002 Flashback: s01ep01 Mare in the Moon

002 Flashback: s01ep01 Mare in the Moon

I’m sure most of the bronies remember when they first met with the show. Some are life-long veterans from the time of previous generations, some recall a month they started watching the series, and some have in their memory imprinted the episode they accidentally run into.

My… passion for the orderly accurate things allows me to point the exact year, month and even daily date when I first saw it. It was the October 7th 2011, so at that point I was one whole season behind – either me or my country is behind the times, as it was one week before s02ep03 Lesson Zero airing. In the less-than-noble part of the Internet I saw a picture stylized to be an motivational poster. Rule 34 – WHYYY?, that’s what it said. In the picture there were slightly anthropomorphized Zecora and Twilight, with the latter sitting in the zebra’s cauldron and receiving a relaxing massage. Here’s a link to it – don’t worry, it’s not a strict r34 – no questionable body parts are shown.

Anyway, my brain recognized one of the characters as belonging to the same group as the rainbow pony I’ve seen the other day. With a lazy move I scrolled the page down to the comment section. Here we are – user with an avatar of Strike Zone achievement from Team Fortress 2 asks:

Explain to me please, what is so awesome in those f*cking ponies that everyone is getting excited about? (loosely translated from Polish)

Good question, I though. Luckily the answer was just below, from someone going by the name Dr Hooves (which reminds me I should feel bad for not knowing much about Doctor Who… the truth is I don’t even know where to begin, as I don’t really want to watch every single episode from the first season onwards).

Plausible for the eye, colorful animation + well written, interesting, brilliantly played characters + great humor (...) (again, loose translation).

But the important thing was that there was a link! It used to lead to the first episode at the time, now it just shows a spooky YouTube’s ‘This video does not exist’.
Anyway, I thought, I have some time, right? *click*

We all know the episode, so there’s no use for summarizing the plot in here.
First thing that struck me: it really has a good animation. Of course now I laugh at unicorns’ magic being just the colorless sparkles around books/ribbons instead of an actual mist-miasma-thingy. There is a saying not to judge a book by its cover, but let’s face it: unless we read a review or had it recommended, the cover is the first thing that makes us buy it or put it back on the store’s shelf. So I’m glad the show’s good animation kept me engaged.

Over the years of watching stuff I made a rule: you MUST watch the first episode to be allowed to have an opinion. First episodes of any series have an important introductory role: they show you names of characters, places, events, everything. That’s why I like first episodes in particular, and that’s why I could remain open-minded while watching this unusual show.

Twilight Sparkle: Take a note, please, to the Princess.

Let’s go by the snapshots I embedded earlier. Whether or not someone gets interested in a show depends on a character likeableness. Was Twilight Sparkle likeable? Let’s see:
- She’s purple. Purple is close to pink. Warning: girly color!
- She’s a unicorn. Better, unicorns were cool since playing Rampart in Heroes III.
- She can perform some telekinesis OMG telekinesis! Best thing ever!
- She’s a little antisocial, nerdy, yet resourceful and well-read, devoted to whatever she does.
All in all, just like me! Well, minus the telekinesis… yet.

The second snapshot – ‘make some friends!’. Okay, so friendship is a value here, that’s what the title says, right?. My expectations: ‘hooray, of course I want to have friends, we’re going to have so much fun at the tea parties, brushing our manes and coloring the world to be pretty, yay!’. Nope! Twilight Sparkle doesn’t need friends, or at least has a hard time getting them. It’s alright, little pony. I’m with you on this one.

Rainbow Dash: Hey. I could clear the sky in ten seconds flat.
Twilight Sparkle: Prove it.

There’s a snapshot of RD in the top-right corner. Hey, I said, I saw you on these ‘haters gonna hate’ GIFs. And you’re actually a she, right? I think I got trolled. Since it would take much more time to say something about each of Twilight’s soon-to-be friends, let’s leave it for now and go back to the purple mare.

Middle snapshot – Twilight about to go Ponyta with her house full of friends. ‘Nuff said, her clever plan to avoid social interaction has failed.

Nightmare Moon: Remember this day ponies. It is your last. The night will last forever!

And finally the end. First appearance of Nightmare Moon (well, excluding Celestia’s opening tale and that hourglass scene back in Canterlot – I literally jumped when I spotted that, although it was many months after the first time I watched the episode). So Nightmare Moon. Ominous music, thunders and lightning. Something’s wrong – shouldn’t ponies’ problem be like: ‘oh no, we don’t have enough apple juice for our picnic in the Happy Fields of Everjoyful Laughter’? That would be reasonable to expect, more than standing up against the twisted Moon Goddess that stole the Sun! So yeah, I knew it looked like a girl’s show, but it didn’t quite feel like one.
There was one way to resolve this, so I clicked the next video on the playlist…

~Prane