfortable. She really knocked it out of the park this episode, from “Well it sounded easy” to the rage against Starlight to “My magic...”. Absolutely nailed it across such a wide variety of emotions.
Okay, but seriously, why was Chrysalis talking to a log. Just... why. I don't give a fuck about the mystery of Flurry Heart being a natural born alicorn, I want to know why Chrysalis was carrying around a log. Is it... is it the Twilight log from the end of The Mean Six? It kind of looks like it... holy shit, it is. Why does she still have that? And why is she hugging it? The unfortunate thing about the show is that there's a 50/50 chance that it's either a throwaway easter egg or a Chekhov's Gun.
And finally, there's something really hilarious that the entire motivation behind Tirek draining everyone's magic is that he wants to get swole (total setup for him to become friends with Bulk Bicep, though).
Now, originally here I had a section where I went into some speculation despite having promised not to. Luckily, it's not speculation anymore, because they've already gone against Grogar. Now it's just a matter of time until they fully turn on him and join the good guys.
I mean, there's not really any other way this turns out, is there? I can't see them taking out Grogar with their plot and becoming the the final enemies of this season. Grogar is a huge threat, he's going to be the final boss. Discord, to me, was always one of the worst villains: with him in charge of Equestria, everyone was suffering for his amusement. But with Grogar in charge, the plan seems to be 'cruelty for the sake of cruelty'. That's far, far beyond what any other villain has wanted (except maybe the Pony of Shadows? Honestly, I was never 100% on what his goals were).
And let's say they do take him down—their plan after that is to immediately turn on each other? I can't really see the final lesson of the show being that evil always turns on itself. It kind of works, but the show is about the magic of friendship, not the inevitability of evil betraying itself.
The thing is, they're friends now, no matter how much they try to deny it. What's kind of funny is how accurate Chrysalis's description of the magic of friendship being a disease that infects everyone around you is, because that's literally exactly how it works. And, let's be honest, all three of them are infected now.
And look at them after they almost become friends. “Oh, yeah, we definitely don't want to be friends! Yeah, no, let's totally try to kill each other again after we take care of Grogar. Yep, that's what's going to happen.” I'm like 95% sure that the next time we see them they're going to be best friends.
Chrysalis's reaction is particularly funny, and telling, in that she declares the magic of friendship won't get her. It kind of sounds like she's actually been struggling with it, even before this episode happened. It would fit in with how lonely she's been and how she seems to be going crazy—note how that completely stopped once she started to work with the other two.
Like I said, this isn't going to end with Grogar being defeated and these three turning on each other. When the time finally comes for all of them to put their plans into action, they'll have become too close of friends to actually betray each other. Plus, the most likely thing I see happening is Grogar betraying them as soon as they conquer Equestria, meaning they actually team up with the good guys to beat him.
It's classic, right? It's going to be just like when Tirek betrayed Discord. They're all going to be standing around gloating over the Mane Six, and then Grogar will throw the three villains into the cage or whatever with them. Then they'll bring up that they have the Bewitching Bell and things will go from there.
Plus, it's obvious that he's just using them. Just look at Sombra—Grogar literally sent him to his death just to make a point. Also note that “You all have to learn to work together” suspiciously doesn't include Grogar working with them. I'd put money on Grogar's 'plan' being “Throw these three dupes at the ponies, then take over once everyone is worn down”.
(Honestly, you know what I want to see? Everything goes like I just said up there and Grogar conquers Equestria. All the survivors, plus the three villains, meet up, and the ponies are trying to come up with a way to save Equestria. Then the villains stand up and say “That's ridiculous. You want to save Equestria? It's far too late for that. But you can conquer it, and luckily you've got three experts on that right here”.)
And after that, they'll have become too good of friends. Plus, that's how they're all going to end up redeeming themselves with the various main characters they've hurt over the year—I can see Tirek defending Twilight's castle and/or Discord, Cozy helping the Student Six, and Chrysalis saving Flurry Heart.
There's a couple other things too.
One, this is the end of the show, everything needs to be wrapped up. Which means no extant villains running around, which includes no being thrown through Tartarus's revolving gates. And that means either reformation or death. I don't really see a pile of bodies being built up, not in a show that's at a total of two deaths after eight and a half seasons, so at most it's going to be Grogar. Which means the other three get reformed.
Also, they are a team now. If one gets reformed, they all do. And I can't really see anything happening with Cozy Glow other than her being reformed. I mean, could you imagine if she got vaporized like Sombra? Or even turned to stone and smashed like the Storm King?
And along those lines, they're real characters now, not just villains. It's just how it works on the show; villains don't get development or grow. They come in and try to conquer everything and that's really it, aside from a motivation that matches what they're trying to do. So the fact that these three got an episode devoted solely to them, one that made them into actual characters—and interesting ones at that, as I said I didn't care for Tirek or Cozy before but they've grown on me now—means that they're destined to become good guys.
Sombra is actually the perfect example of this. There wasn't a single moment where he wasn't a villain. Hell, he did things worse than any other villain has done so far. But the moment these villains not only got an episode that made them more than faceless bad guys, but gave them a taste of friendship, their fate was sealed.
Really, it comes down to this: if they get this close to learning about the magic of friendship but ultimately fail to, that makes their story tragic. And I just don't see that happening.
Now to bring up my favorite dead horse: Chrysalis after her reformation and whether or not she transforms.
Even though Thorax's original appearance already showed this, this episode once again makes it clear that a changeling is perfectly capable of being friendly and working with others without turning into a skittlebug.
Considering that these three villains will likely end up heroes fighting against Grogar, I'd really love for there to be some kind of lesson like “there are necessary evils sometimes”. I don't really know how well that would play on the show, though. I suppose they could do something like “You're not a monster because of how you look/what your powers are, it's the way you act and how you use those powers”. Kind of like how Chrysalis saved them by draining the snake-bull, or how Tirek only borrowed Chrysalis's magic to accomplish a task rather than simply stealing and keeping it.
That does bring up the question of how Chrysalis would become Queen of the changelings again, though. And she kind of has to—it's so important to her character that there can't really be an ending where she isn't Queen.
But hey, as long as we have “it doesn't matter what you look like, it's how you act” as a theme, why not change half the changelings back to their original form? Give them different colors and sparkly wings if you want. That would actually look really cool, and it's super obvious that, as I've said before, the only reason they all looked the same originally was it was early in the show's life and copy-pasting one changeling was the easy way to go. I mean, the whole “We all look like this” line in What Lies Beneath kind of didn't make sense when we'd already seen that pre-skittle Pharynx was purple and red, and even original Thorax had a slightly different look.
So, there you go. Chrysalis gets to be Queen of those changelings, and Pharynx and Thorax the others. And, of course, they all live together in harmony. It's like ants and bees—workers gather the food, soldiers protect the hive. The parallels are perfect. Also of course, Pharynx and Thorax aren't Kings, but Chrysalis graciously allows them to be Princes in her hive.
I could see something like this working, too: good-guy Chrysalis just walks into the hive and sits on the throne. “So I'm Queen again.” “Um, but we—“ “Nope. Queen.”
Really, Frenemies perfectly demonstrates why Chrysalis can't reform the same as the rest—her hissing at the cloud monster and saying “As if there's anything scarier on this mountain than I”. That, right there, is the core of her character. Changing the changelings worked—kind of—because they were faceless minions. There weren't any actual characters there. But if Chrysalis were to go through that same transformation, she'd be dead. There would just be someone else there with her name.
The last thing I have to say is that, as much as I loved this episode, I'm kind of disappointed too.
Going off how things usually work, these three won't show up again until the finale, where they will be inevitably reformed. But that means we won't get any episodes with them being friends with the other characters. Which, again, is disappointing.
It feels like a huge waste of potential to reform them in the last episode of the show and go “Everyone's friends now, yay!” “But wait, how are they dealing with—“ “Okay bye!”
Really, season eight should have been season seven, nine should have been eight, and there should have been something else for nine. Dump the Pony of Shadows thing completely, it was pretty lame. While I understand the appeal of bringing back (another) first generation villain in Grogar to close out the show, it also means the three villains working with him will be kind of wasted. Something that isn't a single person should have been the antagonist for the finale, a force of some sort for everyone to rally against, say something along the lines of the Windigo.
I know a lot of this has changed, but there were a lot of specials lined up for after the last episode to fill the time until the new show. Maybe some of those are going to deal with these villains, assuming they're still in the cards?
Or, and I'd really love this, maybe the episodes after the midseason break are going to immediately go into batshit-crazy mode. I'm talking a four-parter, here. I mean, they have wrapped up most things already. The last CMC episode is in this first half, and the episode just before the hiatus deals with the Mane Six filling in for the Princesses while they're on vacation. There's not really much else to do besides wrap up the Grogar threat, close out the last villains' stories, and have the Mane Six take over (and maybe that leaked episode idea where Sunset reconciles with Celestia).
Or, something that would also be cool, episodes 14 and 15 are a two-parter, where the three villains attack, only to get talked down and turned to the side of good. Then some normal episodes before Grogar going full Thanos in the series finale: “Fine, I'll do it myself”.
And finally, on that note, Grogar's collar is clearly an Infinity Gauntlet. Try to convince me it's not, I'll fight you.
Chrysalis is probably the mature Queen phase of the Changeling life cycle so I doubt she'll transform. I see it as the black Changelings are the immature phase (they feed off love) while mature Changelings give love and feed the young ones. Chrysalis has hair to attract a mate and is in a different phase of the life cycle. (She might also be going coocoo from starvation).
I always love reading your blog posts on recent episodes. While you're right that they usually don't pan out, they're pretty fun to think about.
I'll be honest, it wasn't until the season 9 premiere and Frienemies that I realized how much I loved Chrysalis. I mean, I already thought she was awesome given the previous episodes she's been in, but these two episodes took that awesomeness and jacked it up to 11. Because of that, they're obviously going to reform her considering the alternative is destroying/imprisoning her, which obviously won't happen. What I'm hoping they don't do, however, is entirely replace her character with, as you said, a new character sharing her name. Alongside that, I really don't want them turning her into a skittle bug. She's perfect as she is. With that said, however, I do think that would be an incredible follow up to Frienemies. Just think, one-day, Chrysalis could wake after having an enjoyable afternoon with Tirek and Cozy Glow the day before, only to find that her wings have changed to look like Thorax's did before his final transformation. This could be the premise for an episode where Tirek and Cozy Glow work together with Chrysalis to halt/reverse the transformation.
Oh, and if you get a chance, I highly recommend reading this fic. Given what you've said in your blog post, I think you'll love it.
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/440226/absentee-father-of-monsters
I have to say it might be because she's thinking of it still as her subject still. As a bit of her own personal loneliness and something that's hers.
This was a great read!
Regarding how everything winds up, I loved your idea of the changeling moral being that it's not what you look like on the outside that counts, and books shouldn't be judged by covers, etc. But they ignored it for Thorax and his brethren, and I question whether it'd be brought up with Chrysalis because... well, because that would rather highlight how they ignored it with Thorax and co.
That said, reading your blog I did have an idea. You're right, Chrysalis has to be queen. And even if she reforms, she'll keep much more attitude than Thorax and the rest of the changelings. So I don't think she's the best fit for them anymore. But Grogar is described as the father of monsters, and he might die. So what if Chrysalis becomes the mother of monsters? We saw all the magical creatures locked up in Tartarus, and we know how they've caused trouble for Ponyville through the years. What if Chrysalis takes them all under her wing, and builds a monster hive?
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In regards to Chrysalis to having too much attitude for the changelings, that's kind of what they need. I mean, that mole-monster thing showed up and they all started screaming in fear? That thing would have been dinner like three months earlier. Their reformation pushed them a bit too far in the other direction, and Chrysalis needs to be there to balance things out.
As far as bringing up the not judging a book by its cover thing highlighting how they ignored that with the new changelings, I could see them doing it still. It's not like they haven't backed down on things before.
Like, remember how Flash Sentry seemed like he was positioned to be a reoccurring character, but everyone hated him? Admittedly, I haven't watched any EQG since the fourth movie, but in that SciTwi spent the whole time making out with the hippie dude, and when he casually mentioned getting back together with Sunset Shimmer she shut him down hard. I think his only appearance as a pony has been a completely unremarkable background character, other than that one joke scene at the start of season four.
And Starlight Glimmer's gotten a bit of that too. Of her last couple appearances, she got taken out by villains twice with ease, and she always seems to be getting teamed up with more popular characters when she does get an episode, like Discord, Trixie and Maud (granted those last two make sense, since they're friends). That's a bit of a fall for someone who was supposed to be a replacement for Twilight and practically the Mane Seventh.
Of course, though, the big thing here is that the show is ending. They don't really need to create a balance to the changelings current forms when we're never going to see them again anyway. On the same lines, though, they don't really need to worry about her having too much attitude for them when they can just go "then everyone lived happily ever after, and any kind of problems it might seem would come up got worked out offscreen, just trust us".
...Okay, wow. Given your most recent story, this whole paragraph has not aged well.
Actually, you could say this entire thing has aged horribly.
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I just found out about this blog and just reading your comment.... all I can say is that I feel the pain too :(
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All good things must come to an end eventually......
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Unless said ending was horrible...
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Touche. You either die a beloved and dastardly villain or live to see yourself turned into a joke.
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That whole thing was a joke XD never thought in my life that I would use moral integrity to defend a "villain"
Where are you?