Animated Atrocities #1: A Matter Of Principals(MLP) · 10:16pm Jul 9th, 2023

Animated Atrocities #1: A Matter Of Principals(MLP:FIM)

I noticed a certain trend in seasons eight and nine with Starlight in MLP. It’s not as bad as something like SpongeBob where they torment Squidward or the arbitrary ways the fairies lose their wands in the Fairly OddParents but it’s still a concern to me. Today, we’re going to go over the catalyst of this trend. A Matter Of Principals.

The episode begins with Twilight showing a group of artifacts to the students. She explains that the artifacts each come from the homelands of the students and that there is going to be a scavenger hunt with them.

So Twilight begins pairing ships- I mean partners for the scavenger hunt but then she and her friends are suddenly summoned on a map mission.

The map mission is very far away and the mane 5 are concerned because there will be no teachers for the school for quite some time. It turns out Twilight had unsurprisingly planed for something like this and Starlight is left in charge of the school while everyone is gone.

Starlight is unsure about running the school but Twilight reassures her that she is a perfect choice, which is really sweet, trust me that feeling won’t last. I do have to ask why Starlight thought Spike should be in charge. He’s a child, then again the show seems to forget that at times.

After everyone leaves Discord shows up at the school, apparently for the first time. He seems to be under the impression he's been placed in charge and when Starlight tells him otherwise and says she's running the school like Twilight, Discord doesn't seem too happy about it.

Because Starlight doesn’t want to make the school a danger zone for children, she rejects Discord’s way of helping, Discord gets mad and then the episode begins to suck as Discord immediately begins causing chaos in Starlight’s office and hiring terrible teachers for the classes.

The teachers Discord hired include Iron Will, Cranky, and a tree. All three of these teachers don't really understand what's important about friendship and only make things worse. Yes, even the tree manages to cause some chaos.

Since the tree is a dragon sneeze tree, Smolder ends up creating fires in the classroom and Discord mocks Starlight about how she’s ruining the school, which is exactly what he wants to happen. This is what made this episode an atrocity for me, along with something else I’ll talk about later.

Starlight then confront Discord, who mocks Starlight about everything that's happening. Asking what Twilight would think about he she's running the school. Starlight rightfully points out everything is Discord’s fault and asks him to leave. He then leaves, vowing not to 'help' anymore, something everyone knows is a big lie.

On the next day, Starlight hires more competent teachers: Spitfire, Maud, and Trixie for some reason. So Discord interrupts Trixie’s magic class and that scene was actually kinda funny tbh. The banana call was funny and the Ursa Minor scare was clever and didn’t put anyone in danger, but then we get to the next scene and I want to see Starlight blast the freaking moron when I see the next thing Discord pulls.

Discord decides it would be a brilliant idea to send a bug bear after the students to motivate them to run laps. The students are struggling to outrun the bear and Discord does nothing when informed of the danger. The bug bear almost catches Yona, but thankfully Starlight chases the thing off before anyone gets hurt. Why Discord thought this was a good idea is beyond me.

So in this next scene Discord really angers me. When Starlight demands he stops terrorizing the school like a psychopath, he smugly replies he will not and when Starlight charges her magic up, Spike gives Discord a chance to explain himself. However, Discord calls Starlight an incompetent and power hungry unicorn and because of that and the fact that he was TERRORIZING THE STUDENTS, Starlight mercifully banishes him from the school, and yes, she BANISHED him, she did not kill him. I have no idea why this stupid rumor was even conceived.

Discord got what he deserved if you ask me. Anyway, after Discord is banished the students begin the scavenger hunt. As the students find their items, random things come to life and attack the students. Starlight notices this and sees Discord's ghost causing the problems. Shocking, I know.

So you’ll never guess how Starlight gets Discord to stop being a nuisance, no you’ll never guess. It’s almost unbelievable. She APOLOGIZES to him.

Starlight actually apologizes to Discord despite him being solely in the wrong the entire episode and the fact that Starlight was just doing her job. The most annoying part is that Discord doesn't even really apologize for how he acted the entire episode.

Oh but if you thought that was the worst of it, you are sorely mistaken. Because soon after, the Mane Six appear and reveal that Discord sent them on a fake map mission, and that wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that he put them in danger by sending them to a place with giant eyeless worms. If I have to give a positive, at least we got another TwiStar moment and Spike and Starlight were overall really good this episode, but one character was enough to destroy it, and listen, I like Discord but when he’s bad, he really sucks as a character.

So now it’s time to talk about the trend I mentioned in the beginning. A noticeable trend in Starlight focused episodes in seasons 8 and 9 is that Starlight must apologize for something even if she has no reason to apologize as it is with this episode. I went over this episode because it is the worst case of that trend, this trend isn’t totally terrible since it doesn’t feel like they’re trying to torture Starlight every time they do this but it’s a bit of an annoyance and I felt this was a good way to start off my Animated Atrocities series. And yes, the meme template exists for this concept so it’s a valid thing to do.

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