A Series Finale · 5:31pm Feb 16th, 2013
Well, that wraps up Friendship is Magic, folks. We've arrived at the destination that has felt thematically probable, if not inevitable, since Episode 1. We've all been able to sense it coming, I think. All of the 'Twilight Becomes an Alicorn' fics have to come from somewhere, after all!
This really is the end of the journey that Twilight embarked on a couple years ago, though. The first 65 episodes of Friendship is Magic are a Coming of Age Story (a bildungsroman, for those of you with too much education on the subject), starring Twilight Sparkle. Celestia said* it herself: Twilight is grown up now, and has fulfilled her destiny. That's the end of the story, in one of these things.
If FiM were a book, we'd be putting it down about now, staring blankly at the top of the opposite wall with a little knot in our stomachs, the fierce shared satisfaction and joy at Twilight's triumph tempered by the bitter taste of a final goodbye. A glance down at the cover as our fingers brush idly across the pictures of characters who have become our friends, and we resolve to always keep this one on the shelf.
Ah, but friends, friends... we are all so indescribably lucky. This fall, Season 4, we get a sequel. There will be another Hello! And in the meantime, here on FiMFiction, we never have to say goodbye at all.
*Sang! Celestia song, squeeeee!
no no no. there's gonna be a season 4. it's been confirmed.
Well if you want a Book Reference you could say that FiM Chapter 1 is now at end with a little note in the Lower left corner "To be continued" and Chapter 2 will start with S4 ;)
833452
That's the sequel I talk about at the end. I edited this a bunch before posting, I suppose I forgot that I'd edited out the original explicit reference to Season 4. Edited one back in for clarity.
Not only do we get more ponies, but this episode is a three-parter. We won't see them until S4, but I can't wait to see what they do with it.
I'm still pissed they made Twilight a Mary Sue and completely ruined the only guy they hadn't trivialized yet. But season 4 is on the way at least so hopefully they'll explain how this crap all happened.
833576
Yeah, I was really happy to see that tweet. I don't know what aspects they'll explore, but I'm very glad for the confirmation that they're going to handle the changes the wings imply, and not just try to dance around them and reach for the reset button.
833609
Dude, Alicorn Twilight has been coming the whole time. I don't know if we'll ever get Lauren to talk about it, since she doesn't want to undermine the current staff, but I'd be willing to bet you cash monies that wings were always Twilight's destiny. The only thing that you could argue got messed up is the timing--getting wings closes the 'Coming of Age' part of Twilight's story, and it maybe should have happened as a full length movie after seven or so seasons of the show.
833963
Maybe so, but Starswirl the bearded is now officially pointlessly marginalized.
833977
We've never even met him. He invented time travel, and got most of the way through a spell that turns a unicorn into an alicorn. Not bad for a pony missing a couple thousand years of intervening magical research and without the Elements to draw on (or maybe he did! We don't know the slightest thing about him except that he was a hairy potter~)
He's only been marginalized compared to what you built him up into in your head.
834158
We presume he invented time travel. We can't be sure, since we don't know how many spells in the canterlot library named for him were actually made by him. But we do know that creating new spells is the equivalent of making 'new magic' and Starswirl, by Twilight's own words, created over two hundred new spells. Yet he never did what Twilight did. What makes it worse is that supposedly she didn't actually make a new spell. She just FINISHED one HE was apparently working on and we don't actually know WHY he didn't finish it.
Y'know, I think this actually was a series finale at one point. Seriously, 2.5 seasons or 65 episodes for syndication, and they probably didn't know if there would be a season 4 when this was planned. A lot of this season and this whole dang episode smell of flank-covering just in case there wasn't a season 4.
834182
Okay, now you're inventing marginalization instead of inventing the build-up. He's got an entire wing of the Canterlot library. So he left behind an unfinished spell. It doesn't matter why. Past geniuses leave behind unfinished masterworks so often that it really ought to just be expected. So the element of magic comes along and thanks to the various trials and tribulations she's had to face that Starswirl didn't, manages to finish it, and it was a biggie.
Anyway, if Twilight wasn't already a Mary Sue, this doesn't remotely push her over. Have you been watching the show? She's the most powerful unicorn evar, personally apprenticed to the immortal god-queen of the realm, discovers an ancient prophecy of an ancient evil, and defeats the ancient evil to fulfill said prophecy. Since then, her brother has married into royalty, she's defeated the other Great Ancient Evil, she was right about Cadence when no one else could see it (and caught some right proper Sue Persecution for it), and has saved a client city-state from a Minor Ancient Evil.
But we love her anyway because she's sweet and adorkable and just a little snarky. Wings don't change that, they don't change how OP Sue she's always been, and they certainly don't change Starswirl's accomplishments. Twilight has always been and always will be special.
834251
It almost certainly was. They would have been scripting this in the middle of Season 2 or something. If I remember correctly, they were explicitly told that the half-season S3 was to test if the slightly different team could still turn out good episodes, so when they scripted it they would only have been hoping to be renewed.
That awkward place where you have to write something that may or may not be The End.
834410
That's the problem. Starswirl was depicted as actually doing things that mattered enough that he became well known for them, most to do with magic. Twilight herself claims he made over two hundred spells. Celestia said Twilight got to become an Alicorn because she created a new spell (and thus created 'new magic' which seems to be one and the same as making new spells. The fact that she just finished a spell Starswirl had been working on and didn't actually make it herself doesn't help matters any.), and yet Starswirl does the same thing, yet he never gets the same reward? WTF?
833576
Who said she's gonna be Mary Sue?
835795
I think you replied to the wrong comment, there.
835805
Oops.
Just discovered this. It's now my favorite view on the subject.