My Review of MLP: FIM season 7 episode 10 A Royal Problem · 1:12am April 15th
Grading Scale:
A (fantastic episode)
A- (an excellent episode with at least one flaw)
B+ (a great episode with a couple of flaws)
B (a good episode which still could have been better)
B- (a good episode with numerous flaws but still rewatchable)
C+ (a decent episode)
C (eh... it’s not terrible but not good either)
C- (it’s not worth rewatching although it does have good elements)
D+ (a bad episode with a few good things in it)
D (a really bad episode with wasted potential)
D- (a terrible episode with badly written characters and butchered moral)
F (horrible and unwatchable)
Greetings, folks. This is Mr. J back with another MLP episode review for tonight. This evening, I will be reviewing the tenth episode of season 7 entitled “A Royal Problem”. Now, this episode proved to be quite a rich experience for me because two of the show’s most important yet incompetent characters are written as people who have flaws and struggles. Wow, it’s almost as if they are not as perfect as they may appear to be!
This episode starts with Starlight Glimmer happy that the Map is calling her for a very special mission: solving a friendship problem between Celestia and Luna. Twilight is shocked because she cannot bear the thought of her own mentors/idols being faulty in any way.
Oh boy, here we go again with Twilight just being Twilight and acting so…weird. She’s the only reason why this episode isn’t completely perfect, but I can see why she would somewhat be involved in this particular story.
Starlight goes to the palace in Canterlot and can right away notice the tension between the Royal Sisters. Starlight tries her best to figure out what’s going on, and she learns that they’re hurting each other’s feelings without realizing it.
Going with her gut, Starlight switches their cutie marks to see if they can handle each others’ responsibilities since they both feel unappreciated of what they each do and that they don’t know how hard it is for the other to do this or that.
So Luna tries to perform Celestia’s duties which was quite the challenge for her, and Celestia thinks she can handle Luna’s nightly duty without any sort of difficulty.
I really like the way they were portrayed in this episode. We can clearly see how they often try to look nice in public while they can still harbor feelings of resentment or frustration towards one another. They have emotions and are just like everybody else despite the level of power they each possess.
Luna begins to understand how difficult Celestia’s tasks are, and Celestia understands Luna’s when she sees Starlight’s nightmares. But it gets even worse when she sees an evil version of herself: Daybreaker.
It made me realize Celestia was fighting her own demon(s)—the more she continued to harbor negative feelings towards her sister, she would have become just as bad if not worse than Nightmare Moon. That’s when she learned how much she needed Luna and how much her sister deserves more love and appreciation.
And Starlight may not have realized this, but she indirectly prevented Celestia from becoming Daybreaker in the far future. If she didn’t went with her gut, then Celestia would not have gotten this wake-up call. No pun intended.
Oh, and I forgot how dark this episode is! I mean, holy hell, the writers didn’t have to go this hard in making Luna’s own nightmare this scary. Her teeth falling out and the fillies surrounding her while creepily singing that her smile is too wide and fake? Yeah, I would freak out if I were her.
Overall, this episode serves as a good reminder that we all make mistakes and should never take our family members for granted; we each go through different struggles in life, and often we don’t want to talk about what we’ve been through. That’s why we have each other so we can talk them out.
Family is all about love, understanding, and support; the more we count on each other, the stronger our relationship will be. I don’t like Celestia as a character, but I still admire her genuine relationship with Luna as her sister. The earlier seasons depicted her as formal and emotionless with very little personality, but this episode managed to break that mold and give a whole different perspective on her. I like that.
With that said, this episode deserves an A-! It has solid character development, well-written dialogue, and an interesting dynamic between the Royal Sisters. Props to Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco for writing yet another great episode. Plus, the whole Daybreaker thing has a lot of potential for fanfic writing.
Peace.
I agree. “A Royal Problem” was truly one of FiM’s best episodes. Not only did it give the Royal Sisters much needed time in the spotlight, but its morals and storytelling were spectacular. Plus, I actually couldn’t help but crack up at Twilight’s reactions throughout the episode, and the parts where she was pretending to be the ballerina of a music box were surprisingly fun to watch.
Hey! Luna's done nothing wrong. ...after being Nightmare Moon I mean.
(And that's your comedy bit. :P)
There is one additional twist concerning this episode.
Throughout Season 7 (to date), we have watched Starlight using magic to try and solve her issues and every time, it blew up in her face.
This is the first time that Starlight used magic and it was actually beneficial.
Just something to note.